Liu Ling

Also known as Zi Bolun · Liu Bo Lun

Liu Ling, courtesy name Bolun, came from the state of Pei; the History of Jin (Jinshu) describes him as short, ugly and taciturn, a man who kept few friends until he met Ruan Ji and Ji Kang and joined them in the bamboo grove. Indifferent to property and convention, he would ride out in a deer-drawn cart with a jug of wine and a servant carrying a spade, telling him to bury him wherever he dropped. When his wife begged him to give up drinking, he set out wine and meat as if to swear an oath to the spirits, declared that Heaven had made Liu Ling for wine, and got drunk again. Early in the Taishi reign of the Western Jin, answering the court's policy questions, he argued for government by non-action and was the only candidate dismissed as useless. He died of old age. His Eulogy on the Virtue of Wine (Jiu de song), mocking the guardians of ritual, was included in the Wenxuan anthology.