Wu Gang Cuts the Cassia

The Ever-Healing Tree

A punished immortal endlessly chops the moon’s cassia tree, whose wounds heal at once.

The Han-dynasty man Wu Gang, having failed in his studies of immortality, is banished to the moon and ordered to cut down its cassia tree. The tree is five hundred zhang tall, and every wound closes the instant his axe falls — so Wu Gang chops for eternity. In the moon’s shadows, later ages saw his endless labor, and the cassia became the emblem of effort that never quite finishes.