About the Opening Poem

The poem at the beginning of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (see episode 001) was not part of the original version of the novel. In fact, it was written by a poet named Yang Shen, who lived almost a century AFTER Luo Guanzhong, the man usually credited with writing ROTK.

So how did it end up at the beginning of the novel and become so closely associated with the book? In the 1660s, during the Qing dynasty, the father-and-son team of Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang made significant edits to Luo Guanzhong’s version, and the result of their work is the basis of the version of ROTK that has become known to readers today. As part of their edits, they added Yang Shen’s poem to the beginning of the novel. If you are interested, here is an in-depth analysis of the myriad changes made by the Maos.

Painting with calligraphy of the poem