At the end of Southern and Northern Dynasties (AD 420–589), there lived a loving couple, princess Le Chang and her husband Xu De Yan, in the southern Dynasty Chen. The princess was beautiful and intelligent, and Xu De Yan was a handsome, young scholar. They lived happily until Chen was invaded by the northern Dynasty Sui.
Seeing there was little chance to save his state from imminent danger, Xu De Yan had an ominous premonition that he and his wife would be separated and could not see each other any mor because they both were the royal members of the Chen Court, the wanted persons of Sui. The princess too had the same bad feeling. So they broke a bronze mirror into two pieces, a symbol of the unity of husband and wife into two parts and each of them kept a half. They reached an agreement that if God would help them survive all the perils, they would take their own half of the mirror to the fair during the Lantern Festival, which is on the 15th day of the first Lunar month, in the hope to meet again.
Their nightmare came true, when the troops of Sui entered the Chen capital, Jian kang. Princess Le Chang and Xu De Yan got separated on their way of escaping, although they had tried thier best to stick together.
With a broken heart Xu De Yan limped back to his hometown and stayed there with the hope that his wife would come someday. However, day after day, the princess did show up, and all accompanying him were the the broken mirror and the endless longing for her. Finally, he made up his mind to go to look for her even if he knew it might get himself arrested or even killed.
He traveled northwest to Da Xing (大兴, present day Xi An city 西安市 in Shan Xi province), since he had heard that the Sui authority had transported many captured palace maids from Chen to there. At the Lantern Festival the next year, Xu De Yan, as he had promised in the agreement with his wife, took his half of the mirror to the fair in which he walked to and fro, tring to spot her presence in the crowd. As he rounded a street corner, he saw a group of people watching an old man selling a broken mirror.
"A broken bronze mirror for 100 pieces of gold." the old man hawled.
Xu De Yan was shocked and surprised to see the broken mirror in the old man's hand was nothing but his wife's half. Unconscious tears soon rained down his cheeks. Taking out his half of the mirror, making his way through the crowd, grabbing the other half from the old man, he found the broken mirror perfectly joined together in his hands.
In a quiet teahouse, the old man, a servant of Yang Su a high official of Sui, told Xu De Yan that the princess Le Chang had been forced to remarry to his master as a concubine after being captured, and it was her who asked him to sell the broken mirror for 100 pieces of gold in the market.
"I know your story," the kind old man added, "and would love to relay a message for you."
Xu De Yan's heart broke again, as he knew that though his wife was still alive, it was nearly impossible for him to see her again, not to mention reuniting with her. His words being choked by tears, he wrote a poem on the back of his wife's half mirror:
You went away with the broken mirror,
Now the mirror is back but you are still missing.
Your pretty reflection is no longer in the mirror for ever,
Only the bright moon accompanies my yearning.
The old man brought back the inscribed half of the mirror to princess Le
Chang. For days, her sad heart had been tortured by the unending
yearning and despair, and thus she, tried hard, but was unable to stop
sobbing and had an apathy to food, which inevitably cause everyone in
the house to notice that she was different from usual.
Fortunately, her new husband, Yang Su, was a generous man. After finding this out, he was also deeply moved by their true love and realized it was impossible to get her heart. So despite of the fact he liked her very much, he allowed princess Le Chang and Xu De Yan to go back to Chen together and financed them to settle down.
Finally, the couple reunited and lived happily ever after.
Background and Writer Comment:
This Chinese love story is from "Story Poems--Feeling "(《本事诗·情感》), a story collection book of Meng Qi (孟棨, a Chinese Writer and poet in Tang Dynasty).This story produced an idiom, that is, "A Broken Mirror Joined Together" (破镜重圆, pò jìng chóng yuán), which is now used to describe the reunion of husband and wife separated by some reason.
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