The wretched emperor was forced to order the head eunuch to strangle his idolized concubine, while the rest of her family perished at the hands of the troops.

He subsequently abdicated in favour of his son, and spent the last six years of his life in seclusion.
This tragic story has been exquisitely told in verse by one of China's foremost poets, who was born only a few years later.

He divides his poem into eight parts, dealing with the _ennui_ of the monarch until he discovers _beauty_, the _revelry_ of the pair together, followed by the horrors of _flight_, to end in the misery of _exile_ without her, the _return_ when the emperor passes again by the fatal spot, _home_ where everything reminds him of her, and finally _spirit-land_.

This last is a figment of the poet's imagination.

He pictures the disconsolate emperor sending a magician to discover Yang Kuei-fei's whereabouts in the next world, and to bear to her a message of uninterrupted love.