The Calligrapher — Mǐ Fú 米芾

Song eccentric genius of dynamic, 'flying' running script.

Song calligrapher (1051–1107), master of running script — Song eccentric genius ('crazy Zhang, idiot Mi') whose running script alternates discipline with glee. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

When Sima Xiangru presented his 子虚赋 to the Han emperor, the ruler sighed that he had missed such a man in his own age. 赋, the rhapsody, was both poem and praise, and 赋税 its colder twin, the tax a household owed. The same character could sing a hunt or reckon a ledger.

Common words & phrases

• 赋予 endow · bestow · entrust
• 天赋 talent · gift · endowment
• 赋税 taxes · taxation · levy
• 辞赋 rhapsody · fu prose · poetic essay
• 赋闲 unemployed · idle · at leisure
• 赋诗 compose a poem · write verse

Read the story behind the character

At a graduation, a speaker says each student is 赋予, endowed, with 天赋, a gift, for something. An accountant files 赋税 while a retired uncle sits 赋闲, idle, by the window. From Han rhapsodies to a tax form, 赋 still names what is given or owed by fortune and state. The poem and the tax share one roof, the gift given and the share taken.

Why this character belongs on skin

It begins as a whisper of wealth—贝, the shell of money—joined to a hand that gives. 赋 means to endow, to be granted something native and unearned: talent, temperament, the raw gift. In the classics it also names the fu, that rhapsodic prose-poem meant to dazzle an emperor's court with cascading images. So the character holds both meanings at once: what you were given, and what you make of it—endowment transmuted into art. There is no luck here without labor; the gift is only the first beat of the music, never the whole song. A tattoo of 赋 says: I was given this fire, and I intend to spend it beautifully. Some inheritances you write onto the skin itself, word by burning word.