Literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages - Summary - 2019

Biography In-in
Yuan Zhen (779-831)

Not so long ago a student named Zhang, a young man of rare qualities, with a sophisticated soul lived. He was already thirty-three years old, and he still had no beloved. When friends saw his modesty, he said in response that he simply did not meet as long as the one who would respond to his feelings.

One day in the city of Pu he accidentally met his long relative. It turned out that he and his son and girl had fled from a soldier's rebellion that had happened in their lands, and hid in Pu. Zhang managed to make friends through the friends so that near the house of the unfortunate fugitives arranged the guard - his relatives were afraid of losing their good. In gratitude, Aunt Foster arranged for Zhang a reception on which she presented her children.

The girl only seventeen spring has passed. She was so extraordinarily good, good-humored, that in modest clothes, without a lush haircut, the young man's heart was wounded. Zhang thought long enough how to open her feelings to her, and decided to trust Khun-nyan's servant, but she was embarrassed, and only something lamented about sobbing.

And Zhang at the thought of how long the marriage stretches, he went straight back to mind. Then, on the advice of the maid, he wrote a poem to the girl. Soon came the answer, which seemed to be a favorite invitation to a date. At night, he burst into the peace of the girl, but met with her a sharp rebuke.

For several days he walked like a murderer. But somehow at night, In-in (that was the name of a girl) she came to him, and from that time they betrayed the secret of love. In-in, although it was the very perfection, kept modest, rarely spoke the word, and even the tsiter was ashamed to play, it's time to go to Zhang to the capital. Ying-i did not reproach his beloved, only for the first time he took a zither with him and played a sorry melody, and then he burst into tears and ran away.

At the exams in the capital, Zhang failed, but he decided not to return home. He wrote a letter of love and received a reply. In-in wrote about his eternal love and great disgrace. She did not hope for a meeting and sent Zhash into the memory of herself a jasper bracelet, for the jasper is firm and clean, and the bracelet has neither beginning nor end; a bamboo mortar that kept traces of her tears, and a cloth of tangled silk is a sign of her confused feelings.

The letter of In-In has become known to some of Zhang's friends. They questioned him about what had happened, and he explained that women have been a source of disasters for centuries. He allegedly would not have had enough virtues to overcome destructive enchantments, so he overcame his feelings.

In-in married, married Zhang. The last greetings from her were in verses and ended with the lines: "The love that you gave me, / Give your young wife."