by C. T. Hsia
Indeed at the time, united in heart and mind,
We were already inseparable like fish and water.
DRAGON KING: You, young man, who gave you those magical treasures?
ZHANG: Poor scholar that I am, how could I obtain such treasures? After I pursued your daughter to the seashore, I happened to meet an immortal Daoist priestess who gave them to me.
DRAGON KING: You almost killed me with the heat! I see that the whole affair was provoked by my daughter.
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Wild Geese Alight]
Who could have known that from this fire sole-mates emerge,66
From inside the rock precious jade is uncovered.
At the edge of the sky are birds sharing wings,
On earth are grown trees with intertwining trunks.
ZHANG: Without the magic treasures of the immortal, how could we have been united?
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Victory Song]
You undertook to smelt your lead and mercury till all runs dry—
Didn’t you know that water cannot last where there is fire?67
You could have turned the great sea into swirling dust,
As you boiled the Eastern Ocean with leaping flames.
In fusing us together as man and wife, your divine magic
Has nearly burned my family to death.
(IMMORTAL OF DONGHUA enters.)
IMMORTAL: Dragon Spirit, heed my instructions.
(DRAGON KING, ZHANG YU, and QIONGLIAN kneel.)
Dragon Spirit, scholar Zhang is not your son-in-law and Qionglian is not your daughter. In their former lives those two were Golden Lad and Jade Maiden of the Jasper Pool, but because they once harbored mortal passions, they were banished to the lower world. Having paid their karmic debt, they should quickly leave your sea palace and return to the Jasper Pool. Together they will confirm former ties and return to their positions as immortals.
(All give thanks.)
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Buy Good Wine]
After we bid farewell to Dragon Palace and depart from the Sea Kingdom,
We shall ascend azure vastness and head for the avenues of clouds.
You and I together will meet the Sacred Mother at the Western Pool.
How much better that will be, oh my scholar, than leaping over Dragon Gate,
Breaking off a branch of the cassia, and following after the lunar toad!68
IMMORTAL: How could the two of you return to the Immortal Realm at the Jasper Pool had I not come to guide you?69
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Peacetime Song]
With Guang Chengzi’s lines on immortality in mind,70
You have determined that our marriage is propitious.71
With your guidance, the fairy maiden and fairy lad go together
To assist in the offering of immortal wine and immortal peaches.
May all the men and women who lack mates
Not meet with hindrances,
May the sincere ones all have their desires fulfilled.
IMMORTAL (declaims:)
You were originally Jade Maiden and Golden Lad;
Born into this mortal world, you have tarried here for some years.
At the Stone Buddha Temple, you played the qin in the moonlit night,
The song of “Phoenix Seeking Mate” love and passions did excite.
Having promised a reunion, she was nowhere to be found;
Wandering along the seashore, he was from hope unbound.
An immortal priestess gave him treasures with divine power,
And her wondrous plan was truly impossible for any to counter.
They prepare the golden elixir, binding lead and mercury;
By applying fire to water, scholar Zhang boiled the sea.
Now as you return to your original state of being,
Spread the clouds of rare fragrance far across the sky.
(QIONGLIAN and ZHANG YU bow, knocking their heads on the ground.)
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Coda]
Hand in hand, we rise to immortality now;
The sea-gauze kerchief was not given as pledge in vain.
Leisurely we’ll watch the peaches ripen to redness on treetops
As we leave behind the boundless dusty earth and the sorrows of the sea.
Topic: In the Stone Buddha Temple the Dragon Girl Listens to the Qin
Title: On Sand Gate Island Scholar Zhang Boils the Sea
SCHOLAR ZHANG BOILS THE SEA
THE BEGINNING OF ACT 2 IN WILLOW BRANCH
TRANSLATED BY WAI-YEE LI
(FEMALE LEAD dressed as HAIRY MAIDEN enters with four FEMALES playing clappers and fisherman’s drums.)
HAIRY MAIDEN (recites:)
A day of leisure is a day lived as immortal.
Heaven and humans in harmony is for peace the portal.
The Cinnabar Field has its treasure, there’s no need to seek the Way.
Ask not about Zen meditation, when the mind does not externals obey. (Sings:)
[Leaving the Ranks]
Those who love wine are daring and overbearing,
They inspire fear in others with their temper flaring.
Among the ancients, Liu Ling lay in sandy wilds because of drinking,
And there was Li Bo, from the river the moon’s splendor scooping.
Wine untethers the mind as monkey, the will as horse.72 (Speaks:)
Heaven turns to the One Center, parting the way for Creation.
Humans from their hearts raise the Principles of Action.
Could heavenly will and human will be two?
The Way depends on humans to be true.73 (Sings:)
[Same tune as above]
Those who love sensual beauty would pay a steep price
To entangle with a beauty whose charms them entice.
Her grace and allure win praise beyond compare,
To live and die for her they would wager.
Sensual beauty untethers the mind as monkey, the will as horse. (Speaks:)
One entity from the beginning has one body,
One body yet has its cosmic principles of qian and kun.
Know then that the myriad things are all my complements:
Why would I establish myself apart with the three fundaments?74 (Sings:)
[Same tune as above]
As for those whom money has made bold,
There was Shi Chong following the heroic mold.
Glory and riches, of these there is no need to boast,
Losing life and well-being, they were by the law exposed.
Wealth untethers the mind as monkey, the will as horse. (Speaks:)
Mulberry fields became seas and then fields again.
A hundred years that pass in a trice, how can it be borne then?
Move the Crown of the Gate and close the Turning Point,75
Who isn’t the god of Highest Heavens? (Sings:)
[Same tune as above]
Those driven by anger are hasty and reckless,
This is fury that cannot help but be a menace.
Right and wrong, the endless arguments go on,
Inviting grief and disaster, all because of anger.
Anger untethers the mind as monkey, the will as horse.
[Same tune as above]
I have taken leave of the Immortal of Wine,
The love of sensual beauty to oblivion I consign.
For the wealth of this world I will not strive,
The breath of anger will not midair dissipation survive.
I have tightly tethered the mind as monkey, the will as horse.
(Four FEMALES enter and bow:) We bow knocking our heads on the ground: let us go then and take pleasure roaming mountains and rivers.
HAIRY MAIDEN (sings:)
[Ten Batons for the Drum]
I have given up worldly goods
And turned to the mountains and woods.
I have built abodes with bamboo fences a
nd thatched roofs,
For proper enjoyment of red leaves and yellow blooms.
I want to learn from Shao Ping of yonder days,
Shao Ping who grew melons aplenty.76
I pick fresh new tea leaves,
Look in leisure upon monkeys frolicking in the blue mountain,
Upon deer and doe holding flowers in their mouths.
A boat is moored at an ancient crossing.
At the ancient crossing I tend the raft for fishing.
One who has entered the Way is with worldly cares fully done.
Having finished reading the Daoist Canon of Yellow Court in the setting sun,
I claim the leisure to have the clapper beats on the fisherman’s drum begun.
And so my life will flow. (Exit together.)
NOTES
1. Note that the gender role is almost never reversed.
2. See Wai-yee Li, Enchantment and Disenchantment, 1–46.
3. It is a common allusion in late imperial fiction and drama. See chap. 7, this volume, n. 90. In the late fourteenth-century play by Wang Ziyi 王子一, Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao Wandered into the Peach Spring by Mistake (Liu Chen Ruan Zhao wuru taoyuan 劉晨阮肇誤入桃源), the two men get to return to the Immortal Realm and reunite with the goddesses.
4. Qionglian overhears Zhang Yu playing the qin and falls in love with him through the music. This is a recurrent motif in romantic drama and appears also in The Western Chamber, The Eastern Wall, Qin Xiaoran Listens to the Qin in the Bamboo Grove (Qin Xiaoran zhuwu tingqin 秦翛然竹塢聽琴) by Shi Zizhang, and The Clever Maid Tricks the Hanlin Scholar into a Romance (Meixiang pian Hanlin fengyue 梅香騙翰林風月) by Zheng Dehui.
5. Shang Zhongxian also wrote a play called Scholar Zhang Boils the Sea (Zhangsheng zhuhai 張生煮海), but it is no longer extant.
6. Meng comments in Xin juan gujin mingju liuzhi ji, 387.
7. See Zang Maoxun, YQX, 8:4292–4324; Meng Chengshun, Xin juan gujin mingju liuzhi ji, 387–97.
8. Such an arrangement would make this play a “female text.” Meng Chengshun comments, “The female immortal as matchmaker is changed to the abbot of Stone Buddha Temple in the Wuxing edition. Now we observe that the arias do not suit the abbot’s tone, and we have thus made changes to follow the original edition” (Xin juan gujin mingju liuzhi ji, Zhangsheng zhuhai, 15b).
9. The Immortal of Donghua (Eastern Splendor), also called the Lord of Wood, Lord of Eastern Wood, or Royal Lord of the East, is the male counterpart of Queen Mother of the West. In the Ming play Bian Daoxuan Loves the Way and Ascends to Immortality (Bian Daoxuan mudao shengxian 邊道玄慕道升仙), the Immortal of Donghua declares himself in charge of “the harmonious breath of yang … Together with the Queen Mother of the West we managed two breaths. … In heavens above and below, the three realms and ten directions, men and women ascending to immortality are all under my charge.”
10. That is, from the point before the beginning of time. Zhuangzi jishi 32.1047, “Lie Yukou” 列禦寇: “Sages return their spirits to the point of No Beginning and happily sleep in the Realm of Not Necessarily There.”
11. These are terms describing the techniques of Daoist self-cultivation and can be applied to breathing exercises or alchemical processes. The “Three [Cinnabar] Fields” (Dantian 丹田) are identified as, respectively, the spot between the eyebrows, the area below the heart, and the space three inches below the navel. The “Golden Shoot” refers to both an elixir produced by alchemical procedure and the primal breath (yuanqi 元氣). In Daoist alchemy, “seven” stands for fire and “nine” stands for metal, and the elixir produced can revive the dead, an idea suggested by “round” and “return.” The Immortal of Donghua resides in the Daluo Heaven (translated here as “Highest Heavens”), the highest of thirty-six heavens in Daoist cosmology.
12. The Queen Mother of the West offers peaches of immortality during the feast at Jasper Pool.
13. This corresponds to Chaoyang in Guangdong province.
14. Karmic debt (suzhai 宿債) is obligations incurred in a previous incarnation.
15. Boya is a consummate player of the qin, and Zhong Ziqi (called Zhong Qi in the play) is famous for his discernment and appreciation of music. When Boya plays the qin with high mountains or flowing streams in mind, Zhong Ziqi can identify his intent right away. After Zhong dies, Boya breaks the strings of the qin and stops playing, declaring that there is none left who can understand his music. This story appears in a number of early texts; see, for example, Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi 14.740; Huainanzi honglie jijie 19.654; Liu Xiang, Shuoyuan jinzhu jinyi 8.241; Hanshi waizhuan 9.369; Liezi jishi 5.178–79.
16. Xunzi jishi 1.9, “Quan xue” 勸學: “In former times Huba would play the qin and the fish would emerge to listen.” Truly affecting music can move other sentient creatures.
17. The text has “With Meixiang and Cuihe [Green Lotus]”—it seems from what follows that there is only one maid, and “Meixiang” is meant here as “maid.”
18. Willow Branch: “The waves roll on, / Cut off from the Dusty Realm. / Tiny golden lotuses move in gentle steps.”
19. The image of “dainty steps on the waves” (lingbo weibu 凌波微步) is derived from Cao Zhi’s poetic exposition “Goddess of the River Luo” (Luoshen fu 洛神賦) (Xiao Tong, Wenxuan 19.895–904).
20. The Willow Branch version has two more lines inserted here: “Truly there is gold everywhere one walks; / Indeed there is the tinkle of carved jade.”
21. In Daoist lore, there are thirty-six Cave Heavens and seventy-two Blessed Realms where immortals reside. They are, however, traditionally associated with the mountains rather than the seas.
22. Literally, “fingers like ten scallions” (zhi shi chong 指十葱); fingers are compared to the white part of trimmed scallions.
23. Literally, “shoes for half a bow” (xie ban gong 鞋半弓); these are shoes for tiny bound feet. Willow Branch: “My long skirt / Trails over embroidered shoes. / Long sleeves drape / All the way to my tiny feet.”
24. In a story from Liexian zhuan (ca. third century), Xiao Shi, a master flute player, marries Nongyu, the daughter of Lord Mu of Qin. One night, Xiao Shi attracts the phoenix with his flute music, and he flies away with Nongyu on the phoenix. The “fairy phoenix” is literally “the phoenix from Vermilion Mountain,” the latter being a designation of the Immortal Realm. See Liexian zhuan jiaojian, 80–84.
25. Willow Branch: “And the music is so full of heroic pathos!”
26. Willow Branch: “This is not the tinkling pendants of swaying skirts / That ring as she steps on jade steps. / The clear notes of iron horses in wind chimes on carved eaves, / The roll of painted drums on night watchtowers.”
27. This is probably an allusion to the description of pipa music in Bai Juyi’s “Lute Song”: “Pearls big and small drop on the jade basin” (Dazhu xiaozhu luo yupan 大珠小珠落玉盤); see Bai Juyi ji, 1:241–43.
28. This recalls another line from Bai Juyi’s “Lute Song”: “Lightly strumming, slowly pressing, she brushes and plucks” (Qinglong mannian moufutiao 輕攏慢撚抹復挑) (ibid.) Willow Branch: “This is indeed the Song of ‘Phoenix Seeking Its Mate.’”
29. On the story of Zhuo Wenjun’s eloping with Sima Xiangru after being moved by the latter’s qin music, see chap. 9, this volume, n. 5. Willow Branch: “Each elegant note on the silken string / Is like the cries of crows and cranes, laden with sorrow. / Better than the pipa, his qin allows for slow plucking and light strumming.”
30. The “golden strings” refer to the strings tying the strings of the qin; the lever is a piece of wood facilitating the movement of the strings. The phrase linglong 玲瓏 (“tinkle”) usually describes the sound of jade pendants; here the “jade lever” brings in the association.
31. This allusion combines two stories told of the Song poet Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) (in the original referred to by his style name Fuweng). The first is the story of how the courtesan Panpan pleases Huang by singing his
lyrics and composing her own, the second a dream in which Huang meets a girl whom he later recognizes as the Dragon Maiden of Wu Cheng Mountain.
32. Willow Branch: “It cannot be that I have secretly ascended an earthly abode, / For it is exactly as if I have come to the immortal palace.”
33. According to qin lore, someone listening in secret would cause the string of the qin to snap.
34. Like Jade Maiden, Xu Feiqiong waits on the Queen Mother of the West and is afflicted by mortal passions.
35. This work by He Chengtian (340–447) is mentioned in Wei Zheng (580–643) et al., Suishu 33.990. Long (from the word for “dragon”) is a Chinese surname.
36. A young man declaring himself unmarried and being told off by a maid is a standard exchange in many romantic plays.
37. In “Poetic Exposition on Gaotang” (Gaotang fu 高唐賦), attributed to Song Yu (ca. fourth–third centuries B.C.E.), a Chu king dreams of sexual union with a goddess, who tells him that she will appear as cloud and rain on the Sunlit Terrace. Cloud, rain, and Sunlit Terrace (Yangtai) come to be standard kenning for sexual bliss (Xiao Tong, Wenxuan 19.875–76).
38. That is, their union will be sublime, unlike the romantic dalliance in houses of pleasure. Qionglian is thereby declaring that she is not a courtesan.
39. Mount Wu is associated with the goddess of Gaotang.
40. On the story of Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao’s encounter with goddesses and stay in the Peach Spring Grotto, see chap. 7, this volume, n. 90. Willow Branch: “It is much better than being misled into the Peach Spring Grotto.”
41. Silkworms of a type said to be found on Yuanqiao Mountain, an abode of immortals that rises out of the sea. They are seven inches long, black in color, and equipped with both horns and scales. They derive their name from the fact that only after they have been covered with frost and snow will they produce their iridescent silk, which is impervious to both fire and water. “Sea gauze” (jiaoxiao 鮫綃) is a marvelous silken fabric woven by merfolk. Here the two allusions are combined to indicate “sea gauze” spun from the silk produced by “ice silkworms.”
42. Rakshasas are fast-moving, men-eating female demons that appear in Buddhist sutras.
43. Literally, “Ruizhu Palace,” a palace in the Daoist paradise.