by C. T. Hsia
14. Literally, a minister in “chambers painted yellow.” During the Han, the prime minister’s chamber is called the yellow chamber. After the Han, the gates of major ministries were painted yellow.
15. People “void of treasures in their bellies” are those who possess neither intelligence nor knowledge.
16. The term “proper conscript” (zhengjun 正軍) introduces contemporary echoes. In the Yuan military system, “when two or three families combined to send forth one person [to serve in the army],” they were called units with proper conscripts (zhengjun hu 正軍戶); see Song Lian et al., Yuanshi 98.2508.
17. Han ministries had gates flanked by bronze horses. The Jade Hall is the meeting place for important ministers. “Jade Hall” and “bronze horses” become emblems for a successful official career.
18. Wo xiangzhe ruren diandao bururen 我想著儒人顛倒不如人. The pun here depends on the homophones ruren 儒人 (scholars) and ruren 如人 (as good as others). This may be an oblique reference to the low status of Confucian scholars during the Yuan.
19. The “auspicious kylin” refers of course to Qiu Hu. A special person is often referred to as kylin (sometimes translated as “unicorn”).
20. Literally, “the harmony of Qin and Jin.” During the Spring and Autumn era, Qin and Jin were two powerful states that maintained close ties for generations through matrimonial diplomacy. The phrase comes to be used as a nuptial congratulatory expression.
21. Armored soldiers leave shapes reminiscent of fish scales on the ground after lying there. This is a common idiom in Yuan drama and fiction summing up the toil and sufferings of soldiers. See the roughly contemporaneous Tales of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo zhi pinghua 三國志平話, ca. 1321): “Using the bow as pillow, the moon is pressed into the sand; / Lying in armor, scales sprout on the ground” (zhensha gong yinyue wojia di shenglin 枕沙弓印月, 臥甲地生鱗). Cited in Gu Xuejie, Yuanren zaju xuan, 206.
22. The marriage is described in the text as “the union of three” (sanhe 三合), referring presumably to the harmonious intersection of heaven, earth, and humans.
23. It was believed that if one offended the Year Star, or Jupiter, bad luck would follow.
24. A line from the poem “Song of Weicheng” (Weicheng qu 渭城曲), also titled “Sending Yuan Er on His Mission to Anxi” (Song Yuan Er shi Anxi 送元二使安西), by Wang Wei (699–759); see Wang Wei shiji jianzhu, 613.
25. Farmers in Yuan drama often introduce themselves with the following standard verse: “Acre by acre the fields stretch to distant villages; / The masters play with their grandchildren in grand homes. / Peasants have no choice but to work hard hoeing and tilling, / Thanking heaven for the gift of rain and dew” (Duanduan tianmiao jie yuancun taigong zhuangshang nong ersun nongjia zhide chubaoli daxie tiangong yuluen 段段田苗接遠村, 太公庄上弄兒孫。農家只得鋤鉋力, 答謝天公雨露恩). Here the farcical substitution of lines two and four is a typical comic gesture (dahun 打諢). “Monkeys” (husun 猢猻) and “children and grandchildren” (ersun 兒孫) are associated through the homophone sun.
26. A comic twist on the lines “The night of painted candles in the bridal chamber, / When one’s name appears in the golden roster” (Dongfang huazhuye jinbang guamingshi 洞房花燭夜, 金榜掛名時), said to represent the height of bliss for a scholar. Li, being rather uncouth, cannot hope to pass the examination and have his name on “the golden roster,” hence the substitution.
27. The story is set in the state of Lu in Accounts of Notable Women. “Lu family village” here echoes the setting in the source text.
28. Literally, “to carry clean water and take away filthy water.”
29. “The plaster on the wall” was a contemptuous term used for women in ancient China. Like the plaster on the wall, which may be redone, a wife may be replaced at will.
30. Literally, “why are you flinging the gourd and throwing the ladle”?
31. “To patch a bamboo colander” means to spend money on superfluous items when one does not even have enough money to buy food and clothing.
32. Zhang and Li are the two most common Chinese surnames. “Zhang San Li Si” 張三李四 Zhang the Third and Li the Fourth) is a stock expression meaning “anybody.” An English equivalent for the phrase would be “Tom, Dick, or Harry.” The line fits Meiying’s situation particularly well when she was urged by her parents to marry Squire Li.
33. Literally, use the “stratagem of dragging the sword”; see chap. 4, this volume, n. 62.
34. The name Yunyang has become a stock phrase for an execution ground; see this volume, chap. 1, n. 20.
35. The trope of a woman rebuffing a suitor by boasting of her husband reminds one of the Han ballad “Mulberry on the Lane” (Mo shang sang 陌上桑); see Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:259–61.
36. For simplicity’s sake, we have chosen to translate the official title zhong daifu (literally, “middle officer”) as “official.”
37. Duke Zhao ruled in the state of Lu from 540 B.C.E, to 509 B.C.E. As mentioned in chap. 1, n. 13, and in chap. 6, n. 6, this volume, it is common in Yuan plays to use posthumous honorifics in reference to living rulers.
38. What we render as “stars” are, literally, “the five elements.” The five elements are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The manner in which these elements combined was thought to determine one’s fate.
39. Here we are reading shao 稍, meaning “slightly,” to be a variation of shao 梢, meaning “tip of a branch.”
40. “Plucking flowers and playing with willows” refers to dalliance with women of easy virtue (usually prostitutes or courtesans). Meiying’s playful reference to these images is ironically followed by Qiu Hu’s very real philandering.
41. The cuckoo in Chinese is known as duyu 杜宇, a name supposedly derived from the name of the king of the state of Shu toward the end of the Zhou dynasty around the third century B.C.E. Du Yu abdicated in favor of his prime minister, who had had great success in flood control. The king then retired to the Western Mountain, where he died and was transformed into a cuckoo. The cuckoo’s plaintive call, thought to sound like the words “You’d better go home” (Buru guiqu 不如歸去), indicates the king’s misery in retirement and his longing to return.
42. Following the conceit of the cuckoo, Meiying is saying that even if she cannot urge Qiu Hu to “hasten home,” she cannot allow him to tarry and spoil her task of raising silkworms. Notice that up to this point Meiying is parrying wit with Qiu Hu and resisting his advances without being too severe.
43. The reference here presupposes men and women of virtue.
44. On the riches and rewards of pursuing studies (“endless grain,” “golden abode,” “jadelike beauty”), see “Encouragement to Study” (Quanxue pian 勸學篇) by Emperor Zhenzong of Song (968–1022; r. 997–1022). This is a rebuke to Qiu Hu, reminding him that if he pursued his Confucian studies properly, success and therefore beautiful women could come to him naturally.
45. Qiu Hu’s exclamation literally reads, “Why, she’s landed me a plate of (very salty) pickled cucumbers.” Pickled cucumbers have “extra salt” (xianyan 咸鹽); xianyan is homophonous with xianyan 閑言 (tart words).
46. The “sport of clouds and rain” (youyun zhiyu 尤雲滯雨) is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.
47. Hemp is soaked in a pit for that exclusive purpose to soften it for use in making fabric. The “paired-eye fish” (bimu yu 比目魚) is similar to a flounder or sole; it is flat, with eyes on the upper side of its body. Both the “paired-eye fish” and “trees with branches intertwining” are traditional symbols of conjugal bliss.
48. Literally, three thousand li. A Chinese li is approximately one-third mile.
49. The “wooden donkey” (mulü 木驢) was a wooden stake used as an instrument to administer cruel punishment; see chap. 1, this volume, n. 60.
50. Zeng Shen (505–435? B.C.E.) was one of Confucius’s most famous disciples. He
is reputed to have written the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao Jing 孝經), he himself being one of the twenty-four paragons of that virtue.
51. The black boots, ivory tablet, purple sash, and gold medallion are all the paraphernalia of an official.
52. The epithet “crystal pagoda” (shuijing ta 水晶塔), translated here as “handsome good-for-nothing,” describes someone whose outward appearance manifests intelligence and elegance while inwardly they are really “a block,” that is, ignorant and vulgar.
53. Meiying is quoting here a line from “There Is a Dead Deer in the Wilds” (Ye you si jun 野有死麕) in Classic of Poetry (Mao 23, Maoshi zhushu 1E.66, in Chongkan Songben shisanjing zhushu fu jiaokan ji). The probable context for this poem has been construed variously as successful or failed seduction, courtship, or marriage proposal. The last stanza (“Slowly! Gently! / Do not ruffle my kerchief! / Do not make the dog howl!”) contains the girl’s admonition, which can be interpreted as forbidding, anxious, or playful. Meiying obviously adheres to the orthodox interpretation whereby the speaker is stating a stern warning.
54. Meiying is alluding to another poem in the Classic of Poetry (Mao 48, Maoshi zhushu 3A.113–14, ibid.), “Among the Mulberries” (Sangzhong 桑中), in which “Sangzhong” and “Banks of Qi” (Qishang 淇上) are associated with the lovers’ rendezvous. The reference to “Sangzhong” is especially apt because Qiu Hu tries to seduce Meiying in the mulberry garden. All these references echo Meiying’s introduction in act 1 as one schooled in the Classic of Poetry.
55. These two lines are from the primer “Thousand-Character Essay” (Qianzi wen 千字文) by Zhou Xingsi (d. 521). While in the original the meaning is positive for both the man and the woman, Meiying is tweaking the implications of the word xiao 效, “to follow the exemplars,” and makes it sound like “to achieve the simulacrum of.”
56. Literally, “the man who catches a huge turtle” (diao’ao ke 釣鰲客), said symbolically of someone with great aspirations; see Wang Xueqi and Wang Jingzhu, Song Jin Yuan Ming Qing quci tongshi, 304–5.
57. Conventional wisdom upholds the “three principles” (sangang 三綱) of the authority of the ruler, the father, and the husband as the basis of normative relationships. “The husband defines the principle of conduct for the wife” (fu wei qi gang 夫爲妻綱)—here Meiying implicitly reverses the saying by claiming that she will define rightful conduct for her husband (qi wei fu gang 妻爲夫綱).
58. Luo Fu is the heroine in an anonymous Han ballad called “Mulberry on the Lane,” mentioned in n. 35, this chap. In the poem she thwarts the advances of a high official by telling him that her husband is also a high official (Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:259–61).
59. With this line Qiu Hu claims to be only pretending to seduce his wife so as to test her virtue. This is obviously inconsistent with the actual plot. It can thus be read as Qiu Hu’s blatant attempt to gloss over his error; but it may also be the playwright or an editor wanting to suggest such a line of reasoning that will better justify the comic reconciliation.
60. Zhenlie fu Meiying shoujie Lu daifu Qiu Hu xiqi 貞烈婦梅英守節, 魯大夫秋胡戲妻. In The Register of Ghosts, the topic is “Meiying, the Mulberry Picker, Voices Her Lament” (Caisang nü Meiying suhen 採桑女梅英訴恨), and the title is “Qiu Hu, the Sagacious Official, Tries to Seduce His Own Wife” (Xian daifu Qiu Hu xiqi 賢大夫秋胡戲妻).
ROMANTIC LOVE
9
ON HORSEBACK AND OVER THE GARDEN WALL
BAI PU
TRANSLATED BY JEROME CAVANAUGH AND WAI-YEE LI
INTRODUCTION
WAI-YEE LI
Bai Pu (1226–ca. 1295), sobriquet Renfu, was a native of Aozhou (in modern-day Shanxi). He had a more distinguished lineage than most Yuan playwrights. His father, Bai Hua, was a high official under the Jin. When the Jin capital Bianjing (Kaifeng) fell to the Mongols in 1232, Bai Hua fled with the last Jin ruler, and for some years Bai Pu was under the care of Bai Hua’s good friend, the famous poet Yuan Haowen (1190–1257). Father and son eventually reunited and settled in Zhending. Bai Pu did not hold office under the Mongols, although according to The Register of Ghosts, he was honored with various nominal official titles.
Only forty songs by Bai Pu survive from what must have been a much larger corpus. Of the sixteen plays listed under Bai Pu’s name, only three are extant. Autumn Nights for the Tang Emperor: Rain on the Parasol Trees (Tang Minghuang qiuye wutong yu 唐明皇秋夜梧桐雨) is based on the romance between the Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756) and his favorite consort, Yang Yuhuan. This story of passion cut short by dynastic crisis with its tragic end has always yielded opposing readings of cautionary critique and romantic glorification, even as Yang Yuhuan veers between her image as femme fatale and as victim. Bai Pu follows the romantic interpretation of “The Song of Lasting Sorrow” by Bai Juyi (772–846) and turns the emperor’s grief into the lyric focus of the play, although Yang also retains glimpses of a more sinister image culled from various anecdotal sources. Bai Pu’s other two extant plays, The Eastern Wall (Dong qiangji 東牆記)1 and On Horseback and Over the Garden Wall (Qiangtou mashang 牆頭馬上), share a similar romantic plot of young lovers thwarted by unyielding parents and ritual, social prescriptions; both carry echoes of The Western Chamber by Wang Shifu. In both plays, young ladies propose secret assignations in the garden and young men scale walls for rendezvous, poetic exchanges communicate longing, obliging maids act as go-betweens, and illicit sexual union is finally legitimized through the young men’s eventual success in the civil service examination and the discovery (or confirmation) of a prior arrangement for marriage made by the parents. Of these two plays, the one translated here is superior both in its more sustained dramatic conflict and its more fully fledged female protagonist, Li Qianjin.2 The full title of our play appears as Pei Shaojun On Horseback and Over the Garden Wall (Pei Shaojun qiangtou mashang 裴少俊牆頭馬上) or Missives of Love Exchanged on Horseback and Over the Garden Wall (Yuanyang jian qiangtou mashang 鴛鴦簡牆頭馬上). Pei Shaojun, the male protagonist named in the title, pales beside Li Qianjin—he succumbs easily when his father, the minister Pei Xingjian, forces him to abandon Qianjin.
Like Rain on the Parasol Trees, our play is indebted to a poem by Bai Juyi, number forty of his New Ballads (Xin yuefu 新樂府), “Drawing a Silver Pitcher from the Bottom of the Well” (Jingdi yin yinping 井底引銀瓶):3
序:止淫奔也
Preface: This is to put a stop to licentious elopement.
井底引銀甁
Draw the silver pitcher from the bottom of the well—
銀甁欲丂絲繩絕
The silver pitcher is about to come up when the silken string breaks.
石上磨玉簪
Grind the jade hairpin on the stone—
玉簪欲成中央折
The jade hairpin is about to take shape when it snaps in the middle.
甁沉簪折知奈何
The pitcher sinks, the hairpin snaps: what is to be done?
似妾今朝與君別
It’s just like the way I bid you farewell today.
憶昔在家爲女時
I remember back then when I was the daughter at home,
人言舉動有殊姿
People remarked on the surpassing grace of my every movement.
嬋娟兩鬢秋蟬翼
Charming were the two chignons like the wings of autumn cicadas,
宛轉雙蛾遠山色
Wistful were the eyebrows that evoked distant mountains.
笑隨戲伴後園中
Laughing, I would follow companions at play to the rear garden:
此時與君未相識
That was the time when I had not yet known you.
妾弄青梅凭短牆
Toying with a sprig of green plum, I leaned against the low wall;
君騎白馬傍垂楊
Astride a white horse, you were next to the weeping willow
.
牆頭馬上遙相顧
From over the wall and on horseback, our mutual gaze defied the distance.
一見知君即斷腸
One look and I knew you were heartsick.
知君斷腸共君語
Knowing you were heartsick, I talked to you;
君指南山松柏樹
You pointed to the pines on Southern Mountain.
感君松柏化為心
Moved by how the pines turned into your constant heart,
暗合雙鬟逐君去
I secretly combed two chignons into one4 and followed you.
到君家舍五六年
For five or six years I have been in your household;
君家大人頻有言
Frequent are the caustic words from your father.
聘則爲妻奔是妾
Betrothal makes one a wife; elopement turns one into a concubine
不堪主祀奉萍蘩
Not worthy of presiding at ancestral sacrifices.
終知君家不可住
I know ultimately your home is not for me to stay,
其奈出門無去處
Yet there is no place to go once I leave these gates.
豈無父母在高堂
How could I lack father and mother in exalted halls?
亦有親情滿故鄉
Further, loving kinfolk filled my hometown.
潛來更不通消息
But ever since my stealthy journey hither, all news has been cut off.