The Calligrapher — Lù Jiǎnzhī 陆柬之

Tang calligrapher and nephew of Yu Shinan; his running-script 'Essay on Literature' survives

Tang calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《文赋》. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

绠 is the humble well-rope, the workaday cord of every village courtyard. Zhuangzi fixed it forever in a barbed proverb: 绠短者不可以汲深, a rope too short cannot draw from a deep well, his rebuke to those who attempt tasks beyond their means. Generations of scholars quoted 绠短汲深 as the ritual formula for modestly declining an honor too heavy to lift.

Common words & phrases

• 绠短汲深 short rope, deep well · inadequate
• 井绠 well rope
• 汲绠 drawing rope

Read the story behind the character

Gěng is a rare word today, met mostly in elegant prose and exam passages. An essayist, asked to lecture experts, jokes that her 绠 is short and the well of their field very deep; a classical-Chinese class parses 绠短汲深 line by line; and a hardware store, of all places, still sells plain 井绠, well rope, to countryside customers who need the real thing.

Why this character belongs on skin

The proverb is ancient and slightly merciless: 绠短汲深 — a short rope cannot draw from a deep well. Your capacity must match your task, or the bucket comes up empty no matter how earnestly you pull. 绠 is the rope itself, the braided cord descending into darkness day after day, ordinary-looking until you realize that everything the village drinks arrived by its strength. There is a whole philosophy in that cord. The Confucians saw self-cultivation as exactly this — lengthening, strand by strand, the rope of your own ability so the deep water of the world becomes reachable. A tattoo of 绠 is a promise about depth: that you intend to be equal to what you love. Place it along the forearm, following the muscle that actually pulls — a quiet, functional line of ink, like a rope itself, hidden in the working part of the body.