Lament at Long Gate Palace

Summary

Disclaimer: This is a translation of 6the Chinese novel 长门怨 by Qiao Xi/乔夕 and not my own work.

Translated by: Catharcity
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A long time later, I began to understand the value of a golden palace.

If Wei Zifu loved you, then her story could only have ended the way mine did.

People often said that the limits of love lay in one’s ability to endure – to endure the fact that the man we loved would have three wives and four concubines.

Wei Zifu managed to tolerate. So, she accompanied you by your side for thirty-eight years.

She could accomplish this because she did not love you.

All along, what she wanted was never love.

If, from the beginning, all I wanted was only the precious throne belonging to an Empress, perhaps I would not have lost you as quickly as I had.

Notes:

This novel narrates the true story between Emperor Han Wudi (Liu Che) and his first wife, the deposed Empress Chen Jiao. Their story has been encapsulated into a chinese idiom called “金屋藏娇” (jīn wū cáng jiāo), which literally means ‘putting (Chen) Jiao into a golden house’.

This saying originated when, in his childhood, the Emperor Han Wudi declared that if he could marry his beautiful elder cousin, Chen Jiao, as his wife, he would treasure her with all his heart to the extent of building her a golden palace to live in. Later, though Han Wudi married Chen Jiao, she eventually lost his favour. After being accused of dabbling in witchcraft, she was deposed.

Although Chen Jiao was often portrayed as a jealous Empress, this novel attempts to view history from her perspective.

Changmen Palace, literally translated, means Long Gate Palace.