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Chapter 3 The Mirror in Psychoanalytic Theory

In the theory of psychoanalysis, there are two main parts to thinking about the mirror: 1. The mirror of the classic psychoanalytic theory. In this part It mainly involves Freud's theory of narcissism, the theory of self and self-ideal, and the theory of transfer (also translated as transference) in analytical relationships. 2. Lacan’s theory of the early “mirror” stage. Let’s take a look at them separately.

1. The Mirror of Classical Psychoanalytic Theory

It should be said that when it comes to mirrors, one cannot fail to mention an important concept of Freud, as Havelock Ellis said As he said, "This tendency similar to narcissism has its normal seeds in women, and the symbol of this seed is the mirror."

Narcissism (Narcissim), according to "Spiritual A short definition from the book "Analytical Vocabulary", "According to the myth of Narcissus, it refers to a kind of love directed to the image of an individual's own self. This myth can be found in the book "Metamorphoses" by the ancient Roman poet Ordwy, and its general meaning is: The young Narcissus was very beautiful, and Echo, the goddess of mountains and forests, fell in love with him, but he refused. Finally, Echo died of haggard, and his body disappeared after death, leaving only some echoes (Echo). Then Nemesis, the god of revenge. He was so angry that he ordered Narcissus to fall in love with his own shadow in the spring. Narcissus lamented the shadow day after day, and eventually languished and died.

Freud pointed out for the first time in his works. This myth is mentioned in the article "Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood" (1910c), where he states: "As for Narcissus, according to Greek legend, he was a man who preferred his own reflection to The young man who preferred anything else became the lovely flower of the same name (narcissus). ”

As early as "Three Essays on Sexuality", Freud used it to describe the reasons for homosexual object selection. In the subsequent case of Schreber, he pointed out that narcissism is a state of self-esteem. An intermediate stage in the sexual development stage from obscenity to object love."

However, it was only in "On Narcissism: An Introduction" (1914c) that Freud began to use libido theory to analyze. The phenomenon of narcissism, and the "object libido" that focuses on the object and the "ego libido" that focuses on the self, are also the inevitable results of his many years of clinical practice. The relationship between the two is " On the one hand, the more you use it, on the other hand, you use it less." So, how did these two kinds of libido originate? What affects their distribution relationship? For Freud, the former question involves the premise of the entire narcissism theory - the instinct theory. In his view, biologically speaking, the individual is a dual existence, and the object libido involves The sexual instinct is to reproduce, while ego libido is related to the ego instinct of self-preservation. On the latter issue, Freud turned to the study of pathology. He believed that: 1. Organic diseases cause patients to withdraw their libido investment from the object to the self, and then send it out again once recovered. 2. During sleep, people also withdraw their libido investment from the object to the self, which is similar to illness. 3. In hypochondriacal symptoms, and more generally in all "true" neuroses, "hypochondriasis depends on the ego libido just as other neuroses depend on the object libido." In his opinion, just as the symptom formation of transference neurosis is related to the damming-up of object-libido, the mechanism of paranoia is that the libido released by frustration does not think of fantasy. The form is attached to the object, but withdraws into itself.

Next, through a review of his research on children's sexual desire, Freud hypothesized that "people initially have two objects-oneself and the woman who raises him. In this regard, we assume that "Everyone has primary narcissism." At the same time, he gave a general description of the differences in object selection between men and women. After puberty, women develop a certain degree of self-contentment. This type of Women are most attractive to men, because for a person who has partially recovered his narcissism and is looking for a sexual partner, the narcissism of others is more attractive.

However, Freud was not satisfied with such a simple description. He continued to analyze the type of object selection. For narcissistic people, what they love may be: 1. The past self; 2. Current self; 3. Future self; 4. People who once belonged to him. The first situation can be seen in parental love, which is nothing more than the reproduction of parental narcissism - although it appears to be an object love on the surface. Freud realized that perhaps more important here is a question about the ideal self. The individual leaves the original narcissism and restores it in an ideal form. As in the case of parental love above, he creates for himself The ideal he establishes is simply a replacement for the narcissism lost in childhood, in which he was his own ideal.

The observation of persecutory delusions, a typical symptom of paranoia, forced Freud to further think about the secondary structure of the self. He named it conscience and believed that the function of conscience Establishment is the result of an external environmental influence, first of all the result of parental criticism. This can also be seen in the censorship mechanism of dreams.

Since there is no strict distinction between the concepts of "ego-ideal" and "ideal-ego" in Freud's entire body of work, we naturally pay attention to He mentioned that the self-ideal has opened an important channel for group psychology. It imposes strict restrictions on the satisfaction of the object libido. It not only has an individual aspect, but also a social aspect. It not only limits It has become the narcissistic libido of an individual and has become the common ideal of a family, class, society, or nation.

However, we must also note that the reason why an individual leaves his narcissistic state is from two dimensions for Freud. One is due to the role of the self-ideal, and the other is due to the role of the self-ideal. On the one hand, it is due to the role of identification, which on the one hand allows the individual to leave narcissism and at the same time allows the individual to return to the state of narcissism. As Freud wrote in "Leonardo Da Vinci", "The boy suppresses his love for his mother. He puts himself in her place, identifies himself with her, and uses himself as a model to choose his child. A new object of love. … He loves the boy the way his mother loved him when he was a child, and he follows the path of narcissism to find his love object.” And identification is undoubtedly an important psychological aspect. The mechanism, the construction of the self through identification with another person, was an idea that Freud would develop in The Ego and the Other (1923b). In this book, Freud placed it under the concept of "secondary narcissism". In this way, the libido withdrawn from the object flows to the ego, forming "secondary narcissism" .

In general, in the classic Freudian theory, Freud borrowed the Greek myth about the mirror as a starting point. However, as a clinical worker with a strong background, On the one hand, he does not point to the side of the image that fully reveals the myth, but places the origin of narcissism (especially primary narcissism) in the mysterious realm of primitive sexual and self-preservation instincts; on the other hand, in the second In Toby's theory, he keenly noticed the dimension of identity regarding the origin of self and superego, but failed to elaborate in detail.

It was not until more than ten years later that such issues attracted the attention of another psychoanalyst with an academic religious background and a very different style - Lacan.

2. The Mirror in Lacan’s Psychoanalytic Theory

As Lacan mentioned in an article dedicated to introducing his academic experience, “I think that in the subject There was something that responded to the display mechanism... which led to some misunderstandings. There was a theory of self that was addicted to this illusion.

"This is wrong, because what is involved in this article is only the theory of identity and nothing else."

It can be said that it is no accident that Lacan proposed "return to Freud" , before we begin to read that important document on the mirror stage, perhaps we can see clues to Lacan's thought in Freud's seminars on technology from 1953 to 1953, in the work entitled "Two Kinds of In the article "Narcissism", he commented that "drive theory is not at the bottom of the theoretical construct, but at the top. It is unusually abstract, and Freud later called it our mythology. "For Lacan, this theory is no different from Weismann's germ-plasm theory. So, along this line of thought, where will the theory of instinct go? Lacan believes that the reproduction of race is not only It is just the emergence of individuals, but the transmission of a type, that is to say, "not this or which horse, but precisely Horse". This type is also the horse. Kahn wanted to label what he called the image. "Thus, the mechanism of the sexual instinct is essentially embodied in the relationship with the image - that is, the imaginary world." In Lacan's article on the "mirror stage", he embodied this idea. It all stemmed from some empirical facts-the clinical experience of paranoia and Lacan's observation of a phenomenon in children. He described the infant self The process of forming consciousness. First, the baby's body is in a state of disharmony. The baby's nervous system is not yet mature and cannot control its limbs at will, nor can it control and coordinate other parts of its body. The experience of a "broken" or "split" body undoubtedly leaves a deep imprint on the infant's psyche, so much so that this experience and the image of the "broken body" will appear in dreams in adulthood. < /p>

But when he was six months old, he proved the correspondence between the image in the mirror and himself during play. He showed a fascination with the image in the mirror and tried to get closer to the image in the mirror. This period lasts until about eighteen months and becomes a landmark stage in his spiritual life.

It is worth noting that Lacan associated this phenomenon with identity and ideals. The image seen in the mirror does not completely match his own actual experience. The image in the mirror needs to be explained. It can be regarded as the initial expression of "I" and a goal he strives to achieve. Lacan described the above process: "In this mode, I advance into a primary form. Later, in the dialectical relationship of the identification process of others, I am objectified; later, language is Establish for me the subject function in universality. ”

Finally, he concluded:

“This development is like a dialectic that projects the history of the emerging individual into the world: the mirror stage develops rapidly from insufficiency to anticipation. The drama of inner impulse is the drama of fantasy that falls into the trap of spatial identification. These fantasies connect the broken image of the body to the orthopedic form of the whole we call it, and to the protective mechanisms determined by alienated identity. These fantasies will also mark the entire spiritual development by their solidified structure. Likewise, the break in the circuit from the inner world to the outer environment arises from endless and unsolvable problems that glue themselves together. ”

In addition, in Lacan’s first seminar, in order to introduce the world of imagination, Lacan put forward some models and thinking about mirrors. Lacan drew from Freud’s several articles on technology The article introduces the theme of resistance and defense, criticizes the American ego school and Anna Freud's over-emphasis on the self, and then introduces some of his thoughts on the imaginary world, which are related to his thoughts on mirrors and mirror stages. It is also linked to his thinking about the self as an essential concept in Freud's later Second Toby Theory

In the second part of the seminar, which is entitled. In the first article of the same name in the section on the theme of the imaginary, just as Freud repeatedly adopted the topographical model in his theory, Lacan asks us to try to adopt the optical model and first make a meditation on it. . He noted that “As I often emphasize, the mirror stage is not simply a moment in development.

It also has a representative function, because it reveals some relationships between the subject and his image." "Optical images have a unique diversity - some are purely subjective, and these we call virtual, Others are real, that is, in some respects, behave like objects." "Some things are indeed more surprising. Optics is based on mathematical theory, without which it cannot be constructed at all. For every given point in real space, there must be a corresponding point in another space. This space is an imaginary space. This is the most basic assumption."

Next, Lacan mentioned that even in those optical phenomena that we think are completely real, subjectivity is involved at every moment. He gave the example of the rainbow. The rainbow is a subjective phenomenon, but with the help of a camera, we can see it. It records objectively, what is subjective? What is objective?

He said, "In order to clarify something for you, I have made it clear for you. I made up a small model, a model that serves as a substitute for the mirror stage"

Such a nearly hemispherical mirror produces a real image. As shown in the figure, place an empty box with its mouth facing the mirror. Above is a vase, below is a bouquet of flowers. As a result, we do not see real flowers, but a unique imaginary flower.

For Lacan, in this little scene. In the small model, it is the small details (vases and bouquets) that seduced him. He believes that if there is any psychoanalytic thought in the initial stage of self-formation, it is the concept of container and contained. Say, this is what is contained in the precious metaphor of vase and bouquet.

Lacan insists that the essence of the mirror stage is that the unique viewing of the entire body gives the subject an imagination of the body. A mastery that is precocious for a true mastery.

“This is an original adventure through which, for the first time, man has the experience and reflection of seeing himself. The experience of oneself, of oneself as something other than himself—a fundamental human dimension that completely structures his fantasy life. "

Lacan goes on to state that, in the beginning, we assume that there are other selves, objects, desires, tendencies, etc., all chaotic and original. "Here the image of the body gives the subject "The image of the body, if we locate it in our schemata, is like an imaginary vase containing a real bouquet." ”.

Lacan emphasized that, of course, the eye must be within the cone in the picture. If it is not in this cone, nothing imaginable can be seen. And the mirror here, he believes, represents the cortex .

"The eye here is usually a symbol of the subject"

"The whole science is based on reducing the subject to one eye", "And in life. , is completely different, then, because we are not an eye, then, what does this mean? "It means that in the relationship between the imaginary world and the real world, and in the constitution of the world that comes like that, everything depends on the position of the subject." "And the position of the subject should be known. I have been thinking about it for a long time." is repeated - essentially characterized by its position in the symbolic world." It can be seen that Lacan here connects this schema with the symbolic world by emphasizing the position of the subject. - As Mr. Abibon also mentioned in his recent lecture

In a subsequent article called Two Kinds of Narcissism, Lacan introduced a diagram of the beginning in order to begin. Supplementary, what do we think we see in this mirror game? He said that as long as there is a plane mirror in the middle of this house (it seems to refer to the area within the dotted circle here), our eyes will At a certain point, we see the illusion of the overturned vase, as if it were on the other side of the house. In other words, what do we see in the mirror? First, our own face. Second, we see the virtual image of the vase as a real image. In short, to understand this, we can go home ourselves, stand in front of a mirror, and hold our hands out in front of us...

"There are two kinds of narcissistic problems that have been mentioned, namely - the relationship between the constitution of reality and the connection between the form of the body.

"Lacan says, first of all, that there is a narcissism associated with a tangible image that corresponds to the whole constitution of the subject and gives form to his environment. "The original narcissism will appear in the reality of my schema. "is found on the level of the world", Lacan continues, for humans and animals it is different, "for the animal there is only a limited pre-establishment between the structures of its imagination and those things in the objective world that attract it "In humans, on the contrary, the reflection in the mirror indicates a primary intellectual possibility and introduces a secondary narcissism whose basic model is the relationship with the other." .

For Lacan, this secondary narcissism seems to be connected with the ideal of the self proposed by Freud. He said that "the other, this other self, differs according to the stage of life. , more or less confused with the self-ideal." And the "narcissistic identification in secondary narcissism is the identification with the other. Under normal circumstances, it enables a person to accurately position his imagination with the world. "The connection with libido", we can also see this in the psychoanalytic entry Narcissism. At the end of this paragraph, Lacan even said clearly, "The subject is in the reflection of the relationship with the other. To see one's own existence, that is, in the reflection of the relationship with the self-ideal." In words, we see both sides of the self-function - "On the one hand, they provide us with a fundamental role in the structure of reality, as as they do for all other living beings", on the other hand, "in humans they have to undergo a fundamental alienation constituted by their own image".

In what is called the self-ideal In the first part of the article about the ideal self, Dr. Leclaire mentioned the concepts of the ideal self and the self-ideal when reading Freud's article on narcissism, and emphasized that Freud believed that during the development of the self, experience He believes that the transfer of libido to the ideal has two aspects - one is the transfer to an image of the self, and the other is a transfer of libido to the ideal. The image of the self, on the other hand, is transferred to an ideal of the self. It is not difficult to see that in his discussion, in other words, there is also much in Freud's own concepts of the self-ideal and the ideal self. The ambiguity can also be seen in the two entries of self-ideal and ideal self in psychoanalysis.

Lacan pointed out that here, Leclaire mentioned the function and function of images. In order to try to make it clearer, Lacan returned to the above diagram again on the question of the function of what he called the ideal.

Lacan first examined animals, and he found that in animals. , it is the release of the cycle of sexual behavior that is controlled by images. In fact, the attachment of each object to other objects is generated by the narcissistic fixation on the image, which explains why in most cases in the biological world. Sexual behavior can only occur within the same species. On the one hand, in the animal kingdom, sexual behavior is controlled by the imagination. On the other hand, in sexual behavior, we find the greatest possibility of substitution, that is, if Using a temptation, a false image, can also produce a sexual response.

What about people here? This image can be what we call the ideal self.

Regarding the previous schema, Lacan reiterated that the reality produced by the spherical mirror can be inserted into the world of real objects and be adapted as real objects. This explains what happens in the animal, which takes with it an internal image of itself to obtain a real object. In the previous diagram, we placed the subject on the edge of the spherical mirror. Therefore, we can replace the subject (S) with a virtual subject (VS) and place it on the cone (x'y') where the virtual image can be seen. )Inside. Lacan said that this device shows that even at a point very close to the real image, people regard it as a virtual image in the mirror.

What do these mean? The virtual subject, that is to say, it is in the other that we see our selves for the first time—outside of us, in human form. Lacan once again emphasized that whether the subject sees the image clearly, completely, and continuously depends on his positional relationship with the real image, and also depends on the curvature of the plane mirror. Lacan believes that the latter is determined by the voice of the other and the symbolic relationship between people. In other words, it is the symbolic relationship that defines the viewing position of the subject.

In order to adjust our position in the imaginary world, we must rely on something in the symbolic world. Here, according to Lacan, it may be the self-ideal.

Chapter 4 Mirrors in Ancient Chinese Novels

1. A brief explanation of "lin", "supervision", "jian" and "mirror"

" Lin" "Shuowen Jiezi" explains it as "lin, Jianye, Congwo, Pinsheng" and the word "wo" is explained in Shuowen as "Fuye, from Renchen." And Guo Moruo said: "Xu Shuyun: 'The minister, the leader, serves the king; it looks like the shape of submission.' ... (A) It looks like the shape of an upright eye. When a person's head is bent down, the eyes are upright, so 'like the shape of submission' This is probably the case." This explanation is very reasonable. It shows that "Lin" at least means looking down. The "Hanyu Dictionary" says..., at the same time, from the form of this character, it can be said...

"Jian" "Shuowen Jiezi" explains it as "Jian, Linxiaye", and the paragraph notes: "Jian means to monitor, and Jian means to come down. The ancient words are few but have comprehensive meanings, while the modern words are many but have different meanings. Jian and Jian are false to each other." From this we can at least see that "prison" is an action of looking down. So what are we looking at? Judging from the shape of the oracle bones and gold inscriptions of the word "Jian", it depicts a kneeling or standing person next to the water basin, looking down at his appearance with his eyes wide open. "Three Things" also mentioned: "The ancients used water as a prison, that is, they used a basin to hold water and take care of their appearance. This kind of water basin is called a prison, and it is made of copper as a mirror. The prison itself is like a person standing in a water basin. "The shape of looking down from the side." "Mirror" "Shuowen" interprets it as "mirror, scene", and Duan notes: "Jing, light. Gold has light that can illuminate things, so it is called a mirror." The rhyme is "Jian". "Jing" is also called "Jian", which is a double-tone character. It is a pictophonetic character with a later origin, and can be borrowed from each other with "jian" and "jian".

In addition, archaeological evidence shows that mirrors have a long history in China. As early as the Qijia Culture in the late Neolithic Age, there were bronze mirrors. By the Warring States Period, the number soared, and by the Han Dynasty In the Tang Dynasty, bronze mirrors reached their peak. It is conceivable that before the invention of bronze mirrors, people first saw their own shapes in rivers, lakes, seas and even small puddles. However, this required that the water surface must be calm and that the water must be clean. Restricted by many factors, people later discovered that using vessels to hold water could achieve better results. By the Bronze Age, people gradually discovered that the polished metal surface could also show the effect of water surface imaging, so the bronze surface was polished smooth. Made into bronze mirror. The Oriental bronze mirror system is represented by the Chinese round buttoned bronze mirror. Although square mirrors, flower-shaped mirrors, and handle mirrors have appeared in Chinese bronze mirrors in different periods, round buttoned mirrors have always been an important form of bronze mirrors and are also the main characteristics of Chinese bronze mirrors. Mr. Liang Shangchun once arranged the origin and development process of ancient Chinese bronze mirrors in the "General Introduction to the Study of Ancient Mirrors" as follows: "Still water - still water in the basin - light mirror without water - smooth copper sheet - Adding buttons on the back of the copper sheet - plain back mirror - adding color painting on the plain surface - adding painted patterns and casting patterns - adding casting inscriptions. "This evolution process is of course intended to understand the ancient Chinese novels in a larger context. Mirror, this can also be seen in the simple explanation of several ancient texts above.

However, the purpose of this article is not to simply understand the mirror itself and its use as a daily necessities, religious artifacts, etc., but to try to understand the unconscious role of mirrors in Chinese people through the mirror images that appear in ancient Chinese novels. Functions and people’s various imaginations about mirrors.

So, what are the ancient Chinese novels mentioned here?

2. What is "novel"

Mirror is a common image in Chinese classical literature. It is widely seen in classics, historical books, poems, lyrics, songs, poems, novels and other literary styles. , it is not easy to completely sort out, so the author will only limit the scope to some mirror images in ancient novels. What is a novel? Mr. Lu Xun mentioned in his early work "A Brief History of Chinese Novels":

The name of novels was once seen in Zhuang Zhou's saying that "it is a novel to serve as a county magistrate." However, in reality, it is a trivial statement. It is not about Taoism, and it is definitely different from the so-called novelists later. Huan Tan said, "The novelist combined Can Cong Xiaoyu and used recent metaphors to write a short book to manage the body and family. There are considerable words." Shiruo is similar to later novels.

In order to trace the origin of novels, he investigated the investigation of novels by historians in the past dynasties, and believed that "the flow of novelists is due to officials, street talk, and hearsay.

"At the same time, he also referred to the words in "Summary of the General Catalog of Sikuquanshu" and believed that there are three schools of novels: one describes miscellaneous things, one records anecdotes, and one is filled with trivial words. And "after the Tang and Song Dynasties, the number of authors became more numerous, There are many false accusations and false accusations in the middle, and there are many people who listen to them. However, those who contain warnings, have extensive knowledge, and are qualified for research have also made mistakes. ” Therefore, for Lu Xun, the so-called literary genres such as zhiguai, legend, imitative script, history, plain talk, romance and so on are all included in this list.

I generally follow the above definition of novel, but Due to the limitations of the reference books at hand, and the inability to read through some large novel collections, I only put the materials in the "Zibu Novelist Category" in "Sikuquanshu", and occasionally quoted some from similar books or poetry and music. The materials of the poem are based on extensive knowledge, and some materials from classics or historical books are used to illustrate some specific mirror images.

In order to sort out such a wide range of materials, the author will generally divide them into Tang Dynasty according to the era. There are two parts: novels before the Song Dynasty and novels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and attempts to make a typological arrangement of the materials.

3. Mirrors of the novels from the Tang and Song dynasties and before.

< p>According to many authors, the first novel with a mirror as the protagonist and a considerable length should be "The Ancient Mirror" written by Wang Du during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. In the "Sikuquanshu", this article was collected separately In "Jibu·Sui Wenji·Volume 8" and "Zibu·Shuoyun·Volume 14", the appearance of the ancient mirror is used as a clue to tell the story of twelve strange traces of the ancient mirror. Among them, we can see. A reflection of the basic characteristics of a mirror:

1a. The luster of the mirror should match the sunlight. When I was getting dressed, I looked out of the mirror and realized that the mirror was dim and had no color. It is made of precious mirrors, which perfectly match the beauty of the yin and sun scenery. Otherwise, how can it be that the sun has rays and the precious mirror has no light? Feeling strange. The brilliance is shining out, and the sun is getting brighter. As time goes by, the mirror remains as clear as before. "

1b. On the other hand, in this novel we can also see the connection between mirrors, the moon and moonlight.

"There are dozens of good and bad people in his family. For those who were ill, I took this mirror into their homes and asked the dragon colt to hold the mirror to shine at night. When all the sick people saw the mirror, they were all frightened. They saw the dragon colt holding it for a month to look at it. As far as the time went, it was like water covering the body. The cold penetrates the internal organs, and the heat calms down in time, and it heals at dawn."

This is probably related to an early mysterious function of the mirror. There is such a passage in "Yi Jing Meng Yin": < /p>

“Get fire with a flint, put the bright fire in the sun, and draw the bright water in the moon, for the purpose of offering sacrifices. ”

But considering the evolution of mirrors, there was a stage where the still water in the basin was used as a mirror, so this connection is not surprising. In addition, in ancient China, there was a mirror-like instrument called " "Yang Sui". In modern terms, it is actually a concave mirror used to draw fire. "Book of Rites of Zhou" says:

"With the sun, the essence of the sun is used to draw fire from the sun. Hence the name 'Yang Sui', which means taking fire from wood is called 'Mu Sui'. "

Ancient classics often use the word "water mirror" together. There is a famous riddle in the ancient Yuefu: "Where is the anvil now? There are mountains on the mountain. Why should it be a big knife head? The broken mirror flies up to the sky." , the "broken mirror flying to the sky" refers to the half-moon.

Secondly, the shape of the mirror (mostly round) symbolizes the yin and yang of heaven and earth, which is the concept of yin and yang in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, so it was later adopted by Taoism. This theme is often used in the decoration of mirrors.

Therefore, it is natural to use this property of mirrors to treat fever.

Of course, due to the characteristics of mirrors, they can reflect light. , sometimes it also has other uses. For example, in Volume 283 of Taiping Guangji, there is one of them under the Alai article:

"In the heyday of the common people in Tang Wei, they were so tired of victory that they would faint. The mirror shines on people and makes them confused. "

The second volume of the sequel to Guixin Miscellaneous Knowledge written by Song Zhoumi has another kind of writing:

"In this world, there are large coffins and the coffin lid is hung with a mirror to reflect the corpse. It is often said that Take the meaning of light and darkness. According to the biography of Huo Guang in the Han Dynasty, Dongyuan was given to him after Guang's death. Wen Mingfu Qian said: "There is a secret vessel in the east garden. Put a mirror in it and hang it on the corpse." ’ But it’s still coming. ”

1c. Due to the large number of magical mirrors appearing in ancient novels, sometimes in order to describe this feature, the author describes the mirror as being able to shine and having a stronger luster than other treasures. For example:

"(The treasure mirror) is placed on the side of the seat, and the light shines on the mirror, illuminating the room. They look at each other like daylight, and the sword lies across the side, no longer shining."

Of course, we cannot forget another original function of the mirror - identification (face).

This has resulted in countless metaphors. Such examples abound in historical records. The most famous of them is a passage by Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty:

Taizong of the Tang Dynasty Yu Fang Liang Gong He said: Using copper as a mirror, you can straighten your clothes; using ancient times as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall; using people as a mirror, you can know gains and losses; I have tasted these three mirrors to guard against my own mistakes. Now that Wei Zheng has passed away, one mirror has died.

Of course, what needs to be distinguished is that when it comes to identification, sometimes we use the mirror to look at ourselves, and sometimes we use the mirror to look at other things. We can think of the former as:

2a. A mirror that shows one's own image (identification)

Because of the identification function of the mirror, people often use such reflections to allow us to see the true self. The image can play a role in reminding or warning us.

Some mirrors in ancient Chinese novels can reflect the internal organs and thus be used to treat diseases. They are similar to modern "X-ray machines". For example, Volume 1 of "Miscellaneous Notes of Xijing" compiled by Ge Hong of the Jin Dynasty mentioned such a mirror:

A square mirror is four feet wide, five feet in diameter, and nine inches in diameter. See, if you touch the heart with your hands, you will see that the five internal organs of the intestines and stomach are all clear and intact. If a person has a disease, cover the heart and shine it, and you will know where the disease is. If a woman has an evil heart, her heart will be agitated. Qin Shihuang often used it to shine on people in the palace. Those who dare to do so will be killed.

Interestingly, this magical mirror is associated with Qin Shihuang, the first emperor in Chinese history. This is even more so in Volume 10 of "Youyang Zazu" written by Duan Chengshi of the Tang Dynasty