to filch the draft thought slyly,
Cleverly availed himself of presenting fine steeds to the emperor,
took the opportunity to go carry out brutal banditry.
KUO TZU-YI: How did he present the horses to the emperor? Can you explain it to me clearly?
SPY: He dispatched He Ch’ien-nien to hand over his petition to the throne, memorialising the emperor for permission to present him with three thousand horses, with, for every single horse, two armoured knights, and also two grooms, and one man for foddering and grazing to each, making altogether three fives, fifteen thousand men to escort them into the capital.
(Sings)
All the way there,
the soldiers will be violent, the horses bad-tempered,
And their noise and hullabaloo nobody able to ward against!
Their wild jumbled crowd will be impossible to control or suppress,
Their profuse confusion and impatience,
who able to block or intercept!
Raw soldiers entering the imperial near-capital,
Wild horses nearing the city-wall towers,
I fear they’ve come a riot in Ch’ang-an to create!
KUO TZU-YI: (Alarmed) Oh dear, that’s it! If that plan works out, the Western Capital’s553 in peril.
SPY: The memorial has only just gone into the imperial palace, and hasn’t yet been given the emperor’s formal approval. It’s just that An Lu-shan,
(Sings)
He’s clearly cheating the Most Honoured One our emperor,
A cunning general, employing a treacherous scheme,
He’s nigh on everywhere laid his traps.
Even if his horses’ hooves don’t set out,
His wolfish innate nature will still be impossible to tame.
As in Yü-yang start up his kettledrums and ku-drums,
(Says)
Your Excellency,
(Sings)
Don’t wait for White-feather imperial command-missive554
before dealing with An Lu-shan,
(Says)
While I,
(Sings)
I’ll prepare to flash my scarlet flag,
and then make victory reports.
KUO TZU-YI: Yes, indeed! I reward you with one earthenware crock of wine, one sheep and fifty taels of Flowery Silver, and excuse you from government tasks for one month.
(Spy kow-tows)
SPY: I thank Your Excellency.
KUO TZU-YI: My entourage, open the gate!
(All enter, responding with assent. Open the gate)
(Exit spy)
KUO TZU-YI: Middle-army Mandarin!
(Middle-army Mandarin responds)
KUO TZU-YI: Convey my order to all my soldiers that they are to practice on the drill-ground tomorrow, and prepare a wine-feast to reward them for their labours.
MIDDLE-ARMY MANDARIN: I obey your honoured command!
(Exit first)
KUO TZU-YI: (Recites)
Several spies return from Yü-yang on horseback,555 Their awesome prestige more bold than the Eight Battle-arrays,556 they create a storm of thunder;557 In my breast I have another plan for making the frontier tranquil,558 My military orders made clear, we raise several cups of liquor.559
Act Twenty-one: Peeping at bathing
(Enter Palace-lady 1)
PALACE-LADY 1: (Sings)
I’ve had looks that are natural since a little child,
“Flower faced” ̶ pock-marked!
In the band of palace charmeuses I’m the first,
The palace-hall to get swept!
I suddenly met a young eunuch-officer at the foot of the steps
With him got messing around;
Stretched out my hand and rubbed his trousers:
Disappeared! 560
(Recites)
I’m number one among the palace charmeuses, Nobody’s my equal in prettiness; The flowers and powder on my cheeks are slapped, My lipstick’s all blurred around my lips.
My “autumn ripple” eyes are as cute, as copper hand-bells!
My “bow” eyebrows are curved, writing-brush straight!
My “spring fibre” fingers are ten drumsticks,
My jade-fair body’s all over coarse lacquer paint.
My “willowy waist’s” a pine-section of ten spans,
My “lotus-petal” feet are half shoal-boats.
Empress Yang cherishes my nimbleness, So’s chosen me as orchestral director for Rainbow-skirt; But just because my throttle resounds too much, When I sing, thunderclaps rise
from my mouth’s sides.
And what’s more’s my body’s too clumsy, When I went and danced, I knocked over the tables and mats of the imperial feast; When the emperor saw it, he got in a tizzy, And knocked down my census-category of “Pear Orchard Young Gent”.
There and then he sent me to Mount Li, Dispatched me to Warm-springs Palace-hall561 to serve and do my duty; Yesterday, the emperor in his roc-carriage blessed us with a visit, And stationed his carriage with Empress Yang at Florescence-purity; He conveyed his command that he’ll be coming to bathe in Hot-water Pool, So I must just sprinkle and sweep, lay things out and make things tidy.
(Says)
Before I’ve finished saying that, there’s some palace lady over there heading this way.
(Enter palace-lady 2)
PALACE LADY 2: (Sings)
Idling away my green-spring youth,
I’m a Rear Palace repining lady,
I wildly stamp my feet and beat my breast,
Who understands my suffering? Nobody!
Cast away for all my life to have no husband,
I dance as a wild-goose flying solitary.
(They meet)
PALACE-LADY 1: What’s that “wild-goose dancing” you’re talking about, elder sister! Now Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor has Empress Yang’s Rainbow-skirt dance, and isn’t fond any more even of Empress Plum-blossom’s “startled swan-goose dancing”.
PALACE-LADY 2: You’re so right. I’m actually a palace-lady of Empress Plum-blossom’s, and all because she came back from Kingfisher Villa pent with anger, she fell ill and died straight away. So now I’ve been transferred here.
PALACE-LADY 1: So that’s the state of affairs! Empress Yang has been utterly jealous and shrewish, and we needn’t imagine any more that she’ll be favoured by a visit from the emperor any day.
PALA CE-LADY 2: Come off it!
PALACE LADY 1: Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor will be arriving here any time now. Let you and me go to the outer wing and watch out for him.
(False exeunt)
(Enter eunuch attendants, leading emperor, Empress Yang, Dame Ever-new, Dame Remember-me and retinue)
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: (Sings)
The scene of the separate palace-hall is refined and wondrous:
See by the side of the carven beams,
And outside the pearled portieres,
The rain whisking up,
and flying the clouds.
Meandering,
A few curves of the vermilion balustrade circle the “painted-picture” brook,
And several levels of decorated covered walkways connect with the “kingfisher-haze” hillside,
Winding round the scarlet wall,
And going through to door-leaves of jade.
EUNUCH ATTENDANTS: We submit to you Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor: We’ve arrived at Warm-spring Palace-hall.
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR. Withdraw, eunuch attendants.
(Eunuch attendants respond and exeunt)
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: My Most-prized-empress,
(Sings)
See the pure channel curving and pouring,
Its whirling waves wrinkling and rippling,
Its scented source, fit for your fragrant flesh,
gently slipping.
(Says)
Let you and me, my Most-prized-empress, go and have a go bathing.
(Dame Ever-new and Dame Remember-me take off the emperor’s and Empress Yang’s outer robe for them)
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: My Most-prized-empress,
(Sings)
Seeing you slowly undo your cloud robe,
Already there appears your pearly glow and gorgeousness white-jade.
I can’t help facing you, loving you, taking your arm,
staring at you and feeling fond.
(Exeunt emperor and Empress Yang hand in hand together)
DAME EVER-NEW: Sister Remember-me, look how much Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor and Empress Yang love each other. It really makes one terribly envious.
DAME REMEMBER-ME: Yes, it does indeed.
DAME EVER-NEW: (Sings)
They hug on flowery mornings,
They cuddle on moonlit nights,
Tasting to the full the savour of warm tenderness.
They’re truly as joined together as shadow a body pursuing,
As inseparable as a stream of water by any knife’s delineating.
They intimately cleave together in a thousand ways and fall in together in a hundred,
The two of them should have one gut and tum between them sharing.
Their cosy intimacy of mind is impossible to depict in words,
There’s no way to describe their mandarin-duck and -drake
bed-curtain.562
On forever goes their love entwining.
(Says)
Sister, you and I’ve served Empress Yang for many years, but although we’ve looked on her pretty facial looks, we’ve never peeped at her jade-fair body. How about we try and secretly steal a glance at it today through a gap in the damask gauze?
DAME REMEMBER-ME: Just the thing!
(They together face backstage and peep in)
TOGETHER: (Sing)
Stealthily peeping we sight
Her white-jade body so upright,
Wholly like a lotus in the ripples afloat,
Holding dew and playing dainty-pretty glowing light.
Her slender and fine arms and wrists melt with perfumed unguent,
Her virgin-soft and-supple waist and body in the azure ripples undulate.
DAME EVER-NEW: (Sings)
Shining bones of roseate clouds,
Seeping-snow flesh,
DAME REMEMBER-ME: (Sings)
One trace of cream penetrating from her “pair of flower-buds”,563
DAME EVER-NEW: (Sings)
Half a dot of spring in her little musk navel hides.
DAME REMEMBER-ME: (Sings)
I terribly love that crack in her “red kerchief”,564
The so slight revealing of her private places.
(Says)
Sister Dame Remember-me, look at Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor,
(Sings)
He’s peeping with fixed frozen eyeballs,
Smiling so unflaggingly eagerly,
Entirely as if in idiotic folly.
TOGETHER: (Sing)
Let alone us two peeping palace charmeuses’ wits are near melting,
Even our monarch who’s used to seeing her also can’t contain himself, no grip on himself keeping.
DAME EVER-NEW: (Sings)
He bitterly longs to set tumbling her “spring fountain”565
until it’s exhausting,
DAME REMEMBER-ME: (Sings)
And bitterly longs to wash her white-jade-fair “mountains”566 crumbling.567
DAME EVER-NEW: (Sings)
He, ceaselessly crying out, kisses and nibbles at her fragrant shoulders,
DAME REMEMBER-ME: (Sings)
He ceaselessly embraces her,
her fibre-slender waist encircling
DAME EVER-NEW: (Sings)
Our Empress Yang, facing him full of love,
hides her smile wordlessly,
DAME REMEMBER-ME: (Sings)
Mind so delighted,
In the magic liquid568 and spring-breeze love-makery,
She ethereally moves to and fro,
in a haze as if wine-merry.
DAME EVER-NEW: (Sings)
The ripple-glow’s warm,
The sunbeams shine,
A pair of dragons sporting,
come forth from Smooth Pond.569
TOGETHER: (Sing)
She makes “King Hsiang" almost collapse with thirst at the foot of Sunlight Terrace,
And is just like the Goddess going home,
taking the dusk rain by the hand.
(Enter Eunuch-chamberlain Kao and Yang Kuo-chung unobtrusively. They laugh)
TOGETHER: We just fear Dame Ever-new and Dame Remember-me aren’t waiting on Empress Yang, but are still there stealing looks at Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor!
DAME EVER-NEW and DAME REMEMBER-ME: Tcha! Don’t talk nonsense! Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor’s gone out with Empress Yang.
(Exeunt Eunuch-chamberlain Kao and Yang Kuo-chung unobtrusively)
(Enter emperor with Empress Yang)
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: (Sings)
Coming out of the warm spring-source,
the fresh cool goes right through one’s body,
And surveying her white-jade facial looks,
I see her lustre and gorgeousness has all the more increased.
What’s most lovable is her destroyed makeup and dishevelled hair,
The traces of her kingfisher eyebrow-makeup are dry,
her evening-clouds hair pinguid turned.
(Dame Ever-new and Dame Remember-me put the emperor’s and empress’s robes on for them. Empress goes prettily feeble. Dame Ever-new and Lady Remember-me support her by her arms)
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: My Most-prized-empress,
(Sings)
Looking at you,
you resemble breeze-caught willow-switch,
A flower affrighted of the dews;
Too feeble to stay upright,
Delicate pretty without any strength:
Someone help her up for me, please.
(Enter two eunuch attendants leading serving men pushing a small carriage.)
TWO EUNUCH ATTENDANTS: Please, Ten-thousand-years-grandfather-the-emperor and Empress Yang mount this little As-one-wishes Carriage,570 and return to Florescence-purity Palace.
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: Follow us behind the carriage.
TWO EUNUCH ATTENDANTS: As you command!
(Emperor takes Empress Yang by the hand and they proceed)
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: My Most-prized-empress,
(Sings)
You and I are shoulder to shoulder,
Holding hands together:
We don’t need to hurry our little carriage
beneath the blossoms,
We’ll go home, in our faces the gentle zephyr.
TOGETHER: (Sing)
The person in my thoughts,
In the person who suits my mind,
Even the feelingless flowers and birds with love are follied,
But understand enough to join their heads in pairs
and, imitating us, perch side by side.
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: (Recites)
Flowers’ breath’s entirely like all Hundred Scents combined,571
EMPRESS YANG: (Recites)
Avoiding the wind, from the bath’s hot water we’ve newly emerged;572
SHINING AUGUST-EMPEROR: (Recites)
Female attendants help her up by the arm, in her pretty feeblenes,573
EMPRESS YANG: (Recites)
Smiling I loll against the east casement’s white-jade bed.574
Act Twenty-two: Secret vows
(Enter Goddess Weaving-damsel,575 leading two female immortals)
GODDESS WEAVING-DAMSEL: (Sings)
Clouds protecting my jade shuttle,
I cleverly weave my loom silk.
Heaven doesn’t leave me yearning for love:
It’s announced that tonight we’ve come to the Seventh Night,576
And su
ddenly I’m reminded of a year back.
(Recites)
As mid fibre-slender clouds I ply my clever skills, A flying star delivers a letter, Secretly across Silver River Milky Way’s fall scene passing. As soon as, in autumn’s
Gold Wind and White-jade Dewwe meet each other, It will surpass the mortal world times beyond count.
My tender feelings are like some flowing stream, Our splendid tryst as a dream, As, for the road ahead to Magpie Bridge577 afar, I’m heading.
As the love between us two’s long enduring, It certainly won’t be just from dusk to dusk, morn to morning!578
(Says)
I’m Weaving-damsel. Receiving Supreme God’s jade command, I was tied in marriage to Young Sir Oxherd as a couple man and wife up in Heaven. Year in year out on the Seventh Night, I cross the Silver River Milky Way to meet with Young Sir Oxherd. Now it’s the tenth year of the Heaven-treasure reign-period579 in the mortal world below, and the Seventh Night of the Seventh Month of the year.
Look how the bright Milky Way has no waves, and the Magpie Bridge’s about to be added in. I must cast aside my loom silk-strands, adjust my attire and wait.
(String and woodwind music from backstage. Enter performers dressed as magpies. They fly around the stage. To the fore of the stage a bridge is set up, and the magpies fly, and alight to both sides of the bridge.
TWO FEMALE IMMORTALS: The Magpie Bridge is now spanned. Please cross the Milk Way, milady.
GODDESS WEAVING-DAMSEL: (Standing up and walking)
(Sings)
Suddenly I cast aside my brocade-characters letter-writing,
The Play Page 18
