Novel
兄弟如手足 妻子如衣服
“Brothers are like hands and feet; wives and children are like clothing. Torn clothes can be mended — but severed limbs can never be rejoined.”
— Liu Bei劉備
ko형제는 손발과 같고 처자는 옷과 같다. 옷은 해지면 기울 수 있으나, 손발이 끊어지면 어찌 다시 잇겠는가.
ja兄弟は手足のごとく、妻子は衣服のごとし。衣は破れれば繕えるが、手足が断たれればどうして繋ぎ直せよう。
The scene behind the words
In the novel, Zhang Fei loses Xuzhou — and Liu Bei’s family — to Lü Bu and moves to take his own life; Liu Bei wrests the sword away with these words. Pure fiction, but it distilled the oath-brotherhood’s core value so sharply it became famous. Today it is as often cited as a relic of its era’s values as an ideal.
Source: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, ch. 15