Writers › Writer / Poet
Lu Sidao
Northern Qi and early Sui writer nicknamed Eight-Rice Lu after eight of his elegies for Emperor Wenxuan were chosen, author of the yuefu poem Following the Army
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 Zixing
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Lu Sidao, courtesy name Zixing, came from Zhuo in Fanyang. At fifteen, unable to follow a stele inscription by Liu Song of Zhongshan, he was so stung that he went to study with Xing Shao. When Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi died in 559, each courtier wrote ten elegies for the best to be chosen; Lu had eight accepted, far more than anyone else, and he was nicknamed Eight-Rice Lu. After the Zhou conquered the Qi he went to Chang'an, joined a failed local rising while caring for his mother at home, and was condemned, but the Zhou general Yuwen Shenju, who knew his name, had him write a victory proclamation on the spot and spared him. Under the Sui he governed Wuyang and served as a cavalier attendant, dying at Chang'an in 586. His essay Laosheng lun and yuefu poem Following the Army survive.
Life and times
Dates 535 CE–586 CE