廬山記 3.14

3.14

Zong Bing, styled Shaowen, was a man of Nieyang in Nanyang. His grandfather Cheng was the Grand Administrator of Yidu, and his father Youzhi was the Magistrate of Xiangxiang. Bing was widely learned and skilled in the zither, calligraphy, and painting, and was especially proficient in Dark Learning (xuanxue). When Emperor Wu of the Song was in Jingzhou, he summoned him to be a master of records; he would not rise [to the post]. When asked for the reason, he replied: 'I have perched on hills and drank from valleys for more than thirty years.' He entered Lushan, built a chamber, and joined the society with Master Yuan. Later, his elder brother Zang became the Grand Administrator of Nanping and pressed him to return together, so he built a residence at Sanhu in Jiangling. Later he was summoned as an aide and a clerk to the Grand Commander, neither of which he accepted. [The court] then ordered the Magistrate of Nanjun to provide him with labor and repeatedly deliver supplies of food and gifts. King Yiji of Nanyang went in person to his chamber and ordered him to be received in a cornered cap and cloth garments; [Bing] did not bow. The King said: 'May we condescend you with a heavy salary?' He replied: 'Salary is like rotting grass; how long does decline and prosperity last?' He had an elegant fondness for landscapes; whenever he went out, he forgot to return. He once ascended Jing and Wu in the west and climbed Mount Heng in the south. In his late years, he painted them all in his chamber, saying: 'I am old; the famous mountains cannot be seen again. I can only purify my mind to contemplate the Way and travel through them reclining.' Plucking the zither and playing a tune, he wished to make all the mountains echo. He died in the twenty-fourth year of Yuanjia, the year guimi, at the age of sixty-nine.