鏨金刻銀

鏨金刻銀

Contemporary Chinese writer Wang Zengqi wrote in Hou the Silversmith: Hou made her daughter a silver hairpin, and engraved this everlasting verse on it: “Outside Suzhou, Hanhan Temple is in sight. Its ringing bells reach my boat at midnight.” This is the last sentence of the whole novel, and I remember murmuring to myself “why did he engrave such a verse on the wedding gift to his daughter?”

To choose proper words to be engraved on gold accessories should always be treated as an important matter. This is because whatever you engrave, it had better mean something, it had better carry some weight. So if I were to engrave something, a gold bracelet or a gold hairpin, I prefer verses such as “Never lose yourself. Never forget who you are. May long life and prosperity be with you”, or “Less is more.”

I've always been a fan of accessory engravings, because it gives me a sense of real grace. Even the little gold lock I used to wear in my childhood with an engraving saying: “Long life!” made me feel I could not be more elegant. Some time ago a crowd was fascinated by the pair of wed-ding rings that belonged to Puyi, the last emperor of China. The pair of silver rings were engraved with some verses from the Book of Documents (aka Shangshu, oneof the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature):“Vowed to the one and only. Be free from any temptation.” There are tons of verses like this in Classic of Poetry (aka Shijing, the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry), such as “Though apart, thousands of sweet words we speak to each other shall remain in the heart, this affection shall be cherished forever.” There are more graceful ones, such as: “Nothing is bet-ter than when we play the harp together.” For a Romeo-and-Juliet type of love story, we have: “Cyan is the edge of thy dress, that my heart was moved by.” Actually, I fi gure “Spend the rest of my life holding hands with you.” is no worse than “Vowed to the one and only. Be free from any temptation.” For common folk, “Support each other, and help each other in dif fi culties” is a good option. My favourite is this one: “Bloom the peach fl owers, as bright as the fl aming fi re. Today I take thy hand and marry you, today I take thy heart and shelter you”, isn't it as good as the harpplaying one?

A more solemn choice is “Spring water clear, South Valley tranquil”. It was written to convey the harmony of brotherhood, but I guess it is also good for couples. It's all about harmony…

Kallen Guo

senior filmmaker, socialite and bestselling author, authored Don't Fall in Love with Zurich, the winner of The Best Foreign Language Novel.

郭丹

資深影視人、名媛、暢銷書作家。代表作包括最佳外語小說獎獲得作品《別愛蘇黎世》等。

“姑蘇城外寒山寺，夜半鐘聲到客船。”汪曾祺在《侯銀匠》里說，侯銀匠給女兒打的簪子上就刻著這句。這是全篇最后一句話，當時心頭一震，不記得是不是有類似“侯銀匠為何要在女兒的嫁妝上刻這句詩”這樣的問題。前幾年去的嶄新的寒山寺，猶幸檐角的鈴聲還是老的。

金飾品上鏨字總覺得好慎重，有種金玉良言一言九鼎的感覺，要是我刻字，無論是金鎖金手鏈還是金簪子，我只會刻“莫失莫忘仙壽恒昌”，“不離不棄芳齡永繼”，最多刻“任是無情也動人”，“淡極始知花更艷”……

我一向喜歡首飾刻字，有種認真的吉祥，哪怕我小時候金鎖刻著“長命百歲”都覺得雅貴得不得了。前段時間被刷屏，驚艷于溥儀的兩對婚戒。銀素圈刻字“惟精惟一/允執厥中”。語出《尚書·大禹謨》。這樣的語句在《詩經》里俯仰皆是——“心乎愛矣/遐不謂矣”是一，“中心藏之/何日忘之”也是一；再吉祥點就直接“琴瑟在御/莫不靜好”；虐戀是“青青子衿/悠悠我心”。事實上“執子之手/與子偕老”并不比“惟精惟一/允執闕中”差吖。還更常見的，小老百姓家可以寫“相濡以沫/相呴以濕”。而我最喜歡“桃之夭夭/灼灼其華/之子與歸/宜其室家”，隨便兩兩組合都很搭，和“琴瑟在御”一個級別，而且可以刻在金鎖上當聘禮。

如果想再莊重些，“秩秩斯干/幽幽南山”，彼時說兄弟要和睦，此時說夫妻要和諧。也是同一個道理……

ENGRAVINGS

Text by Guo Dan Translation by Shi Yu Illustrations by Haolun Zhang