破鏡重圓

make up

破鏡重圓

In the Northern and Southern Dynasties (南北朝,420-589AD) when the State of Chen (陳國) was facing its demise, Xu Deyan (徐德言), husband of the princess, broke a bronze mirror into halves.

南朝的陳國將要滅亡的時候，駙馬徐德言把一面銅鏡破開。

Each of them kept a half as tokens in case they were separated.

他跟妻子各留下一半。

Soon afterwards, they did lose touch with each other, but the two halves of the mirror enabled them to be reunited.

后來，夫妻二人真的失散了，憑借著各人留下的半面鏡子，他們最終又得到團圓。

This idiom is used to refer to the reunion of a couple after they lose touch or break up.

“破鏡重圓”這個成語比喻夫妻失散或分離后重新團聚。

【文化鏈接】

現(xiàn)在我們大多用成語“破鏡重圓”來表達“分開或決裂后和好”的意思，英文中相應的我們可以使用“make up”這個短語，"make up"不但可以表示“化妝”，也可以用來表達“夫妻或者情侶分手后重歸于好、破鏡重圓“的意思。

同時，英文中“break up”的意思是“分手，決裂”，所以“break up”與“make up”可以說是一對反義詞，有一首歌的名字就叫做“Break Up To Make Up”(《從分手到和好》)。