Princess and Taoist Nun
In 733, sixteen year-old Yang Yuhuan married the son of Emperor Xuanzong and Consort Wu, Li Mao the Prince of Shou. She thus carried the title of Princess of Shou. After Consort Wu died in 737, Emperor Xuanzong was greatly saddened by the death of his then-favorite concubine. Some time after that however Princess Yang somehow came into Xuanzong's favor and the emperor decided to take her as his consort. However, since Princess Yang was already the wife of his son, Emperor Xuanzong stealthily arranged her to become a Taoist nun with the tonsured name Taizhen in order to prevent criticisms that would affect his plan of making her his concubine. Yang then stayed, for a brief moment, as a Taoist nun in the palace itself, before Emperor Xuanzong made her an imperial consort after bestowing his son Li Mao a new wife. Yang hence became the favorite consort of the emperor like Consort Wu was before.
Read more about this topic: Yang Guifei
Famous quotes containing the words princess and/or nun:
“At the next town
the local princess was having a contest.
A common way for princesses to marry.
Fifty men had perished,
gargling the sea like soup.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The sight of a Black nun strikes their sentimentality; and, as I am unalterably rooted in native ground, they consider me a work of primitive art, housed in a magical color; the incarnation of civilized, anti-heathenism, and the fruit of a triumphing idea.”
—Alice Walker (b. 1944)