In this episode on the Three Character Classic (三字经), we turn to the stars, as our story takes its first look at the natural world. We’ll talk about the three lights in the sky: the sun (日), moon (月), and stars (星). And we’ll discuss the relationship between heaven (天) and earth (地), and mankind (人), who lives in-between the two.

The三字经 was written by the Song Dynasty (宋朝) scholar Wang Yinglin (王应麟). This 1,134 character text was one of the first textbooks used by students, and provided lessons on education, morality and ethics, science, literature, and history.