The Calligrapher — Chǔ Suíliáng 褚遂良

Tang chancellor and regular-script master of elegant, balanced strokes.

Tang calligrapher (596–658), master of regular script — Tang master of graceful, tensile regular script favored by the imperial court. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

驸 (fù) sets 馬 beside the phonetic 付, an extra horse hitched beside the imperial carriage. The post of 驸马, the officer who rode it, became the title for the emperor’s son-in-law.

Common words & phrases

• 驸马 emperor's son-in-law

Read the story behind the character

驸 survives in one title. A 驸马 (emperor’s son-in-law) is a figure of old courts and costume dramas, the man who married a princess. The character now mainly evokes that royal, marital honor.

Why this character belongs on skin

To marry into power — that is the old sense of 驸, the side-horse, the horse that runs beside the carriage rather than in its shafts. The 驸马 was the man who wed an emperor's daughter: honored, wealthy, and forever second. There is a meditation here for anyone who has ever loved someone larger than life. You learn the grace of the flanking position — close, steady, indispensable, not the one the crowd watches but the one without whom the carriage tips. Ink this and you claim that role as chosen, not assigned: the loyal rider, the shadow-strength, the man whose devotion is its own kind of throne. Let it sit small, where only the person beside you knows it exists.