88.

LUST PUNISHED BY FOXES.

The Chronicler of the Strange points out that whereas most people are aware of the danger involved in storing ordinary poisons (such as arsenic) in the house, few appreciate the havoc that can be caused by leaving aphrodisiacs lying around the place. Men have a healthy fear of the dangers of the military battlefield, but are blissfully unaware of the far greater dangers lurking in the bedchamber.

For a glimpse of the type of thing our gentleman may have been collecting, the reader is directed to Robert van Gulik's excellent study Sexual Life in Ancient China (Leiden, 1961), especially pp. 1334, where the author describes various potions listed in the ancient sex handbook of Master Dong Xuan, such as 'Bald Chicken Potion' ('if taken for sixty days one will be able to copulate with forty women' this drug was apparently so named after an unfortunate cock who ate it by mistake when it had been thrown out in the courtyard, and copulated with a single hen for several days without dismounting, pecking her head bald); 'Deer Horn Potion' (to cure impotence and involuntary emission); a potion for enlargement of the penis (a mixture of broomrape and seaweed); and a potion for shrinking the vagina (made up of four ingredients, including sulphur and birthwort root). The same text is translated by Douglas Wile in Art of the Bedchamber, pp. 11213.

89.

MOUNTAIN CITY.

Sun Yu'nian: His father Sun Zixie rose to be President of the Board of War under the Emperor Shunzhi (r. 164461).

90.

A CURE FOR MARITAL STRIFE.

The Chronicler of the Strange warns against the powers of meddling womenfolk (the Six Old Women bawds, matchmakers, clairvoyants, female quacks, witches and midwives; and the Three Sisters Taoist and Buddhist nuns, and female diviners). They may be capable of influencing things for the better, turning (as in this tale) antipathy into love, but they can also exercise a negative influence. Such women should be kept from the door.

'venture near the tripod': Literally, 'ask about the cauldrons'. This is a reference to a famous incident in early Chinese history (described in the Zuo Commentary), when the Viscount of the southern feudal state of Chu 'ventured to ask about the size and weight of the ancestral cauldrons (or tripods) of the Zhou dynastic King'. This was interpreted as revealing his intention to seize power and usurp the throne. Pu Songling has given the expression a characteristically humorous twist.

erotic scrolls: For a superb introduction to this genre (literally chun-gong or chunhua, Spring Paintings) as it would have existed in Pu Songling's day, see van Gulik, Erotic Colour Prints. The album 'Variegated Positions of the Flowery Battle', reproduced in its entirety in this book, is dated by van Gulik to the late seventeenth century.

moxa: The powdered leaves of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), used in the healing process known as moxibustion, which is as ancient as acupuncture and uses the same system of points and meridians, or circuits of energy (qi), bringing Yin and Yang into proper balance. Moxibustion is especially recommended in all diseases caused by an excess of Yin. The cones are placed on particular spots and ignited; they are extinguished only after they have burned down to the skin and a blister is formed. In the late-Ming novel Golden Lotus (first published in 1618), moxa is used as a sexual stimulant during intercourse. The novel's most recent translator David Roy provides a note: 'It was an erotic practice in China to burn cone-shaped pellets of dried moxa on various parts of the female body that were regarded as particularly sensitive, including the breasts, the lower abdomen, and the mons veneris, in order to induce an involuntary writhing that was regarded as sexually stimulating to both partners' (The Plum in the Golden Vase, vol. I (Princeton, 1993), p. 500, note 41).

earthworm: Feng Zhenluan (1818) comments that the earthworm, when steeped in wine, can promote conjugal harmony. The commentary to the Xuanzhongji of Guo Pu (276324) describes the creature as 'earth born, an insect without understanding, indiscriminate in its sexual behaviour, having intercourse with locusts' (Read, Chinese Materia Medica X: Insect Drugs (1941), p. 171).

as harmonious as... lute and zither: The qin and the se have been emblems of conjugal happiness from earliest times. The two instruments, strictly speaking a seven-stringed and a twenty-five-stringed zither, occur in the Book of Songs, where they are played at marriages and other festivities.

92.

ADULTERY AND ENLIGHTENMENT.

The author's concluding comment (here for once he does not use the persona of the Chronicler of the Strange but speaks directly to his readers) refers to a Zen anecdote, in which a brutal murderer attains instant Buddhahood by throwing down his sword. In Patriarch Luo's case, it was the discovery of the adulterers that triggered off a sudden change of heart and enlightenment. In any case, Pu Songling seems to be poking fun at accepted ideas of sainthood.

Patriarch Luo: According to an informative note in the recent Liaozhai edition of Sheng Wei (2000), p. 1249, Patriarch Luo (whose unusual path to enlightenment is described in this story) lived during the reign of the Ming Emperor Zhengde (150622), and was originally from Jimo in Shandong. Subsequently he was enlisted in the Miyun garrison (north of Peking). After his enlightenment, he became the founder of the Buddhist sect known as the Luo Sect, a branch of the Linji Zen sect, which spread during the Manchu dynasty and became especially popular among the boatmen on the Grand Canal, eventually merging with the secret society known as the Green Gang (qingbang). There were many attempts to suppress Luo's sect, some of which are vividly described in J. J. M. de Groot's Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China (Amsterdam, 19034), especially on pp. 180ff. and 285ff. De Groot based his version of the legend (which differs greatly from the one given by Sheng Wei) on 'a parcel of old, dog-eared papers' brought to him by a sect member in Amoy, in the last years of the nineteenth century.

Jade Icicles... 'transformed': According to Taoist and Buddhist legend, the mucus of certain highly enlightened beings continued to descend from their noses after their transformation or death. This mucus was termed Jade Icicles (literally Pillars) and was regarded as a sign of spiritual perfection.

93.

UP HIS SLEEVE.

the Prince of Lu: Zhu Tan (137090), tenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang (132898), founder of the Ming dynasty. Zhu Tan was installed in Yanzhou in southern Shandong as Prince of Lu in 1385. (Lu was the ancient name for the southern part of Shandong.) His father, a ruthless but highly effective ruler (he was described by a Chinese scholar of the eighteenth century as 'sage, hero and robber'), was renowned for his Taoist beliefs and wrote a commentary (in ten days) on the Taoist classic The Way and Its Power (c. fourth century BC).

he produced a beautiful lady from within his sleeve: The capacious sleeve of the Chinese gentleman's gown, like 'the world within the pillow' of the Tang tale (see the note to Tale 82, 'Princess Lotus'), is 'an alternative world magically enclosed within the Taoist's sleeve' (Judith T. Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange, p. 197). For He Shouqi (1823), this microcosmic sleeve-universe recalls the Buddhist saying 'Mount Sumeru [the world mountain of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology] is contained in the tiniest grain of mustard.'

94.

SILVER ABOVE BEAUTY.

fine grass-script calligraphy: Grass script (caoshu sometimes translated 'cursive script') is the most free and unrestrained of the principal styles of Chinese calligraphy. The two Tang-dynasty masters of this style were Zhang Xu (mid eighth century) and the monk Huai-su (72585). See Minford and Lau, Classical Chinese Literature, I, pp. 750 and 807.

95.

THE ANTIQUE LUTE.

the Chinese lute: The seven-stringed qin is in reality more like a zither than a lute. It is the instrument par excellence of the Chinese scholar-gentleman, producing music of a subdued and highly refined beauty. The cultural ideology surrounding the instrument has been superbly described by Robert van Gulik in his study The Lore of the Chinese Lute (Tokyo, 1940).

We 'know each other's sound': One who 'knows the sound' of another is, as William Acker puts it: a friend whose knowledge of music is such, and whose mind is so attuned to that of the player that he can catch the finest nuances of the performer's thought and feeling, as he listens, and by his speech or by his silence after the playing of a piece shows that he has understood the other's thoughts as though they have been spoken rather than played...

(Some T'ang and Pre-T'ang Texts on Chinese Painting (Leiden, 1954), p. 10) The expression comes from the old story of Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi, in the Taoist Book of Liezi (? third century BC), a story that lies at the heart of the 'lute' legend: Bo Ya was an excellent lute-player, and Zhong Ziqi an excellent listener. When Bo Ya strummed his lute, with his mind on climbing high mountains, Zhong Ziqi would say, 'Excellent! Lofty as the peaks of Mount Tai!' When Bo Ya's mind was on flowing waters, Zhong Ziqi would say, 'Excellent! Boundless as the waters of the Yellow River and the Yangtze!' Whatever came into Bo Ya's thoughts, Zhong Ziqi always grasped it. Once when Bo Ya was roaming on the north side of Mount Tai, he was caught in a sudden storm of rain, and took shelter under a cliff. Feeling sad, he took up his lute and strummed it. First he composed an air about the persistent rain, then he improvised the sound of crashing mountains. As the music progressed, Zhong Ziqi never missed the direction of his thought. Bo Ya put away his lute and sighed: 'Excellent! Excellent! How wonderfully you listen! What you imagine is exactly what is in my mind. My music can never escape you!'

(Based on Angus Graham's translation; see Minford and Lau, Classical Chinese Literature, I, pp. 2312) A later Taoist text, The Spring and Autumn of Mr Lu (c. 239 BC), provides the well-known conclusion to the story: 'When Zhong Ziqi died, Bo Ya smashed his lute and broke the strings, and never played again for the rest of his life. He reckoned that there was no one left in the whole world worth playing to.' Van Gulik comments: 'This story may be said to contain the essence of the system of qin ideology, stressing as it does the supreme importance of the significance of Lute music: to express it while playing, and to understand it while listening... Perhaps it is an echo of the sacredness of music in ancient China' (The Lore of the Chinese Lute, p. 96).

97.

ROUGE.

The Chronicler of the Strange, in one of his more biting comments, reflects on the prevalence of false accusations in the courts, and on the lack of conscientious and intelligent magistrates. He states that your average mandarin comes to his yamen and whiles the day away playing chess, not caring a fig for the plight of the ordinary citizens in his care, and resorting to the instruments of torture at the slightest opportunity. At the end of his comment, he appends a moving eulogy of his mentor, Judge Shi Runzhang.

Madame Wang: This form of address reflects the Chinese custom whereby married women refer to themselves by their maiden name. She was Mrs Gong, nee Wang.

Li Qiusun: His real family name was E, but this is a case where the Hanyu Pinyin system of transcribing Chinese lets us down badly and I have substituted a more easily pronounceable and readable name.

and had him tortured on the rack: Certain forms of torture were legal. These included an instrument for compressing the ankle bones (sometimes called by foreigners the Scotch Boot), made from three wooden boards with grooves; an instrument for compressing the fingers, made from five round sticks; and the bamboo (which was supposed to be planed smooth, and without knots). If the prisoner was beaten to a jelly in the course of his trial, it was technically described as being 'warmly questioned'. But there were also many 'irregular' forms of torture. Samuel Wells Williams writes: Pulling or twisting the ears with roughened fingers, and keeping them in a bent position while making the prisoner kneel in chains, or making him kneel for a long time, are among the illegal modes. Striking the lips with sticks until they are nearly jellied, putting the hands in stocks before or behind the back, wrapping the fingers in oiled cloth to burn them, suspending the body by the thumbs and fingers, tying the hands to a bar under the knees, so as to bend the body double, and chaining by the neck close to a stone, are resorted to when the prisoner is contumacious... Compelling them to kneel upon pounded glass, sand and salt mixed together, until the knees become excoriated, or simply kneeling upon chains is a lighter mode of the same infliction.

(The Middle Kingdom (New York, 1882), pp. 5078) Wu Nandai: Obtained his third degree (jinshi) in 1633 and served as Prefect of Ji'nan in 1655.

execution after the Autumn Assizes: 'All criminals capitally convicted, except such atrocious offenders as are expressly directed to be executed without delay, are retained in prison for execution at a particular period in the autumn; the sentence passed upon each individual being first duly reported to, and ratified by, the Emperor' (Ta Tsing Leu Lee, p. 2).

Shi Runzhang: (161983), a celebrated poet and scholar. He was appointed Commissioner of Education in Shandong in 1656, and was the Examiner in 1658 when Pu Songling passed his first (xiucai) degree, thus becoming in a sense his mentor. He went on to win a reputation as a compassionate and incorruptible official, 'affectionately known as Shi the Buddha'. (See Arthur W. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (Washington, DC, 1943), p. 651.) City God Temple: See note to Tale 2, 'An Otherworldly Examination'.

judgement was as follows: This is another tour de force of allusive parallel prose (to be compared with the Author's Preface, and the satirical postface to Tale 63, 'Cut Sleeve'). Pu Songling was clearly inspired to go to some lengths in honour of his mentor. I have given one or two hints of this in my notes to the first paragraph, but have freely paraphrased the remaining sections.

Deng Tu... lecher of old: The butt of a rhapsody by the third-century BC poet Song Yu, where he is characterized as a sexually incontinent debauchee, who 'although married to an ugly and misshapen wife, yet had five children by her'.

Pencheng Guo: The philosopher and sage Mencius (c. 372c. 289 BC) said, 'He is a dead man, that Pencheng Guo.' When Pencheng Guo was put to death, the disciples asked, 'How did you know, Master, that he would meet with death?' Mencius replied, 'He was a man who had a little ability but had not learned the great doctrines of the superior man. He was just qualified to bring death upon himself, but for nothing more' (Mencius, VII, 2, 29).

Jiang Zhongzi... in the Songs: 'I pray you, Jiang Zhongzi, do not come leaping over my wall' (Book of Songs, Songs of Zheng, no. 76).