From Sima Qian's Letter to Ren An in the Western Han Dynasty, excerpts from the original text:
Guy Zhong Ziqi died, and Boya never played the piano again. What is this? Scholars are used as confidants, and women are pleased with themselves. If the servant has lost a lot of qualities, although the material is easy-going, but if the lines are relaxed, he can't be proud of it, just enough to smile and nod.
Translation:
After Zhong Ziqi's death, Boya stopped playing the piano all his life. Why is this? Smart men are willing to be used by people who know themselves, while women dress up for people who love themselves. People who have lost their bodies like me are as rare as the Emperors of Sui Dynasty and He Shibi, and as noble as Xu You and Bo Yi. After all, they can't be proud of these, it will only make people laugh and insult themselves.
Extended data
Creative background:
This article is Sima Qian's reply to Ren An. Ren An is a friend of Sima Qian. He once wrote to Sima Qian in prison, asking him to try to rescue him. Sima Qian wrote this letter to him, explaining to his old friend his difficulties from destruction and asking him to forgive him.
Main idea of the article:
The ideological content of this letter is mainly manifested in four aspects: first, it reflects Sima Qian's glorious character and some bad behaviors of feudal rulers; Second, it reflects the darkness and cruelty of the feudal prison system; Thirdly, the theory of "writing books with anger" was put forward for the first time in the history of China literature. Fourth, expose the attitude of feudal emperors towards historians and their own writing of historical records.
About the author:
Sima Qian (former145-no textual research) was born in xia yang (now south of Hancheng, Shaanxi). Historians and essayists in the Western Han Dynasty. The late Buddha was named Shi Qian, Tai Shigong, the father of history.
He created China's first biographical history book (formerly known as Taishi Gongshu). It is recognized as a model of China's history books, which records the history of more than 3,000 years from the legendary Huangdi period to the first year of Emperor Wudi's Yuanshou, and is the first of the "Twenty-five History".
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