INTRODUCTION
From the moment of its foundation the Song dynasty (960–1278) had a tense and adversarial relation with its northern neighbors. In 960 this was the Liao dynasty of the Khitan, which had its power base in southern Manchuria. The Liao dynasty was one of the most successful states to emerge from the collapse of the Tang. The Khitan leader Abaoji had assumed the imperial title in 907, and for two centuries the Liao would be the strongest military power in the region. Their support would often be the determining factor in power struggles on the Central Plain, and the warlord Shi Jingtang 石敬瑭 (892–942) would even go so far as to cede them the sixteen northeastern prefectures of the old Tang empire (including the area of modern Beijing) to secure their aid in overthrowing the Later Tang (923–935) and establishing his own Later Jin dynasty (936–945). The founding of the Song itself originated in an aborted military campaign against the Khitan: when troops of the Later Zhou (951–960) were about to set out from Kaifeng to fight the Liao, they forced their commander Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤 (927–976) to depose his late sworn brother’s young son and assume the imperial throne himself. Over the next decade Zhao Kuangyin, now Emperor Taizu of the Song, would subdue one independent regime after the other, but not the Liao. It took the Song three large campaigns to subdue the Northern Han regime in modern Shanxi that was closely allied with the Liao, but even when Zhao Kuangyin’s brother and successor, Zhao Guangyi 趙光義 (939–997; Emperor Taizong), succeeded in that objective in 979, his campaign against the Liao in 980 ended in failure, as did another large campaign in 986. While the Song stubbornly tried to regain the sixteen prefectures, the Liao held on to them just as stubbornly. Peace was established only in 1004, when Liao armies penetrated deeply into Hebei and Emperor Zhenzong (r. 1023–1063) took the field against the invaders. Both sides eventually preferred negotiations over the uncertainty of battle, however, and the Liao armies retreated behind the existing border after the Song agreed to pay a large annual tribute. Even though the amount was much less than the emperor had been willing to agree to and even though the amount was only a modest post on the Song annual budget, the fact that it had to be paid, along with the permanent loss of the sixteen prefectures, continued to rankle Chinese feelings throughout the eleventh century.
So when a new military power emerged in Manchuria at the beginning of the twelfth century in the shape of the Jurchen, who soon established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), Song policy makers believed the moment had come to do away with the Liao once and for all and recover the territory of the sixteen prefectures. The Song and the Jin agreed to a common attack on the Liao. The Jurchen kept their part of the bargain by swiftly defeating the Liao, but the Song barely owned up to theirs. In the fall of 1125 the Jurchen armies therefore marched south and early in 1126 camped below the walls of Kaifeng. The Song court was in a panic and Emperor Huizong (r. 1101–1125) abdicated in favor of one of his sons, who succeeded him as Emperor Qinzong. The Jurchen retreated once the Song had made huge promises. It soon became clear, however, that the Song was unwilling or incapable of keeping these promises, and in the eleventh month of 1126 the Jurchen armies appeared outside Kaifeng again. The city was totally unprepared for a siege, and early in 1127 the Jurchen entered Kaifeng. If their original intention had been to loot the capital, they now decided on conquest. Both the retired emperor and the reigning emperor were deported as captives to Manchuria with thousands of others.1
One of Qinzong’s younger brothers, the Prince of Kang, Zhao Gou 趙構 (1107–1187), escaped from the north and fled south of the Yangtze. Later legends credited his successful escape to divine intervention: the horse that one night carried him for hundreds of miles turned out in the morning to have been a clay temple statue. The Prince of Kang organized a court and ascended the throne as Gaozong (r. 1127–1161) but initially was chased all over the Jiangnan area by Jurchen troops led by the Fourth Great Prince (Si Dawang 四大王) Wuzhu 兀朮 (d. 1148). It took several years before Gaozong could establish a more or less stable regime south of the Yangtze, where Hangzhou served as the Temporary Abode (Xingzai 行在) of the court and the de facto new capital of the Song. But while the court became more successful in warding off Jurchen attacks, it also became increasingly clear that the Southern Song was incapable of mounting the massive campaign that would be required to reconquer the Central Plain, let alone push the Jurchen back into Manchuria and free the captive emperors. Voices calling for an accommodation with the Jin dynasty became louder and dominant at court once Qin Gui 秦檜 (1090–1155) became prime minister.2 Qin Gui hailed from modern Nanjing, and had served in high court functions in Kaifeng. From 1127 to 1130 he was a captive of the Jin, where he gained the trust of a younger brother of the Jin emperor. Upon his return to the south, he soon gained the trust of Gaozong. Qin Gui, like many of his contemporaries, realized that as a precondition for a successful peace policy he would have to curtail the power of the semi-independent warlords allied with the Southern Song, all of whom had a vested interest in a continuation of the war. During the summer of 1141, when peace negotiations with the Jin were under way, the three major generals were all suddenly recalled to court, where they, now separated from their troops, were appointed to nominally high positions. One of these generals was Yue Fei 岳飛 (1103–1142). Yue Fei had served in the army since his youth and taken a leading role in the resistance against the Jin and the consolidation of the Southern Song regime. In 1140 he had pushed into Henan and recovered major cities such as Zhengzhou and Luoyang. But as effective as Yue Fei may have been as a general, he was equally inept as a politician, and upon his arrival in Hangzhou, he was thrown in jail and accused of rebellion. He refused to confess, and at the end of the year he suddenly died in prison. It was widely believed that he had been murdered at the order of Qin Gui. His adopted son, Yue Yun 岳雲 (1120–1142), and his assistant, Zhang Xian 張憲 (d. 1142), were eventually publicly executed. The other warlords heeded the lesson and agreed to be pensioned off, and in 1142 the Southern Song could sign a peace treaty with the Jin. The Huai River became the border between the two states, and the Southern Song agreed to make hefty payments to the Jin each year.
Qin Gui remained in power till his death in 1155. Soon after his death, however, both sides grew restive, and hostilities resumed in 1161. As the proponents of war now were in power at the Song court, the verdict on Yue Fei was reversed, and his full honors were restored in 1162, following the abdication of Gaozong and the succession by Xiaozong (r. 1162–1189). The hostilities came to an end in 1165 with a treaty that little changed the relation between the two states. Yue Fei had been provided in the meantime with a fine grave on the banks of Hangzhou’s scenic West Lake and would soon be depicted as the embodiment of all civil and martial values. It was widely believed that at the moment that he was called back (by thirteen summons on a single day!) he had been poised to inflict a decisive defeat on Wuzhu, and to reconquer the old capital and the Central Plain. Yue Fei’s grandson Yue Ke 岳珂 (1183–1240) would play a major role in shaping the posthumous reputation of his grandfather through his numerous publications. And while he recast his grandfather as a filial and loyal hero, Qin Gui has ever since been depicted as a black-hearted traitor who had insisted on a peace treaty with the Jin because he was in the pay of the Jurchen. The great philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) pontificated in 1165, “The reasons Qin Gui’s crimes permeated Heaven and could not have been redeemed even if he had died ten thousand deaths were, first, he promoted his evil policies to deceive the state, and, next, he used the power of the barbarians to coerce his sovereign, as a result obscuring proper relations between men and perverting the human heart.” 秦檜之罪所以上通於天，萬死而不足以贖者，正以其始則唱邪謀以誤國，中則挾虜勢以要君，使人倫不明人心不正.3
One rumor had it that the weak-spined villain Qin Gui had been able to make up his mind to have Yue Fei murdered only after his wife had told him in a private conversation at the eastern window that it was relatively easy to capture a tiger, but impossible to release the beast. Qin Gui, it was also said, had been able to achieve his position of power only because Emperor Gaozong was none too keen on the release of his elder brother Qinzong and far preferred the pleasures of an easy life in the south over the exertions of campaigning in the north. As the images of Yue Fei and Qin Gui became more polarized in the minds of the common people and the intellectual elite alike, stories soon emerged that Yue Fei had become a god and that Qin Gui was suffering eternal torture in hell. The seventeenth-century polymath Chu Renhuo 褚人獲includes in one of his compendia the following story that he credits to the Record of the Listener (Yi Jian zhi 夷堅志), a huge but incompletely preserved collection of anecdotes and gossip compiled by Zhu Xi’s contemporary Hong Mai 洪邁 (1123–1202):4
When Qin Gui had faked an edict and arrested Yue Fei and his sons, he had them locked up in the prison of the Court of Judicial Review. He then dispatched Moqi Xie 万俟卨 (1083–1157) to hold them over the fire. One day, when they still had not confessed, Gui was drawing in the ashes by the window of the eastern room as he was planning his next move. Gui’s wife said to him, “Capturing a tiger is easy, but it is impossible to release one.” Subsequently Yue Fei died in prison and Zhang Xian and Yue Yun were executed in the marketplace. The people of the Jin toasted to each other, saying, “Now none can harm us anymore!”
When later Gui was visiting the West Lake with his family, he suddenly was struck by a violent disease and saw a blind man, who shouted, “You ruined the country and harmed the people. I have already lodged an accusation with Heaven and you will be beaten with iron rods in front of the palace hall of Taizu!”5 Starting from this moment Gui fell into a deep depression that led to his death. Shortly afterward his son Xi 熺 also passed away.
[During a visit to the underworld] the shaman Fu Zhang 伏章 saw Xi wearing an iron cangue, so he asked him where the grand preceptor was. A crying Xi replied, “In the Fengdu 豐都 Hell.” When the shaman followed his directions to go there, he indeed saw Gui and Moqi Xie, who both were wearing an iron cangue and had been locked up inside an iron cage, where they suffered no end of torment. Gui told the shaman, “Please tell my wife that the affair of the eastern window has been exposed.”6
Chu Renhuo is perplexed that this anecdote does not yet mention the yamen runner He Li 何立, who by that time had become a fixture of the legend of Qin Gui’s sufferings in hell, so he goes on to quote the following story from a work titled Miscellaneous Record from Rivers and Lakes (Jianghu zaji 江湖雜記):
When Gui had killed Yue Fei, he went to Lingyin Monastery [outside Hangzhou] to pray. There was a postulant there who criticized him in wild words. When Gui asked him where he lived, he answered with the following lines: “Prime Minister, you’ll want to ask where I will go: / I live at Mountain Number One of the Southeast.” Gui ordered his servant He Li to track him down. When Li arrived at a palatial hall, he saw the monk seated there and deciding a case. When Li asked one of the attendants which case, the answer was, “King Ksitigarbha is deciding the case of Qin Gui’s murder of Yue Fei.” Shortly thereafter he saw some soldiers leading Gui inside. Gui wore an iron cangue, had been shaved bald like a criminal, and his face was covered with grime. When he saw Li, he called to him, “Tell my wife that the affair of the eastern window has been exposed!”
The Jianghu zaji is not otherwise known. If the work may be identified with the Recorded Legends of Rivers and Lakes (Jianghu jiwen 江湖紀聞), it would date from the early fourteenth century and might well be based on our play for this anecdote, rather than being its source. By the fourteenth century we have records that stories of Qin Gui’s villainy and his horrendous punishment were the subject of professional storytellers, had been written up into a novel, and was performed onstage. One of the best known versions is A Sequel to the Tale of the Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed (Xu Dongchuang shi fan zhuan 續東窗事犯傳) in A Collection of Poor Imitations (Xiaopin ji 效顰集) by Zhao Bi 趙弼of the early fifteenth century. In this tale the student Hu Di 胡迪, enraged by the evil perpetrated by Qin Gui upon reading The Tale of Qin Gui at the Eastern Window (Qin Gui dongchuang zhuan秦檜東窗傳), is invited to the underworld to witness the punishment of history’s villains, beginning with Qin Gui. A vernacular version of this tale was later included by Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 (1574–1646) in his Stories Old and New (Gujin xiaoshuo 古今小說; 1620–1621).7
The saga of Yue Fei would only continue to grow throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties as his glorious deeds and tragic end were constantly adapted and readapted for the stage and written up as novels and ballads all over China. One of the important works in that later tradition is an eighty-chapter novel from the early eighteenth century by a certain Qian Cai錢彩 titled The Full Tale of Yue Fei (Shuo Yue quanzhuan 說岳全傳), in which in the final episodes the sons complete the work of their father and succeed in freeing the captive emperors. While the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) celebrated Yue Fei for his loyalty, the same Yue Fei, as a fighter against foreign aggression, later also easily became an embodiment of the nationalistic desire to cleanse China of Manchu rule and imperialist occupation. There must be very few Chinese children indeed who do not know the story of how Yue Fei’s mother on the eve of his departure for the army inked on his back the four characters meaning “Serve your country with utmost loyalty” (jin zhong bao guo 盡忠報國). Unfortunately the story is a pious myth that can have originated only after it had been forgotten that all soldiers were tattooed with such phrases to make desertion impossible. The temple dedicated to Yue Fei next to his grave near Hangzhou’s West Lake in the 1220s has been restored time and again, and to this day displays the kneeling images of Qin Gui and his wife.8
The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed (Dongchuang shi fan), which has been preserved only in a Yuan-dynasty printing from Dadu, may well be the earliest preserved dramatic adaptation of the legend of Yue Fei. Dating from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, it does not yet make reference to many episodes that would become famous and conspicuous parts of the later tradition. It is one of the most elaborate zaju of the period, consisting not only of four full acts but also of two wedges and a final demi-act. The songs in the play are assigned to a male lead, who has to switch roles (or at least costumes) with every wedge and act. In the opening wedge the male lead performs the role of Yue Fei, who, at the height of his career and poised to retake the north, is suddenly and urgently recalled to court. While Yue Fei has his doubts about the request, as a loyal official he has no other recourse but to obey. By the first act, Yue Fei has arrived in the capital and has been thrown into jail. The male lead now portrays Yue Fei as a prisoner wearing a cangue. Throughout this act, an indignant Yue Fei rejects every accusation of rebellion with heavy sarcasm and vaunts his merits in service to the state. Most likely his interlocutor in this act is Qin Gui (or Qin’s henchman Moqi Xie, who was in charge of Yue Fei’s trial), but the stage prompts in our only preserved edition are very minimal and do not specify this information (at the very end of the act Yue Fei directly addresses the emperor). By the beginning of the second act, Yue Fei has been murdered and Qin Gui visits Lingyin Monastery outside Hangzhou to appease the specters that haunt him by sponsoring sutra recitations and vegetarian feasts for the monks. At the monastery he is taunted at length by a deranged postulant, the new role of the male lead. The idiocy of the holy fool allows such a character to freely express truths that others would hardly dare utter. This holy fool does not mention his own name, but later in the play he is referred to as Ye Shouyi 葉守一. The second act is followed by yet another wedge, in which the male lead performs the role of He Zongli 何宗立, a runner who has been ordered by Qin Gui to arrest the unhinged postulant. By the time He Zongli reencounters the postulant, he realizes that the postulant is the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, the ruler of the underworld, who has dragged Qin Gui off to the Fengdu Hell, where he suffers unspeakable torture.
In the third act of The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed the male lead performs the role of the ghost of Yue Fei, who, attended by Yue Yun and Zhang Xian, appears in a dream to the emperor, requesting the verdict in his case be overturned. The identity of the emperor is not clarified in the stage prompts but would seem to refer to Gaozong following his abdication. Scenes in which deceased ministers appear to their emperor in a dream are not uncommon on the Yuan stage: Yang Zi had the ghost of Huo Guang appear to Emperor Xuan of the Han (see chap. 2), and Guan Hanqing had the ghosts of Zhang Fei and Guan Yu appear to Liu Bei. This play increases the number of ghosts to three and has them not only appeal to the emperor for help but also criticize the emperor for his failings. In act 4 the male lead returns to the role of He Zongli, who, having failed to arrest the postulant, returns some twenty years later to Hangzhou. After he has reported to Qin Gui’s widow how her husband suffers in hell, he is invited to court and provides the emperor with a detailed account of his experiences. The act consists of his report to the throne. No stage directions are provided for the final demi-act, but it is obvious from the content of the arias that the male lead performs the role of a deified Yue Fei who demands from the emperor a gruesome revenge on Qin Gui. The play concludes with the appearance onstage of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha and his retinue. We may safely assume that his final words will announce the law of karma’s disposition of the heroes and villains of the piece.
As is clear from this summary, the play describes both the tragic death of Yue Fei and the final reversal of his verdict twenty years later. While the play portrays Yue Fei as an innocent and loyal martyr, Qin Gui is portrayed as a traitor who is a villain evil in every aspect of his personal and official life. But the play also highlights the divine powers of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha. The conspicuous role of Ksitigarbha in this play is even more remarkable when we compare this play with plays about the generals of the Yang family such as Yang Ye 楊業 (d. 986) and Yang Jing 楊延昭 (958–1014), who fought the Liao in the early decades of the Song.9 The legend of the generals of the Yang family developed at roughly the same time as the legend of Yue Fei. As in the case of Yue Fei, the heroic efforts of Yang Ye and Yang Yanzhao in fighting the Liao are continually frustrated by jealous bureaucrats, often in the pay of the enemy. In the legend of the generals of the Yang family, these treacherous bureaucrats have, however, a remarkable hold on power, and, for all the impact of popular religion on the legend, they are seldom dragged off to hell. Perhaps the reason is that in the legend of the generals of the Yang family the niche of the monk was occupied by one of Yang Jing’s brothers, who had become a monk at Mount Wutai—without losing any of his qualities as a warrior. But the names of the temples involved (Lingyin Monastery vs. Mount Wutai) also may suggest the role of local cults in the differential development of these legends.
Our earliest catalogue of playwrights, Zhong Sicheng’s Register of Ghosts, credits two playwrights with a zaju titled The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed. One of these authors was Jin Renjie 金仁傑 (d. 1329) from Hangzhou. Zhong credits seven plays to Jin, almost all on historical subjects. Many earlier scholars felt that, as a Hangzhou person, Jin would be the most likely author of the preserved play, but the full title given by Zhong, who claims to have been a good friend of Jin’s, is not exactly the same as that of the preserved play. Jin’s play is titled Grand Preceptor Qin’s Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed, which might suggest that Ksitigarbha did not play a role in this play. The Register of Ghosts was transmitted in manuscript for a long time, and the various manuscripts of the Register of Ghosts show major differences among one another. While one manuscript notes that Jin’s play was a “second play” (a second play with the same title), one seventeenth-century printed edition states that it was a danben 旦本, that is, a play for a female lead. If this late evidence can be accepted, it excludes Jin Renjie as the author of the preserved play, which, as noted, assigns its songs to the male lead. Modern editors of The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed therefore credit the play to the second author mentioned by Zhong Sicheng as having written a play of the title, a Pingyang 平陽playwright by the name of Kong Wenqing 孔文卿. The modern scholar Sun Kaidi suggests that the playwright may be identified with a certain Kong Xueshi 孔學詩 (1260–1341), whose style name was Wenqing and who hailed from Liyang 溧陽, but this identification has not been generally accepted.10 It should be pointed out that the title of Kong’s play, too, is given as Grand Preceptor Qin’s Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed, but one version of the Register of Ghosts lists “He Zongli Arrests the Postulant of the Western Hills” as the play’s title (timu 題目), and “King Ksitigarbha Testifies to the Crime of the Eastern Window” as its name (zhengming 正名), and while that does not fully correspond to the play as we have it either (in the fourteenth-century edition these two lines together serve as its zhengming), it is close enough for most modern scholars. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the sixteenth-century polymath Lang Ying 郎英 (1487–ca. 1566) tells us in his Classified Essays, Seven Times Revised (Qixiu leigao 七修類稿) that he had once read a play titled The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed by Kong Wenzhong 孔文仲 (probably a mistake for Kong Wenqing) from Pingyang, and a novel of the same title by Jin Renjie, but then adds that he had forgotten the contents of both works.11 Needless to say, our Yuan Edition of the play does not mention the name of the author.
The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed must have made extraordinary demands on an actor as he had first to portray Yue Fei at the height of his power and next as a shackled criminal. He then had to portray an unhinged postulant, a yamen runner, the ghost of Yue Fei, the same yamen runner twenty years older, and finally the deified Yue Fei. Perhaps because the demands of this play were so high, our sources tell the name of at least one actor who was renowned for his performance of this zaju. Perhaps also to distinguish Kong’s play from the second play by Jin Renjie, one edition of the Record of Ghosts contains the information that this was the play “performed by Yang Ju’er” (Yang Ju’er an 楊駒兒按).12 Our other information on Yang Ju’er is limited to the fact that he was the father of the famous actress Yang Mainu 楊買奴. The latter enjoyed the patronage of the Uighur noble and poet Guan Yunshi 貫雲石 (1286–1324), who also may have known Yang Ju’er.
The text of the play is damaged in places, especially in the fourth act. Earlier editors have been able for most of these passages to come up with convincing emendations that we have accepted and not marked in our translation.13
SUGGESTED READINGS
Degkwitz 1983; Feng 2000a; Hartman 1998; Hennessey 1981, 1984; Huang 2004–2005; Idema and West 2013; Liu 1972; Qian 1995; Tao 2009; Wang-Toutain 1998; West 2006; Wilhelm 1962.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
| Role type |
Name and family, institutional, or social role |
| MALE LEAD |
YUE FEI (wedge 1, act 1) |
| TWO GENERALS |
YUE YUN and ZHANG XIAN |
| EMISSARY |
EMISSARY |
| MALE LEAD |
KSITIGARBHA, dissembling as addled postulant (act 2) |
| GRAND PRECEPTOR |
QIN GUI |
| MALE LEAD |
GUARD, also known as He Zongli (wedge 2, act 4) |
| SOOTHSAYER |
SOOTHSAYER |
| HERDING BOY |
HERDING BOY |
| MALE LEAD |
YUE FEI’s ghost (act 3) |
| DOOR GODS |
DOOR GODS |
| EMPEROR |
EMPEROR GAOZU of the Southern Song |
| MALE LEAD |
YUE FEI as a god (demi-act) |
| KING KSITIGARBHA |
KING KSITIGARBHA |
| EXTRAS |
KING KSITIGARBHA’s retinue |
NEWLY PRINTED AT THE GREAT CAPITAL, A FULL TEXT WITH PLOT PROMPTS: THE AFFAIR OF THE EASTERN WINDOW EXPOSED
[WEDGE]
MALE LEAD, costumed, enters leading TWO GENERALS—takes his seat and opens: I14 am Yue Fei, also known as Pengju. Since my youth I practiced the martial arts. I followed Emperor Gaozong during his Southern Crossing. We spent no more than ten days in Jinling15 before the Fourth Great Prince of the state of Jin16 caught up and attacked. When he arrived at the town of Qiantang 17 to the west of the Zhe, he called it the Temporary Abode and ascended the imperial throne. I lead my troops here at Zhuxian Town to stand against the enemy, and the Fourth Great Prince has locked his gates and doesn’t dare come out. All my life my ambition has been the recapture of the Eastern Capital.18 Recently I had a proposal submitted to His Majesty—I wish to set out on my campaign but I have not yet received an imperial edict. These last few days my thoughts have been agitated, I don’t know why. [EMISSARY enters carrying the imperial edict and the golden plaque—MALE LEAD receives the edict and speaks:] I don’t know what is going on at court. Zhang Xian and Yue Yun,19 guard this border carefully. Today I better mount up and leave.
([XIANLü MODE:] Duanzheng hao)
In a single day I’m summoned by His Majesty
No less than thirteen times.
Most likely I must turn back my million brave troops.
Could it be that at court some kind of secret plot is afoot?
If not,
Why would they dispatch imperial emissaries as regularly as the nodes of bamboo?20
(Reprise)
It must be that
The Sagely Enlightened Ruler especially summons me to be feasted and rewarded;
How could he be willing
To believe words of slander and “grow branches beyond the nodes”?21
This can only be
A ceasefire, an end to the war, and perhaps a return to court—
I silently ponder this matter:
This must be
An appointment to office and rank by imperial grace;
A clear summons to be rewarded with gold and treasure.
When I will return with an increased number of troops,
I’ll display the Three Strategies, use the Six Tactics,22
Recover the Nine Prefectures,23 retake the capital city,
Slaughter their fierce generals, and bloody the slain corpses.
When I will have retaken the Four Capitals24 and Nine Prefectures,
I will have fulfilled my lifetime’s ambition!
Exits.
[ACT 1]
MALE LEAD enters wearing a cangue and opens: When I was summoned and arrived at the palace gate, I was not taken to see the emperor, but Qin Gui had me sent down to the Court of Judicial Review for interrogation. His Majesty trusts treacherous ministers and rebellious sons and harms us, his meritorious ministers! “In times of Great Peace there is no need any more for the old generals.” How true that is!
([XIANLü MODE:] Dian jiangchun)
I established the state and brought peace to the nation;
Was surrounded by
Tiger braves and wolf generals.
On the battlefield I slept in the snow and rested on frost.
On your behalf
I controlled strategic25 mountains and rivers!
(Hunjiang long)
I recall how I “subdued men and captured generals,”
Engaged in bitter and murderous battles a thousand times,
And I have wound up
Wearing a cangue and walking in chains—
To no avail I
Extended the land and expanded the borders!
I truly believe there is
A purple seal-ribbon official who “manipulates the Son of Heaven to command the liege lords,”26
And wants to harm us iron-armored generals who guard the border passes and smash enemy troops!
On your behalf I
Wiped away the demonic ether,
Cleansed away that demonic miasma,
But I cannot
Enter my name into the registers.
Truly
Wrongly interrogated in front of the hall,
I consider how you all conspire in front of the emperor,
And involuntarily
My hero’s tears fall drop by drop on the tips of this cangue.
I imagine that
One order of our general who controls the commander’s headquarters27
Will never supersede
The three statutes of the law28 of those who sit in the Executive Office.29
Speaks: It was not Yue Fei who rebelled! August Heaven can make this clear!
(Youhulu)
I remember how a mere thirteen men with swirling sleeves ascended the walls overlooking Bianliang,
And imprisoned the retired emperor there at Green City.30
Speaks: And scared eight million men of the imperial guard so much they stripped off their armor and threw away their helmets!
At that time
There was not one precious sword in a sheath that could pull out its autumn frost!
Was a parasitic lazybones commander in chief;
A letter-carrying, note-presenting prime minister.
One “caretaker of the household” destroyed it;
And one “supposed to bring peace to the nation” lost it.33
How many golden branches and jade leaves34 were made captives and had to leave their native land!
If at that time
The clay horse had not allowed the Prince of Kang to escape,
(Tianxia le)
Then at present
The rivers and mountains of the house of Song would all belong to the Fourth Prince!
Truly taken whole, the capital sundered, its walls in ruins!
Once again for you I secured the sun and moon and stabilized the four directions.
How many of us died on the battlefield?
How many wounds in defeating the enemy?
But that was just
“All the merits in the world aren’t worth the paper they are written on.”36
Since I am supposed to have planned rebellion, where are the stockpiled fodder and the assembled provisions? Who ever saw those?
(Nezha ling)
You think about it and consider it well:
There on the field of death, on the field of battle—
You think about it and consider it well:
I stabilized the nation, secured the nation!
You think about it and consider it well:
I established the mainstays of the court, the mainstays of its norms.
I should never have
Supported the imperial cause until it could rise again;
I should never have
Guarded the mountains and rivers until they were strongly held;
I should never have
Restored order until “earth grew old and heaven was ruined.”37
(Que ta zhi)
I should never have determined survival or demise,
Arrayed swords and lances.
You truly
Made your plots and unrolled your schemes
To damage and harm the able and good.
You try to drive me into the net of heaven and snares of earth;
And want to make my nine relatives38 all suffer disaster!
(Jisheng cao)
I lift my head and interrogate high heaven;
My hero’s rage blames the welkin above.
I questioned the Lord of Heaven, but never provoked Heaven to send down a sign!
I governed the local population, but never made the local population unsettled;
I commanded a whole army, but never let the whole army be sacrificed.
As a result I’m now
Shackled in chains from head to toe and forced to kneel in front of the hall—
This is no
“Black parasol flying over my head”!39
(Cunli yagu)
I should never have
Supported the One Man to become emperor—
I made the myriad people lose all hope.
I should never have
Served the dynasty, supported the state,
And swept away the smoke and dust both night and day.
I should never have
Depended on my skills
Or relied on my courage
To take possession until mountains and rivers grew strong,
To protect the four seas until they were peaceful,
The imperial enterprise flourished,
And the people’s concerns fell away.
That was the way in which
I asked for an office and received rewards.
(Yuanhe ling)
I never got to enjoy any “gold getting on, silver getting off my horse,”
Even though I should have been “a general in the field, a minister at court.”
For you I
Wrested away battle flags, overturned battle drums, led the braves,
Yet could not line up twelve rows of golden hairpins.40
But you let this herding boy, this village yokel, this coarse rustic oaf,41
On the other hand, be able at day’s end to ascend to the Son of Heaven’s hall!
(Shangma jiao)
There is no need to be so cruel—
Are you still afraid I’ll run amok?
You say it’s better
To beat me first and discuss the issue later:
I’ve become
The plowing ox that is whipped by its owner.
I see that the outer provinces are abandoned;
The inner provinces are protected by the Hanyang River;42
His Majesty has always wanted to reside in Su and Hang!43
(You simen)
I only fear he doesn’t know that disaster will arise behind “the screen of reverence”!44
You intend to
Disorder the mainstays of the court:
You falsified the order that tricked me into leaving the border region.
For you “there is no world, just your official position,”45
And you have secretly set out swords and axes at the side of the stairs.
(Sheng hulu)
Quite different from
“Drunken beauties by the side of the embroidered zither”!46
If now we accord with Heaven and abide by its proper time—
But those who go against Heaven: Heaven does not claim their lives;
And those who obey Heaven: disaster is sent down by Heaven;
Those who disobey Heaven: they are not paid back by the deities;
Those who obey Heaven: they suffer the calamities!
(Jisheng cao)
You say that I rebelled against the court—
I should not have aided the altars of state.
I should not have
Subdued Qi Fang, destroyed his lair, and so displayed my cunning;47
I should not have
Captured the bandit Li Cheng and taken him to the commander’s tent.48
I should not have
Defeated the Jin and supported Gaozong so he might flourish.
You want to
Have me beheaded in the marketplace,
This is no
“Merits depicted in the Gallery Soaring Beyond the Mist”!49
Speaks: August Heaven will reveal Yue Fei’s loyalty and filial piety!
(Zhuan Coda)
You have thrown me onto death row for criminals who commit the Ten Abominations!50
Never again will I be seated in the lotus-flower tent of Nine Tripods.51
But how would I ever
Willingly confess to the crime of plotting rebellion?
When I die,
I’ll become a loyal and filial ghost who bears wrongs and carries injustice.
At present there are
Small states and neighboring nations that invade our borders,
And Qin Gui collaborates with them in raising sword and lance.
Your Majesty,
I have to fear you’ll not be seated for long on your Dragon Throne!
When I die,
The result will be that throughout the world the common people all will say:
“Yue Fei, father and sons,
Should never have risked their lives by making the south submit and the north surrender;
Or exhausted their strength in cleaning the west and routing the east!”
After the killing of YUE FEI, YUE YUN and ZHANG XIAN ○ [YUE FEI sings:] 52
Your Majesty, you’re like one who cuts down the heaven-supporting, ocean-bridging purple-gold pillar.
[ACT 2]
MALE LEAD enters costumed as ADDLED POSTULANT, carrying a “fire pipe,”53 and recites: …54
I am the god Ksitigarbha, but I have transformed myself into a stupid postulant. Here in Lingyin Monastery I will leak the Grand Preceptor’s crime of the eastern window. A poem reads:
Harm others, you harm yourself, your own body comes to an end:
I am mad and I’m addled, so I’m just fine.
Just think about it: in the arena of mine and thine
In the end it’s hard to escape and the date of death draws near!
([ZHONGLü MODE:] Fendie’er)
Don’t laugh at me for my dirty face and addled madness,
You cannot probe the main drift of my original mind—
Just because
The people of this world are too stupid to understand subtle Buddhist hints.
A head of short hair, all disheveled,
I’m toting a tattered carrying bag,
Yet inside it is hidden all of heaven and earth.
Holding my fire pipe I’ve left the monastery’s kitchen.
I’ve descended to earth to leak a heavenly secret.
(Zui chunfeng)
I never
Worshipped, read sutras, or confessed in the Dharma Hall,
I only
Do all the heavy physical work in this monastery of ours.
All because you
Deceive the emperor above and abuse his vassals below—
Continues in speech: You may say that I am stupid, / But I say that you’re a traitor. / “It may be easy to capture a tiger, / But it’s impossible to set it free.”56 Grand Preceptor!
These words apply only to you,
So don’t you laugh at me for my muttering,
I am far clearer than you!
You ask me for my background—
I disclose my background to you,
Let’s see how you will answer!
What do you mean “I don’t know why you’re here”?
(Ying xianke)
I am fully aware of why you came,
I knew it before you could open your mouth.
I know how afraid you are!
You are having terrible dreams, and that’s why
You come and bother our simple monastery,
To pray to gods and ghosts,
To join the congregation for worshipping, sutra reading, and confessions.
Forget about imploring our bodhisattva—
Isn’t it said: “I pray for Guanyin’s help”!
Waits until GRAND PRECEPTOR has spoken.
(Shiliu hua)
Grand Preceptor, you ask me for the truth in every detail,
Listen to me as I will explain cause and reason.
Didn’t you at that time trust your worthy wife?
She urged you on and on—
How can you not know this yourself?
By the eastern window you did not grasp “the intention in coming from the west.”57
I may be muddleheaded,
But you have no defense.
Just because
Slippery, treacherous, and cunningly obsequious you beclouded your own mind,
I know already in advance
Whatever thought you have.
(Dou anchun)
I know you collaborate with a foreign country—
How can that be “serving the nation, supporting the state”?
We have to carefully consider all our human actions
To avoid regretting them later.
Haven’t you heard “Transparent clear Heaven cannot be deceived”?
Judging by the deeds you committed
You’re here to scare the ghosts and fool the gods,
Playing [the turtle that] hides its head and shows its tail!
Speaks: Grand Preceptor, don’t laugh at my fire pipe!
(Hong xiuxie)
It originally was a gentleman
But it wanted to grab power and rely on might;
As soon as you blow in it, it makes smoke disappear and ashes fly!
Because it grows branches beyond the nodes it makes people suffer.
So why don’t I leave it in the kitchen
And carry it always with me in my hands?
This here is what I don’t control: … Sings:
Daring to raise clouds of dust,
Ruining the altars of the state!
(Shi’er yue)
I laugh at you, a prime minister at court,
Who cares only about pestering this cleric.
Here I lay it out oh so clearly,
There he mulls it over oh so darkly.
It’s not the case that this mad monk is just flapping his lips—
It’s better than undeservedly eating palace food.
(Yaomin ge)
As long as you are seated you won’t notice, but once you rise you’ll feel hungry;
This is
Brought about by “white flour on both ends.”58
Don’t get alarmed when I eat yet another two,
For you’ve wrongly killed three—who are you going to blame it on?
Everyone under heaven clearly understands,
Clearly understands,
The motive at work.
The common people are just like a soured bun stuffing:
Everyone’s belly is filled with gas!59
(Manting fang)
You want only to ruin the dynasty and wreck the state.
When did you ever
Wrest away a battle flag, overturn a battle drum,
Engage in a murderous fight?
You turn the merits of other people at the border into crimes:
Your only ability is changing right into wrong.
Even a divine prescription cannot remove that illness of yours;
Without a miraculous drug even I cannot cure you!
You had those heroes
All turned into ghosts by a blade of steel:
At Yunyang60 blood soiled their clothes.
(Kuaihuo san)
Because of your crimes my storm61 only increases,
And where the storm passes, the sun will shine.
Just because you
Grabbed the clouds and held them tight, no copious rain could fall.62
And should any rain fall,
It will be Heaven weeping for Yue Fei!
(Baolao’er)
That “head replacer” will catch up to you soon:63
Did you ever fear crossing the law with a senseless crime?
I recite no sutras, but that is so much better than you, cursed by all.
Please consider carefully the meaning of this eight-line poem.
Your heart I know—
Once one word has been spoken,
No four horses can chase it down!
The poem reads:
Long I’ve heard that a prime minister orders the cosmos;
Occupying the very first position among all officials.
All ministers he leads to bow at the imperial palace,
Offices are where he shows respect to elderly statesmen.
Having plans, he is able to make the barbarians retreat;
Having stopped treachery and heresy, he allows guards to be at ease.
Stalwart ministers will, with all their heart, loyally serve the state,
Road-traveling passers-by talk of Great Peace.64
The scenery here is really beautiful.
(Shua hai’er)
This monastery towers up grandly and beautifully as hills pile up their green;
At the lake’s waterfall the haze is luminous, the water blue.
These mountains
Of a thousand layers and valleys by the myriad resemble cloth panels of a screen;
The clear expanse of the jade lake laps at the full length of Su’s Dike.65
The green mountains can only grind down past and present,
But the verdant water can never wash away right and wrong.
To no avail you cultivate blessings:66
All it will achieve is
Your own death and your family’s destruction,
Scattered like tiles, gone like stars.
(Third from Coda)
Now Yue Fei’s merit in securing dynasty and nation is finished;
And Qin Gui’s betrayal of the court is known to all:
The enmity between the two of you is like water from the eaves.67
Because this treacherous and sycophantic prime minister was vicious in a thousand ways,
He sent to his death a noble and heroic general whose might extended to the eight directions.
What you have done violates the principles of heaven.
Don’t say the divinities will not repay you for that:
The only issue is whether that will happen early or late.
(Second from Coda)
Look, your bottle of sins is full;
Quickly now, so quickly the date of your death presses close,
And those three men will be waiting for you in the court of shades!
These words are right on:
“Before the Metal Wind68 stirs, the cicada is already aware;
Secretly send off Impermanence,69 you still don’t know you are dead.”
At that time you go off to the world at the springs,70
You will surely suffer the punishments for the Ten Abominations;
Don’t think you can escape from retribution on the Six Paths!71
(Coda)
I’ve explained it to you like a riddle for you to guess,
You should have doubts about it like some depressing affair in your heart.
One day you will understand what I meant by the affair of the eastern window exposed,
But I’m sure that you’ll be beating your breast, for then you will be filled with regret.
Exits.
[WEDGE]
MALE LEAD, costumed as GUARD, enters.—Speaks: My surname is He; I’m He Zongli. I have been ordered by Grand Preceptor Qin to go and arrest that addled postulant in Lingyin Monastery in the Western Hills. Who would have imagined that he would have disappeared? He left behind one sheet of paper on which there is an eight-line poem. I’ll have to show it to the grand preceptor.—Acts out greeting GRAND PRECEPTOR.—Waits for GRAND PRECEPTOR to read the poem.—The poem reads:
I’ve abandoned the cassock, taken leave of meditation;
I didn’t come to the dusty world to live in this little temple of the mind.
I have no love for those two meals of vegetarian porridge;
Nor any greed for tiny profit or an empty name.
My nature resembles the white cloud just rising from a mountaintop;
My mind is like an orphaned moon sinking in a cold pool.
If the prime minister should ask, “Where did you go?”
Say, “I live on the Number One Mountain in the Southeast.”
Grand Preceptor Qin orders me to go to Mountain Number One in the Southeast and arrest the addled postulant Ye Shouyi, so I will have to go.
Waits till SOOTHSAYER has entered and finished speaking.—MALE LEAD enters quickly and speaks:—Over there I see a soothsayer. First of all I’ll ask him for the road to the Mountains of the Southeast, and secondly I’ll buy a prediction.—Waits until SOOTHSAYER has spoken and exits. Acts out gazing after him and bows.
([XIANLü MODE:] Shanghua shi)
Within the Six Lines73 he can discern disaster and blessing;
He can guide the perplexed through the Eight Trigrams.74
Waits for HERDING BOY to play his flute.—Acts out listening.
I only hear
The sound of the flute slowly fade away.
At this time the sky is darkening, evening is falling:
This leads me straight to Ghost Gate Pass!75
Exits in a flash.
Waits until KING KSITIGARBHA enters and speaks.—After acting out greeting him.—Speaks: Where didn’t I look for you? But you were here! Grand Preceptor Qin issued a warrant for your arrest!
(Reprise)
Here
Is clearly written “Number One Mountain in the Southeast.”
Waits until GRAND PRECEPTOR QIN enters wearing a cangue and speaks.
I see only demon runners and buffalo heads76 in a somber mist;
I see the grand preceptor
Suppressing his tears to recount his sufferings.
He tells me to inform Her Ladyship:
“Only say, the Affair of the Eastern Window Is Exposed.”
That will have to do as
“For both horse and man, report we are out of danger”!77
Exits.
[ACT 3]
Waits until after EMPEROR enters, speaks, stops, and falls asleep.—After DOOR GODS enter.78 MALE LEAD, costumed as HUN SOUL, enters with TWO GENERALS and opens.—After we were wrongfully murdered by Qin Gui, our predestined lifetime in the realm of light was not yet finished and, having received a note from the heavenly Buddha and an edict from the Jade Emperor, the Sage Emperor of the Eastern Marchmount79 has ordered us to appear in a dream to Gaozong, the retired emperor.
(YUEDIAO MODE: [Dou anchun])
Wherever we go clouds of resentment coldly obscure us
And mournful winds wildly howl.
We left the City of Those Who Wrongly Died,80
Made a quick turn and arrived at the backside of the Dark Mountains.
I failed to highlight my name in the green chronicles,81
All I achieved was
Losing my head to a blade of steel.
Each day
“Qin does not care, Wei will not take us.”82
Eventually, for no rhyme or reason, we suffered execution,
But don’t think I will just dumbly let it lie!
(Zihua’er xu)
Our three souls are cold and lonely;
Our seven spirits are resentful and full of grief;83
Our whole consciousness tumbles and drifts away.
I am no
Evil specter that brings down disaster;
I am
A liege lord who put out every effort.
You ask for the reasons?
I will clearly explain this bone-piercing enmity to our Sagely Lord,
And what I say will contain not a single lie or error.
Superior Gods,84 I thank you for allowing these resentful ghosts who died unjustly
To enter these Phoenix Pavilions and Dragon Lofts.85
(Xiaotao hong)
I bow my body, fold my hands, and deeply lower my head;
I dare not knock on the dragon couch!
As I bow and dance and shout out thrice,86 I am suffering in pain.
I see the emperor suddenly lift his head.
As he, alarmed, returns to the imperial bedchamber, so I address the Celestial Face.
In the shade of the candles I sincerely kowtow,
And as I speak, old memories wound my heart:
As before, my brows furrowed with sorrow for Temple and Hall.87
(Gui santai)
While still alive your servant suffered greatly,
As racing in armor and helmet
I was always the vanguard;
As your commander
Toward the sandy borderlands I pressed on my brave warriors.
As your servant
Says this, he is overcome by shame,
Recalling when my, your insignificant minister’s,
Leading of men to take generals alive suddenly ended,
I ended up
Wearing a cangue, in shackles and chains, meeting the strictest incarceration.
Your servant had thought that
Leading the army, eternal spring would last forever,
And never imagined that
Halfway down the road of life he would draw a short straw.
(Zihua’er xu)
Your servant’s life was
Worth no more than a dewdrop on a flowering branch,
Some willow floss tossed by the wind,
Or a floating bubble on the stream!
Leading the army your servant risked his life,
He was the opponent of the Fourth Great Prince,
And peacefully recovered the Four Capitals and Nine Prefectures.
I never imagined that
I could not serve my Lord and King to the very end—
When I raise this topic, my tears course down!
Just imagine how your servant’s
Merits that capped the world
Are now all deleted with a single stroke!
The three of us have exhausted all our energy for the country!
(Jin jiaoye)
Your servant risked his life to fight on the battlefield;
Your servant has
Exhausted all his energy at the front and behind the lines.
Truly, I have been
Discarded on the execution field and no one cares.
Yet your servant’s
Mind was always on the altars of state, its mountains and rivers, its universe!
(Tiaoxiao ling)
Your Majesty, you must get to the truth
And exact revenge for your humble servants!
As for your servant,
“One day of Impermanence, and everything is over.”
I cannot
Wear a plaque or tie on a seal to receive my Lord’s grace.
I wind up instead
Bound up and tied, trussed up and beaten, a victim of a hundred tortures!
How can you call that “a vassal for a thousand autumns”?
(Tusi’er)
Your servant hopes to be
Portrayed in an imperial pavilion, remembered for a thousand years;
Recorded in the green chronicles, leaving a name for ten thousand generations.
But your servant
Has become “a cake painted to dampen hunger,”88 a candle in the wind.
This enmity,
This enmity,
How could I ever just let it go?
(Sheng Yaowang)
Your servant’s
Writ of accusation
Never spelled out his crime.
You should have thought thrice before you pursued it.
Your servant
Recovered four hundred counties beyond the borders,
Yet you turned Lingyan Gallery into a prison for officials,
So who in the future will agree to “share and so dispel the emperor’s cares”?
(Luosiniang)
Your servant
Risked his life, exhausted his strength, and asked for coarse provisions to guard the borders;
Qin Gui lacked any merit, received emoluments, and undeservedly enjoyed palace food and imperial wine.
He wants to wipe away the mountains and rivers of the house of Song with a single stroke;
Out of love for gold and silk he collaborated with the Great Jin!
(Miandaxu)
Your servant
Avails himself of the mournful wind’s soughing and sighing,
Of the sadness and pitifulness of enmity’s ethers—
The Lord of Heaven pays no attention,
The dungeons of hell find it hard to take us in!
I abide with “wild grasses and idle flowers that fill the earth with sorrow,”89
I cannot
Be enfeoffed by imperial decree as marquis of ten thousand households.
I ponder the unfathomable nature of human affairs,
And lament that heroes flow away with the river!
(Zhuolusu)
Your servants want
To turn back away but do not turn
But crowd together where they were slain.
Qin Gui baited the hook,
And we fell into his trap—
How could we be saved?
At the beginning we saw only the bait and not the hook!
(Reprise)
Considering that your servant’s ambition, alas, has not been requited:
Do away with Qin Gui so his life will be ended!
Your Majesty, pursue this matter,
Remember it well in your heart.
I have bitterly recalled the circumstances,
Clearly explained them to you.
Grab that beast,
Scrape the flesh from his bones
And publicly display his crimes—
Even so you cannot release the sorrow in my heart!
(Coda)
A loyal minister can never escape the schemes of an evil minister;
Your Majesty,
May you summon your civil and military officials for a discussion.
Have swords and axes execute Qin Gui in the marketplace,
Summon my unjustly slain and resentful soul and pour out a sacrificial cup of wine on my behalf.
[Exits.]
[ACT 4]
MALE LEAD, costumed as HE [ZONG]LI, enters.—Opens—Who could have imagined that I would be gone for so long when the grand preceptor dispatched me to the Number One Mountain of the Southeast to arrest that addled postulant Ye Shouyi?
([ZHENGGONG MODE:] Duanzheng hao)
Having received my order I dropped into the Fengdu Hell;
Saying good-bye to wife and children, I left my hometown.
But I am a capable runner,
And even in a warren of ghosts I can get by.
I’ve been gone for twenty years without any news.
(Gun xiuqiu)
On going, I was not yet forty;
On return, how many springtimes have passed?
Unaware that autumn frost has dyed my temples—
One turn of the head and a high tumulus with Qilin!90
The changed days and months now are different;91
The reestablished altars of the state are secure.
Every old minister of merit is now worn-out from all his efforts;
Others now are high and prominent—this is a different world!
Indeed one may say:
“On the Long River the waves behind urge on the waves in front.”
Today
“A new lord is enthroned, the old one is removed”:
Years and months seem to rush!
(Dai guduo)
In front of the jade steps Your Majesty questions your servant,
Allow your servant to tell you the full story of the grand preceptor.
“On that day he returned from performing pious deeds,
And on the road he ran into a man:
That Shi Quan, with reckless courage, tried to kill him,
But Qin Gui’s blessings were large so that none could get near.92
He had gone to Lingyin Monastery to pray for good fortune—
Who could have thought that on the way home he’d invite disaster!
(Tang xiucai)
The grand preceptor suddenly got it,
And he discussed the poem,
Saying, ‘This addled postulant’s good words set norms.’
Then he said, ‘These eight characters
Hold all of heaven and earth by themselves and spell his own death!’
Because of this he dispatched me as a runner
To arrest and summon that monk;
Because of this
It was an urgent matter.
(Gun xiuqiu)
As I remember
Grand Preceptor Qin was by nature very fierce,
So I, He Zongli, had no choice but to hurry and leave.
As I was traveling a storm arose that shook the Gate of Heaven;
And in the shortest time it blew until the earth grew lifeless, heaven dark.
That storm left the mountains in a whirlwind of weird dust
And entered the mountains overturning failing clouds.
It almost blew so strongly that Mount Hua would collapse in a second;
It blew so strongly that it whistled by a Mount Kunlun that could scarce offer protection!
That storm toppled old trees of the Six Dynasties,93 roots and all;
And stirred up frightening waves on the ten thousand mile Long River,94
No escape front or back!
(Tang xiucai)
Nowhere was there a distant village, its wide-spaced fence infringing on the ancient road,
But I saw a soothsayer hiding away in these deepest mountains;
His only neighbors
The wild grasses and idle flowers.
‘If you want to know the road through the mountain,
You should ask the travelers on the road.’
…
When your servant went forward to question that soothsayer, that soothsayer said, ‘Don’t ask about …’
(Daodao ling)
As soon as I had finished asking,
Auspicious clouds and happy mists had appeared, carried by the breeze,
And I perceived the tune of a flute, [played by a herding boy on the back of his buffalo].95
I asked him for the road to the Mountains of the Southeast,
And when he pointed them out, that postulant of Lingyin Monastery became ever more distinct as closer he came.
That boy had already disappeared, oh yeah!
That boy had already disappeared, oh yeah!
So I stepped forward and grabbed that monk to question him!
Speaks: Your servant grabbed him and said, “The grand preceptor has issued a warrant for your arrest!” But that monk said, “There is no need to arrest me, because the grand preceptor is already here. If you don’t believe me, have a look!”
(Tang xiucai)
He had just finished speaking when I saw the grand preceptor in [chains and a cangue],
And there sure were no jade maidens and golden lads to meet him and show him the way!96
There was only a gang of vicious buffalo heads and ghostly lictors.
Making Qin Gui
Come see your servant
And they pushed him tumbling out through the gates of hell.
(Gun xiuqiu)
The grand preceptor said, “I saw that addled postulant in the western hills write that text,
But never thought
That crime by the eastern window would be so important!”
We can say
His fate was fitting punishment for his desire to deceive his lord and king to build up his family fortune,
All because
He was matchless in past or present for abusing the common people and coveting gold and silk.
He should never have
[Stolen grain from] the state granaries,
Pilfered silver from the government vault.
His vicious mind in a thousand ways went way beyond his proper bounds;
He had usurped all military authority,
Wrongly slayed
Generals outside of the capital.
In the beginning, disaster struck Yue Fei,
But today disaster has hit him.
How could that be compared to
“Far away it will land on sons and grandsons, close at hand it will strike oneself.”
Or to “scaring the ghosts and fooling the gods.”
(Tang xiucai)
When Her Ladyship97 heard me explain why he was in the world of shades,
Tears involuntarily coursed down her cheeks.
For she thought of “One night as husband and wife means loving thoughts for a hundred.”
As I spoke, it made Her Ladyship truly sad and depressed
Because the grand preceptor suffered such misery.
But if she wants to meet with the grand preceptor,
She’ll have to rely on her dream soul to cross those mountain passes!
(Gun xiuqiu)
The instruments of torture in the world of shade are special,
More terrible than in government offices in the realm of light!
Who would have thought that he, depressingly bitter, would encounter danger and distress with such pain?
All because
Happily smiling he trapped the common folk, “washing away the grime to find their flaws”!
In exquisite pain, his skin and flesh were opened;
Gorily bloody, his flesh was separated from bone:
Wracked with pain—how could he endure the three deductions and six interrogations?
His jail keeps were all evil demons and ferocious gods.
If you want to escape the suffering of the grand preceptor’s thousand kinds of cruel tortures—
You’ll have to
Climb up some green mountain and transform your very body98
And demonstrate the ninefold loyalty and threefold chastity of a good wife.
(Second from Coda)
Yue Fei said Qin Gui was unwilling to learn from the story of Xiao He who pursued Han Xin
As far as Sandalwood Creek, and gave him such gifts that Han had to accept the seals of the Three Qi.99
He said that Your Majesty,
Ever since you left the capital fleeing on a clay horse—
Like the Exalted Ancestor of Han who got out of Yingyang100—
For nothing you had father and sons
Risk their lives and court their deaths
On bitter campaigns and in violent battles;
They stole battle flags and tipped over battle drums,
Nabbed generals and took their men;
Tossed the heads of men to roll on and on,
Gulped down their hot blood.
You were utterly indebted to them for using their helmets as pillows—their cheeks imprinted by the moon101—
And for sleeping in their armor, the earth growing scales.”
(Coda)
When a request is finally made to the Lord and King in his nine-layered Forbidden Palace and he authorizes it,
Have his decision burned and delivered to the divine Ksitigarbha who administers the vile Fengdu Hell.
Yue Fei, Yue Yun, and Zhang Xian all unjustly murdered,
Have already risen as immortals, three bodies made whole.
There is no need for a discussion about that murderous minister Qin Gui
For he lied to his emperor, deceived his lord,
And abused the black-haired people most cruelly!
Most recently there is the divine writ from the Eastern Marchmount102
That may replace Chen Shou’s wordless stele of a thousand years ago,
A text from a thousand years ago that could not be used as evidence.103
[FINAL DEMI-ACT]
[MALE LEAD enters costumed as god.]
(Houting hua)
In one day I saw thirteen gold-lettered plaques;
Imperial emissaries were dispatched to open the summons.
Your servant was summoned to come to the capital as fast as fire,
And for this reason I left my stockade that very night;
Urging on my post horse I raced through the dust and crossed the Long River.
But how could I defend myself once I arrived at court?
I recall that Qin Gui had no grand strategy,
But he sent me off to the Court for Judicial Review for interrogation
And the name of “rebel against the court” was slapped on me.
Suffering such a wrong, tears of heroism filled my cheeks:
Your servant had fought your battles for more than ten years,
And now all his merits have been turned into crimes!
(Liuye’er)
Today this has all been thrown beyond the clouds of the ninth and highest heaven,
I will never “be one of the Three Dukes,” “rise a thousand ranks in one day.”
Destroy Qin Gui’s three lineages and nine relatives:
Such is the enmity between these families!
May Qin Gui’s coffin be split open and his corpse chopped to bits,
Because only in such a way
Will grace and revenge be clear to all!
Waits for KING KSITIGARBHA and retinue to enter, and send off with a judgment.
| Title: |
Military Affairs Commissioner Yue removes threats on behalf the of Song; |
| |
Grand Preceptor Qin secretly collaborates with rebellious traitors. |
| Name: |
He Zongli arrests the postulant of the Western Hills; |
| |
King Ksitigarbha Testifies to the Crime of the Eastern Window. |
Newly Printed at the Great Capital, A Full Text with Complete Plot Prompts:
The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed
