Sikong Shu or Ssü-k'ung Shu (; ca. 720 – ca. 790) was a Chinese poet of the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

. Three of his poems were included in the popular anthology ''

Three Hundred Tang Poems The ''Three Hundred Tang Poems'' () is an anthology of poems from the Chinese Tang dynasty (618–907). It was first compiled around 1763 by Sun Zhu (1722–1778Yu, 64–65), who was a Qing Dynasty scholar and was also known as Hengtang Tuishi ( ...

''. Sikong was known as one of the "Ten Poets of Talent of the Dali period" (766–779), which was Emperor Daizong of Tang's third and final regnal period.

Biography

The year of Sikong Shu's birth is not known. He was a native of what is now

Guangping County Guangping County ( is a county of southern Hebei province, China. It is under the administration of Handan City, and , has a population of 260,000 residing in an area of . Administrative divisions There are 3 towns and 4 townships under the county ...

, of

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

Province, China. He was moderately successful in his career as a governmental official.Davis, xii

Name

"Sikong" is a

Chinese compound surname A Chinese compound surname is a Chinese surname using more than one Chinese character, character. Many of these compound surnames derive from Zhou dynasty Chinese noble and official titles, professions, place names and other areas, to serve a purp ...

Poetry

Sikong Shu's poems as collected in ''Three Hundred Tang Poems'' were translated by

Witter Bynner Harold Witter Bynner (August 10, 1881 – June 1, 1968), also known by the pen name Emanuel Morgan, was an American poet and translator. He was known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and association with other literary figures ther ...

as: * "A Farewell to Han Shen at the Yunyang Inn" * "When Lu Lun my Cousin Comes for the Night" * "To a Friend Bound North After the Rebellion"

References

Works cited

*Davis, A. R. (Albert Richard), Editor and Introduction (1970), ''The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse''. (Baltimore: Penguin Books). *

External links