Xi Shi

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Xi Shi (西施, Pinyin: Xī Shī, c. 506 BC - ?) was one of the renowned Four Beauties of ancient China. She was said to have lived during the end of Spring and Autumn Period in Zhuji, the capital of the ancient State of Yue.

Xi Shi's beauty was said to be so extreme that while laundering her garments in the river, the fish were so dazzled that they forgot how to swim and gradually sunk to the bottom of the river, while the condors were so charmed that many stopped flying and plummeted to the ground to their deaths. (Thus comes the idiom 沉魚落雁, "To cause fish to sink and condors to drop" to describe someone of great beauty. )

King Gou Jian of Yue, king of Yue, was once imprisoned after a defeat in a war by King Fu Chai of Wu, king of the State of Wu. The state of Yue later became a tribulatory to Wu. Secretly planning his revenge, Gou Jian's minister Wen Zhong suggested training beautiful women and offering them to Fu Chai as a tribute. His other minister, Fan Li, found Xi Shi and Zheng Dan, and gifted them to Fu Chai in 490 BC.

Bewitched by the beauty of Xi Shi and Zheng Dan, Fu Chai forgot all about his state affairs and on their instigation, killed his best advisor, the great general Wu Zixu. Fu Chai even built Guanwa Palace (Palace of Beautiful Women) in an imperial park on the slope of Lingyan Hill, about 15 kilometers west of Suzhou. The strength of Wu dwindled, and in 473 BC Gou Jian launched his strike and put the Wu army to full rout. King Fu Chai lamented that he should have listened to Wu Zixu, and then committed suicide.

In one disputed account of her fate, it was written that Gou Jian ordered Xi Shi to be drowned by being thrown into a lake, to avoid being tempted by her as Fu Chai was.

In legends, after the fall of Wu, Fan Li retired from his minister post and lived with Xi Shi on a fishing boat, roaming like fairies in the misty wilderness of Tai Ho Lake, and no one has seen them ever since.

She is remembered by the Xi Shi Temple, which lies at the foot of the Zhu Lou Hill in the southern part of the city, on the banks of the Huansha River.

The West Lake in Hangzhou is said to be the incarnation of Xi Shi, hence it is also called Xizi Lake, Xizi being another name for Xi Shi, meaning Lady Xi.

There is another well-known figure of unknown origin, probably fictional and parodical, named Dong Shi (東施). The "Dong" in her name means "east", contrasting to Xi Shi's "Xi", which means "west". Apart from her name, she is said to be the exact opposite of Xi Shi in being extremely ugly and, in modern depictions, fat. This in turn has created the saying "Dong Shi imitates a frown" (Xi Shi, being a sickly girl, often had chest pains; it was said that her beauty was most marvellous when she was wincing from the pain), meaning to attempt imitating another work only to show up one's own weaknesses.