The Calligrapher — Huáng Bósī 黄伯思

Song calligrapher and theorist renowned for his seal and clerical script.

Song calligrapher (), master of seal script/clerical script — known for 《东观余论》. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

Ouyang Xiu, in the Old Drunkard's Pavilion, insists that the drunkard's intent lies not in the wine but in the hills he loves, writing 醉 as a state of being won over by a landscape. The 醉 was delight before it was drink. From that Song essay the character kept the sense of a person given wholly to a pleasure, cup or mountain, past the point of restraint.

Common words & phrases

• 醉酒 drunk · intoxicated
• 陶醉 revel in · be intoxicated by
• 沉醉 be drunk · be immersed
• 喝醉 get drunk · drunk
• 醉人 intoxicating · drunken

Read the story behind the character

A crowd at the concert is 陶醉 by the closing song, a guest 喝醉 at the wedding and sways by the door, and a reader lies 沉醉 in a novel past midnight. The 醉人 of the music lingers. The character now fills a hall and a bedroom, the old surrender to wine carried into the surrender to a melody and a story that will not let the listener go.

Why this character belongs on skin

醉 is to be drunk — not on wine alone, but on a person, a night, a life that finally fits. The classical poets wrote of 醉 with reverence: the scholar who forgets his worries at the moon's reflection, the lover giddy past sobriety. You know the feeling they called sinful. The way one good evening with your person undoes a week of numbness. The dizziness of being wanted without conditions. They told you to stay clear-eyed, productive, contained — but 醉 is what happens when joy finally catches up to you. Wear it like a secret the body keeps. Let the character mean you chose to be a little undone by love, on purpose, again and again. Some of us were meant to stagger home glowing. Carry the proof.