锦心绣口

Origin and story

In a farewell preface for his younger kinsman Lingwen, Li Bai recalls an affectionate compliment. The kinsman asks whether Li Bai's inner organs are all made of brocade and embroidery: otherwise, how could his speech become literature and his writing flow so effortlessly? Li Bai describes laughing and accepting the praise.

The textiles are an imaginative comparison for beautifully formed language, not a miraculous physical claim. Liu Zongyuan's Qi Qiao Wen also contains the exact expression 錦心繡口 in connection with ornate parallel prose. The idiom praises literary imagination and elegant expression; it is more specific than simply being talkative or persuasive.