by C. T. Hsia
All right, Sister Yinzhang, you go back to him.
YINZHANG (frightened:) Big Sister, if I go with him, it means death for sure.
PAN’ER (sings:)
[Falling Plum Blossoms in the Wind]
You deserve it for follies without end,
For the clear reasoning you offend.
ZHOU: The divorce paper has been destroyed. You have no choice but to go back with me. (SONG YINZHANG is more frightened still.)
PAN’ER: Sister, don’t you be afraid. The divorce paper he bit to pieces was a fake.
(Sings:)
I made a copy of the divorce paper for your special consideration;
Here I have the original paper with the real configuration.
(ZHOU SHE tries to wrest the paper away from her.)
PAN’ER (sings:)
A team of nine oxen can’t drag it from me, not even with desperation.
ZHOU (wrestling with the two women, speaks:) There’s a clear statutory law about all this.
I’ll take you to a court of law. (Exit together.)
PREFECT (enters with ZHANG QIAN:)
My virtue and fame unto the Nine Gates are known.107
Where I preside, families leave doors open at night.
After the rain, fields are plowed and seeds are sown.
No dogs bark any warning under the bright moonlight.
This humble official is Li Gongbi, prefect of Zhengzhou. Today I am holding a morning session and shall see what cases there are to settle. Zhang Qian, summon the court to session.
ZHANG QIAN: Yes, Your Honor!
(ZHOU SHE enters with ZHAO PAN’ER, SONG YINZHANG, and MOTHER SONG.)
ZHOU (crying out his appeal:) I have been wronged!
PREFECT: What is your complaint?
ZHOU: Your Honor, have pity on me. I’ve been denied my wife.
PREFECT: Who has denied you your wife?
ZHOU: It’s Zhao Pan’er. She has schemed to take my wife, Song Yinzhang, away from me.
PREFECT: What has the woman got to say?
PAN’ER (sings:)
[Falling Geese]
This rogue is ruthless and bold,
His family is rich with gold.
Devious lies he has told,
Never walking the straight and narrow road.
[Victory Song]
Song Yinzhang was already betrothed,
But by force he took her as his own.
An evil lecher whose brazenness shows,
Roguery and brutality are what he knows.
A regular scoundrel!
He respects no laws wherever he goes.
As evidence is the divorce paper they signed and sealed,
For law and justice to Your Honor we appeal.108
Your Honor, Song Yinzhang has a husband, but Zhou She took her as his own by force. Further, he already gave us the divorce paper yesterday.
PREFECT: Who’s her husband?
PAN’ER: It’s Scholar An.
PREFECT: She already has a husband. How can you defy reason and claim her as your wife? I know all about this. Were I not to take your father into consideration, I would have your offense brought to the attention of the proper office. All of you, listen to my judgment: Zhou She is to be given sixty strokes of the cane; he is to serve in conscript labor with commoners.109 Song Yinzhang is to be restored to the scholar An as wife. Zhao Pan’er and the rest of you are to return to normal life in your respective homes.
Even though the old bawd was greedy for money,110
A good thing Zhao Pan’er told the whole story.
The fool Zhou She does not know his place.
Scholar An and his bride are reunited by heaven’s grace.
PAN’ER (sings:)
[Coda]
To His Honor I recount all the folly and pain,
And the abused wife is allowed to leave her brutish swain.
For all her messy errors, speak no more of that union.
By moonlight and breeze, lovebirds must sing again.
Topic: Consider the Power of Guanyin; It May Yet Be Applied to One’s Own Person
Title: Using Lies and False Smiles, with Seductive Wiles She Rescues a Seduced Courtesan111
NOTES
1. For Jia Zhongming’s song lyric on Guan Hanqing, see Zhong Sicheng, Lugui bu sanzhong, 131. For Guan Hanqing’s role as actor, see Zang Maoxun’s second preface to Anthology, Zang Maoxun, YQX, 1:11.
2. The best edition is Huijiao xiangzhu Guan Hanqing ji, on which this translation is based.
3. Sieber, Theaters of Desire.
4. See Wang Guowei, Song Yuan xiqu shi, 102.
5. Dou E’s rancor and vehemence are toned down in Anthology; see West, “Study in Appropriation.”
6. According to Zhang Weijuan, courtesans appear in twenty plays and have significant roles in thirteen (Yuan zaju zuojia de nüxing yishi, 195).
7. Guan Hanqing, Huijiao xiangzhu Guan Hanqing ji, 1155. We follow the annotations in reading bi 比 as wei 為.
8. On how the play thus redefines virtue and vice, see Sieber, “Comic Virtue.”
9. The name Zhou She (she is short for sheren 舍人) means “Young Master Zhou.” Sheren was applied to scions of official or aristocratic families during the Song and Yuan dynasties.
10. According to Tao Zongyi, courtesans and prostitutes were called flower ladies (huaniang 花娘) (Chuo geng lu 14.174–75). The “Flower Star” (huaxing 花星) oversees amorous adventures, especially dalliances in the pleasure quarters.
11. Bianliang, also called Bianjing (modern-day Kaifeng), was the capital during the Northern Song. After Wanyan Liang (r. 1150–1161) moved the Jurchen capital to Zhongdu (modern-day Beijing), Bianjing came to be designated as the southern capital, which is how Zhao Pan’er refers to Bianjing in act 3.
12. The original has “trading” (maimai 買賣), a somewhat incongruous reference, considering Zhou is the son of an official.
13. These lines are not in Anthology. They are often recited by older characters in Yuan plays.
14. Anthology: “But I am fobbing him off with lies and excuses: how can I give my consent? Yinzhang, about your marrying this Zhou She, I don’t want to keep obstructing, I’m only afraid you will suffer in the end.”
15. “Sisters and brothers” in this case refer to the bawds, courtesans, and musicians in the pleasure quarters.
16. Instead of this line, Anthology has jointly declaimed lines in rhyme: “ZHOU: For years I’ve labored with might and main, / Only today have I managed her hand to attain. / YINZHANG: All unions are made in heaven and destiny-led. / MOTHER: But still stormy weather may lie ahead.”
17. According to legend, the poet-statesman Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River when the Chu king did not heed his remonstrance; see chap. 2, this volume, n. 53. Yan Hui, Confucius’s disciple, lived in extreme poverty and led an exemplary life. Anthology has a different verse: “Liu Fen failed the exam to his everlasting sorrow; / Fan Dan kept faith and would rather beg and borrow. / If heaven has a mind to order things aright, / It surely can make a student’s future bright.” Liu Fen 劉蕡 (d. 838) was a Tang scholar who, in his examination essay, urged the emperor to kill overreaching eunuchs (Ouyang Xiu et al., Xin Tangshu 178.5293–5307). As a result, he did not pass the examination. He came to symbolize worthy scholars who, despite their merit, do not pass the imperial exams. The Han scholar Fan Dan 范丹, or Fan Ran 范冉 (b. 112), declined official appointments, preferring to remain a poor fortune-teller (Fan Ye, Hou Hanshu 81.2688–90).
18. An’s image is improved in Anthology: “I have since childhood devoted myself to Confucian teachings, and my scholarly accomplishment is complete with learning aplenty. It’s just that I have never managed to overcome my weakness for wine and women.”
19. Anthology: “Why wouldn’t it work?”
20. The version in Anthology does not have this line.
21. That is, when the time comes for a courtesan to end her life in the gay quarters and to find
a home.
22. Anthology: “It’s all because he values her for the charm of her romantic élan.”
23. What is translated as “head over heels” is literally “feet tapping the back of the head,” summoning the image of one running so fast that his upward-swinging feet touch his backward-tilting head.
24. Anthology: “Heaven’s justice is hard to cheat.”
25. In a story from the Sequel to the Record of Mysteries and Strange Events (Xu Xuanguai lu 續玄怪錄) by Li Fuyan (ninth century), Du Wei meets an old man sitting under the moon leafing through a book recording the names of men and women destined to wed. Told that he is destined to marry a vegetable hawker’s daughter (then still a child), Du attempts to murder her but after many twists of fate ends up marrying her (Taiping guangji 159.1143). The “matrimonial registry” is thus something one cannot control.
26. Anthology: “an ideal mate.”
27. Anthology: “They all choose over and over a hundred times.”
28. Anthology: “Much to bear, hard to tell, / To whom appeal? / Your tears are in vain.”
29. Anthology: “I have seen manly men with hearts of iron.”
30. The swear word that Pan’er uses here is tui 頹, a loan word for diao 屌 (the male sexual organ).
31. The expression “the three compliances” refers to the precept that a woman should obey her father before marriage, her husband after marriage, and her son after her husband’s death (Yili zhushu 30.359). “The four virtues” designate a woman’s propriety in virtue (fude 婦德), words (fuyan 婦言), appearance (furong 婦容), and work (fugong 婦功) (Zhouli zhushu 7.116).
32. Pan’er deliberately uses the derogatory term feiji 匪妓 (“wicked harlots”).
33. Anthology: “I am not one selling sour pears,” that is, I am not like the vendor who pretends that sour pears are sweet.
34. Anthology: “But he flaunts calculations at chisel’s tip and knife’s edge.” See Zuozhuan (Zhao 6.3): “Even at chisel’s tip and knife’s edge they will contend.” The original context is how people would argue about the fine points of the law. As Yang Bojun points out, these tools are the ones used to inscribe the characters of the penal code in the mold before casting (Yang, 1276). The phrase “knife and chisel” comes to mean small gains that people fight over.
35. This last line is not in Anthology.
36. Anthology: “… and we do not ask him for money.”
37. Anthology: “As soon as they see we fall short, / They will say these dames set out to extort.”
38. Anthology: “Those running a household get pointless squabbles.”
39. The text has “sheep-lamb interest” (yanggao li 羊羔利), a form of usury whereby a loan begets another loan, just like a sheep begets a lamb.
40. Anthology: “Those who marry simply fall into a trap,” or, literally, falls victim to the enemy’s “strategy of dragging the sword”; See chap. 4, this volume, n. 62.
41. A Yuan idiom referring to how a person is going the wrong way, heedless of other examples and warnings.
42. These lines, which contain somewhat obscure Yuan vernacular, are not included in Anthology.
43. On the beggar’s ditty “Lotus Blossoms Falling,” see chap. 5, this volume, nn. 43, 90.
44. Literally, “Big Sis this, and Big Sis that—pretty soon some awful puss will fester.” The Chinese term for “Big Sis” (dajie 大姐) is homophonous with that for “Big Sore” (dajie 大癤).
45. Lunyu zhushu 5.20: “Ji Wenzi thinks thrice before he acts. The Master says, ‘Thinking twice is enough.’”
46. On the term “bronze dipper,” see chap. 5, this volume, n. 14.
47. This line is not in Anthology.
48. Literally, “the shell of a dung beetle,” whose glistening black exoskeleton hides a vile insect.
49. Anthology: “So that you’d have no fear of the piercing cold.”
50. Anthology: “Think you these profligates are honey-sweet and dear.”
51. Anthology: “With teeth baring and lips snarling.”
52. Legend has it that once upon a time a wife who longed for the return of her long-absent husband kept a daily watch atop a mountain. She was so rooted to her post that in time she turned into stone. Such stone configurations can be found in many parts of China.
53. The word for “eclipse” (shi 蝕) is a homophone for “food” or “eat” (shi 食).
54. That is, she lies even about the most obvious truth (such as having legs under her trousers).
55. She is so cunning that she can never be trusted.
56. Literally, Shuang Lang 雙郎 or Shuang Jian 雙漸, a scholar who is the protagonist of a love story with a courtesan; he becomes the byword for amorous scholars in Yuan drama.
57. In Yuan times, tea merchants, upon payment to the government of the assessed taxes, were awarded trading licenses known as tea certificates (chayin 茶引). On the tea monopoly, see, this volume, chap. 4, n. 46, chap. 5, n. 47. Feng Kui 馮魁 is one such merchant in a story involving a courtesan whom he takes as a concubine against her will, while her true love, the aforementioned Shuang Jian, is away pursuing an official career. In the end, by sheer chance, the lovers are reunited.
58. Act 1 in Anthology ends with the following verse: “ZHOU: Barely stepping out from the brothel gate, / She’s already a wife of good family. / YINZHANG: I only fear I’ll be abused by my mate, / And will yearn to return to my former state.”
59. This line is not in Anthology.
60. This incident is omitted in Anthology. Instead, there is the following exchange: “YINZHANG: I did no such thing. ZHOU: More things like this happened than I could tell.”
61. In Yuan China, a woman could pay her husband a certain sum of money to “buy a divorce” (maixiu 買休), or a man could “sell a divorce” (maixiu 賣休) by selling his wife to someone else and getting paid.
62. The following lines are found only in Anthology: “Now it is beatings in the morning and cursing in the evening. If this keeps up, I’ll die in his hands for sure.”
63. This line is not included in Anthology.
64. Anthology: “These last few years I’ve had a mind to get married.”
65. Anthology: “But in the end find that it’s a trail of no return.”
66. The shen 申 and chen 辰 asterisms never cross paths. The shen rises at the mao 卯 hours (5:00 A.M.–7:00 A.M.), and the chen rises at the you 酉 hours (5:00 P.M.–7:00P.M.).
67. This line is not in Anthology.
68. Anthology: “Just think: the day they secretly wedded, I feared they would not get along.”
69. Anthology: “He was always the number one cad.”
70. Anthology: “So you tidied up your chamber and conjugal bed, / Hoping for bliss lasting as long as heaven and earth.”
71. More literally, “You will be put to shame by those who slaughtered the white horse and the black bull [as sacrifice to seal the pact in the Peach Garden].” Brothers of Peach Garden fame refer to the three heroes of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms—Liu Bei 劉備, Guan Yu 關羽, and Zhang Fei 張飛—who made a pact in a peach garden pledging common cause and fraternal devotion. As noted in the introduction, Guan Hanqing also wrote plays about the heroes of the Three Kingdoms.
72. These lines do not appear in Anthology.
73. It is possible to read this as Song Yinzhang imagining her sad fate: If she does not get married, she will not belong to a family and will be denied sacrifices after her death. We have chosen to read this as Zhou speaking.
74. Anthology: “For no good reason, you fall victim to his vile blows.”
75. This line does not appear in Anthology.
76. The last four lines are different in Anthology: “You may just lose your life to this! / What’s more, so far from home in Zhengzhou, / Who is there to look after you? / Utterly shamed—and for what?” Zang Maoxun might have found the switch of focus from Song Yinzhang to Zhao Pan’er too jarring, hence the change. Anthology includes an addi
tional exchange: “MOTHER (crying:) Oh, my daughter! How can she stand this anymore? PAN’ER: Don’t worry, Auntie.” It also adds the following aria to the tune “Willow Leaves”: “I wonder how on earth you can endure. / I might as well a solution to the puzzle procure. / First, coif my hair in chignons like floating clouds and cicada wings. (Speaks:) Then put on some clothes of embroidered silk. (Sings:) With coral hooks, / And lotus blossom buckles. / Body swaying, I will display all my charms.”
77. “Silly girl” is literally “spring cow,” the cow used in spring agrarian sacrifice. Anthology has “the female skeleton” (nü kulou 女骷髏).
78. Anthology: “And ease your furrowed brow.”
79. In Anthology this is a verse that concludes with the following lines: “It’s nothing but women and wine— / They are forever my heart’s dismay.”
80. Anthology: “be they licensed or private.”
81. Anthology: “Only you are so footloose, where in a crunch should I look for you?”
82. The name Idle Boy (Xiaoxian 小閑) could have been derived from the slang phrase Pan lu Deng xiao xian 潘驢鄧小閑, used by the procuress in the novels Water Margin and Jin Ping Mei to indicate five male attributes effective in seducing women. The character for Pan, 潘, stands for the poet Pan Yue 潘岳 (247–300) (also known as Pan An 潘安), remembered for being exceedingly handsome; lu 驢 refers to a donkey and its oversize organ; Deng 鄧 relates to the Han official Deng Tong 鄧通 (second century B.C.E.) who minted coins and was fabulously wealthy; xiao 小, or xiaoxin 小心, means attentiveness to small things to make a woman happy; xian 閑 denotes a person with time on his hands to please the lady. Xiao 小 being also a common prefix in the nicknames of young servants, the playwright could be punning on the last two characters of this ribald phrase when he named an errand boy in the brothels Xiaoxian 小閑. Alternatively, Xiaoxian could be short for xiao bangxian 小幫閒 (little hanger-on).
83. In Anthology this is a verse that concludes with the following lines: “None but idle people can afford to be idle; / Soon as I idle around, I am again on the go.”
84. In Anthology his name is Idle Boy Zhang (Zhang Xiaoxian).
85. The phrase xingyin 姓因 may be loan words for “message” (xinyin 信音) (Gu Xuejie, Yuanren zaju xuan, 70). It may also be a pun on the word for “feelings” (qing 情) (Zang Maoxun, YQX, 2:666).
