Xun Ling's Lingering Fragrance
"When Lord Xun visited a household, the place where he sat was fragrant for three days" — an enduring image that binds fragrance to character.
Xun Yu, courtesy name Wenruo, was a chief strategist of Cao Cao in the late Eastern Han dynasty and rose to the office of Prefect of the Masters of Writing; he was known as "Lord Xun." Historical records note his fondness for burning incense: wherever he sat in others' homes, the fragrance lingered for days, and his contemporaries called it "Lord Xun's fragrance."
Evolution of the Image
Later generations used "Xun Ling's fragrance" and "Lord Xun's fragrance" to describe a person of elegant bearing and widely spreading virtue. In poetry, "Xun's fragrance" and "lingering seat fragrance" both stem from this allusion, as in Li Shangyin's line: "Lord Xun passes by south of the bridge, sending clothes-fragrance ten miles along."
Fragrance and Character
Xun Ling's Lingering Fragrance fuses "fragrance" with "the sweetness of a person" into one, and isThe Ten Virtues of Incensea projection onto the level of character of "long stored without decay" and "little suffices."