Wong Tai Sin lot 32 of 100
Su Wu herds sheep
Middling (中平). Grade as given on the named web transcriptions. We have not seen it on a temple printing, and we do not know that the temple prints one.
十九年前海上辛
節旄彫敗逐沙塵
餐毛嚼雪誰憐我
惟有羊兒作伴群
Nineteen years ago, bitter hardship by the sea.
The tassels on his staff have worn away and blown off into the sand and dust.
Eating fur and chewing snow, who has pity on me?
Only the sheep make a flock of companions.
What this lot says
A long period of hardship and isolation, endured with only the sheep for company. The tassels of the staff of office have worn away.
The middling grade suits a long wait. The verse is about persistence in hard conditions, with no relief shown yet.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
Su Wu herds sheep (蘇武牧羊)
A traditional allusion named with this lot. We have not traced the story to a source we could read, so we do not retell it here.
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author, here read from named web transcriptions. We compared the sites character by character and show every difference. We could not establish whether the sites are independent of one another, and we have not read a temple printing.
Fortune Sticks (fortunesticks.org) (the text shown above)
十九年前海上辛 / 節旄彫敗逐沙塵 / 餐毛嚼雪誰憐我 / 惟有羊兒作伴群
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Luckeyes (算命眼, luckeyes.com)
十九年前海上辛 / 節旄惆敗逐沙塵 / 餐毛嚼雪誰憐我 / 惟有羊兒作伴群
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Andy.hk (加賀風水)
十九年前海上辛 / 節旄彫敗逐沙塵 / 餐毛嚼雪誰憐我 / 惟有羊兒作伴群
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 2, character 3: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 彫; luckeyes.com reads 惆. This is a different character.
English translation and commentary are by Cast & Chart.