sixth sovereign of the S. Ch'i dynasty. She is said by some to have introduced the practice of cramping the feet, as still practised by Chinese women. On one occasion, when she was dancing before him, his Majesty cried out in rapture, "Eyery step makes a lily grow!" Hence the terms golden lilies and lily hooks, as expressions for women's feet. Her Imperial lover caused the streets through which she passed to be strewn with flowers made of gold-leaf; and on the soles of her shoes flowers were carved in relief, so that wherever she trod the impress of a flower was left upon the ground. She was slain in A.D. 501 by Hsiao Yen upon his entry into Nanking, though he only admitted with reluctance that the fall of the dynasty was due to her. In fact he wanted to keep her, but his Minister 王茂 Wang Mao insisted that she should be put to death.
1606 P'an Fu-jen 潘夫人. 3rd cent. A.D. The daughter of a man whom Sun Ch'üan had condemned to death. She herself was shut up in the palace; but Sun Ch'üan hearing of her great beauty, gave orders that her portrait should be submitted to him. To escape his approval, she starved herself in the hope of spoiling her good looks; nevertheless, when Sun Ch'üan saw her portrait he struck the table with his amber sceptre and cried out, "She is indeed a goddess!" and forthwith took her into his seraglio.
1607 P'an Ku 磐古. The first being brought into existence by cosmogonical evolution. The Great Monad separated into the Male and Female Principles (the Yin and the Yang). By a similar process these were each subdivided into Greater and Lesser, and then from the interaction of these four agencies P'an Ku was produced. He seems to have come into life endowed with perfect knowledge, and his function was to set the economy of the universe in order. He is often depicted as wielding a huge adze, and engaged in constructing the world. With his death the details of
