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王昭君

WángZhāojūn
popculture #67,493

Meanings

  1. 1 Wang Zhaojun (c. 52-19 BCE), Han palace lady given in marriage to the Xiongnu chanyu Huhanye
  2. 2 one of the Four Great Beauties of ancient China

Examples

王昭君出塞和亲。
Wáng Zhāojūn chūsài héqīn.
Wang Zhaojun left the Han frontier to marry in peace-alliance.
王昭君是四大美女之一。
Wáng Zhāojūn shì sì dà měinǚ zhī yī.
Wang Zhaojun is one of the Four Great Beauties.

Tips

history
A palace lady under Emperor Yuan of Han (r. 49-33 BCE), she volunteered in 33 BCE to marry the Xiongnu chanyu Huhanye (呼韩邪) to seal a peace alliance. Legend holds that the court painter Mao Yanshou (毛延寿) deliberately uglified her portrait because she refused to bribe him, so the emperor only saw her true beauty on her departure day.
culture
She is the 'wild-goose-alighting' beauty of 沉鱼落雁 — the migrating geese were said to forget to flap and fall from the sky when they saw her playing the pipa on her journey north. 出塞 ('going beyond the frontier') became a poetic shorthand for her story, seen in Tang poet Du Fu's 《咏怀古迹》 and countless operas.

Stroke Order

王 wáng
昭 zhāo
君 jūn