Poem on reclusion

Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (5 columns in standard script)

Beacon fires blur one’s vision of the homeland;
Some box thorns and chrysanthemums are cultivated near the curving shore of an ancient town[1].
Tilling beds, you've planted rice of the Langya [in southeast Shandong] variety;
Leaning on a low table, you cast a leisurely gaze upon the Horse-ear Mountain.
A short serge jacket and some remaining books have preserved your old virtues;
New poems and a vast sea surround your hoary face.
A scholar known for transmitting the classics against red silk curtains[2],
You, white-haired now, ascend the lecture hall, holding back tears.

In the early winter of the guimao year [1663] I visited the elderly Yi’an at his Siben Tang Studio and composed this to present for his correction[3]. Written by Zhou Lianggong of Lixia, his junior friend.

[Translation by Shi-yee Liu]

烽燧迷人無故里，小培杞菊古城灣。
開畦自種瑯玡稻，隱几閒看馬耳山。
短褐殘書留舊德，新詩大海擁蒼顏。
絳紗帷外傳經士，白首登堂淚欲潸。[4]

癸卯冬初過逸菴老世翁四本堂賦正，櫟下世弟周亮工稿。


Artist’s seals

Tao An 陶菴
Zhou Lianggong yin 周亮工印
Bu du Wang Li Zhong Tan zhi shi 不讀王李鍾譚之詩


Collectors’ seals

Wu Rongguang 吳榮光 (1773–1843)
Wu shi Yunqing Guan suocang shuhua 吳氏筠清館所藏書畫

Illegible: 1

[1] Box thorns and chrysanthemums have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for their health benefits.
[2] This line alludes to Ma Rong馬融 (79–166), the Eastern Han scholar and teacher of the Confucian classics who taught in a lecture hall draped with red silk curtains. See Ma Rong’s biography in Fan Ye范曄, Hou Han shu 後漢書 (History of the Latter Han dynasty), 5th century, juan 60, part 1.
[3] Yi’an may refer to Geng Jie耿介 (1622–1693), whose style name was Yi’an. On his life, see Zhao Erxun趙爾巽 et al., comp. Qing shi gao 清史稿, (Draft history of the Qing dynasty), Beijing, 1928, liezhuan 267.
[4] The poem is included in Zhou Lianggong’s Laigu Tang ji賴古堂集, juan 10, under the title “過傳逸菴四本堂” with variations on a few characters.

[ Sydney L. Moss Ltd. , London, until 2003; sold to Curtis]; John R. Curtis Jr. and Julia B. Curtis Williamsburg, Va. (2003–2020; donated to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Companions in Solitude: Reclusion and Communion in Chinese Art," July 31, 2021–August 14, 2022.