Cangjie Invented the Chinese Characters and Leizu, Silk. Thousand Character Classic 千字文 – Line 11.

.

始制文字, 乃服衣裳。
shǐ zhì wén zì, nǎi fú yī shāng。

始 (begin) 制 (create) 文字 (Chinese characters),

The first part means the beginning of Chinese characters which led to a written language. Legend has it that it was Cangjie 仓颉 cāngjié, the official historian of the Yellow Emperor who invented the Chinese characters. It is said that deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained millet on the day he invented the characters.

Instructed by the Yellow Emperor, Cangjie settled by a river bank but could not create anything. One day, a phoenix flying overhead dropped an object from its beak and where it dropped Canjie saw an impression of a hoof-print. He asked a local hunter who said that it is without doubt that of a PiXiu 貔貅 (a mystical winged lion). Drawing inspiration from this, he realized that he can create a character by capturing the unique characteristics of all things. From that day, he paid close attention to all things to try to capture their essence and meaning in a character and thus the Chinese characters were born.

乃 (then) 服 (wear) 衣裳 (clothing)

Then, man begins to wear clothes. Legend has it that it was the Leizu 嫘祖 Léi Zǔ, wife of the Yellow Emperor who discovered silkworms in 3000BC and invented the silk reel and the silk loom. It was said that one day she found silkworms eating the mulberry leaves. She collected some cocoons and accidentally dropped one of them into her hot cup of tea. She found a fine thread started to separate from the cocoon and that she could unwind this soft thread around her finger. She invented the silk reel which joins the filaments into a thread strong enough for weaving.

.