INTRODUCTION
Filial piety (xiao 孝) is one of the central virtues of Chinese traditional morality. As the first of the inborn moral qualities to be manifested in human relations, filial piety holds a unique and fundamental position in the growth of moral character. But, as an inescapable duty imposed on a person by virtue of birth, it held little attraction for early playwrights, unless the demands of filial piety resulted in extraordinary acts of self-sacrifice. Perhaps no act of self-sacrifice can be more extreme than the sacrifice of one’s only child—in the Western tradition one only has to think of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac or the Lord’s sacrifice of his only-born Son.
Filial piety implied obedience to one’s parents during their lifetime, care for them during their old age, appropriate mourning upon their death, and continual and proper sacrifices to their spirits. Its demands were total and unconditional. Few cultures can boast a written classical record that elaborated funerary ritual and ancestor worship with such meticulous care as ancient China. Filial piety was first of all an aristocratic virtue, and the earliest text exclusively devoted to filial piety, the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經), stresses that filial sons make perfect bureaucrats.1 From Tang times (618–906) we also have materials in the vernacular that set out to inculcate filial piety into more popular levels of society. These texts have a Buddhist provenance and especially stress the obligation the son incurs toward his parents for the care and pains they take in bringing him up, and they accentuate the sufferings of the mother during pregnancy, birth, and infancy of the child.2 This emphasis is in line with traditional Chinese family structure—the father was expected to be stern and the mother indulgent, especially when marriages were arranged, so the emotional bond between mother and son often became the strongest of all relations.
In Song times (960–1279) and later, the teaching of filial piety was concretized in the Twenty-four Cases of Filial Piety (Ershisi xiao 二十四孝) that were depicted on temple walls and coffin sides and were printed as illustrated woodcuts with explanatory text.3 Most of these cases deal with the devotion of sons to their living parent or parents. The acts of cheerful self-sacrifice and self-inflicted violence on behalf of often unreasonably demanding parents are many and varied. In some cases, the exemplary act of filial piety meant sacrificing one’s child for the sake of the parent—one could always have other children but never a new parent. Such acts were of course, in the examples at least, always amply rewarded, occasionally by divine intervention. The names of many of these filial sons became household words.4
A number of these proverbial exemplars are mentioned by name in act 1 of the play translated here, Newly Published in Old Hangzhou: Little Butcher Zhang Immolates His Child to Save His Mother (Gu Hang xinkan Xiao Zhangtu fen’er jiu mu 古杭新刊小張屠焚兒救母). Zengzi 曾子, a disciple of Confucius’s, was such a filial son that he felt a pain in his heart when his mother bit her finger. The filial son Guo Ju 郭巨, who lived during the Han, was so poor that he could not afford to feed both his mother and his baby son. Since his mother usually deprived herself to feed her grandchild, Guo Ju decided to bury his son. But, when he was digging the grave, at three feet into the ground, he discovered a pot of gold, inscribed with the legend “Heaven’s gift to the filial son Guo Ju.” Meng Zong 孟宗, an equally filial son, lived during the Jin dynasty (third and fourth centuries A.D.). His aged and ailing mother voiced a desire to eat bamboo shoots in winter. The tears he shed on the withered bamboo over the impossibility of satisfying her desire moved Heaven to sprout young bamboo. Wang Xiang 王祥, of the same era, served his evil stepmother in a most filial way. When she demanded fresh fish in the coldest month of winter, he lay down on the ice, hoping that the warmth of his body would melt the ice so he could fish. Before the ice melted, it broke open and two carp jumped out. Ding Lan 丁蘭, of Han times, lost his parents at a tender age and made a wooden statue of his mother that he served as if she were alive. When his wife pricked the statue’s finger with a needle, he divorced her.
The theme of filial piety is linked in Immolates His Child with the veneration of the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount (Dongyue Dadi 東嶽大帝). The Eastern Marchmount, or Taishan (in modern Shandong), has been venerated as a holy mountain since the dawn of Chinese civilization. Since Han times at least, the Eastern Marchmount was seen as the location of the underworld (diyu 地獄, literally, “prison in the earth”), housing the souls of the dead. In later centuries, the Chinese came to view the realm of the dead as ruled by a huge and complicated judicial bureaucracy built on the model of its earthly counterparts. It included a host of subsidiary deities and clerks, runners, prison guards, and underlings. The Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount headed the central bureaucracy at Taishan. Here were kept registers of every person’s predestined dates of birth and death and a full record of their deeds while alive. These files assured a speedy trial upon one’s death. This central bureaucracy of Taishan had local counterparts of each level of the administration, housed throughout China in the temples of the city god (chenghuang miao 城隍廟). In the popular mind the underworld below the Eastern Marchmount became identified with the Buddhist notion of an underworld, headed by King Yama, in which the souls of the dead were judged in the Ten Courts of Hell, each with its own presiding judge-king.5
In Song times and later, the cult of the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount spread widely. Its extensive bureaucracy allowed for the continuous incorporation of new deities. Our play mentions some of these—the Flaring Spirit (Bingling Gong 炳靈公), the Master of Fates (Siming Jun 司命君), and Prince Cui (Cui Fujun 崔府君). The Flaring Spirit was believed to be the third son of the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount. The Master of Fates is Mao Ying 茅盈, the eldest of the three Mao brothers of Maoshan Taoist fame, who had his own temple hall at Tai’an in Eastern Peak Temple. He kept track of the good deeds and sins of each family and reported these yearly to the authorities concerned. Prince Cui had lived his mortal life during the seventh century, serving as magistrate in a number of districts. In the popular imagination, his probity as a judge on earth carried over into the underworld. Legend soon claimed supernatural powers for him during his life, and he was thought to render human justice during the day and pronounce his verdicts in the underworld at night. By the twelfth century he had become a widely venerated deity, whose yearly festival on the sixth day of the sixth month was one of the busiest festivals of the year in early twelfth century Kaifeng.
One of the specialized bureaus in the administration of the Eastern Marchmount, the Office for Speedy Retribution (Subao Si 速報司), in due time came to be headed by the incorruptible Judge Bao. The historical Judge Bao Zheng (999–1062) had established during his lifetime a reputation for perceptive investigatory powers and a fearless disregard of wealth and power. Tales soon started to circulate about his deeds and many zaju and xiwen dramatized his verdicts. Popular belief held that he had also been a judge in this world during daytime and a judge in the Court of Darkness at night.6
Many places erected temples to the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount and his staff, which often sported detailed and grisly paintings or three-dimensional displays of all the underworld courts and all the punishments of hell, such as mountains of swords and forests of lances. The greatest temple was found, of course, in “the holy land” of Tai’an, the hometown of the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount. This temple would appear to have been by far the most popular pilgrimage site in Song, Yuan, and early Ming China. A number of plays and other early vernacular texts make reference to a pilgrimage to Taishan. Pilgrims donated their votive gifts to the godhead by burning them in a pool of fire, the “scorching basin.” For Yuan times, at least one actual case has been recorded of a father throwing his son into this pool of fire as a votive offering.7 In the sixteenth century and later, the main object of devotion at Tai’an had become the Primal Princess of the Cyan Clouds (Bixia Yuanjun 碧霞元君), a female deity also known as Lady Taishan (Taishan Niangniang 泰山娘娘), first honored with a temple at Taishan between 1008 and 1016. By this later period, donations were simply cast into her temple, which was at the very top of Taishan, instead of into the fire pit, and were collected by the sensible authorities for public use.8
Many of the “Twenty-four Cases of Filial Piety” were adapted for the stage in Yuan times, but few have survived. Immolates His Child has been preserved only in a Yuan-dynasty printing; the title is not recorded in any of the early catalogues. It is a regular zaju consisting of four suites, preceded by a wedge. The songs are assigned to the leading male, who plays the part of Little Zhang the butcher in the wedge and acts 1, 2, and 4, and of the infernal runner Li Neng 李能 in act 3.9 We believe that the second song in the fourth act was intended to be sung by the mother of Butcher Zhang. Among Yuan printings, the play is remarkable for the amount of prose dialogue, not only for the lead player but for ancillary characters as well.
The wedge opens with the self-introduction of the usurious merchant pawnbroker Wang. Little Zhang, whose mother has fallen ill, comes to his place in order to pawn a padded jacket. When, in act 1, Zhang returns home, he first lectures his wife on the importance of filial piety and wifely devotion and next invites a doctor to have a look at his mother. When the doctor prescribes cinnabar, Zhang goes out to purchase it from Wang, who sells him a fake substitute. Zhang’s mother fails to improve after taking the medicine, so Zhang promises the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount that he will give him his three-year-old son, Xisun 喜孫, as a votive offering, whereupon his mother miraculously recovers.
In act 2, Zhang, his wife, and their son travel to the main temple of the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount at Tai’an. In a dream at night, Zhang witnesses a session of the infernal court: the runner Li Neng is ordered to take Zhang’s son back to his grandmother and claim Wang’s son in his place. The next morning Zhang throws his son into the pool of fire. At the same time, the son of Wang, who has also come to the temple to conduct his trade, also falls into the pool of fire.
In act 3, the infernal runner takes Zhang’s little son back to his grandmother. He tells her that he is a friend of her son’s, who had become too drunk to take care of the boy. At the same time, Wang’s mother anxiously questions him about the fate of her grandson. In the final act, Zhang and his wife return home, worrying how they can explain the disappearance of her beloved grandchild to the grandmother. But when they get home, she soundly curses them for their presumed negligence. After the affair is sorted out, they all thank the deity for his miraculous intervention.
Modern Chinese critics all have been very negative in their verdict on this play, condemning it for its extreme traditional morality and its superstitious belief in cruel religious customs. This negative attitude toward the play fits in with the strident condemnations of filial piety and popular religions by reformers and revolutionaries throughout the twentieth century as two of the causes of China’s “backwardness.” However, while it cannot be denied that the play purports to teach the virtue of filial piety and to strengthen the belief in the efficacy and justice of the divine bureaucracy of the Great Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount, the play is at the same time a remarkable example of social criticism, providing lively and realistic details of contemporary practices. Moreover, tragedy turns into farce as divine justice turns the table on the sinners and as the virtuous couple gets only a sound scolding for all their anguish and suffering. Whoever the anonymous playwright of Little Butcher Zhang Immolates His Child to Save His Mother may have been, he could construct a tight and original plot and write convincing songs.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Baker 1925; Barnhart 1993; Chavannes 1910; Chen 1908; Cole 1998; Dott 2004; Dudbridge 1991, 1992; Ebrey and Gregory 1993; Fu 1995, 1999, 2008; Goodrich 1964; Hansen 1990; Idema 1997; Knapp 2006; Naquin and Yü 1992; Teiser 1993a, b; West and Idema 2010b; Wu 1992.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
| Role type |
Name and family, institutional, or social role |
| EXTRA MALE/EXTRA |
MAGNATE WANG |
| FEMALE, OLD WOMAN |
BUTCHER ZHANG’s mother |
| MALE LEAD/MALE |
BUTCHER ZHANG (acts 1, 2, 4) |
| YOUNG FEMALE |
BUTCHER ZHANG’s wife |
| EXTRA MALE/GRAND PHYSICIAN |
PHYSICIAN |
| EXTRA MALE/EXTRA |
The god Flaring Spirit |
| MALE LEAD |
LI NENG, FLEETFOOT (act 3) |
| EXTRA FEMALE |
MAGNATE WANG’s mother |
NEWLY PRINTED IN HANGZHOU: LITTLE BUTCHER ZHANG IMMOLATES HIS CHILD TO SAVE HIS MOTHER
[WEDGE]
EXTRA MALE enters and opens:—I am Magnate Wang, and I live in the Village of Hidden Worthies at the northwest corner of Bianliang. I’m worth ten thousand strings of cash. I have a child called Priceless,10 and everyone in the family treats him like a divine pearl, a gem of jade! Against all principle, I sell paper images11 already offered up to gods by someone else to others to offer up their vows. What I traffic in is denatured incense and watered-down wine. And so someone as crooked as me has made a success of himself. The only possible disaster that can befall me is death.
Exits.
FEMALE enters and opens: I am Butcher Zhang’s mother. I am showing some signs of illness now and am on the verge of death—soon I will be gone. Call Butcher Zhang, I want some rice gruel to eat.—MALE LEAD enters: I am Butcher Zhang. All of the neighbors call me Little Butcher Zhang and my wife and I operate this meat stall. My mother has been widowed since twenty and now she is sixty-two. On our way back from viewing the lanterns on the fifteenth,12 she suddenly got sick. It’s taken a turn for the worse and now she wants some rice gruel to eat. Wife, we have no rice in the house. Bring out a padded jacket and pawn it at Magnate Wang’s. YOUNG FEMALE speaks: This jacket is old and worth only two pints of rice. You take it there like it’s a true pearl! Don’t be taken advantage of.
Exits.
([XIANLÜ MODE:] Duanzheng hao)
I only want to amass hidden karma,
He only wants to covet things of value.
As for the two of us “like water and fire, two hearts’ ambitions can’t exist in one oven”—
He’s never willing to donate any of his wealth to alleviate the sufferings of the poor,
And has not a single speck of compassion.
(Reprise)
Even if [you] had gold and silver piled up to the Dipper—what good is it?
In days gone by, Lu Zijing visited Zhou Yu,13
And now a Guo Yuanzhen calls upon a Yafu.14
Let me bring a new padded jacket
And you’ll say that it’s only old rags,
And two pints of rice
You treat like two bushels of pearls.
I can’t help but be at wit’s end,
At a loss about what to do—
It makes me so flustered I don’t know what to say.
[ACT 1]
EXTRA MALE LEAD arrives home carrying two pints of rice and goes in: Wife, take this rice and pound it well and then brew up some gruel for my mother. Wife, why are you upset again? If Mother finds out, her symptoms will get worse. Let out a little more happiness, and Mother will be happy too. You know nothing about this business of filial piety!
([XIANLÜ] Dian jiangchun)
Mother’s illness is deep in her body—
Your child looks up to heaven and full of grief beats [the earth],
Ever more distressed.
Mother suffered half a century as a lonely widow,
So why is there now no hope at all?
(Hunjiang long)
She has nothing else to rely on,
She suffered widowhood, sank into illness, suffered cold loneliness.
My mind is at wit’s end,
My insides burning, my heart flustered.
She bore cold and hunger, but still took pity on the distress of her son:
How can I, despite my orphaned poverty, dare forget my mother?15
It’s always been a hand-to-mouth existence—
Just a spoonful or two of dried grains.
Now she’s on the verge of death,
Soon she will be gone.
And now we live through a season of no harvest,
A year of famine and starvation.
The tears from my mother’s eyes fall nowhere but upon pillow and mat,
The sorrow in your child’s heart is packed away on the tips of his brows.
In less than one hour, or even ten minutes,
I’ve thought of a hundred plans, a thousand cures.
(Youhulu)
Speak: Wife, imitate a few of the ancients!
Madame Meng was wise and virtuous, a model of propriety,
Her husband was surnamed Liang.16
Truly, in thorn hairpins and hempen jacket, she stayed by the cold window.
He, the husband, his literary art capped the world, his canonical learning was broad;
She, the wife, was filial and chaste, humane and proper, and her name is truly renowned.
When from time to time you report to Mother,
Ask ardently how she is doing.
And if you have a heart of devoted sincerity,
Not a speck of hypocrisy will appear.
It is always the case, “Wait upon her in the morning,
And cook her gruel in the evening.”
Speak: Liang Hong was the husband and master of Meng Guang, but he would not speak to his wife. “If you want me to be happy, then it is a hempen jacket and thorn hairpins for you. Then we will be husband and wife.” When she brought her husband and master his food, she bore it up high. This is what is meant by “Raising the tray to the level of the brows.” My wife, do you really understand the business of “making their bed at dusk and inquiring of their well-being at dawn”?17
(Tianxia le)
Who doesn’t want “to raise the tray to the level of their brow and imitate Meng Guang”?
Naturally I want to open up my shop,18
But where can I get even a pint or ladle of grain?
There’s no problem working hard for others to make a living.
Of course I want to regularly slaughter a pig
And work hard at butchering a lamb,
To scrape together some copper cash and take good care of my mother.
(Nezha ling)
But we live in this isolated village, this small hamlet,
With no close relatives living with us.
If Mother dies,
O, heaven, who will take care of things?
My wife, pick up a little of that virtuous and filial heart,
And I will show some tolerant forgiveness.
Don’t imitate those stubborn old bitches who,
(Quetazhi)
Wearing their head ornaments all decked out in gold,
Wearing their best clothes of fine silk,
Emerge in public to revile their elders in spades
And curse their neighbors one by one.
Imitate, instead, Beauty Cao or that Meng Jiang[nü], who wept by the Great Wall when she delivered winter clothes.19
Don’t imitate that Jingniang, who shamelessly stole the fruit.20
MALE LEAD speaks: Wife, imitate the twenty-four filial people.
(Jisheng cao)
Although I’ve not read the Analects or Mencius,21
I’ve heard plenty about the passages on filial piety.
Zengzi was filial to his mother, and she was cared for by heaven,
Guo Ju buried his son, and heaven bestowed grace on him.
Meng Zong wept over the bamboo, and heaven revealed its signs,
Wang Xiang lay down on the ice
And is recorded with honor in the books of history.
Ding Lan carved a wooden likeness of his parents and depicted their portraits.
Act out inviting GRAND PHYSICIAN. EXTRA MALE, a physician, speaks: It’ll be cured as soon as I use my Cinnabar Heart-Stabilizing Pill.
(Zui fu gui)
He makes a show of the alacrity of his fingertips,
The breadth of what he has read.
But it’s really no more than The Treatise on Displaying Alacrity,
The Proven Prescriptions of the Hall of Auspicious Bamboo,22
“The Completely Divine Powder,”
“The Green Dragon Pills,”
And “The White Tiger Broth.”
How in the world can this dose of medicine cost seven taels of silver?
Just consider that, in the morning, Butcher Zhang doesn’t even have what he’ll eat at night.
He can act only out of sincerity,
You can see his old mother confined by illness to her bed.
[FEMALE LEAD] speaks: The physician says that this prescription uses cinnabar as a catalyst. MALE speaks: The Honorable Magnate Wang has some, but he’ll take only cash. He’s not even human. FEMALE LEAD speaks: My husband, I have a pair23 that my father gave me, go barter them for it. MALE sees EXTRA.—MAGNATE gives him counterfeit cinnabar—MALE asks: Is the cinnabar real? MAGNATE explains:24 Let it kill her; I’m immune to any catastrophe except death.
(Jinzhan’er)
Cinnabar should have a deep luster,
But this stuff is faded and slightly yellowed.
There, he keeps on invoking “Heaven,” swearing he’s an honest man.
I regret that I cannot, with my own hands, snatch away the illness, raise her from her bed.25
If only my mother’s three critical junctures would balance her lungs and stomach,
The five organs would enrich her liver and bowels.
Oh, this pitiful, unfilial son, me,
I will cause the death of my mother of seventy.
MALE speaks: Wife, Mother has vomited up this counterfeit cinnabar. The only way left to save her is for the two of us to go on pilgrimage to the Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount. We will take our three-year-old child along, and on the twenty-eighth day of the third month, throw him along with some devotional images into the pit of fire to substitute for one stick of incense. May the gods above show their miraculous power and divinity!
(Houting hua)
Here I face the direction of the Divine Thearch of the Eastern Marchmount
And pray to his spirit as I make this silent vow.
“Because the mother who bore me has a critical illness of the three junctures,
I promise my son Xisun26 as a stick of incense.”
Here I take tea to my mother
Hoping that all her pains will be alleviated.
Now she is bathed in a sweat as copious as the waters of the Yangtze,
And shivers as cold as ice.
Now with pleasant face, I show a happy radiance,
And wreathed in smiles, I personally ask after her.
(Qingge’er)
She is better now, just like her old self before,
The former presence that we knew.
Truly it is said, “A filial heart is a prescription from the immortals,”
Every day I told this to the neighbors
But no one was shamed.
So I raised my head and prayed to the azure vault,
And promised both bright incense:
My son as sacrificial lamb.
No one thought she would ever come back from death, return to life, rise from her sickbed—
This is a sure sign from heaven!
(Zhuansha Coda)
Speak: Mother! You’ve recovered from your illness. What a joy!
My mother’s sickly body now is completely at ease,
Your son’s joy rises ten thousand feet.
I’ve thrown away my only begotten son, this single chest full of warm blood.
Only when we have our own sons do we know how unfilial we are to our mothers.
You must have heard, “Alas! alas! my parents,” that heartfelt emotion.27
Here I think it over carefully,
And break into happy laughter, forgetting my sorrow.
I will wipe away no more these tears of a broken heart.
I will burn my son in flaring flames, the whole brazier will burn brightly:
In this gruesome, cruel way his whole soul and body will be lost.
Giving up my little loved one,
I serve my mother with my whole heart.
[ACT 2]
Enters dressed as MALE LEAD, opens, and speaks: Mother, I want to tell you that the twenty-eighth of the third month is drawing near and I want to go with my wife and child to offer incense at the Temple of the Eastern Marchmount in the holy land of Tai’an. MOTHER speaks: Don’t take Xisun with you when you go burn incense. MALE speaks: Your grandchild was part of the vow, and he has to go with us. MOTHER speaks: Don’t the three of you drink too much, and hurry back.
([YUEDIAO MODE:] Dou anchun)
Clouds in the blue rise in a thousand layers,
Cover over ten thousand clusters of mountain peaks.28
Shimmeringly bright—the gold and blue glazed tiles,
Jutting up high—towers and terraces, halls and pavilions.
The jeweled horses and golden saddles of young dandies,
The perfumed chariots and gauzy silks of gentry girls.
And right now, when spring days are warm
And the beautiful sun is pleasant,
Curling in the spring winds, the green willows are like smoke,
Holding the nighttime rains, peach blossoms are as red as fire.
FEMALE and MALE act out traveling on the road. FEMALE asks MALE: How can we have traveled so long without reaching the holy land of Tai’an? [MALE speaks:] It’s that high mountain there.
(Zihua’er xu)
Enlivening Clear and Bright,29 songs of the oriole warble and coo;
Rustling the flowery stems, wings of the butterflies flutter and flap;
Dancing in the eastern wind, tails of the swallow wiggle and waggle.
Look at the dust from the carts and hooves of the horses,
The performing of plays, the banging of gongs,
The deafening pipes and songs—
There’s never been a year so many people have come to the temple.
This is the most famous mountain of the whole world,
And it solemnly overlooks the ten thousand miles of the cosmos,
Forever dominating the mountains and rivers of the whole empire.
[EXTRA]MALE costumed as MAGNATE WANG speaks: I go every year on the twenty-eighth day of the third month to the holy land of Tai’an to do business. When I get there, the devotional images that have been sold to people—I take them after they have been used as offering for the spirits and resell them. I also have a child, called Priceless, and my whole family treats him like some divine pearl or jade. Those who do good deeds have neither money nor posterity; but a person as black hearted as me has both wealth and a son. I fear no disaster except death.—MAIN FEMALE and MALE speak: Here the three of us have arrived at the main gate. Let’s rest overnight, get up early tomorrow, and repay the vow. EXTRA MALE enters: I am the Flaring Spirit and this Lord is the Master of Fates. This other gentleman is Officer of Speedy Retribution. We three divinities have determined that he is a filial son and not an immoral person. But there is now here a certain Magnate Wang, who is black at heart and does not abide by the way of the gods; vile misfortune is born from the gods. Speaks [as a command]: City God, obey our divine order. Order that runner Li Neng, sometime after midnight, to carry away in his arms Magnate Wang’s son—that divine pearl, that person of jade—and tomorrow at noon throw him into the pool of fire to be burned to death. And let him take Xisun, son of the filial Butcher Zhang, and—while deceptively dressed as a mortal man—go on ahead and take him back to his grandmother. Don’t let anyone find out he is not a mortal!
Exit.
[MALE LEAD sings:]
(Jin jiaoye)
Go outside the temple gate and hide away,
Go on over to the eastern gallery and don’t come near me,
Just rest a while in the shade of the trees.
I’ll go on in the temple and respectfully recite a few prayers.
(Tiaoxiao ling)
I have nothing else to offer up in celebration
To save my mother’s life.
O, gods above, you have given Butcher Zhang no way out!
I must repay three years at my mother’s breast, that great grace,
And the ten months in her womb, that rich love.
To immolate my child to save my mother leaves me no posterity,
But, as for my mother, I will “wrestle the tiger and ford the River.”
(Jin jiaoye)
Who has been raised with such compassion as me?
My filial reputation will enwrap heaven and earth.
This pays off my mother’s solicitous and tender care,
And her suffering and slaving for forty years.
(Tiaoxiao ling)
In order to cure my mother’s illness,
I have promised him.
But how can I stand life without my son?
If only she hadn’t recovered,
This would not be asked of me.
The ancients say, “One loves one’s children best.”
(Xiaotao hong)
It was some former life, her karmic sins of those years,
That accumulated six years of disaster
And in this life made her bear starvation and hunger,
Suffer poverty and want—
It was because her person [in that life] deceived the gods and committed evil as great as heaven.
It was something that person did in a former life,
That broke her down in this one,
And was the certain reason for a lifetime of poverty and grief.
(Gui santai)
I see the divinities sitting in midair,
Their ghostly attendants are the joined Six Ding spirits.30
The Flaring Spirit and Prince Lord are frightening in their divine might,
And the Officer of Speedy Retribution has white hair at his temples.
Many are the ranks of broad swords and long lances—
Those Yamas of the Ten Kings’ Courts of Hell.
“O, gods, may your golden whips point the way for my child,
Stretch out your divine hands and protect him for me.”
(Sai’er ling)
My heart is racing,
My expression, dumbstruck—
Who was it who suddenly startled me awake?
What I saw were divine images severe and frightening,
Ghostly attendants and their underlings,
All in ranks, shouting and clamoring.
The divine form clad in red bustled about,
The one in black meticulously evaluated the facts,
The one in green personally delivered the judgment—
Absolutely no difference from the light of day!
So, it turns out to have been only a dream at the Southern Branch!31
(Gui santai)
Over there the sound of weeping is loud,32
But tomorrow, they’ll only lack a source of disaster.
“Sons and daughters are but golden cangues and jade chains.”
You say, “His grief is as it should be,
And tomorrow you will be just like him.”
What was the name of the man who took your child?33
Can you recognize him in such a crowd?
If your child was wearing golden bracelets or silver rings,
Then I’m afraid he’ll never see home again, your divine pearl, your gem of jade.34
(Tusi’er)
Flames flaring up, blind anger and raging fire,
Dark and terrifying, the universe collapses together.
Son, here is where our duty and love are severed.
People mill and crowd about,
Shouting and clamoring,
Yet none of them can save you.
(Shengyao wang)
I’ve thought it over long enough,
“You can’t avoid the fire when you face the stove”—
This single stick of incense is full of heart’s prayers.
There his tears course down,
All he can do is tightly hang on to me.
To repay my mother’s grace is no madness—
In the fire I bury this little monkey of mine.
(Coda)
Clear tears fall from his sparkling pupils,
The nine twists of my soft intestines are hacked by knives.
To throw away our little bundle of joy devastates her,
But to have preserved my honored mother fills me with joy.
[ACT 3]
EXTRA MALE35 enters dressed as FLEETFOOT and opens: My name is Li Neng and I am from this area. When alive, I served His Excellency, Cui, from Cizhou. After His Excellency died, when he became a god, he chose me to be his ghostly fleetfoot. I’ve received the divine order today to take the son of the filial Butcher Zhang back to his home. Come to think of it, divine protection has resulted in the miraculous retribution of this affair. Recites a poem:
Keep to your lot, do not lust after ill-gotten gain,
What your fate says you should receive will come of itself.
If you strive after it using crafty schemes—
Heaven will send down disaster if people don’t kill you off.
([ZHONGLÜ MODE:] Fen die’er)
Riches and poverty are the judgments of heaven and earth:
To employ devious schemes to lend out money and reap its interest
Angers the gods, stirs up calamity, and generates disaster.
Who is anyone to place himself over others?
All he wants is to collect interest above interest,
Never thinking this poison will kill.
Don’t bring up “When bitter is exhausted, the sweet will come.”
Or “On the field of profit and fame lie both victory and defeat.”
(Zui chunfeng)
All he wants is to watch the capital that fills his eyes grow,
He could never imagine that, at the critical moment, heaven and earth will squeeze him dry.
Shimmeringly bright, the mountains of swords and forests of lances36 are arranged all in a row.
Yet, no one will reform,
Reform,
Reform.
But let there be the eight troubles or three disasters,37
Then they fast and abstain with their whole heart,
But still keep the gods above highest heaven and beyond the clouds.
MALE speaks: By the order of the Flaring Spirit, I leave the divine land to take back the son of filial Butcher Zhang.
(Ying xianke)
I leave the crossroads of this divine land,
Descend the Soul-Snatching Terrace of the Eastern Marchmount,
And, bearing the order of the divine emperor, now arrive on this swift wind.
Those who accumulate goodness will encounter blessings and prosperity,
Those who practice evil engender affliction and harm.
That bastard who’s crying, burning with anxiety, wipes the tears from his cheeks,
While Butcher Zhang, chuckling and smiling, finds in drunkenness a universe large.
EXTRA FEMALE enters and opens: I am the mother of Magnate Wang. I have this child, and every year on the twenty-eighth of the third month, my son travels to the divine land of Tai’an to do business. Someone came to tell me that my grandson, our divine gem, has disappeared. Well, it seems to me that the way Magnate Wang does business—completely against the way of the gods—has cost us the loss of my grandchild. Let me go see old lady Zhang to see if it is true.
Exits.
[MALE LEAD sings:]
(Shiliu hua)
Here I enter the hidden village and cross the main street,
With measured step I tread on fragrant paths and walk over deep green moss.
I see an old lady lower her head, cheeks covered with tears—
Isn’t that Butcher Zhang’s mother?
Say not? Her hair is speckled with white.38
Since that Magnate Wang, who aids the poor and uproots the rich,
Went to the Eastern Marchmount to extinguish his sins and dissolve his misfortunes—
Well, on the basis of his fair heart, such a good heart, such a magnanimous heart,
There’s no need for you to burn incense or offer cash as a sacrifice.
(Dou anchun)
The basic nature of those who lust for cash cannot be moved,
Those who practice evil—mountains and rivers are more easily transformed.
This little guy here escaped from the jaws of death
And met goodness amid disaster.
Your child unearthed the Gate of Death,39
Encountered baneful Jupiter,
And ran into the Mourner.40
Woman, do not blame me.
This child—“A tooth that falls out is born anew,”
Your child—“A stone sinks into the great ocean.”
EXTRA FEMALE speaks: Granny Zhang, Brother delivered this child, here. LEAD FEMALE acts out receiving him. [Sings:]
(Shang xiaolou)
I see a hunchback old woman over there,
She seems solicitous in receiving me.
Your own child is so drunk his eyes are spinning41—
Drunken ink splattered all about—
He passed out in the main street.
This little toddler I now bring back
So that your whole family may live in peace.
Now simply face Tai’an district, kowtow, and pay your respects.
(Reprise)
On the one hand it is a warning for men from the enlightened spirits,
On the other, the caring love of the lord of heaven.
Your child, by repaying his mother’s grace,
Moved the sentient spirits—
He was distressed over his mother.
Your family wealth will now grow day by day,
Amass year after year,
There will be no disaster, no harm,
Your whole family, from the depth of destitution, will rise to prosperity.
EXTRA FEMALE speaks: Brother, how long have you been a friend of Butcher Zhang’s?
(Manting fang)
We have been close acquaintances for many years,
Your Butcher Zhang has drunk so much that he teeters and totters back and forth,
Once you travel abroad, you take pity on all travelers,
So I could not turn my back on the deep feelings between brothers.
Mother, your child has saved you from disaster, as though plucking you from a sea of sickness,
I have saved his child, plucking him from a pit of fire.
She, there, quickly puts hands to her temples,
I am carrying gain and loss as great as the heavens,42
But it turns out that heaven and earth artfully arranged all this.
(Putian le)
If you ask of it all from the beginning,
It will increase your amazement and wonder.
He said that my head looks like a clump of earth,
And my body seems molded of clay.
I serve my duty watches in golden palaces,
And attend to cases inside the yamen,
On the plaque outside are written divine words to push along the offerings of incense.
Brushed by the western wind, my face is covered with dust and grime.
I am no Zhang Qian or Li Pai,43
Follow no district overseer or county magistrate—
On this mission, I’m just like a ghostly deputy or a divine messenger.
Outside the temple gate a great crowed amassed,
In the two corridors, a noisy clamor.
It was no matter of bad luck or failing times,
But all because he committed sins big enough to fill up heaven.
(Chao tianzi)
That bastard of yours is most evil
And capable only of loving money,
Since he thought foremost about being happy, King Yama punished him,
That bastard of yours hurt others to help himself,
And brought down calamity and disaster.
Speaks: Tell that Magnate Wang of yours,
Don’t create any more debts to be repaid in future lives,
You may cry and wail until your gall is plucked and your heart gouged out,
But your grief and injury are to no avail.
He said, “I fear no disaster but death.”
Well, the Flaring Spirit rendered a divine judgment,
The little Dragon King is a perverse character,
Who, in no time at all, will crush your skull to smithereens.
Your child has great hidden merit because of his filial piety, purity, humaneness, and sense of duty.
That single stick of incense will spread his fame over the four seas.
To repay a mother with his loyal heart is a thing rare in the world,
His beautiful reputation will move the Secretariat and startle the Censorate.46
His filial and obedient name will be recorded in the eternal and everlasting biographies of the loyal and good.
For his wife will be erected an arch of ninefold ardor and threefold chastity,47 a memorial to her virtue and filial piety.
A filial reputation is loved by all—
For those named Wang, disaster was reaped because of evil.
For those named Zhang, disaster has already been reborn [as blessings].
(Two from Coda)
The family Zhang wanted only a reputation that was eternal and everlasting,
The family Wang wanted only a stash of cash that would by interest increase a hundredfold.
But now the ghosts and gods detest them, neighbors heap blame on them.
Sorrow and anxiety in the Ocean of Right and Wrong devastate the family Wang,
The family Zhang will be joyful indeed in the burrow of peace and happiness.
May I tell you this, you two mothers:
Granny Zhang, tell Butcher Zhang to drink less of this nameless wine,48
Granny Wang, tell Magnate Wang to lust no more for ill-gotten wealth.
LITTLE FEMALE49 acts out looking for child. MALE speaks: Woman, there is a divine spirit. In life he was Rescriptor-in-Waiting Bao, upon his death, he became a god, the Officer of Speedy Retribution.
([One from] Coda)
That lordship over there once supported the security of the realm
And gave fullness to heaven and earth;
He wears a purple gauze gown,
Holds a white ivory tablet in his hands,
His waist is wrapped with a golden yellow sash.
That lordship opens wide his two weird eyes, black as raven clouds,
The silver strands on both his temples as white as snowy silk.
That lordship—his mighty air is complete, his miraculous powers great,
Making judgments in the Court of Darkness, he dispatches his ghostly attendants,
Pronouncing sentences in the Southern Yamen,50 he does not covet the wealth of the people.
(Coda)
You can burn incense enough to fill a bucket,
You can have money enough to fill ten thousand bushels,
When you go home you’ll “follow the fences and palisades.”51
But when you call, nine of the ten vermilion gates52 will not open.
Once you turn your back on the world of men,
You’ll find nothing but mountains in front and ridges behind,
So don’t amass a fortune to build great mansions.
MALE speaks: Granny Zhang, I’m leaving this bundle behind with one word on it. Give it to Butcher Zhang and when he sees it, he’ll recognize my name.
(Final Coda)
Try and find me, I’m nowhere to be found,
And when I come, you won’t see me coming.
You might say there’s nothing to prevent your hiding away this child,
But it’s just as it says, “A child is as easily picked up as it is thrown down.”
[ACT 4]
FEMALE and MALE act out going home—MALE speaks: Wife, what’ll we say when we get back home and Mother asks about the child? FEMALE speaks: Just explain that he disappeared. Act out leaving Tai’an district and descending the mountain. [MALE LEAD sings:]
([SHUANGDIAO MODE] Xinshui ling)
Tears overflowing, hearts heavy and troubled, we go out the city gate,
I see clearly now [the meaning of] “You can have a home, but it’s hard to find refuge there.”
Raise my head to heaven, my eyes overflow with tears,
Lower my head, I wipe away the stains of weeping.
Reluctantly, I trod the red dust,
Wearily, I reach my mountain village.
Once inside the door,
What worries me is what Mother will ask.
FEMALE and MALE act out arriving at home and calling out at the door. MOTHER asks: Butcher Zhang, you two are back, but where’s the child? FEMALE and MALE act out kneeling down.
(Gu meijiu) [MOTHER sings:]
You bow to your mother before the gate,
Still steeped in drunkenness.
Speaks: To hand the child over to your brother! Even my grandchild has disappeared! Sings:
You seem drunk, insensate, dazed from a dream,
From the first to last,
Tell me in detail everything that happened.
[(Taipingling) MALE LEAD sings:]
You, Mother, were bedridden and down with illness,
I, your child, burned with anxiety, had nowhere to find ease.
Facing the shrine of the gods of the Eastern Marchmount,
I gave up our child Xisun
And burned him in the fire
In the scorching basin.
This is the crime of your unfilial stupid son.
OLD WOMAN speaks: You two didn’t have any idea of going on pilgrimage, you got drunk and lost the child. And now you lie in front of me and say that you burned him up! It’s a good thing your brother Li Neng brought him back. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll call him out for you to see. Xisun, come here. FEMALE and MALE, startled and frightened, kneel down. [MALE LEAD sings:]
(Yan’er luo)
After I hear this, my soul is scared out of me.
Because of what she said, I am dumbstruck for a time.
My mother packs away the anxiety in my breast
And folds away the depression in my heart.
(Desheng ling)
I myself burned up the body of this Xisun in the fire,
Right at high noon, before it turned to dusk.53
This was all due to the strict virtue of your daughter-in-law,
And the demonstration of filial obedience by your undeserving child.54
I remember now, there was a divine spirit,
Who gave me good news last night in my dream.
This little one will later, when he has eventually grown-up,
Be a man of the Gallery Soaring Beyond the Mists.55
MOTHER acts out giving the bundle to BUTCHER ZHANG to look at. BUTCHER ZHANG acts out recognizing it as the waist wrap of the divine fleetfoot, LI NENG.—FEMALE speaks: So the divine spirit has already brought our child home. Let our whole family face his lordship of the Eastern Marchmount in the holy land of Tai’an, and bring out the incense table. MALE calling to his MOTHER, speaks: So, in this world every action good or bad has its appropriate reward. Let us all pay obeisance to the divine spirits.
(Shuixianzi)
Deceive not heaven and earth, deceive not the gods—
“As far away as your children and grandchildren, as close as your own soul”56—
Burning up a child to save a mother, I practice loyalty and trust
To repay the grace of my parents’ nourishing and feeding us.
I spur on love between fathers and sons in the human world.
If fathers exercise loyalty and filial piety
And sons exercise filial obedience,
An everlasting and enduring name can be handed down forever.
| Title: |
The Flaring Spirit and Prince Cui exercise their divine anger, |
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The Officer of Speedy Retribution reveals his verdict in a dream. |
| Name: |
Magnate Wang loves money and covets riches, |
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Little Butcher Zhang Immolates His Child to Save His Mother. |
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Little Butcher Zhang Immolates His Child to Save His Mother.
