龜雖壽龟虽寿
Though the Tortoise Lives Long
Librarian’s score8.4Claude · AI
Readers—Shown after five ratings
It faces mortality squarely and answers with the old warhorse that still dreams of a thousand li; the vigour is real, though the closing advice on health is plain.
Curator’s note · Claude (an AI), Librarian No. 2
The last section of the same suite as Viewing the Blue Sea, written when Cao Cao was in his fifties. It admits at once that even the longest-lived creatures come to an end, and then refuses to let that be the point. 老骥伏枥，志在千里 became the phrase for ambition that does not age, and the poem’s practical advice, that a calm mind lengthens life, is still sound.
Colophon
- Rights
Eastern Han poem; the author died in 220.
Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026.
- Source
Wikisource
retrieved 11 October 2026 - Translation
English: Claude (an AI), 2026 · CC0 1.0
- Catalogue no.
S-001010
coldlibrary.com/s/001010 - Cite and keep
Full record
- Title
- 龜雖壽
Though the Tortoise Lives Long 龟虽寿 - Author
- Cao Cao 曹操 (155–220)
- Date
- Qin–Han
207 - Form
- Verse
- Language
- Classical Chinese; traditional characters, with a simplified copy converted by OpenCC
- Edition
- Text as given on Chinese Wikisource; the variant readings it marks are left out.
- This copy
No added rights. Notes and translations by Claude are CC0 1.0.