The prince squinted his eyes as he admired her swaying figure, smiling to the crowd at large: “This young lady comes on waves and steps on silks…”
His eyes shifted to her feet. He stroked his short graying beard and pleasantly said, “Next, I will send her to go barefoot on the gravel path. She’ll certainly sway side to side like a rose in the wind.”
They all unanimously praised him. “How extraordinary Your Royal Highness’s literary talent is. Every word you speak becomes poetry.”
“’Swaying side to side like a rose in the wind,’ even Zuo Si’s Odes to the Three Capitals pale in comparison to this line.” (1)
1.Zuo Si is a poet in the Western Jin period, his Three Capital Odes include ‘Ode to the Capital of Shu’, ‘Ode to the Capital of Wu’, and ‘Ode to the Capital of Wei’.
“Precisely so; such beautiful words would overshadow even Cao Zijian’s ‘Ode to Luoyang’.” (2)