Ljubezen, ki je premagala smrt

Besedilo

Ljubezen, ki je premagala smrt

In the reign of Qin Shihuang, there lived a man from Chang’an named Wang Daoping. In his youth, he and the daughter of Tang Shuxie, a fellow villager, whose childhood name was Fuyu, pledged to become husband and wife. Both were blessed with beauty. Before long, Daoping was conscripted for a military campaign and became stranded in the southern lands. Nine years passed without his return. Seeing that their daughter was now grown, her parents betrothed her to Liu Xiang. But she and Daoping had bound themselves by solemn vows, and she would not consent to another husband. Under her parents’ coercion, however, she had no choice but to marry Liu Xiang. For three years she lived in sorrow, thinking constantly of Daoping, until her grief and resentment grew so deep that she died of a broken heart. Three years after her death, Daoping returned home and asked the neighbors, “Where is she now?” They told him, “Her heart was set on you, but her parents forced her to marry Liu Xiang. She is dead now.” “Where is her grave?” Daoping asked. A neighbor led him there. Daoping wailed and sobbed, calling her name three times, then circled the grave in anguish, unable to restrain his grief. At last he addressed her spirit: “You and I swore before Heaven and Earth to remain faithful all our lives. How could I have foreseen that official duty would entangle me and keep us apart, leaving your parents to give you to Liu Xiang? Our first hopes were thwarted, and now life and death divide us forever. Yet if your spirit has power, let me see your face as it was in life. If you have no such power, then here we must part.” When he had finished, he lingered there, weeping once more. The young woman’s soul emerged from the grave and asked him, “Where have you come from? So long have we been parted. I vowed to be your wife and share your life to its end, but my parents forced me to marry Liu Xiang. For three years I thought of you day and night, until the sorrow bound up in my heart brought me to my death, and the dark road of the dead divided us. Yet you have not forgotten your old devotion, and have come seeking the comfort of seeing me again. My body is still unharmed, and I can return to life and be your wife once more. Hurry now: open the tomb, break open the coffin, and take me out. I shall live.” Taking her at her word, Daoping opened the tomb and reached inside to examine her. She was indeed alive. She put her clothes in order and followed him home. When her husband Liu Xiang heard of this, he was astonished and lodged a complaint with the local authorities. They searched the legal code for a ruling, but found no provision that applied, so they recorded the circumstances and submitted the case to the sovereign. He ruled that she should return to Daoping as his wife. She lived to the age of one hundred and thirty. Truly, such was the response called forth by a devotion so profound that it reached through Heaven and Earth.