Past Life Story

In the seventh year of King Yeongjo, you were born into the principal household of a Noron clan of high renown. Your house had stood for generations at the center of learning and politics, and your father served as Left State Councilor. When you were born, the clan rejoiced. The day the first daughter was born, a fortune-teller looked upon you and said, "This child shall become a star of the palace." By five you had memorized the Four Books. By seven you had learned embroidery and the arts of song and dance. Your mother was strict, and taught you all the etiquette of a yangban household. The way you sat at meals, the way you bowed, the way you spoke, the way your eyes moved—all of it was prescribed. You did not feel stifled. You knew this was your path. In your thirteenth year, you entered the palace for the first time. It was a royal banquet. Word spread that the Crown Prince had seen you. From that day your fate changed. Envoys came to your house, and after three rounds of selection, you were named the Crown Princess. In the spring of your fifteenth year, you held your wedding. Life in the palace was splendid. Yet it was also a cage. You had everything, and at the same time you had lost everything. Friends, freedom, even smiles. Each morning you adorned yourself, sat in your appointed place, and spoke your appointed words. Your true heart could be shown to no one. The Crown Prince was a good man. Yet he was as lonely as you were. The two of you often met late at night, drinking tea in silence. Within that silence lay your shared understanding. It was love, but a love that could not be expressed. The two of you had two children. In your twenty-fifth year, factional strife intensified. A rift opened between the Prince and the king, and at the heart of that rift stood you. You labored to keep balance between your father-in-law the king and your husband the prince. Yet it was not a weight a single person could bear. Each night you could not sleep. In your thirtieth year, tragedy struck. You could never forget the events of that day for the rest of your life. As a result of factional strife, your husband met a wretched fate. You were deposed. From the daughter of a noble house to the wife of a criminal. In a single moment, you lost everything. Yet you did not break. For you had your two children. After your deposition, you stayed in a private house and raised them. The silken garments of past splendor became hempen cloth, and the hands that once commanded dozens of attendants now did the laundry themselves. Yet your back remained straight. In your fortieth year, your eldest son became king. It was Jeongjo. You returned to the palace once more. Yet you returned not as the king's mother but as a single human being. There you were kind to the old servants, you did not embroil yourself in political strife, and you watched only quietly over your son's reign. In your sixty-fourth year, you departed in peace. Your final words were, "When I smile, the palace falls quiet." That was what you had upheld throughout your life. To swallow your own sorrow within and bring peace to those around you. That, you knew, was the true place of a queen. You were one who kept dignity even in tragedy. Loneliness behind splendor—that was your fate. Yet you bore that fate, and the bearing of it became a lamp that guarded an age.