She was the daughter of a woman in the lowliest class of entertainers, whose pipa playing could move mountains and rivers. He was a scion of a distinguished family, young, gifted, and handsome.
She was low as dust; he was noble as the moon.
A chance encounter at a birthday banquet drew them into a doomed romance.
They met in secret at the Temple of the Music God, fell for each other beneath the moonlight, and grew close through music.
But when their different stations stood in their way and his father's orders could not be defied, tenderness turned to blood and tears, and love became a final farewell.
Their romance across the gulf between their social standings left behind only sheet music and songbooks to weather the years,
yet it became an enduring tragic love, sung for generations by the people of Pingyang Commandery.
