The Calligrapher — Xiè Língyùn 谢灵运

Liu Song poet-calligrapher of cursive script whose works were imperial 'two treasures'.

南朝宋 calligrapher (), master of cursive script/running script — known for 诗书兼擅. Liu Song dynasty (Southern Dynasties)

Cultural Story

The Music Bureau has a 捉搦歌, a song of catching and grasping, the hand closing on the slippery thing. 捉 is the seize of the hunter and the constable both, the grip that turns a running thing into a held one. The yuefu heard it first as sport, and the hunter who sang it liked the closing hand better than the running he had to end.

Common words & phrases

• 捉住 catch · capture
• 捕捉 catch · capture
• 捉弄 tease · make fun of
• 捉迷藏 hide and seek
• 捉拿 arrest

Read the story behind the character

You 捉住 the mouse; children play 捉迷藏, hide and seek; a friend 捉弄s you; police 捉拿 the fugitive. The hunter's grip is a game and a tease now. The closing hand is the same, whether on a rat, a playmate, or a wanted man, and the fugitive is only the mouse, promoted to a warrant and a brighter light.

Why this character belongs on skin

The cat crouches and the mouse never hears the decision; this is the clutch, the sudden closing of the hand on what would otherwise escape — a flea, a thief, a fleeting thought at the edge of sleep. The Bodhisattva catches the mind like a wild bird and does not crush it, only holds it still enough to see. In love there is a catching too: the hand that closes over another's and will not let the moment scatter. To ink this is to claim the grasp, the refusal to let the precious thing slip. Not the trap, but the tender grip. Some things must be caught to be kept. Let your skin remember the closing hand — the world offers nothing twice, and you were awake the one time it mattered.