The Calligrapher — Sū Shì 苏轼

Song literatus whose spontaneous running script shaped the literati ideal.

Song calligrapher (1037–1101), master of running script/regular script — Song poet-statesman and polymath whose expressive running script made personality, not rules, the point. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

Mencius named the great man by his steadiness, fu gui bu neng yin, pin jian bu neng yi, wealth cannot sway him, low estate cannot move him. The character jian is that low place, the pin jian of the poor and the bei jian of the mean. From the philosopher's test it passed to jian jia, the cheap price, and to gui jian, the scale of worth a market or a court sets on a life.

Common words & phrases

• 贫贱 poor · lowly
• 卑贱 lowly · mean
• 贱价 cheap price · low price
• 贱民 low caste · plebeian
• 贵贱 noble and base · price

Read the story behind the character

A stall sells at jian jia to clear the stock, and a buyer asks the gui jian before he offers. The old word pin jian names a state no one chooses, and jian min a caste the law has struck. The character jian still marks the low rung, the cheap tag, and the rank a harsh world assigns.

Why this character belongs on skin

The price drops until there is almost none, and still the thing persists. 贱 is the cheap, the lowly, the base — and in the mouth of the sage it becomes a crown. Laozi called the lowly water the nearest to the Way; the humble outlast the exalted. To mark yourself with 贱 is to refuse the ladder, to stand at the bottom and call it home. It is the most subversive tattoo you could choose. Let it rest at the sole of the foot or the back, where the world steps and the body bears, a confession of chosen lowliness. The age worships the rare and the priced. This ink kneels. Carry it as freedom from the need to be esteemed, the liberty of the disregarded thing that cannot be diminished because it was never inflated. Wear it where you touch the ground. You are cheap to the world and priceless to the earth.