by C. T. Hsia
124. The first Han emperor, Liu Bang, honors his father as Taigong, or “Grand Patriarch.”
125. Ancient Masters: “I fear things will not be different from before.”
126. Ancient Masters and Willow Branch: “Generous Father and Mother, let me explain.”
127. Ancient Masters: “And his daughter Zhuo Wenjun once sold wine at the wineshop. / He [Sima Xiangru] won handsome emolument with his poetry, / And most unexpectedly the day came when he rode in a four-horse carriage. / That, too, was his blessing from predestined karma. / He enjoyed the highest rank, with titles protecting his son and his wife.”
128. Ancient Masters ends here: “One man’s good fortune brings calm to the world; / with rain and wind in order, we praise the peace.”
129. Haoqiu 好逑 (“fair to accept”) also means “proper match” (between the fair lady and the noble man) in the first poem, “The Crying Osprey,” in the Classic of Poetry; see chap. 8, this volume, n. 13.
130. Fiction and drama often refer to the custom of a young girl’s tossing down a ball of ribbons from atop a decorated tower—she is to marry the man who gets the ball. The final verse in Ancient Masters: “Roaming in spring fields, they peek at each other. / Their hearts are moved, and their passions are roused. / Li Qianjin preserves her chastity and integrity; / Pei Shaojun is on horseback by the wall.” This verse is the “proper topic” (zhengmu 正目) in Willow Branch.
131. Ancient Masters: “Li Qianjin Guards Her Chastity and Waits for Her Husband.”
10
SCHOLAR ZHANG BOILS THE SEA
LI HAOGU
TRANSLATED BY ALLEN A. ZIMMERMAN
INTRODUCTION
WAI-YEE LI
Next to nothing is known about Li Haogu 李好古 (ca. thirteenth century–early fourteenth century), said to be a native of Baoding or Dongping. Sun Kaidi identified him as a mid-Yuan official, but Zhong Sicheng lists him as “a famous noble and man of talent from an earlier generation, already dead” in The Register of Ghosts and claims not to know much about him, which raises questions about Sun’s identification. Scholar Zhang Boils the Sea (Zhangsheng zhuhai 張生煮海) is the only extant play by Li. Its mythic and supernatural elements seem to also characterize two other plays listed under his name, The Juling Spirit Hacked Open Mount Hua (Juling shen pi Hua yue 巨靈神劈華岳) and The First Song Emperor Quelled the Evil Spirit of a Cursed House (Zhao Taizu zhen xiongzhai 趙太祖鎭凶宅).
The full title of our play is At Sand Gate Island Scholar Zhang Boils the Sea (Shamen dao Zhangshen zhuhai 沙門島張生煮海). Despite a mythic frame that defines for both lovers their preexistence as celestial beings, the play hews to a wonted theme in Chinese literature—a mortal man’s quest for a divine woman.1 A goddess who beckons and yet remains ultimately elusive and unattainable dramatizes the anxieties and contradictions of desire.2 Her genealogy reaches back to the seductive and faithless deities in the Verses of Chu (Chuci 楚辭, ca. fourth–third centuries B.C.); among her representative instantiations are the goddess of the River Luo celebrated by Cao Zhi (192–232) in an eponymous poetic exposition and the female immortals who offer Zheng Jiaofu jade pendants by the river only to vanish after accompanying Zheng for a short distance (Accounts of Immortals [Liexian zhuan 列仙傳, ca. third century]). Both the goddess of the Luo and Zheng Jiaofu’s encounter appear as allusions in our play. Even sexual union does not guarantee a happy ending: Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao meet goddesses on Mount Heavenly Terrace—in some versions of the story they meet at the Peach Spring Grotto—and enjoy half a year of bliss, only to return to the human world and find that generations have passed and their families are long gone (Liu Yiqing, Youming lu). This too becomes a standard allusion, and the play here refers to it a couple of times.3 Despite the disquiet suggested by these allusions, Zhang Yu (Scholar Zhang) in this play successfully pursues union with Qionglian, the daughter of the Dragon King, with divine assistance. A female immortal, Hairy Maiden, grants him the magical tools to “boil the sea”; an abbot offers to serve as intermediary and matchmaker.
Divine assistance might have somewhat diminished Zhang Yu’s role as the emotional focus of the play. Contrary to what one might have expected, Zhang Yu is not played by the male lead, and he does not get to sing any arias. The play could have focused on Zhang Yu’s hopeless longing and heroic striving; instead the most memorable arias are sung by Qionglian and the Hairy Maiden as they describe, respectively, Zhang’s qin music4 and the perils and beauty of the sea. For all that, Zhang Yu comes across as a more constant lover than his counterpart Liu Yi in another Yuan play about a mortal’s union with a dragon princess, Liu Yi Delivers a Letter to Lake Dongting (Dongting hu Liu Yi chuanshu 洞庭湖柳毅傳書) by Shang Zhongxian.5 In that play the dragon princess of Dongting, trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage, is banished by her husband’s family to the bank of the River Jing to work as a shepherdess. Liu Yi helps her deliver a message to her parents, and her uncle, the Dragon King of Qiantang, descends in fury on her husband’s dragon lair at the River Jing, causing great destruction and killing her husband. When the Dragon King of Dongting proposes to offer his daughter in marriage to Liu Yi, the latter refuses: “When I think about what the dragon princess looked like as she herded sheep by the River Jing—she was incredibly disheveled and worn-out—why would I want her?” He regrets his decision when he sees the dragon princess restored to the full glory of her beauty and finally achieves union with her after she is reborn as a mortal. Compared with Liu Yi, Zhang Yu is unwavering in his devotion to the dragon princess. Meng Chengshun took the glorification of love and human striving to be the “message” of the play: “When a person’s feelings reach to extremes, then he can defy beings from other realms and enter the dark seas.”6 In both plays, however, it is the female protagonists voicing longing or suffering who become the lyrical center. In both cases, the mythic realm of the Sea Kingdom opens up poetic possibilities: there are extravagant descriptions of its splendor as well as stirring accounts of monumental conflicts. The havoc caused by Zhang Yu as he boils the sea is matched by the account of the rampage of the Dragon King of Qiantang at the River Jing. The threads shared by these two plays may explain why Li Yu (1610–1680) combined them in his chuanqi play Tower in the Mirage (Shen zhong lou 蜃中樓).
In Zhu Quan’s Correct Sounds, our play is classified as a play about “gods and deliverance” (shenxian daohua 神仙道化). The frame of the deliverance play does apply: at the beginning of the play the Immortal of Donghua explains that Zhang Yu and the dragon princess were in fact the Golden Lad and Jade Maiden in their previous existences, and at the end of the play he “enlightens” them and they ascend to the celestial realm. However, whereas most deliverance plays involve acts of renunciation or the protagonists’ realization of the futility of mortal strivings and passions, Scholar Zhang Boils the Sea ambiguously dispenses with that plot line. Golden Lad and Jade Maiden are banished to the Lower Realm because of mortal passions, but instead of experiencing repentance or suffering in their earthly forms, they confirm their passion and ascend to heaven at the end in what looks like a celestial marriage.
This play, mentioned in The Register of Ghosts and Correct Sounds, is preserved in Anthology, on which this translation is based, and Willow Branch.7 The main difference is act 3: in Anthology the matchmaker and lead singer is the abbot, while in Willow Branch that role falls to the Fairy Mother.8 Another significant divergence is the beginning of act 2. The Willow Branch version begins with a sequence of arias sung by the Hairy Maiden disparaging the four worldly vices (drinking, sensual indulgence, greed for wealth, wanton anger) and extolling the joys of reclusion. Disconnected with the main action of the play, it is not surprising that an editor (probably Zang Maoxun) decided to excise it. It gives credence, however, to Zhu Quan’s characterization of the play’s main concern as “gods and deliverance,” and so I have appended its translation following the play. Its copresence with the lavish description of the splendor of the
Dragon Palace and the Immortal Realm reminds us of a fundamental duality in Daoist religion: the quest for simplicity and freedom from the burden of desire and the wish to fulfill desire in its myriad forms (material opulence and abundance, amorous union, immortality). Liu Jung-en also translated this play in Six Yuan Plays.
SCHOLAR ZHANG BOILS THE SEA
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Role type
Name, social role
EXTRA
IMMORTAL OF DONGHUA
MALE LEAD
FAYUN, ABBOT of Stone Buddha Temple
ACOLYTE
OPENING MALE
ZHANG YU, a young Confucian scholar
SERVANT BOY
FEMALE LEAD
QIONGLIAN, daughter of the DRAGON KING
MAIDSERVANT
FEMALE LEAD
HAIRY MAIDEN, a female immortal dressed like a Daoist priestess
EXTRA
DRAGON KING of the Eastern Sea
ACT 1
(EXTRA dressed as IMMORTAL OF DONGHUA enters.)
IMMORTAL OF DONGHUA (recites:)
Crimson clouds across the sea eastward loom:
Three Immortal Islands, all in riotous bloom.
Here flourish the purple mushrooms that life span extend;
Blissful and content, to joy in our divine home we ascend.
This humble Daoist mendicant is the Immortal of Donghua.9 From the point of No Beginning,10 I have adhered to the Dao with my whole heart. I have purified my Three Fields, nurtured into being the Supremely Precious Golden Shoot, imbibed the Seven-Round Elixir and Nine-Return Elixir, and have become the Immortal of the Highest Heavens holding sway over the wonderful and august heaven of Donghua.11
Now, during one Jasper Pool Gathering,12 Golden Lad and Jade Maiden conceived a mortal passion for each other. As punishment they were banished to the Lower Realm, placed into earthly wombs, and reborn. Golden Lad took human form as the son of the Zhang family in Chaozhou13 in the Lower Realm, gained a deep understanding of Confucian teachings, and became an accomplished scholar. Jade Maiden was born a girl at the abode of the Dragon Spirit of the Eastern Sea. By the time they pay off their karmic debt,14 I will naturally enlighten them so that they can return to the True Path. (Recites:)
Golden Lad and Jade Maiden felt affinities so keen:
Such a match of scholar and beauty the world has rarely seen.
Wait till they meet and pay their karmic debt;
They will return to the Jasper Pool, on the True Path set. (Exits.)
(ABBOT enters with ACOLYTE.)
ABBOT (recites:)
The great way of Buddha requires meditation and spiritual cultivation.
For the origins of our lineage, this monk offers illumination and explication.
Almost forgetting that the Eastern Sea is so close outside our gates,
I only thought that for our Immortal Realm, grace and quiet are natural traits.
This humble monk here is Fayun, the abbot of the Stone Buddha Temple. This is an ancient Buddhist monastery close to the shore of the Eastern Sea, and the marine troops of the Dragon King often frolic here. Disciple, keep watch outside the gate and let me know when visitors arrive.
ACOLYTE: I understand.
(OPENING MALE dressed as ZHANG YU enters with his SERVANT BOY.)
ZHANG: I am Zhang Yu, a native of Chaozhou, and my sobriquet is Boteng. My father and mother passed away many years ago. I have applied myself to studying the classics since childhood, but as luck would have it, I have yet to achieve success in the examination. Today I am strolling along the seashore and just caught sight of an old temple with an acolyte standing in front of the gate. You there, acolyte—does this temple have a name?
ACOLYTE: How could it not have a name? A mountain without a name is misleading enough, but a temple without a name is downright vulgar. This is the Stone Buddha Temple.
ZHANG: Go tell your abbot that a wandering scholar has come to pay a call.
ACOLYTE (reports the visit:) There’s a young scholar outside who’s come to pay his respects to you, Master.
ABBOT: Invite him in. (They greet each other.) May I ask where you are from?
ZHANG: I am from Chaozhou. Both my parents passed away when I was a child and I have yet to achieve success in the examination. I just happened to be strolling along the seashore, and because this old monastery looks so calm and tranquil, I am hoping you could provide me with a plain cell so that I could stay and review the classics and histories. I wonder if this would meet with your approval?
ABBOT: There are plenty of rooms in the temple. Disciple, prepare a secluded room in the southeast corner suitable for the young scholar to do his reading.
ZHANG: I do not have any appropriate gifts—here are two taels of silver that may serve you as a charitable donation, sir; please accept them.
ABBOT: Since you are sincerely offering them, I shall take them. Disciple, tidy up a room and prepare a vegetarian meal; see that the young scholar is comfortably settled. I will go back to the meditation hall to say prayers and honor the Buddha.
ACOLYTE: All right, we’ll give you this quiet room, sir. You’re free to do whatever you want. Go turn somersaults, do high kicks, perform a crazy dance, dress up like a god for all I care. Go ahead, let your hair down, improvise your lines, play the clown, raise hell, laugh it up. Have fun whatever way you want. As for me, I’m going to the meditation hall to wait on my master. (Recites:)
Sweeping the floor, hauling water all the way—
As an acolyte, I toil day after day.
Would that I could speak about romance
With the romantic, just fool around and play. (Exits.)
ZHANG: This monastery is peaceful, free from the babble of idle tongues. Ideal for concentrated study. But it is getting dark now. Bring the qin over here, boy, and I’ll play a tune to relieve my heart. (SERVANT BOY positions the qin.) Light the lamp and burn some incense. (SERVANT BOY does so.) (Recites:)
My tunes, recalling flowing streams and high mountains, are not in vain.
Now that Zhong Qi is gone, true appreciation is hard to attain.15
Could I, this evening plucking chords beside my lamp,
Charm swimming fish to rise up and listen?16
(FEMALE LEAD dressed as QIONGLIAN enters with her MAIDSERVANT.)
QIONGLIAN: I am Qionglian, third daughter of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. With my maidservant, Green Lotus,17 I am taking a leisurely stroll on the sea.
MAIDSERVANT: Look, Sister, the pellucid sea is just the color of the sky. What a lovely scene!
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Xianlü mode: Touching up Red Lips]
The sea waves are tossing, tossing,
The night wind gently blows.
Spume binds sky to sea.18
Not knowing east from west,
We step daintily across the waves.19
[River Churning Dragon]
On a clear, dreamless night like this,
I have brought along this young sprite as a companion for my stroll.
Having just emerged from the pellucid, jade-green sea,
We now stand gazing at the dazzling sweep of sky in the distance:
See how countless colorful clouds rise from the sea,
Where waves reflect the bright orb of the moon.
MAIDSERVANT: Are scenes in the sea different from the human realm?
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
I have seen the Phoenix Towers in the world of men—
How can they compare with the Dragon Palace of our Sea Kingdom?20
In the clear depths, the Cave Heavens and the Blessed Realms allow free roaming;21
In that endless green, the din of bathing ducks and flying geese is no longer provoking.
But equally deep is my romantic longing—
Oh, how hard it is to convey it to someone!
MAIDSERVANT: Sister, you are actually an immortal of the sea. Indeed your beauty is unearthly!
QIONGLIAN
(sings:)
[Oily Gourd]
We spirits of the sea have boundless years;
This immortal island of Penglai is within view.
My fairy sleeves, in silken crimson, flutter in the breeze.
In this cloudlike coiffure piled high, golden pins weightily tease,
The mere lifting of my eyebrows moves my jeweled hairpiece.
The sleeves cover
Finely tapered fingers.22
The skirt brushes
Tiny bow shoes.23
I only need to learn to play the flute; together we will take flight astride the fairy phoenix,
Soaring to cerulean heights on the winds of heaven.24
MAIDSERVANT: I should think heaven by definition cannot be matched by the world of men.
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Joy for All Under Heaven]
No match indeed: for the glories of the human world are soon swept away
Like tumbleweeds in a whirl of dust.
Spring passes, summer comes; autumn, then winter again.
They hear now the dawn-heralding cock,
Now the evening bell:
To the end these mortals don’t know what life is all about.
MAIDSERVANT (SCHOLAR ZHANG plays the qin; MAIDSERVANT listens:) Where is that sound coming from?25
QIONGLIAN (sings:)
[Song of the God Nezha]
I seem to hear the rustle of the night wind,
Wind drifting through countless pines,
While the bright face of the moon
Lights up half of the sky.
It’s the sound of gurgling water rushing,
Rushing as the stream flows down a steep slope.
It’s not the sound of lotus-gathering girls moving their oars,
Nor that of the old fisherman knocking the stern to rouse the fish:
That slumberer of the night is startled to hazy wakefulness.
