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Qin Shi Bu      
Zhao Bi
- Qin Shi Bu #82		 趙璧 1
琴史補 #82 2

Zhao Bi lived during 785 - 805. His biographies seem to mention nothing other than that he excelled at playing a five-string qin.

QSDQ has several references to Zhao Bi.

  1. Folio 17, #47 (a short version of the story told here)
  2. Folio 20A, #15 (a poem praising him, by Bai Juyi, also included here).

The poem by Bai Juyi, called Playing Five Strings,3 is also included with other poems by Bai Juyi in the New Yuefu Poems section of of the Music Bureau Song Collection, Folio 98.4

The original biography of Zhao Bi in Qin Shi Bu says:

Zhao Bi lived during 785 - 805. He excelled at playing a five-string qin. If people asked about his artistry Zhao Bi would say, As for my five strings, first my mind urges on (the music), then my spirit accepts it, than naturally I just go along with it 方吾浩然 and become overwhelmed. My eyes are like my ears, ears like nose. I don't know if the five strings are Zhao Bi, or if Zhao Bi is the five strings. His 神妙 spiritual beauty (?) was like this. Bai Juyi's (New) Yuefu poem Playing Five Strings (see YFSJ, Folio 98), says,

五絃彈五絃彈聽者傾耳心...
(Quotes the entire long poem, ending)
人情重今多賤古，古琴有絃人不撫。 (elsewhere: 古瑟有絃人不撫。; this seem more logical, considering the next line)
更從趙璧藝成來，二十五弦不如五。

From reading this you know that Zhao Bi....

Not yet completed. 5

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1 38015.897; Bio/1645; the source given in Qin Shi Bu is 蓴湖漫錄 Chunhu Manlu. (Return)

2 (Return)

3 五弦彈 Wu Xian Tan; two lines are translated in Ronald Egan, Controversy, p. 57. (Return)

4 樂府詩集 Music Bureau Song Collection; see YFSJ, p.1371 (not the qin section) (Return)

5 (Return)

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