Introduction

The world’s greatest love poem was woven in a silk brocade nearly 2,000 years ago. Separated from her husband, Su Hui (蘇蕙) captured her pain in 841 characters in a 29×29 grid wrapped around an empty space, representing her broken heart (心).

Thousands of poems emerge in horizontal and vertical blocks; along diagonals and snaking paths; and in circles and borders—capturing the intermingling anger, sadness, and love.

Su lived in the chaos and war of the Sixteen Kingdoms. Her husband, Dou Tao (竇滔), was sent to the far reaches of the kingdom, either banished for wrongdoing or dispatched to defend the realm. He may have left alone or taken a favored concubine.

Many versions of the story have proliferated, but all we know for certain is what is captured in his wife’s poetry. The original silk brocade has been lost to history, but the emotion, artistry, and brilliance of the Star Gauge (璇璣圖) remains acute across two millennia.

Selected Poems

Scroll horizontally (or use the arrows) to move through selected readings. Toggle between poetic and literal translations.

Explore

Select characters one at a time to build a line or touching block. Most poems here use 4- or 7-character lines, but you can select any connected line or block with a minimum line length of 3 characters. Human translations appear when available; otherwise the site uses the machine translation dataset.

References

Two useful starting points for viewing the Star Gauge and related translation work.