“Xi Shi That kingdom-quelling beauty dissolved like the flower of foam. In the foreign palace, Xi Shi, did you yearn for your old home? Who laughs at your ugly neighbour with her frown-and-simper now, Still steeping her yarn at the brook-side, and the hair snow-white on her brow? Yu ji The very crows are grieving as they caw in the cold night air. She faces her beaten Tyrant King with a haggard look of despair: ‘Let the others wait for the hangman, to be hacked and quartered and rent; ‘Better the taste of one’s own steel in the decent dark of a tent.’ Lady Bright To a loveliness that dazzled, the palace of Han showed the door; For ‘the fair are mostly ill-fated’, as has been said often before. Yet it seems strange that an emperor – even one with such tepid views – Should abandon his eyes’ own judgement and let a painter choose! Green Pearl Pebble or pearl – to Shi Chong it was only a rich man’s whim: Do you really believe your undoubted charms meant so very much to him? It was fate, from some past life preordained, that made him take his rash stand, And the craving to have a companion in death’s dark, silent land. Red Duster She marked the firm, courteous protest, the well-phrased confident plan, And, under the unsuccessful clerk, saw the essential Man. The great Yang Su in her eyes was finished from that hour: He could not hold a girl like her for all his pomp and power.” (from “The Story of the Stone: The Warning Voice (Volume III): The Warning Voice, Chapters 54-80” by Cao Xueqin)