The protagonist of the poem written in seven steps is Cao Zhi.
Cao Pi, Emperor Wen of Wei, once ordered King Cao Zhi of Dong'a to compose a poem within seven steps. If he failed, he would be executed. Cao Zhi responded and composed a poem: "Boil the beans and hold them to make soup, and drain the bean sprouts to make juice. The skip is burning under the cauldron, and the beans are weeping in the cauldron. They all grow from the same root, so why fry each other in a hurry!" Emperor Wen of Wei felt deeply ashamed after hearing this. Extended information
Cao Zhi was the third son of Cao Cao and Empress Wuxuan Bian. He was the King of Chen during his lifetime and was given the posthumous title of "Si" after his death, so he was also called King Chen Si. ?
Cao Zhi was a famous writer during the Three Kingdoms period. As one of the representatives and masters of Jian'an literature, he was respected as a model of articles during the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties. His representative works include "Luo Shen Fu", "White Horse Pian", "Seven Sorrow Poems", etc. Later generations named him, Cao Cao and Cao Pi the "Three Caos" because of their literary attainments.
His poems are famous for their vigorous writing and gorgeous words. Thirty volumes of his poems have been lost. The current collection of "Cao Zijian Ji" was compiled by the Song Dynasty. Cao Zhi's prose also has the characteristics of "emotion, elegance and resentment, body and quality". Coupled with the rich variety of his prose, he has achieved outstanding achievements in this aspect. Xie Lingyun, a writer in the Southern Song Dynasty, once commented that "there is only one stone in the world, and Cao Zijian has eight buckets".
Literary critic Zhong Rong also praised Cao Zhi for his "extraordinarily high character, brilliant lyrics, elegance and resentment, and elegant body and texture. His charisma overflows both the present and the past, and he is outstanding." And in "Poetry" List him as the highest-ranking poet. Wang Shizhen said that Cao Zhi, Li Bai and Su Shi were among the poets who could be called "immortal talents" in the two thousand years since the Han and Wei dynasties.
Cao Zhi's creation is divided into two phases based on the year 220 (the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an). The early poems mainly sang about his ideals and ambitions, full of optimism and romance, and full of confidence in the future; the later poems mainly expressed the grief and indignation aroused by the contradiction between ideals and reality.
His poems not only embody the "sad but not sad" elegance of "The Book of Songs", but also contain the graceful and profound wonder of "Chu Ci"; they not only inherit the writing power of Han Dynasty Yuefu to reflect reality, It also retains the gentle and tragic mood of "Nineteen Ancient Poems". Cao Zhi's poems have their own distinctive and unique style, completing the transformation from Yuefu folk songs to literati poetry.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Cao Zhi