The Quatrain of Seven Steps seven strides such that Cao Pi is convinced of his innocence. Cao Zhi does so, and Cao Pi becomes so flustered with emotion that he spares his brother, although he later exacts punishment upon Cao Zhi in the form of demotion. The poem itself is written in the traditional "five-character quatrain" style and is an extended metaphor that describes the relationship of two brothers and the ill-conceived notion of one harming the other over petty squabbling. There exists two versions of the poem, one being six lines in length and the other four. The former is generally thought to be
Poetry the second and third couplets. The couplets with parallel lines contain contrasting content but an identical grammatical relationship between words. Jintishi often have a rich poetic diction, full of allusion, and can have a wide range of subject, including history and politics. One of the masters of the form was Du Fu (712–770 CE), who wrote during the Tang Dynasty (8th century). The villanelle is a nineteen-line poem made up of five triplets with a closing quatrain; the poem is characterized by having two refrains, initially used in the first and third lines of the first stanza, and then alternately