王羲之和《兰亭序》
Wang Xizhi and the Orchid Pavilion Preface
Name: ________________ Date: ________
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 首 | shǒu | first (as in 首次) |
| 聚会 | jùhuì | party; gathering; to get together |
| 篇 | piān | piece of writing; chapter |
| 当时 | dāngshí | then; at that time |
| 文章 | wénzhāng | article; essay |
| 作品 | zuòpǐn | work (of art or literature) |
| 重新 | chóngxīn | again; anew; afresh |
| 诗 | shī | poem; poetry; verse |
| 主人 | zhǔren | host; master; owner |
| 据说 | jùshuō | it is said; reportedly |
| 传说 | chuánshuō | legend; folklore |
| 记载 | jìzǎi | to record; to write down; record; account |
English (for the teacher)
In the spring of 353 AD, on the third day of the third lunar month, at the Orchid Pavilion near today’s Shaoxing in Zhejiang, more than forty men of letters sat along both banks of a stream. Someone put cups full of wine into the water and let them drift slowly downstream. Whoever a cup stopped in front of had to write a poem on the spot; if he couldn’t, he had to drink the cup.
That day they wrote thirty-seven poems in all. At the end, everyone asked the host of the gathering, Wang Xizhi, to write a preface for the poems. It is said that Wang Xizhi had drunk quite a lot by then; he picked up his brush and wrote it straight off. That piece is the famous Orchid Pavilion Preface.
The Preface has only 324 characters, but many people call it the finest work of running script in history. Most surprising of all, the character 之 appears twenty times, and Wang Xizhi wrote every one of them differently. Legend says that the next day, sober again, he rewrote it several times himself but could never capture the feeling of that day.
Wang Xizhi lived more than 1,600 years ago, in the Eastern Jin. Later people called him the “Sage of Calligraphy”, the person who wrote characters better than anyone. There is another fun story about him. The histories record that he loved geese. Once he wanted to buy geese a Taoist priest kept, but the priest wouldn’t sell; if Wang Xizhi copied out a book for him, though, he could have all the geese for free. Wang Xizhi agreed without hesitation, and when he had finished copying he went home happily with a flock of geese.
A few hundred years later, Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty became a Wang Xizhi “fan” too. He collected Wang’s works everywhere, and the one he wanted most was the Orchid Pavilion Preface. It is said that the piece was then in the hands of an old monk, who would not give it up whatever happened. So Taizong sent a clever official, disguised as an ordinary scholar, to make friends with the monk. The two played go and talked about calligraphy together and became good friends. One day the old monk finally brought out the Preface, and the official seized the chance to carry it back to the palace.
Once Taizong had it, he treasured it. It is said that when he died, he had it placed in his tomb with him. Since then, no one has ever seen the real Orchid Pavilion Preface.
So what is it that we see today? Careful copies that Tang dynasty people made from the original. The most famous of them is kept today in the Palace Museum in Beijing. Even though they are only copies, people who see them are still moved by the beauty of the characters.