Death
In 1 BC, Emperor Ai died. In decisive action, Grand Empress Dowager Wang seized power back from Emperor Ai's favorite Dong Xian and made her nephew Wang Mang regent to the succeeding Emperor Ping. Wang Mang, who wanted to extinguish all dissent (and who previously bore a grudge against Emperor Ai for demoting him and extended that grudge to those who supported Emperor Ai) had Empress Dowager Zhao demoted from her position as empress dowager to the title of Empress Xiaocheng. A few months later, she was further demoted to a commoner and ordered to guard her husband's tomb. That day, she committed suicide.
Read more about this topic: Zhao Feiyan
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“There are confessable agonies, sufferings of which one can positively be proud. Of bereavement, of parting, of the sense of sin and the fear of death the poets have eloquently spoken. They command the world’s sympathy. But there are also discreditable anguishes, no less excruciating than the others, but of which the sufferer dare not, cannot speak. The anguish of thwarted desire, for example.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)
“Consider his life which was valueless
In terms of employment, hotel ledgers, news files.
Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man.
Ask. Was so much expenditure justified
On the death of one so young and so silly
Lying under the olive tree, O world, O death?”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)