The Beautiful XiShi

Wang Wei

Since beauty is honoured all over the Empire,

How could Xi Shi remain humbly at home? --

Washing clothes at dawn by a southern lake --

And that evening a great lady in a palace of the north:

Lowly one day, no different from the others,

The next day exalted, everyone praising her.

No more would her own hands powder her face

Or arrange on her shoulders a silken robe.

And the more the King loved her, the lovelier she looked,

Blinding him away from wisdom.

…Girls who had once washed silk beside her

Were kept at a distance from her chariot.

And none of the girls in her neighbours' houses

By pursing their brows could copy her beauty.