The Story of 沉鱼落雁闭月羞花
Some days ago mricon did an idiom 沉鱼落雁, I'd like to tell you the story behind those four words.
It's like this:
沉鱼 [chén yú] Sink fish
落雁 [luò yàn] Make wild geese drop
闭月 [bì yuè] Shut the moon out
羞花 [xiū huā] Shame the flowers
While they are always used as idioms:
沉鱼落雁 Breath-taking beauty; be lovely enough to make fish sink and geese settle.
闭月羞花 Very beautiful; her beauty would shut out the moon and put the flowers to shame.
Still doesn't make sense, does it?
Do you know about 四大美人 (The Four Beauties) of China? There are lots and lots beauties, such as 红拂 [hóng fú] 绿珠 [lǜ zhū] 苏小小 [sū xiǎo xiǎo] 蔡文姬 [cài wén jī], and so on. But when you say 四大美人, it means 西施, 王昭君, 貂蝉, and 杨玉环. And the four words we are talking about, 沉鱼 落雁 闭月 羞花, came from the four beauties.
西施 [xī shī] She was a normal girl lived in the Yue state, during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC). She made her living by washing silk. Because of her beauty, the lord of Yue state 勾践 [gōu jiàn] offered her to the lord of Wu state. She became his concubine. (Long and brilliant story here, but I don't have time to tell it) The word 沉鱼 came from her washing time, it is said she was so beautiful, that when she was washing by the river, the fish in said river watched her and forgot to swim, and sink.
王昭君 [wáng zhāo jūn] She was a maid-in-waiting in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 24 AD). During her time, Han Dynasty had to send princesses to marry the Khan of the Hun, while sometimes the princess was not a princess by blood but a maid-in-waiting who was chosed by the King. So, she was chosed. (How she got chosed is another long and brilliant story, you can look it up yourself) When she was in her way to the Hun, she played 琵琶, a Chinese lute. It is said when she was playing, a wild goose flying past them dropped down. I don't know if the goose was watching her and forgot to fly, or listening her performance and forgot to fly, you choose.
貂蝉 [diāo chán] 貂蝉 is her given name, she don't have a family name. She was a performer, owned by a minister, during the end of Eastern Han, the beginning of Three Kingdoms. She is beautiful, brave and intelligent. She singlehanded estranged the prime minister and his secondary, therefore pulled the tyrannical prime minister down. It is said on night she went out to the garden, the moon clouded over immediately. So people began to say that she was so beautiful that her beauty put the moon to shame.
杨玉环 [yáng yù huán] She was the favorite imperial concubine of 唐玄宗, a king of the Tang Dynasty, who ruled during the best part of Tang Dynasty. Her beauty was a legend. (Lots of stories and poems here, some poems are by the greatest poets of china) It is said when she touched a flower, it folded itself down. I think what she touched was a mimosa, though... Her death was another story.
Well, I think I've done a shitty job... everyone of them can be the topic of a five thousand words paper. There are lots of books about them. Look them up yourself!