Writers › Writer / Poet
Zuo Si
Western Jin poet from Linzi whose decade-long Rhapsody on the Three Capitals made paper scarce in Luoyang, and whose eight Poems on History Zhong Rong ranked in the first class
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Taichong
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Zuo Si, courtesy name Taichong, came from Linzi in the old state of Qi; the History of Jin (Jinshu) describes him as ugly and slow of speech but rich in language. After a year spent on a rhapsody on the Qi capital, he moved to Luoyang when his sister Zuo Fen was taken into the palace, sought a post as palace librarian to get at the archives, and spent ten years on his Rhapsody on the Three Capitals, keeping brush and paper by the gate, the fence and even the privy. Ignored at first, it caught on once Huangfu Mi wrote a preface and Zhang Zai and Liu Kui annotated it, and the great houses copied it so eagerly that paper grew dear in Luoyang. He belonged to Jia Mi's circle and withdrew after Jia's execution. When Zhang Fang's troops ravaged Luoyang he moved his family to Ji province, where he died a few years later. Zhong Rong's Gradings of Poets (Shipin) placed his eight Poems on History in the top class.
Life and times
Dates c. 250 CE–c. 305 CE