Annotations
大丈夫生世 當帶七尺之劍 以升天子之階
“Born a man into this world, I should have worn a seven-foot sword and climbed the steps of the Son of Heaven — and now I die with the ambition unfulfilled!”
— Taishi Ci太史慈
ko대장부로 세상에 태어났으면 마땅히 칠 척 검을 차고 천자의 계단에 올라야 하거늘, 그 뜻을 이루지 못하고 죽는구나!
ja大丈夫としてこの世に生まれたからには、まさに七尺の剣を帯びて天子の階に升るべきなのに、その志を遂げられずに死ぬとは！
The scene behind the words
The last sigh of the archer Taishi Ci, dead of illness at forty-one. A deathbed lament for an unfinished dream became, paradoxically, the purest statement of his spirit. The novel restaged it as a hero’s death in the battle of Hefei.
Source: Wu Shu (annotations to Taishi Ci’s biography)