INTRODUCTION
1. Patrick Hanan, “The Composition of the P’ing Yao Chuan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 31 (1971): 201. See also page 202 of this source for a discussion of where extant early printings can be found.
CHAPTER 1
1. A Daoist deity, usually known as the God of the Dark Heaven (Xuantian Shangdi).
2. Zhenwu (true and warlike) is another name for Xuantian Shangdi.
3. To indicate his devoutness.
4. Polaris.
5. The progression calls for a “six” here. “Green” (lü) is a near homonym of “six” (liu or lu). There is a version of this same stock set piece in the early story “Yinzhi ji shan.” For more on this story, see Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, vol. 21 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 8. Interestingly, instead of “green willows” it has “six lakes” (liu hai), which was possibly the original form.
6. I.e., the busy heart of the city.
7. This piece is found in different forms in other fiction, notably Jing shi tongyan 11. For more on Jing shi tongyan 11, see Hanan, The Chinese Short Story, 13. It is also similar to a well-known riddle (the answer is the wind) that is probably its origin.
8. The text does not indicate that this remark is directed at the master. It is presumably meant to assure him that the woman will be found.
9. I.e., the moon.
10. The moon.
11. I.e., the land within the four seas, China.
12. I.e., the million worlds of Buddhist belief.
13. I.e., the moon.
CHAPTER 2
1. By the Song poet Zhang Qiu. It is contained in the popular Song anthology of verse and fiction Qingsuo gaoyi. For more on this anthology, see Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, vol. 21 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 218. The father of the poem is seeking patronage.
2. Baosi was the favorite of the last emperor of the western Zhou. To draw a smile from her, he had the signal fires lit in a false alarm that had the feudal lords rushing to his aid.
3. Zhou Yu was a youthful general of Wu in Three Kingdoms time. He set fire to Cao Cao’s fleet at Red Cliff.
CHAPTER 3
1. Jiutian Xuannü, a Daoist deity who has been described as the goddess of sorcery.
CHAPTER 4
1. Wulei Zhengfa. The ritual of an exorcising movement that emerged in the twelfth century and became influential. See Edward L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2001), 21–32. In Chinese fiction, the Thunder God Rites are a force for good, devoted to exorcising demons.
2. I.e., the text says “gold sand,” which was refined by alchemists into a cinnabar drug to promote immortality.
CHAPTER 5
1. Traditionally the prospective bridegroom himself delivered a goose to his in-laws, but not in this case, for obvious reasons.
2. This note appears in smaller print in the Chinese text.
3. A demon king depicted with three faces and eight arms.
4. See Wu Cheng’en, Xiyouji (Journey to the west) (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1954), chapter 23.
5. A concubine of the Yellow Emperor’s. A classic reference for an ugly woman.
6. Wife of the Duke of Qi in Warring States times. Another classic reference for an ugly woman.
7. The details are being kept from the reader.
CHAPTER 7
1. See Shi Naian, Luo Guanzhong, Shuihu quanzhuan (The complete Water Margin) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1959), chapter 42.
2. I.e., the Dark Goddess (Jiutian Xuannü).
3. The goddess who provides the peaches of immortality.
4. Almost identical with a set piece in Shuihu zhuan, chapter 2.
5. Rather confusingly, the reference is not to the prefect but to Bu Ji.
CHAPTER 8
1. A popular sect of the Northern Song. See Edward L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2001), 121–22. In Chinese fiction, Diamond Chan (Jingang Chan) is always a subversive force, employing demonic magic.
2. A reference to Nezha. Originally a Buddhist guardian god, he is a fabled warrior in much fantastic fiction.
3. A disciple of Confucius’s who, on the strength of Analects VII.11, is said to have killed a tiger with his bare hands.
4. A famous assassin of the Spring and Autumn period. He was said to look like a hungry tiger.
5. A popular saying derived originally from the poem “Bei shan” in the Poetry Classic. See Sheng Guangzhi, annotator, Shijing sanbai shou yixi (The Classic of Poetry, translation and analysis) (Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe, 2005).
6. Hebei province in the Song dynasty was much larger than the modern Hebei, incorporating parts of modern Henan and Shandong.
CHAPTER 9
1. 999–1062. In fiction he is regarded as the ideal judge.
2. I.e., the runners were held strictly accountable. The mirror is a symbol of perfect justice.
3. Presumably a somewhat mangy lion.
4. The si period, which is from 9 to 11 a.m.
CHAPTER 10
1. Chunyu Fen is the hero of the famous Tang-dynasty tale “Nanke taishou zhuan” by Li Gongzuo. See Lu Xun, ed., Tang Song chuanqi ji (Collected tales of the marvelous from Tang and Song) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 2013).
2. The famous story of Zhuang Zi and the butterfly is found in the Zhuang Zi; see Yang Shu’an, annotator, Zhuang Zi (Beijing: Zhongguo wenxue chubanshe, 1997).
3. Bian Zhuang, a hero of Warring States time, is famous for killing two tigers. (The tigers, it has to be said, had already exhausted themselves fighting each other.)
4. The reference, perhaps comic, is to a phrase in the Classic of Changes (Yi jing), under hexagram 63. See Xu Qinting, Yijing jieyi (The Book of Changes explicated and translated) (Xinbei shi: Shenghuan tushu, 2012).
5. The significance of Baitieban is not clear.
6. Erhuizi, a secret sect in the Song that is portrayed in fiction as specializing in demonic magic; cf. Diamond Chan (Jingang Chan) and the Heretical Way (Zuo Dao). “Double Adepts” is the way the title is explained in chapter 17. See, in this volume, chapter 17, n. 3.
CHAPTER 11
1. The Buddha, the doctrine, and the priesthood.
2. If he were to leave. A standard reference for a beloved local official.
3. The famous Tang-dynasty poets Li Bai and Du Fu.
4. The model Han officials Gong Sui and Huang Ba.
5. This obscure sentence may refer to the transmission of the teaching.
CHAPTER 12
1. A sticky pole was a device for catching birds and, evidently, bats.
2. Stock praise for a perceptive, incorruptible official.
3. The three images in the main hall of monasteries, Sakyamuni flanked by Avalokesvara on the left and Bhaisajya on the right.
4. A pavilion outside the city for welcoming newly arrived officials.
5. Lijia.
CHAPTER 13
1. This word for what seems to be a kind of morgue is found only here, it seems.
2. In the Song dynasty, in addition to the imperial army there were armies attached to the individual prefectures. The prefectural armies were made up, broadly speaking, of paid professional career men and local militias, of which the former carried the greater prestige. See Lau Nap-Yin and Huang K’uan-chung, “Founding and Consolidation of the Song Dynasty under T’ai-tsu (960–976), T’ai-tsung (976–997), and Chen-tsung (997–1022),” in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 5, Part 1: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279, ed. Denis Twitchett and Paul Jakov Smith, 206–78 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
3. Chang’e, the goddess of the moon.
4. Weaving Maid, a figure from folklore who once a year at the time of the Autumn Festival meets her lover, the herd boy. That’s when a flock of magpies makes a bridge across the Milky Way so that they can traverse it.
5. Both headdress and robe signify a Daoist priest or priestess.
CHAPTER 14
1. The text specifies the Zuo Dao, the Heretical Way, which is portrayed in fiction as subversive, employing demonic magic.
CHAPTER 16
1. Characters illegible.
CHAPTER 17
1. A kind of ceremonial parasol.
2. The handle of a whip was rapped on the floor three times to call for silence.
3. Diamond Chan (Jingang Chan) was the name of a sect popular in eleventh-century China. The Heretical Way (Zuo Dao) and Erhuizi, which this text interprets as meaning “double adepts,” were similar popular sects. All three are described in fiction as subversive, devoted to demonic magic, whereas the religion and magic of the Five Thunder Gods (Wu Lei Zhengfa), sometimes called the Five Thunder Gods Celestial Heart (Wulei Tianxin Zhengfa), are devoted to exorcising demonic influences. See Edward L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2001), 45–66, 121–22.
CHAPTER 18
1. The typical guise of the exorcist. See Edward L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2001), 59.
2. A Daoist ritual, originally known as the Dance of Yu, which included pacing out the stars of the Big Dipper. The object was to invoke the magic of the spirits.
CHAPTER 19
1. Du Yu, the king of Shu in the Warring States period. He abdicated and, according to legend, changed into a cuckoo. Cuckoos cry, mourning the passing of spring, until they cry blood.
2. The poet Song Yu, supposedly a follower of Qu Yuan’s, wrote poems lamenting the passing of spring.
3. A Three Kingdoms figure. He had a dagger that a fortune-teller had said only a prime minister should have. He gave the dagger away—and the recipient fulfilled the prophecy.
4. An expert on astronomy, Lei Huan knew from the stars that a famous sword could be found in Fengcheng. He dug up two such swords and gave one of them away. It was later lost.
CHAPTER 20
1. The ellipses represent groups of indecipherable characters in the text.
2. A wooden donkey was a wheeled contraption to which the person condemned to death was bound.
3. On the heads of the condemned.
4. The text is elided at this point. These last two lines are taken from the forty-chapter version. It is found under the title Bei Song San Sui Pingyao zhuan in the Naikaku Bunko edition of 1620. A second edition bears the subtitle Xin Pingyao zhuan and is also in the Naikaku Bunko. Both were edited by Feng Menglong.