Surrounded at
垓下 in 202 BC and hearing the songs of Chu all around his camp,
项羽 sang
力拔山兮气盖世 'my strength could uproot mountains' and ended with
虞兮虞兮奈若何 'Yu, oh Yu, what will become of you?' Later tradition says she took her own life so as not to hold him back. The scene is the Peking opera 《
霸王别姬》, made famous by
梅兰芳 and by Chen Kaige's 1993 film.
