HELL’S ASSESSOR: (Recites)
Good and evil we minutely differentiate on the abacus of iron:1039
Nobody past or present exits from the great wheel of retribution.
(Says)
On what business, have you descended to visit us here, immortal master?
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: I’ve come here specially to try to find the spirit of Great T’ang dynasty’s Most-prized-empress Yang Jade-bangle.
HELL’S ASSESSOR: Any palace-lady mandarin or empress has a separate dossier. Please be seated, immortal master, and wait while I bring out the registers, and look her up.
(Yang Mystery-accesser sits. Demon brings the dossier. Hell’s Assessor hands it to Yang Mystery-accesser’s spirit)
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: (Reading the dossier)
(Sings)
This is a dossier on palace ladies,
Which compiles the queens and empresses of dynasty after dynasty:
There’s one who because of Mountain-mulberry-wood Bow and Thin-reed Quiver destroyed the royal Chou Clan;1040
There’s a Hen Cock, a Wild Pheasant, who framed the imperial Liu Clan;1041
There’s a moth-antennae-eyebrowed one who fox-beguiled and caused mighty calamity to the imperial T’ang Clan;1042
(Says)
But, it’s really odd,
(Sings)
I see that there are entries for Pepper Room and Gold Chamber, all of them,
But why doesn’t Empress Yang Grand-truth’s name appear among them?
(Says)
Since she’s not in Earth Palace, I’ll be off. I must go up into Heaven and have a search for her.
(Makes a false-exit)
(Exit Hell’s Assessor, dancing, followed by demons)
(Enter two lady immortals, with banners and flags, leading Weaving-damsel in court robes and holding a fly-whisk)
WEAVING-DAMSEL: (Recites)
I lead Rainbow Banners1043 on high, to pay homage in Carmine Palace-towers head,1044 I slowly move my phoenix slippers, treading a scarlet cloud.
(Says)
I’m Heaven’s Grand-daughter, Weaving-damsel. Because I’ve just now had a morning audience in Jade Emperor’s imperial-palace, I’ve now arrived at the Gate of Heaven. There ahead of me, a Taoist adept is coming this way. Let’s see who it is.
(Enter Yang Mystery-accesser’s spirit)
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: (Sings)
Lifting up my feet, the ground I’ve only just left,
When straight up to Heaven goes my flying spirit.
(Meets Spinning Damsel) (Says)
Why, it’s Your Majesty Weaving-damsel! I, this minor Taoist, Yang Mystery-accesser, kow-tow to you.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Please don’t stand on ceremony, Mystery-accesser. What business has brought you here?
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: I’m in respectful receipt of the Great T’ang dynasty’s Grand Sublime August-emperor’s command that I seek out the spirit of Empress Yang Jade-bangle. I’ve just now come from Earth Palace, where I couldn’t find her, so I’ve flown up to Heaven expressly to look for her. To my surprise, I haven’t been able to find her up here in Heaven either, which is why I’m heading straight out again.
(Sings)
If she isn’t accompanying the Moon Goddess Constant-charmeuse, together with her after Toad Palace hankering,
She’s probably availing herself of Pair-fulfilment,1045 together by Jasper Mere appearing.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Mystery-accesser, that spirit of Jade-bangle’s is actually neither down below the ground, nor up here in Heaven.
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER: Agh,
(Sings)
You can’t mean to say that the one with the high-clear roof-beam-chasing-circling voice has suffered castigation from Heaven’s polity,
And that if I try to find that skilled dancer of Rainbow-skirt, the fair Most-prized-empress Yang,
She will instead have become that immortality-incompatible Flying-swallow naughty!
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Mystery-accesser, since you can’t find Most-prized-empress Yang anywhere, you must go your way, and report back to the emperor.
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: Milady, I can easily report back to the emperor. But I,
(Sings)
I’ve no cause to boast to the gold-bells carriage emperor,
And I set my Great Spirit in motion cleaving through the air, zigzagging like lightning bolt.
So readily I promised him I’d search high and low or the Flower Looker,1046
And blundered into undertaking to try to find the charming beauty within the Void Firmament.1047
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Whose fault but yours is it that you flaunted your ability!
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: (Sings)
It’s not that I, not minding my own business, off my own bat sought to be sent on a mission,1048
It was simply because our elderly monarch’s love stayed firm in life and death.
And he didn’t discard their old love-pledge passion.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Since her white-jade flesh had been smashed and her perfume extinguished, why still talk of love or what have you?
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: Your Majesty, don’t try to play things down.
(Sings)
I recall that day when, in wild and profuse confusion the emperor’s carriage was scattered away and transferred elsewhere,
Tumbling boiling boiling Feather Forest guards actually bellowed and rowed;
Evil so vicious, their officers furthermore arrogating authority, soldiers were arrogant.
Flames soar-soaring, behaving overbearing, they flared up, violence unleashed.
With their noising fiery squabble-squabbling, they wouldn’t heed any command of the emperor’s,
And woefully miserably wretchedly, they combined to encompass
Empress Yang’s unjust fate.
Fluttering and flap-flapping round, they roughly the twined-necks mandarin-duck and -drake tore apart,
Tearing slash-slashing, the twin-peduncled lotus-blooms they lightly tore and ripped,
Bringing it about that her dainty-pretty shy-shy wandering spirit after the cuckoo chased,
Futilely ending up crying lament-lamenting amid sad weeping and choke-sobbing of Ch’u gibbons,
Her bitter regrets vast rolling far on were on a par with high Grand Mount Hsi-hua,
Her tears unbridled-unconstrained, to such a level as to fill the blue oceans.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: By now, they’ve been cut off for a long time, he in the land of the living, she dead, and many years have rolled by, so I fear that their love-affair will have gradually faded.
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: That Grand Sublime August-emperor,
(Sings)
He’s been of utmost sincerity for months and years on end,
His beyond-telling love-yearnings to ten thousands and thousands amount.
The whole day he has her dainty-pretty facial looks engraved on his innermost heart,
Every day he forms on his lips her name fragrant.
Hearing the remnant tiny bells dangling at Sword Kiosk,
And on the tatty parasol-tree the autumn rain its sounds conveying ,
He secretly grieves, his lungs and viscera fretting,
Unboundedly he hankers after her spirit body and form chained.
As he faces her perfume-sachet, his regrets are stirred up, on and on,
As he hugs her brocade stocking to him, his tears futilely flow in ripples;
As he fondles his jade flute, he feels old repining,
As he plucks his p’i-p’a-lute, he his “broken string”1049 recalls.
When he sits, he feels forlorn and desolate,
As he yearns, his thoughts are tangled and jumbled;
When he sleeps, he’s in a blurry haze,
As he dreams, he’s all topsy-turvy tumbled.
All his heart and mind are love-addled and unchanging,
Utterly ill, how can he be cu
red!
He aches that his dainty-pretty flower will be fresh no more,
To her fragrant spirit’s arriving before him once again, he eagerly looks forward.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: The other night, my Ox Beau argued for Li Third-young-gentleman the emperor, and now, hearing what Mystery-accesser says, I see the emperor’s love’s indeed true, and he’s a man most deserving of sympathy!
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: I,
(Sings)
I most pity that the person on his mind hasn’t fulfilled her love-causality,
Which stirred the feelings of this outsider visitor me, slowly at them tugging,
And that’s why I couldn’t refuse to stumble unflaggingly to and fro,
Happy to shoulder this hardship and toil-and-moil suffering.
With alacrity, I trod all through Springs Terrace,
Then soon the Blue Sky round wearing.
Who’d have expected that the long wind would blow cutting loose the paper kite!
It was like clear-sky sunshine scattering dawn mist!
At scrubby Peach Spring, I couldn’t find one petal of that “flower’s”,
At cold Witch Mountain, I couldn’t find half, not a bit, of that “cloud’s”.
It really made me unable to fling out my sleeves in the air,
And standing stock-still on my cloud
I could only tarry with wide-staring eyes.
For all my hurry and flurry,
I couldn’t conjure forth that “picture of romance’s spring breeze”,
And couldn’t get a pinch of that famous “flower’s” state-toppling allures.
If I prove unable to get that Scarlet Countenance to re-appear,
How am I, this Yellow Hat1050 Taoist priest, to return empty-handed homewards!
(Says)
Oh Your Majesty,
(Sings)
I just wonder where her spirit in Heaven is?
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Mystery-accesser, if you really have to meet her, let me point out a place for you to go and seek her out.
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: (Kow-towing) Might I please ask you, Your Majesty: where is Empress Yang Jade-bangle now?
(Sings)
I thank you, Your Majesty, that you, do this good turn for me,
And in person convey to me news, news of the Jade-fair Lady,
So that I obtain so much core information, “the flower with root and streams with source”.1051
As to where she’s ended,
I hope you’ll bestow upon me enlightening words.
Then I’ll hastily go before her,
Not being so remiss as to linger in this place.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Mystery-accesser, haven’t you heard that beyond the world there are other worlds, and that within the mountains and rivers there are other mountains and rivers.
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: (Sings)
Hearing you say that in the mountains and rivers beyond the world,
There’s another milieu,
I just don’t know what Heaven she’s in, what Cave-paradise palace?1052
May I ask over-into what destiny she’s passed?
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Beyond that Eastern Limit1053 and Giant Ocean,1054 there’s a mountain of immortals, called Erigeron-chenopodium. If you go there, you’ll obtain news of Most-prized-empress Yang.
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER’S SPIRIT: Many thanks to you, Your Majesty, for your guidance.
(Sings)
It’s been in vain that I’ve tarried above and below,
It’s all been “north ruts and south shafts” conflicting to-do!1055
It’s turned out that she’s only cut off from me by three thousand feeble streams,
Mid ocean of the Po Sea1056 and stormy mists,
To one side of that Phoenix-unicorn Island paradise.1057
On the summits of Mounts Erigeron and High-gate.1058
There, there are hui-orchid small-holdings1059 and fomes-fungus farm-fields,1060
White deer and black gibbons.
Jewelled trees, their leaves dancing-fluttering,
Luxuriant lush the jasper plants,
Jade-green tiles and carven eaves,
Moon lodges and cloud porticos,
Towers and villas meandering,
Doors and portals one after the other lining,
Cutting off the hullabaloo of the mortal Dust world,
The dwellings of divine immortals enclosing.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Even though it’s as you say, I fear that to get there, well. it’s at the very end of the sky, straddling the ocean corner, and a long far road. You won’t be able to get there.
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER: Ah me Your Majesty,
(Sings)
Her love is bottomlessly deep, and on and on endures,
That road to Mount Erigeron is no way long, I surmise!
WEAVING-DAMSEL: In that case, be on your way.
(Recites)
I’ve further heard he’s having boundless regrets in the world of humanity, And am going to join up my loom-silk to mend their broken love-destiny.
(Exit leading lady immortals)
YANG MYSTERY-ACCESSER: I must chariot Heaven’s wind and go to the immortals’ mountain over the sea, and have a search.
(Proceeds, riding the wind)
(Sings)
Steadily treading the white cloud’s swiftness,
I cleverly avail myself of the facility of the Hard Wind,1061
And bestride the unrolling of the bowl-big Blue Sea.1062
Gazing back at Central Land,1063 China, where does she manifest herself?
Pale nine dots1064 flies the mist drizzle-drizzly.
(Says)
As I talk,
(Sings)
I’ve already come to the eighty-thousand feet peak-summit beside the East Sea:1065
This certainly is another cave-paradise of the Three Isles1066 and Ten Islands1067
I must just skirt the Pure Void and High-gate Park,
And reach the delicately wrought palaces,
Then, to find that Jade Heaven Immortal, must to the utmost employ my skills.
(Recites)
Rather than ascending the deep-blue sky1068 to invoke the spirit,1069 Who knows but it’s Mount Erigeron’s land of undying?1070 I wonder how far that’s from the mortal world?1071 Amid the Five Clouds I direct myself off towards the sea’s centre hying.1072
Act Forty-seven: Remedying woe
(Enter Weaving-damsel)
WEAVING-DAMSEL: (Sings)
In sympathy with the monarch for his ardour of love,
I search everywhere,
Expending energy on divergences,
So that I may tell that person of Erigeron Island,
Her cloud waist-pendants are invited,
To beget themselves to Star Palace-watchtowers.
(Says)
The other evening, Oxherd mentioned the vows of Yang Jade-bangle and Li Third-gentleman the emperor in Lasting-life Palace-hall, and asked me to join up their previous love-destiny for them again. Just now, outside Heaven’s Gate, I encountered Yang Mystery-accesser, a Taoist priest from the mortal world, who got talking of how the Sublime August emperor’s love-yearning for his Most-prized-empress Yang was whole-hearted and undiminished, and how the emperor had ordered him to search everywhere for her Shades spirit. Such love is truly deserving of sympathy, and I’ve directed Mystery-accesser to go to Mount Erigeron, and have further ordered my female attendants to invite Grand-truth, Yang Jade-bangle, here, to let her know about the situation, and again minutely probe her innermost feelings. She’s most likely to be arriving now.
(Enter lady immortals leading Empress Yang’s spirit)
EMPRESS YANG’S SPIRIT: (Sings)
I’ve heard that there’s a command from Fine-jade-ornamented Palace,1073
And ride my fragrant carriage amid clouds.
Forcibly driving away my sorrowful emotions, as I come up into Heaven,
I fear my eyebro
w-kohl can’t possibly cover up my bitter regrets.
(Lady immortals announce Empress Yang’s spirit. Enter Empress Yang’s spirit)
EMPRESS YANG’S SPIRIT: Your Majesty on high, I, Yang Jade-bangle kow-tow to you, coming for audience.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: Don’t stand on ceremony, Grand-truth. Please be seated.
(Empress Yang’s spirit sits)
EMPRESS YANG’S SPIRIT: Just now I received Your Majesty’s summons. I wonder what law-command you have for me?
WEAVING-DAMSEL: I’ve never in the past asked you if you might tell me in minute detail all about the love and affection that you and the T’ang dynasty’s Son of Heaven had for each other when you were alive.
EMPRESS YANG’S SPIRIT: Hear my submission, Your Majesty:
(Sings)
I sigh about when I was alive still,
The injustice and karma ill.
(Laments) (Sings)
No sooner do you mention it,
Then I choke with sobs.
It was simply because, once ignited, the “root” of love
Grew forth the sprout of love’s joy, and of cherishing the leaves.
He was fond and I adulated,
And there were between us two no separatings.
We vowed that age after age and life after life we must never abandon each other,
But unawares wretchedly and forlorn forlorn the moon fell and the blossoms were plucked,
Stealthily dark-darkly the clouds gathered in, and the rain ceased,
Bitterly, regrets on and on rolling, we just ended up severed in death, and in life cloven apart.
WEAVING-DAMSEL: (Sings)
Hearing you tell of those things about your love of old,
It seems as if the lotus-silks of love have been split apart but not cut through,
But in your life and since your death have paused or ceased,
The Play Page 38