The Four Treasures of the Study
Bi Couplet
In old stationery stores, an elegant couplet was often posted:
Five Colors Beautifully called Jiang Lingmeng; a spring-warming flower that governs the city.
This couplet is an appropriate allusion and a vivid metaphor. "Jiang Ling" refers to Jiang Yan, taken from the classic "Jiang Lang's talents are exhausted". The second couplet uses "Guancheng Flower" as a metaphor for the pen, which can be said to be naturally interesting.
Ink couplets
Among the four treasures of the study, the poetic and picturesque flavor of ink is particularly strong. There is an ink couplet that says:
Dense fog rises when the jade clouds grind away; light clouds appear where the silver paper is dyed.
Using thick fog and light clouds as a metaphor, elegance is seen in the vulgar, and the characteristics of famous ink and the pleasure of the ink user are expressed in a very interesting way.
Paper couplets
Paper is one of my country’s four great inventions and one of the four treasures of the study.
Thousands of mountains and rivers appear on the paper; the scenery in the snow is colorful.
This couplet praises the wonderful use of paper. There is also a couplet with numerous family treasures, listing many valuable varieties of paper:
Li green and parallel red, the ten types are cleverly passed down; hard yellow and uniform blue, the three most valuable.
The "ten kinds" in the first couplet refer to the name of the paper, and the "valuable three capitals" at the end of the couplet are a clever reference to "Zuo Si's "Sandu Fu" was published, and everyone competed to copy it, so that paper in Luoyang was expensive." . The whole couplet is rich in content and beautiful in words. It can be called a good sentence.
Inkstone couplets
There is a couplet that says:
"The rainbow energy appears when the pen is dyed; the moon wheel opens at the stem of the inkstone mark."
The pen has spirit, and the inkstone also has spirit. One brings "rainbow energy" and the other brings "moon wheel". It is said that the wonderful pen and inkstone create wonderful articles and calligraphy.