Wise Man Of The West (Harvill Press Editions)

by Vincent Cronin

  Back in Shiuchow, an attack on the mission house by a gang of drunken gamesters, during which Ricci was wounded on the hand by a hatchet blow, shattered the last remnants of complacency. Present methods were proving ineffective and must be revised. Anxiously Ricci began to reconsider first principles, the most important being the adoption of the role of bonzes. He broached this matter to Ch’ü, who put into words Ricci’s own experience: the mandarins considered bonzes the scum of the earth and to consort with them put immense demands on their natural pride. As bonzes they could never acquire sufficient respect to prevent ever-recurring malicious charges and open attack. Thirdly, unable to treat with the mandarins as equals, it was exceedingly difficult to win that favour which was the condition of their remaining in China. When the decision had first been taken, it was believed that bonzes enjoyed as high a status as in Japan, where they were venerated almost like Christian priests in Europe. Experience had not only proved this assumption false but seemed to invalidate the whole equation. Most bonzes, whether Taoist or Buddhist, were idolaters and magicians, noted for their vices, uneducated and recruited largely from ne’er-do-wells. When the word “foreigner” was linked with these associations, abuse and hostility were naturally aroused.

  Were there alternatives? Throw off their grey habit and be themselves, with long hair, beard and soutane? Even if such a course were not forbidden by Chinese law, experience had proved that it would be self-defeating. First, by asserting European habits they would increase the sense of challenge, dare to suggest that other kingdoms existed as equals, appear to mock ingrained national pride, and associate themselves in Chinese minds with the hated Portuguese who had already conquered Malacca and parts of India. Secondly, they would be presenting themselves under an incomprehensible form. Bonzes, merchants, ambassadors, farmers, artisans, the three ranks of graduates, mandarins—these were the accepted divisions of man; to be otherwise would be to elude classification and therefore integration in the Chinese pattern of life. Not only they but their religion would remain exotic, a local cult transplanted, which could never thrive.

  Another more daring plan had occurred to Ricci. In birth, education, manners and intelligence he and his companions most resembled the graduate class. Moreover, the doctrine of Confucius, which they professed, was in its original form monotheistic, therefore more akin to Christianity than the idolatrous form of Buddhism practised by the bonzes. Would he not be nearer the truth in equating himself to the graduate class? The struggle merely to exist in the Middle Kingdom would then be far less difficult, and the way to Peking, which led through the hierarchy of mandarins, open at last.

  But cogent reasons opposed such a change. First, Valignano had given unqualified approval to Ruggieri’s original assumption of Buddhist dress, and it was not for him to question the decision of a superior with far greater missionary experience. Secondly, if he were to criticise methods, he would in some degree be relieving himself from blame for unprecedentedly slow progress. Thirdly, the pattern often years seemed to show that they were meant to triumph through humiliation and outrage, not through the authority and respect they would command as members of the graduate class. This remained his greatest doubt: that impatience with suffering secretly prompted the plan.

  While considering this problem and waiting for advice from Valignano, Ricci brought to completion a work on which he had been engaged since 1591: the translation into Latin of the four classical books he used as a teaching manual. Although he was now familiar with five thousand out of a total of fifty thousand ideograms—the most to which even a Chinese scholar could pretend—the work presented formidable difficulties. Equivalents had to be found for numerous concepts, some unknown to the European mind, others overlapping or narrower than the obvious Latin counterparts. The Chinese Master himself had emphasised the importance of naming things correctly as a prerequisite of true thinking. Often Ricci had to master etymology. The structure of the character Hsiao showed an old man seated on the shoulders of a younger. Thus filial piety, with its notion of the son subjected to the father, was something more than pietas, and provided a valuable clue to a society which for two millennia had not changed. Obscure gnomic utterances, depending for their force on a knowledge of history and social life, had to be unravelled and presented in intelligible form. Proper names had to be phoneticised for the first time (Ricci now originated the Western rendering of the Chinese K’ung Fu-tzu—respectable master Kung—transliterating it in Latin as Confucius). Finally, the stiff style of the uninflected original had to be moulded into plastic Ciceronian Latin. This first translation of Chinese books into a European tongue remained in manuscript as a textbook for his colleagues.

  Detailed study of the Classics prepared the way for Ricci’s next work. Valignano had ordered him to compose a new catechism to take the place of Ruggieri’s which, although widely read in Japan and several times reprinted, was not only incomplete in its apologetic and refutation of idolatry, but heavy and unattractive in style. Appeal had been made to concepts which the Chinese could not accept as self-evident. Ricci decided to make his catechism lead on naturally from the first principles of the Classics, just as Christian apologetic in Europe utilised Plato and Aristotle. Christianity must justify its claim to be not a local superstition, but a universal religion based firmly on natural wisdom.

  Meanwhile Lazzaro Cattaneo, a Ligurian of thirty-four, had been appointed Ricci’s colleague in Shiuchow. Arriving in Macao in 1593, after studying the problems presented by the Chinese mission, Cattaneo had come to the same conclusion as Ricci. He had proposed the change in dress to Valignano who, in the light of Ricci’s comments and slow progress at Shiuchow, now sent orders that, as soon as convenient, the missionaries were to dress like graduates, in purple silk with a blue border, and with a square black hat. Valignano added that he took responsibility for the changes, of which he would inform both the Pope and the General. After the loss of his second colleague Ricci had asked for permission to travel north to found a new house: Shiuchow had proved a death-trap and besides, since the latest attack, people were badly disposed and seemed certain to remain so. To this plan Valignano gave unqualified approval. Ricci received these orders with the suppressed excitement he had felt on his first journey up the Western River. At forty-two it was less easy to adopt the totally different role entailed by a change of costume and scene. Against this he pitted the hope that, with the Emperor present, he might be granted a speaking part.

  Not until the following spring was it possible to effect the transformation. A high official called Shih Hsing, Vice-President at the Ministry of War, had been summoned to Peking from his home near Shiuhing. Three years before a Japanese army of three hundred thousand men had invaded Korea, for the first time using firearms against a foreign enemy. Korea, the founder of whose ruling dynasty had been invested by the first Ming Emperor, was a tributary Kingdom of China. Although Chinese troops had been sent to help the invaded country, the Japanese were advancing rapidly and had captured Seoul. In alarm, the Emperor had now placed Shih in command of a new army of eighty thousand men, for civil mandarins directed the war, with authority over the highest generals. On his way through Shiuchow Shih sent an officer with a present to the missionaries, asking one of them to visit his barge. Though only a few steps distant, he sent a beautifully caparisoned horse for his guest. Ricci decided it would be more courteous if both he and Cattaneo went. They were still dressed in ash grey cloaks, for they had decided to adopt graduate robes elsewhere than at Shiuchow.

  Ricci was astonished and excited by the Minister’s barge, an immense ironwood vessel, carved and varnished with gold, the apartments hung with silk and costly paintings. Shih, a distinguished man of middle age, a crane embroidered on his dress and a jade girdle-clasp, the insignia of highest mandarin rank, received them with every politeness, mentioning that a magistrate of the town had sung their praises. He asked about their country and its customs; what gods they adored and how they worshipped them. Only after th
ese formalities did he come to the point.

  “I have a son of twenty-two, who recently sat for his first examination. He failed and since then has been a prey to grief and shame. He has worried himself ill. I love the boy and have tried every remedy. Now I am taking him with me to Peking to see a famous doctor. I wonder whether you, with your prayers, can help him back to health.”

  Ricci made a rapid decision.

  “Your Excellency, I understand, is staying in Shiuchow only a few hours. In that time I can do nothing, but if I remain with your son some days I believe that the Lord of Heaven in His mercy may grant him peace of mind. If your Excellency is willing I should like to accompany him. On the journey we can discuss the best means of helping your son.”

  The Minister, delighted at this proposal, ordered the governor of Shiuchow to issue the necessary passport. They agreed that Shih should travel ahead while Ricci, when his baggage and documents were ready, was to join him at Nanan, the first town of Kiangsi province.

  On the following day, April the eighteenth, Ricci set out with two servants and two young Chinese catechists, John Barradas and Dominic Fernandez, sons of leading citizens of Macao who had come to live with the missionaries on probation before being admitted to the Society.

  At Nanan they overtook Shih, who provided them with one of his boats. In return, Ricci presented the Minister with a sand clock and two finely worked handkerchiefs. During the journey Ricci was often summoned to his host’s boat to describe the customs and beliefs of Europe, especially when, on their passage through a town, mandarins came on board to pay their respects. So numerous were these visits that Ricci was given no time to speak to his host’s melancholy son. Shih kept postponing their interview, and seemed to have become more interested in showing off the foreigner’s ability to quote appositely page after page of the Classics.

  Ricci was very impressed by the interior of Shih’s great boat, which he now had leisure to explore. He walked through apartments holding twelve tables and as many chairs, admiring well-appointed kitchens with capacious pantries, and high-ceilinged cabins which put those of the São Luiz to shame. Europe could boast nothing like this floating palace. It was a pity having no colleague to share his enthusiasm, but he would describe the vessel when he wrote home in the late summer.

  By day trumpets and drums, by night lanterns at the masthead, signalled a Minister’s barge, with right of way through the traffic of sampans. Along the route were stationed round-shouldered but muscular coolies. Whenever the wind fell, the fleet of boats was tracked by these gangs, retained at government expense. A tracking rope was fixed near the top of the principal mast and joined to another attached to the prow. To this main rope were fastened cords formed into loops, one of which each tracker, throwing it over his head, placed round his breast, often protected by a piece of wood. The men, who united their steps in song, were driven forward by the sting of a lash. A hundred straining trackers were required to haul the heavy state barge at the pace imparted by a breeze.

  A few hours out of Kanchow the river, receiving a tributary, grew very wide and dangerous. For twenty miles or so rocks rose up in mid-stream; from the principal hazards the whole stretch took the name of Eighteen Rapids. As they approached, the crew of the rented boat became nervous. They told Ricci that many shipwrecks occurred in those waters and that unless the pilot was very skilful, their boat might well end up on the rocks. Ricci noticed that before traversing the rapids Shih entered a pagoda on the river bank to beseech the idols for a safe passage, and concluded that in time of stress even the most rational Confucian acknowledged the supernatural. On Ricci’s boat cruder safeguards were taken. The master, holding in his hands a screeching cock and surrounded by his crew, came forward to the forecastle. Wringing the victim’s neck, the master cut off the head and threw it into the river. He consecrated the boat with the blood spurting from the body by sprinkling it upon the deck, the masts, the anchor and the doors of the cabins, and stuck upon them a few of the bird’s feathers. Several bowls of meat were then ranged in a line across the deck. The brazen drum was beaten, lighted tapers held towards heaven; papers, covered with tin or silver leaf, burned and crackers fired off in great abundance. The captain made libations to the river by emptying into it from the prow various cups of liquids, last of all throwing in a bowl of salt. The crew then fed on the meat and with less trepidation launched out into the current.

  Ricci watched Shih’s barge successfully negotiate the first two rapids. The next barge, carrying his three wives, other women, relations and children, also shot the first rapid and headed for the second, “the rapid of the celestial column.” As his own boat approached, Ricci understood the sailors’ alarm. For almost its whole width the river bed fell steeply away as though below a mill-wheel in a churning welter of foam and boulders. The pilot steered close to the bank, where water ran slower and submerged rocks were more easily detected. As they slipped safely through, disaster overtook the boat in front. A sudden eddy dashed her against mid-stream rocks: in an instant her hull was stove in and she began to sink. The river being comparatively shallow, her high forecastle was not at once submerged. On to the tilted deck clambered crew, children and tiny-footed ladies, some with babies in their arms, screaming, not for help, which none expected, but in terror.

  The sailors on Ricci’s boat became panic-stricken, for one shipwreck augured a second. Someone remembered an irregularity in the libation; others besought the captain to turn back. None gave a thought to the women perched on the bow, in danger any moment of heeling over. In the general indecision Ricci took command. Rushing to the stern, he directed the pilot to head for the shipwrecked barge and to bring his boat about as close as possible. The pilot protested that in such seething water the manœuvre was impossible, but Ricci made him attempt it. Her hull grinding against the rocks, tossed this way and that, the boat held her course to within a few yards of the wreck. A rope was thrown and the rescuing boat drew alongside. At once the terrified crew leapt on board, while Ricci crossed and helped the white-faced shrieking ladies and children to safety. The boat cast off and made for deep water.

  Shih, anxious because the second barge did not follow but unaware of the shipwreck, had anchored a mile ahead. When Ricci’s boat drew alongside, the great mandarin threw aside all dignity of office. What had happened to the other barge? Where were his wives and children? A gangplank was thrown across and the Minister lurched aboard the rescuing boat. Ricci bowed and led him into the cabin where his three silk-clad wives, still sobbing, knelt down before their master.

  Learning the full story, Shih thanked Ricci profusely and, rarest thing of all, with emotion. Since it would have been an intolerable breach of etiquette for him and his party to remain with the women, Ricci offered to travel in the wherry which acted as forerunner, indicating the route across the rapids. Shih agreed, promising to make one of his other boats ready for Ricci, and meanwhile sent back a messenger to summon another barge for his family. This arrived the same afternoon, but since it would have been improper for the ladies to show themselves, they were kept on the rescuing boat until nightfall. At the same time Ricci, with John Barradas, transferred to one of the official cargo boats.

  Next morning a strong wind sprang up. The pilot of the boat in which Ricci was travelling ordered sail taken in, but in the fast-running current his command proved unfeasible. A few minutes later a sudden gust directly abeam capsized the boat, as well as another unwieldy cargo vessel directly behind. Ricci, who had been on deck with Barradas, was thrown wide into the rapids. Recovering from the first shock, he struggled to the surface, but the swirling waters again and again forced him under, flinging his feet against a sandy bed which yielded no support, thrashing a mill-race through his throat and lungs. As he thrust out for leverage, a rope swept against him. Finding it taut he hauled himself up to regain his breath. It proved to be part of the ship’s rigging, still attached to the wreck. Presently he managed to grasp a spar wedged between rocks, then a wooden w
riting-desk swept out of the cabin. A sailor gave him a hand to regain the stern of the boat which, like the forecastle the previous day, jutted above the surface. The crew, who had reached safety, clung there jibbering, but of John Barradas there was nothing to be seen. Fearing he had been pinioned, Ricci looped a rope under his shoulders and, attaching the end to the upper part of the stern, again entered the plunging river. Now and again he stood in his depth; for the most part he was obliged to grasp the hull with one hand and edge his way along the length of the boat, looking and feeling for his friend. Another barge anchored alongside and for most of that day joined in the search. But they found not a trace of Barradas, alive or dead. The Minister, in condolence, sent Ricci a present of money to burn incense for the dead youth, a token all the more generous since most of his possessions had foundered with the other capsized ship.

  The loss of his companion, when everyone else from the three wrecks, even children in arms, had been saved, struck Ricci, half dead with exhaustion, as a sign. Providence appeared to have intervened to check a pointless journey. All that evening he wondered what to do. Only when Dominic Fernandez rejoined him and instead of lamenting Barradas’s loss gave thanks for his master’s escape, was the balance righted. He had been ordered to found another house: nothing but his own death must turn him back. He sent word to the Minister that he intended to continue the journey.

  They sailed into calmer water. At each town Ricci took bearings with a sextant and entered them for future maps. Along the route at set points provisions were provided at government expense for the whole fleet: fresh fish and meat, fruit and vegetables packed in ice, muddy local wine and clear drinking water. At the large town of Kian another high wind sprang up by night and scattered the convoy, again almost capsizing several boats. Interpreting the repeated winds as a sinister omen Shih decided to transfer to sedan chairs. He wanted to send his guest back to Shiuchow, explaining that the overland journey which only he and his family could undertake at government expense would be beyond Ricci’s means. In fact, Ricci discovered, he was becoming frightened at the prospect of introducing a foreigner to Peking in time of war. While horses and litters were being obtained for the overland journey, Ricci, who had already taken pains to conciliate the mandarin’s suite, invited Shih’s secretary to visit his boat and, producing a prism, showed him how to hold it up to the light.