Month: November 2021

The custom of employing eunuchs—men who have been castrated—as servants in wealthy or royal households dates back millennia. In ancient China and the Middle East, eunuchs acted as guards in harems and as chamberlains to kings. The confidential position enabled them to exert considerable influence over their masters. Use of eunuchs in royal courts peaked during the Byzantine Empire and faded with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Whose assassin’s killer castrated himself to avoid sexual temptation? Discuss

Shi is the Chinese word for “poetry” or “poem.” As early poetry was often sung or chanted, folk poetry was adapted from song form into written shi by the Chinese literati. Some forms of shi include gushi, an ancient style with no formal constraints aside from line length and rhyme, and jintishi, a modern form regulated by tone patterns that emerged during the T’ang period, widely considered the golden age of Chinese poetry. What was the first collection of Chinese poetry? Discuss