The 15th day of the first month of the first month is the traditional Chinese Lantern Festival. Lantern Festival, Valentine’s Day. “Last year, on the night of the first month, the lights in the flower market were like daylight. The moon was on the top of the willow, and people were about to dusk.” The fire tree and silver flowers dazzle the Lantern Festival, and there are many love stories hidden in the shadow of the lights.
Lantern Festival: The Moon over the Willows
The Lantern Festival is a time to enjoy the moon and the lights; the moon is full and people are reunited, and the lights are in pairs. Although it is said that the Lantern Festival is the night of the full moon, the real life of the lantern-viewing people, there are also a number of melancholy not reunited. In the human world, there is that reunion, there must be that scattered. “This year’s New Year’s Eve, the moon and lights are still the same. I do not see last year’s people, tears wet green shirt sleeves.” The moon is full but the people are not, missing the lost beloved, the moon is full of flowers and touches the scene, the most tear-jerking!
There is a love story about the Lantern Festival, a pair of jade people in the turbulent times met with a broken country and family, through all the hardships, in the peculiar Lantern Festival “broken mirror reunion”, such as the real life of the play, twisted and moving love, is the best gift to the lovers of the Lantern Festival. “The mirror and people go together, the mirror returns to people do not return. No more Chang’e shadow, empty left bright moon glory” …… delightful is the broken mirror finally reunited, interpretation of the important love element of the Lantern Festival.
The ancient couple, the broken mirror reunited
The army of the Sui dynasty cleaned up the messy political situation of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The Southern Kingdom of Chen went into history, and the life of Chen Shubao’s sister, Princess Lechang Chen Zhen, was severely damaged along with the latter.
In the royal growth of Princess Le Chang, the appearance of dignified and beautiful, elegant and generous demeanor, but not the arrogance of the Golden Bough, but rather a gentle and virtuous temperament and praised by people. The criteria for choosing a son-in-law for Princess Le Chang, who had a profound literary knowledge, were also very different, as she did not love the nobility of the marquis, but only loved poetry and literature.
Her royal brother did not care about her marriage, she made her own decision. Princess Lechang chose Xu Deyan, a talented man from Jiangnan, who was a commoner, to marry. At first, Xu Deyan was not happy to be the sidekick, but later in the palace to know the nature of the princess temperament, but also deeply in love with her. Xu Deyan also showed his political talent as a retainer in the court, and later became the crown prince’s wife. The couple loved each other and became the envy of everyone in the Chen Dynasty.
Bad luck comes to the door and the mirror is broken as a vow
According to “Ancient and Modern Poetry”, when the state of Chen was in decline, Xu Deyan predicted the possibility of bad luck in the future and told his wife, Princess Lechang, “If the state is broken, you will definitely fall into a powerful and powerful family. If our love affair is not broken, I hope we will see each other again in the future!”
So he broke a mirror into two halves, and he and his wife each held half of the mirror, and they agreed to sell the mirror at the marketplace in the capital to look for each other on the first day of the first month (the 15th full moon).
When the state of Chen died, Princess Chen Zhen of Lechang was indeed given as a concubine by Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty to Yang Su, the right servant of the Shang Shu (right prime minister), a great general with great achievements. Yang Su’s ancestors had served as military generals in Northern Wei and Northern Zhou. Yang Su was a great-looking man, good at both civil and military affairs, not only good at dispatching troops and creating military achievements, but also good at cursive writing, and his poetry was magnificent and simple, which was praised by people.
Yang Su was deeply impressed by the charming style and overflowing talent of the beautiful Princess Le Chang of Jiangnan, and he loved her tenderly and pitied her. Princess Lechang was longing for her husband Xu Deyan on the 15th day of the first month. Unfortunately, one year after another, she sent her old maid to the market to sell mirrors, but could not find him.
This year the Lantern Festival is near again, Xu Deyan tasted the pain of displacement, finally arrived in the capital. On the Lantern Festival, he eagerly went to the marketplace in the capital and saw a white-haired old woman selling a half mirror at a very high price, which was ridiculed by the puzzled city people. Xu Deyan was delighted and took the old woman directly to her residence, took out the half mirror she had saved, and the two broken mirrors finally came together. He inscribed a poem on the mirror and entrusted the old woman to bring it back to her master: “The mirror has gone with the people, and the mirror has returned without the people. There is no more Chang’e’s shadow, and the bright moon is left empty.”
The reunion of the Lantern Festival
On the day of the Lantern Festival, Yang Su’s house was celebrating with a banquet, while the princess got a poem from her husband and sobbed alone, unable to suppress the sadness that came up in her chest. Yang Su was surprised and asked Chen Zhen about it. The princess told the truth politely. Yang Su then summoned Deyan to come.
Xu Deyan and Princess Le Chang were finally reunited in a peculiar situation at the Lantern Festival, and the mirror was reunited! However, the two of them are mixed with sadness and joy, the mirror is round and the person can also be round? At this juncture, the two men strongly suppressed their apprehensions and sufferings.
Their love and their righteousness moved Yang Su; Yang Su “returned” his wife. Xu Deyan and Princess Le Chang, two loving and righteous couples, were able to return to their hometown in Jiangnan and end their lives in this place.
In the Tang Dynasty, Du Mu wrote a poem entitled “The Broken Mirror”, in which he sighed that his son’s beautiful wife was subjected to drifting fate and separated by clouds and mountains.
When will we meet again? Today, the autumn wind rises for ten thousand miles, and the clouds are in the north and the south of the mountain.
In the Ming Dynasty, Lu Mengyang’s “The Broken Mirror” highlights the wonderful power of the human spirit through the half-mirror, “the half-loss of the form is wonderful”, not being blocked by the broken half-mirror, but still able to accommodate all things.
It is difficult to make a circle when you are missing, but you are still bright when you are not. The half-loss of the form is wonderful, and all things can be tolerated.
Yang Su should also be moved by their wonderful universal illumination.
In the Ming dynasty, Xu Yun wrote “Broken Mirror Behavior Chen Da Fu”, with the following words.
The beauty has a precious mirror, worth a thousand gold. The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you are doing.
The first time I was scattered like a stalk, this heart is the same but no shadow. The golden knife is cut into the phoenix and the luan and the phoenix are separated, and the traces are not heard from each other for ten years.
The two of them have a piece of each other, where can we meet again in this life. I advise you not to feel sorry for yourself, there will be a time for the reunion of the gods.
The two mirrors, which “shine on the same shadow and on the same heart”, are finally reunited on the Lantern Festival! This scene depicts a wonderful love story between Princess Lechang and her husband Xu Deyan, who had love and righteousness and perseverance, and it also portrays the love picture between heaven and earth – the half-mirror is taken up to the green clouds to make up for the lack of a full moon tonight.
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