Life
Consort Ban started as a junior maid, became a concubine of Emperor Cheng and quickly rose to prominence at court. She bore him two sons, but both died in infancy. Once she declined an invitation to ride in a palanquin because she feared to distract him from matters of state. She was also renowned as a great scholar, able to recite poems from the Shi Jing and a lot of other texts.
Because neither the Empress Xu nor Consort Ban produced him an heir, the Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun encouraged him to take more concubines. Around 19 BCE, however, Emperor Cheng took a liking to the dancing girl Zhao Feiyan and her sister Zhao Hede. They were both made concubines and he favored them over Empress Xu and Consort Ban. In 18 BCE both the Empress and Consort Ban were accused of witchcraft. Empress Xu was put under house arrest away from court, but Consort Ban pleaded her case. She used citations of Confucius and made a speech that impressed the emperor and he allowed her to stay at court. She then chose to become a lady in waiting to the Empress Dowager, instead of remaining consort to the Emperor. Consort Ban became part of the emperor's funeral park after his death in 7 BCE. and died a year later.
Read more about this topic: Consort Ban
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Franceska: I was happy in the life I built up for myself. I put a fine high wall of music around me and nothing could touch me. I was safe and secure. And then you had to come along and knock it all down and I hate you for that.
Maxwell: On the contrary, you love me.”
—Muriel Box (b. 1905)
“The poem refreshes life so that we share,
For a moment, the first idea . . . It satisfies
Belief in an immaculate beginning
And sends us, winged by an unconscious will,
To an immaculate end. We move between these points:
From that ever-early candor to its late plural....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)