Poem on reclusion

Zhou Lianggong had already known a lifetime of trouble when he brushed this calligraphy at age fifty. After first serving the Ming dynasty as a young scholar-official and seeing the dynasty crumble in 1644, Zhou made the fateful decision to serve the conquering Qing. He subsequently spent the late 1650s in prison because a colleague accused him of wrongdoing. Once he had received imperial clemency in 1661, Zhou returned to his native Nanjing, where he wrote this scroll for a friend named Geng Jie (1622–1693). The topic—withdrawal from service to a simple life of retirement—no doubt held appeal for Zhou by this point in his life.