Po krivem zavržena žena

Besedilo

Po krivem zavržena žena

During the Later Han, Deng Yuanyi of Nankang had a father named Bokao, who served as Vice Director of the Imperial Secretariat. When Yuanyi returned to his native place, his wife stayed behind to attend upon her mother-in-law, serving her with the utmost care. Her mother-in-law hated her, however, and shut her in an empty room, restricting her food and drink. She grew emaciated and more wretched by the day, yet never uttered a word of resentment. Bokao, puzzled by her condition, asked about it. Yuanyi’s son Lang, then only a few years old, said, “Mother is not ill. She is only suffering from hunger.” Bokao wept and said, “Who would have thought her own mother-in-law would bring such misery upon her!” He sent her back to her family, and she remarried, becoming the wife of Hua Zhong. Zhong served as Palace Architect. One day, when his wife went out in an official carriage, Yuanyi watched her from the roadside and said to someone, “That is my former wife. She had done nothing wrong; my mother treated her with terrible cruelty. We had always held each other dear.” Her son Lang was by then a court attendant. Whenever his mother wrote to him, he never replied; whenever she sent him clothes, he burned them. His mother took no offense. Wishing to see him, she went to the hall of the Li family, relatives by marriage, and had someone summon Lang on another pretext. When Lang arrived and saw his mother, he bowed twice and wept, then rose to leave. His mother followed him and said, “I nearly died. Your family cast me out—what wrong had I done, that you should treat me this way?” From then on, their ties were severed.