During the final years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King You of Zhou ruled with an increasingly unstable grip on power.
At the time, natural disasters struck one after another—earthquakes, droughts, and locust plagues—leaving the people homeless and suffering beyond words. Yet King You of Zhou, ignoring the plight of his subjects, indulged in extravagance and repeatedly tightened his oppressive grip on them, sparking extreme discontent among the people.
Meanwhile, King You of Zhou further appointed Grand Preceptor Yin, the supreme military commander, to oversee court affairs, plunging the government into chaos, weakening the state, and alienating the people.
During the reign of King You of Zhou, a minister named Jia Fu grew deeply troubled by the king's refusal to heed advice. After several failed attempts at persuasion, he poured his grief and anger into a poem titled "Lofty Southern Mountain," exposing the crimes of Grand Master Yin and voicing the people's anguish.
This poem has ten stanzas. The first stanza goes like this:
The towering Zhongnan Mountains, with their layered peaks and piled rocks, stood majestic and imposing.
Grand Preceptor Yin's reputation was so formidable that the common people's eyes were all fixed on you, watching your every move!
They were burning with anxiety, yet dared not mock or gossip behind their backs.
You see the royal enterprise on the verge of decline—why do you turn a blind eye to it!
However, King You of Zhou never prioritized state affairs. Soon after, the Marquis of Shen allied with the Quanrong tribes to attack the Zhou capital; the king was killed, and the Western Zhou dynasty finally collapsed.
Later, the idiom "heart burning with anxiety" came to describe a state of extreme worry and impatience, as if one's heart were on fire.
Source: *Book of Songs*, "Lesser Court Hymns", "Jie Nan Mountain"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "忧心如焚" came to describe a state of extreme worry and impatience, as if one's heart were on fire.