琴瑟相和 kinshitsu sōwa Two Zithers in Harmony

In today's dictionaries the phrase is said of a husband and wife who are on the best of terms. The four characters say the qin and the se in harmony. The qin (琴) is a zither with no bridges, and the se (瑟) is a long zither of about twenty-five strings on movable bridges.

The wish in 琴瑟相和 is that two different instruments sound together. In the 左傳, Yanzi tells his lord that harmony is not sameness. If the qin and the se played a single note, he asks, who could listen?

In Japan the phrase is in print of a married couple in accord by 1805. Meiji letter manuals give the variant 琴瑟調和 among the phrases for a wedding letter.

The picture of a married couple as the qin and the se, two zithers played together, comes from the Book of Songs, and the earliest instances of the four characters in the Chinese texts the history searched are a Tang commentator's and a ninth-century storyteller's; in Japan they are in print as a wish for a marriage by 1805, in a preface that sets the couple in tune against the couple who glare at each other.

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