The whole poem:
生当作人杰，
死亦为鬼雄。
至今思项羽，
不肯过江东。 'In life, be a hero among men; in death, a hero among ghosts. To this day I think of Xiang Yu, who would not cross back to the east of the river.' Beaten by
刘邦 in 202 BC,
项羽 refused to escape across the Yangtze to his home region and took his own life at Wujiang. The poem is usually dated to 1129, when the Song court, driven south by the Jin, kept retreating instead of fighting back.
