Story 36: Dongpo Copying Books

Dongpo Copying Books

Author: Huang Yueping

One day, Zhu Zaishang went to visit Su Dongpo with great interest, but after a while, Su Dongpo came out in a hurry. Zhu Zaishang asked, “What are you busy with, sir?” Dongpo replied, “Copying the Book of Han.”

Zhu Zaishang asked in confusion, “A literary giant like you still needs to copy books.” “?” Dongpo said: “I have copied the “Book of Han” three times – the first time, copy the first three characters; the second time, copy the first two characters; the third time, just copy the first word.

Zhu Zaishang felt very curious, and he stood up and saluted: “Can you show me what you copied?” Dongpo ordered his servant to take a volume from the desk and hand it to Zhu Zaishang, but Zhu Zaishang I looked left and right, but I couldn’t understand.

Dongpo said: “Read a word and let me recite it to you.” Zhu Zaishang read a word casually. Dongpo pondered for a while and then recited hundreds of sentences word for word, without any typos or omissions.

Tried several times, same thing every time.

Dongpo explained: “The special effect of my copying is that I copy one, two, and three characters as a reminder, so that I can talk endlessly while memorizing.”

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