Cao Zhi’s Seven Step Verse

The story of how the poem 七步诗 was created by a person named “Cao Zhi” in ancient China. It was said by many people that Cao Zhi excelled in literature and “Cao Cao” (Cao Zhi’s father) favored him a lot. Because of this, “Cao Pi” (Cao Zhi’s older brother) became jealous of how smart he was, along with the attention he was getting. This also showed how easily Cao Zhi could overthrow Cao Pi and take his throne, making him a major threat.

One day, Cao Zhi went to visit his older brother Cao Pi. Cao Pi was quite unpleasant to see his brother. He then said, “There have been quite a lot of people praising your literature skills, did you really create these poems yourself or did you hire someone to write them for you?”

Cao Zhi replied saying “No, this is all original work that I wrote myself. I have never asked or hired anybody to help me.”

After that, Cao Pi then challenged Cao Zhi to create a poem within seven steps. If he couldn’t do that, then he would charge Cao Zhi for being guilty of fraud and execute him. Cao Zhi accepted the challenge and asked Cao Pi what the topic should be. Cao Pi replied, “Brothers. Create a verse that is about brothers. However, it cannot include the word ‘brothers’ in the verse.” Cao Zhi then started to create the verse while taking one step at a time, one sentence per step. Not only did Cao Zhi finish creating a verse but also did it in less than seven steps. In the verse, it said; 煮豆燃豆萁，豆在釜中泣。本是同根生，相煎何太急？The poem expresses: “We have the same blood, and came from the same parents, so why are you so eager to hurt me?”

In the end, although Cao Pi’s mood was even worse, he could not deem Cao Zhi guilty of fraud because Cao Zhi completed the challenge. And this is how the poem “七步诗” was created.