祺 (qí) — Fortune at Ease · The Good of the Season

The 示 section of 许慎's dictionary opens with a run of words for good fortune that mostly define one another. 禄, 禠, 祥 and 祉 are each glossed with 福. 福 in turn is glossed with 祐, help from above, and 祐 with 助. Then comes this entry: 祺，吉也。从示，其声. Its gloss steps outside the circle to 吉, the word for a favorable answer, which no fortune word before it uses except 禧, glossed 礼吉也. The 示 at the left is the element 许慎 reads as heaven showing good and ill to people. 其 at the right gives the sound. The 渠之切 printed after the entry is 徐铉's reading from the Tang rhyme book and is not part of the Han text. 许慎 also records a 籀文, an older big-seal form, written 禥, with 基 in place of 其. It is tempting to read a foundation into that. 段玉裁 does not. He calls 基 the sound as well and notes that old texts traded 其 and 基 freely, as when the 《尚书》's 丕丕基 appears in 伏生's text as 㔻㔻其.

The 释言 chapter of the 《尔雅》 gives two glosses in a row, 祺，祥也；祺，吉也. The Mao commentary uses the second at the close of 《大雅·行苇》, an ode about a feast at which the Zhou house honours its oldest. 黄耇台背, the poem calls them, yellow-haired and aged, and 郑玄 explains 台 as the 鲐 fish, whose markings the very old carry on their backs. He also explains how they were brought to their mats, 在前曰引，在旁曰翼, someone leading in front and someone steadying at each side. The stanza ends 寿考维祺，以介景福. In the 正义's account of the Mao reading, the king who honoured the old receives long life and good fortune for it. 郑玄's note is shorter: 养老人而得吉, caring for the old, one gains the 吉. Either way the character describes the state of a house where the old are seated first.

The face comes from 荀子. Describing how a gentleman carries himself, he lists eight manners for the senior side of a household, ending 是父兄之容也, then eight more for sons and younger brothers. 祺然 is the third of the first eight. 杨倞, writing the Tang commentary, marks it as uncertain, 未详, and records a reading he does not claim as his own: 祺 is 祥 and 吉, and the phrase means a bearing 安泰不忧惧, at ease and not afraid. The 康熙字典 later quotes that reading as the note's, without the hedge. The modern dictionary sense stays close to it, 安泰无忧, and adds where the word now lives: in the good wishes at the end of a letter. A feast for the old, an elder's composed face, and the last line of a letter share one idea. Things are going well, and nobody needs to be afraid.

Hong Kong's Education Bureau, in its guide to practical writing for schools, states a rule most letter writers absorb without being told. 祺 is generally not used to wish elders well. It goes to equals and to people outside one's family, and it takes the verb 颂 rather than 请 or 候. The upward closings are the 安 set, 尊安 and 福安, and those are requested with 请 or 候. 祺 is wished toward someone, the way one correspondent addresses another. 台祺 suits an equal, and 文祺 or 道祺 a teacher or writer. A season can be written in as well: 春祺 in spring, 暑祺 in summer heat, 秋祺 in autumn, and 新祺 at the turn of the year.

The New Year card and the New Year letter use different characters that look alike. The printed greeting is 恭贺新禧, with 禧 (xǐ), which 许慎 glosses 礼吉也 and builds from 示 with 喜 as the sound. A letter can close 并颂新祺, with this character. Both carry the altar sign at the left, and only the right half tells them apart. A lone 祺 on a wall can also be read first as part of someone's name, since it is a familiar given-name character. The reign title of 1861 left a few objects behind. Besides an almanac printed for 祺祥元年, a temple plaque at 长天宫 in 新港, Taiwan, is dated 祺祥元年壬戌, a year that was called 同治元年 by the time it began.