The Calligrapher — Ráo Jiè 饶介

Yuan cursive master famed as a founder of the Wu gate school.

Yuan calligrapher (), master of cursive script — known for 《草书诗》. Yuan dynasty

Cultural Story

伊 is an old third-person and demonstrative, he, she, that, the 詩經's 伊人, that person across the water you cannot reach. The 說文 reads it as a woman, he or she. 伊始 is the beginning, the at the start of a venture. The character is the distant someone, the person across the river, the pronoun that points before it narrows to a gender.

Common words & phrases

• 伊始 beginning · start
• 伊人 that person
• 伊犁 Yili
• 伊斯兰 Islam

Read the story behind the character

伊始 is the formal beginning, 新年伊始, at the year's start. 伊人 survives in literary quotation, the unreachable beloved. 伊犁 is the Xinjiang city and river; 伊斯兰 is Islam, the faith's name in Chinese. The character is mostly a fossil and a borrowing now, the old that person, a place, and a religion. You meet it at a year's opening or on a map, the pronoun that became a name.

Why this character belongs on skin

The poet writes 伊人 — that person, the one across the water you cannot reach. 伊 is a pronoun of longing, the he or she who haunts the old songs, the beloved glimpsed and lost in the reeds. It carries no gender, only distance, the ache of the almost-touched. To the Western heart it is Beatrice on the bridge, the green light across the bay, the face that organizes a life. A tattoo of 伊 is for the one you have not forgotten, the figure that stands at the edge of every decision. It is a love letter written in a language no one around you can read, which is precisely the point. Carry it close, where a hand might rest. Some loves are too particular for translation, and this is their mark.