Following the Manchus’ conquest of China, a large number of Manchus settled in Beijing. As their number quickly increased over the following generations, the city became home to a large leisure class of unemployed Manchus, all of whom received a government stipend of some kind or another. Some of them became avid patrons of drama, especially Peking opera as it developed over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; others became authors and/or performers of long narrative ballads known as zidishu (“youth books” or “bannermen tales”). The genre acquired its name because of its close association with the baqi zidi (sons and younger brothers of the Eight Banners)—that is, the fashionable young men-about-town who belonged to the Eight Manchu Banners. Right up to the last decades of the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the performers of zidishu insisted on their status as amateurs and stressed the wide gulf that separated them from low-class professional entertainers.
Zidishu were sung to very slow music; although they were written basically in lines of seven-syllable ballad verse, the musical tempo allowed for the extension of each line to many more syllables and often resulted in very long lines. Zidishu might consist of one or more chapters, each chapter containing between one hundred and two hundred lines. As a rule, each chapter begins with an eight-line poem that was not sung but recited. Zidishu enjoyed a relatively high status, and many of them are by known authors who often relied on literary sources. The individual texts were not only performed but also circulated in written form, both in manuscript and in print. The genre was popular not only in Beijing but also in other northern cities with a large Manchu population, such as the secondary capital of the Qing dynasty, Shengjing (Shenyang), and Tianjin. Many zidishu were, with only minimal adaptations, later performed as guci (drum ballads).
The tale of Master Zhuang’s encounter with a young widow who is fanning a grave (and the subsequent developments), as first published by Feng Menglong (1574–1646) in 1624 and later included in the widely popular anthology of vernacular tales Extraordinary Sights from Present and Past (Jingu qiguan), was rewritten as a zidishu at least four times. Such adaptations might be based either directly on the text in Extraordinary Sights from Present and Past or on one of the stage versions that opened with the scene of Master Zhuang’s encounter with a skeleton. The zidishu translated here, The Butterfly Dream (Hudie meng) by Chunshuzhai, refers in its final comments to such stage adaptations. Chunshuzhai’s adaptation includes four chapters, the first of which is devoted to a retelling of Master Zhuang’s encounter with a skeleton. But for all the obvious influence of the legend of Master Zhuang’s encounter with the skeleton, Chunshuzhai limits himself to an account of a dream dialogue between Master Zhuang and the skeleton, in the manner of the dialogue of Master Zhuang and the skull in the Master Zhuang. Little information is available on the author of this version beyond his name, which is not his personal name but the name of his study.
CHAPTER ONE: THE ILLUSIONARY TRANSFORMATION
Both high and low will end up lying in a single mound of earth:
So let me ask you, what’s the use of your insistent seeking?
A lifetime’s wealth and status will be gone in just one moment,
And in a single second worldwide fame and merit vanish.
Eternal love of boy and girl is truly an illusion;
Affection in a marriage is a counterfeit emotion.
After a good night’s sleep, I suddenly saw through the dreamscape of the butterfly
And wrote this piece about a skeleton’s manifestation, and lament the skeleton.
Zhuang Zixiu had seen through the red dust and understood the Great Way;
Rejecting the king of Zhao’s invitation,1 he displayed his true motives in the book of Southern Florescence.
Saddened by the fact that people opened their eyes when they shouldn’t open their eyes,
He lamented that the deluded masses did not turn around when they could turn around.
Instead of getting to “the spring silkworm will complete its thread only in death,”
Why necessarily wait for “the bow is put away only when there’s no trace of a bird.”
Because of this the master had retired from the world and lived in the hills;
Grasping the original truth, he wanted to study in detail his own original features.
This one day he went by chance for a walk on a whim, for no reason at all,
And in the wild suburbs saw orioles hiding in trees, heard birds chirping on branches.
Here and there dogs were barking in mountain villages while bells resounded in ancient temples;
On and off woodcutters sang on steep ridges while fishermen chimed in from their slender boats.
Underneath a small bridge the brook’s water murmured, so clear it pierced the bones;
In the sparse wood the wildflowers blazed forth, their splendor filling one’s eyes.
This was truly a picture of nature—the wise love its streams, the humane its hills—
And with increased enthusiasm, the master happily walked on, roaming at random.
Turning around a hillside, he saw a limitless level plain, wide and expansive,
And from afar he noticed a pile of white bones lying exposed in the fields.
When he arrived there, the master observed it with both his eyes and his mind:
It turned out to be a skeleton that no one had cared to cover or bury.
The master covered it with earth because his heart was filled with sympathy,
And facing the skeleton, he heaved many a heavy sigh as he silently bowed his head
And thought, “This skeleton in former years was just like me today,
So why does he have to suffer so extremely once he has escaped from that sack of skin?”
Heaving a heavy sigh, he sat down on a black rock and fell asleep with lowered head
And saw a man who with his gray beard and white hair looked quite distinguished.
Approaching, the man greeted him with a bow and addressed him as master,
Saying, “You have been so kind as to gather these few lowly bones of mine.”
Zhuang Zixiu responded to his greeting in kind and addressed him with smile,
Saying, “So then this skeleton is Your Lordship, and Your Lordship is this skeleton.
I just wanted to ask you from where the work of escaping from our shell should start
Since I would like to learn the life-and-death secret of transcending the mortal realm.”
The skeleton replied, “A man may live to a hundred years, but in the end he must die:
Once you’re aware of death, you should delete all foolish thought in one stroke.
Only the endless expanse upon death can be counted as joy;
That busy business during your life will never come to an end.
Those myriad worries without any bounds are all empty—what’s there to love?
Completely cleansed, the single mind has no hindrance—what more could you want?
Don’t blame me for these crazy words of mine that go against all reason—
Just go on and seek noble rank in that sycophantic crowd in the marionette booth!”
Master Zhuang said, “Skeleton, why don’t you return to the world of light
So you can display the ambition in your breast and the schemes in your belly?”
The skeleton laughed loudly and answered, “I cannot go there again,
The world of light and I have no bond—that’s all finished and done!
I’ve now been a spirit for a few hundreds of years,
I’m free of all pleasure and joy, and free of all sorrow!
Master, you may advise me to return to the world of light,
But I’m afraid that I would eventually fail if I were a man.”
Master Zhuang asked, “What did you accomplish during your lifetime?”
And the skeleton replied, “I would like to tell you, but the telling fills me with shame.
Once upon a time I managed military and civil affairs as a high official with a large salary;
Once upon a time I rode a sleek horse in light furs, enjoying fine foods and rare delicacies.
Once upon a time I had noble sons and fine grandsons, a charming wife and beautiful concubines;
Once upon a time I searched for flowers and asked for willows in the houses of Chu and the mansions of Qin.2
But the accounts of a thousand years—a total mess—are impossible to clear up,
And in the end, once I had escaped from that sack of skin, my bones were exposed.
I quite regret how I earlier used those three inches of breath in a thousand ways!
Happily now all ten thousand affairs have come to an end upon one day of death.”
Master Zhuang asked, “So what kind of person were you actually when alive?”
That skeleton laughed out loud and then again nodded his head:
“You asked me what kind of man I was, what kind of man was I,
So let me ask you: The skeleton is who? Who is the skeleton?”
Master Zhuang suddenly saw through the skeleton’s message,
As if ghee were poured out on his cranium, the stick hit him smack on the head!
He hurried to ask, “As for escaping this sack of skin—whom should I ask for instruction?”
And the skeleton replied, “Ask the Long Mulberry Master for details!”3
As Master Zhuang thought, “Who can find a Perfected Lord of the Way and Its Virtue?”4
He wished to ask the skeleton a follow-up question, but the latter turned around without looking back.
As light as could be, he drifted away like a chilly gust of wind,
And even though Master Zhuang was still dreaming, he cried out, “Skeleton!”
A moment ago the two parties had been debating,
But suddenly both shape and shadow had disappeared, color and form were gone.
As he was going back, he was filled with doubt as he pondered this dreamscape
When from afar he espied a young woman fanning a grave, a most elegant posture!
CHAPTER TWO: FANNING THE GRAVE
A skeleton, a pretty face: the two are closely linked—
Who can maintain love and affection for a hundred years?
A red-hot passion had one moment harmonized the zithers,5
But there she holds her lute again before your bones are cold.6
As sex is only emptiness, so emptiness is sex;
A bond derives from karma, but this karma is no bond.
The bodhisattva Guanyin now sends Dragon Daughter7 to the mortal world,
Where she will fan a grave and by that means awaken Zhuang Zhou from his dream.
Zhuang Zixiu was filled with doubt as he pondered his dreamscape
When from afar he spied a newly built grave mound, its earth not yet dry.
A pretty girl dressed in mourning stood by the side of the grave mound,
And with a gold-speckled fan she was fanning that grave.
Master Zhuang did not grasp the secret design, so he silently thought,
“Could it be that she fears that the heart of the man in that grave is not cold?
It’s impossible, I’m afraid, to solve this spring-lantern riddle8 right at the beginning,
A depressing conundrum—this case really has me depressed here and now.”
When he came closer, he repeatedly wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to meddle,
But then, if he didn’t ask, how could he develop his knowledge to the fullest?
So he had no other option but to politely greet her, address her as milady,
And say, “Milady, allow me to ask you, why are you fanning this grave?
What is the one in this grave to you and why are you fanning like this?
Please be so kind as to tell me the reason behind all of this.”
That woman stopped crying and weeping, opened her almond eyes,
And took her time to scrutinize Master Zhuang from head to toe.
After quite a while she said, “You do not walk the great road,
Why do you have to ask me for my reasons here on this side road?
Why I fan this grave? Of course there’s a reason for fanning the grave when I’m fanning a grave!
If I am fanning this grave, it’s in order that this grave will dry as quickly as possible.
How should I have the ample leisure to engage with you in some idle discussion?
Wouldn’t I be wasting this fine time and good weather all for no purpose?”
Master Zhuang replied, “Milady, if you are willing to tell me your reasons,
I promise that this grave mound will dry out on the spot without any trouble!”
The woman said, “Is that true? Will this grave be dry as soon as I tell you?”
Master Zhuang nodded his head and said with a smile, “Yes, of course!”
But before that woman had said a single sweet word, she first shed a tear,
And then said, “Even a man of iron or stone would be moved upon hearing my tale!
The one in this grave is my husband, my partner during his life,
To whom I was tied by a thousand kinds of affection, ten thousand kinds of love!
We truly hoped for a fine marriage of a hundred years so we might grow old together—
Who could have guessed my husband would abandon me and descend into the earth.
Now it would be easy to once again ‘tune zithers in harmony,’
But I’m afraid it will be hard ‘to paint a good copy of a gourd.’
Moreover, before he died he left me these last words as his instructions:
‘If you want to remarry you must wait until the earth on my grave mound is dry.’
Because I cannot bear to go against these loving last words of my husband,
I therefore have postponed this happy business for these last few days.
Sir, do not laugh at me because of my silly passion:
I’m afraid that women constant like me are rather rare!”
As she was saying this, she handed her fan to the master,
And Zhuang Zixiu made the secret signs, applied the seals, and spoke his true words.
With his Five Demon Magic the earth of the grave mound was dry as soon as he waved the fan,
And the woman thanked him profusely as her face beamed with joy.
Last night, alas, the lamplight waning and in a cold bed, she had laid herself down all alone,
But tomorrow evening her tender jade and warm fragrance will share a cushion when sleeping,
So wishing the master all blessings, she respectfully offered him the fan as a token of her gratitude,
And said, “I will be off, seeking a new partner, finding another marriage.”
Master Zhuang put the fan in his sleeve and went home as he had a good laugh:
“This woman had no sense of shame, was deprived of all reason!
She had the nerve to say that during his lifetime their love and affection were like fish and water—
If there had been no love or affection, the situation would have been too bad for words!”
When he got home, he rapped with the fan on the gate as he opened the door,
And when he saw his wife, Madam Tian, he suddenly realized the subtle contraption.
When he entered the room, Madam Tian served him his tea and saw that the master was very distracted,
So she hastened to ask, “Why do you look so glum and so sorrowed today?”
Master Zhuang said, “This is driving me mad, oh so mad! This is truly driving me mad!
‘Most vicious is a woman’s heart’: on the basis of this experience, this statement is true!”
When his wife asked him for his reasons and to tell her what had happened,
Master Zhuang recounted the whole story of the woman fanning the grave.
His wife then said, “If I would have been there a moment ago,
I would have shamed her and I would have reviled her to her face!”
She stretched out her hand, grabbed the fan, and tore it to pieces,
She was so furious her powdered face turned sallow, her eyes bulged out!
Master Zhuang reacted, “You shouldn’t have torn this family heirloom to pieces;
This precedent may later have its use, and you might want to follow her example.
As long as they are alive all people talk of love and affection,
But once you are dead, each and every one fans the grave.”
His wife wanted to reply, but then she heard her husband cry out,
“Oh this pain in my breast! How come my limbs are all soft and paralyzed?”
In an instant, the master had attracted a serious and fatal disease;
Very soon he breathed his last, his life tainted by the Yellow Springs.
Despite all seeming deep affection and great love, the ice in her bosom warmed,
And soon I fear—secret words and waning passion—the fire she carried will grow cold.
CHAPTER THREE: TALKING LOVE
So why did Master Zhuang assume illusionary shapes?
He wanted to bring out her hidden feelings through the prince.
The decorated saddle and fine horse were of the best;
Of highest quality were zither, sword, and box of books.
The servant looked exactly like a true and trusted servant;
The book boy was the spitting image of a little book boy.
When thoughts of spring set out to lead one on, seduce one,
Which blossom on the peach will then refuse to show her color?
A handsome prince arrived at the gate and pulled in the reins of his horse;
He ordered his book boy to knock on the gate and announce his arrival, without any delay!
“Tell them that a prince of Chu has arrived to pay a visit,
And that he insists on mounting to the hall and seeing the master!”
The little book boy wanted to knock on the gate but saw that the door stood ajar,
So he sneaked inside and coughed a few times before he opened his mouth.
He said, “Anybody here? Please report the arrival of a guest from Chu,
My lord wants to pay a visit, so I have here his card I’d like to present.”
After quite a while, he heard the deeply sad voice of a woman, saying,
“Master Zhuang passed away yesterday, and today he has been encoffined.
Since you have so kindly made such a long and wearisome trip, I should of course ask you to come inside,
But because the corpse is still in the house, I cannot offer proper hospitality.
Please, young man, convey my greatest respect to your noble master—
Not only the soul of the deceased will be grateful but I too will be appreciative.”
The little book boy accepted her order and reported what she had said;
Hearing this, the prince was deeply moved and his tears poured down.
He dismounted from his horse, and, weeping as he walked, he called out, “My master!”
In front of the coffin he sadly paid his respects, enumerating the master’s virtues:
“Since my earliest youth I constantly longed to repay your teaching and instruction,
And my longing was such that I did not shrink from this long trip to visit the master.
Who could have expected that this beam as large as Mount Tai would be destroyed?9
Causing us, the peach trees and plum trees in his yard,10 to lament our great loss.”
As he was making this speech, the beauty stealthily had a peek from behind the mourning screen:
Wow! She had once again met her romantic karma from five hundred years past!
A cap of purple-gold, blue tassels hanging down, and a face so very handsome!
A silver-white coat, securely fastened around his waist with a yellow belt.
Red cloud shoes produce with each step and each move a mild and harmonious ether,
A gold-speckled fan, each time shaken or waved, calls forth the breezes of spring.
Moreover, his eyes resemble autumn floods free of dust; his eyebrows resemble the layered greens of distant hills,
Whereas his teeth are as white as the jades from Mount Kun, his lips as red as the pomegranate of the Fifth Month.
His age was just right—most likely he had only just passed his capping ceremony.11
Who might be the girl who by her virtue in various lives would become the companion of this passionate lover?
As she was stealthily looking, she heard the prince say, “Allow me to pay my respect to my teacher’s wife.”12
And the little book boy at his side transmitted his message in very clear words.
The woman replied, “Since I am wearing mourning, I would not dare to trouble him so.”
But the book boy said, “There’s no need to be so modest, since you are like his own mother.”
He stretched out his hand and pulled back the mourning screen, saying, “Milord, please come inside,
Once you are here, bowing to your teacher’s wife is the same as bowing to the master.”
When he had entered her room, the prince kowtowed, and the beauty responded in kind:
As soon as these two had seen each other, they exchanged furtive glances.
There in the mourning hall, four eyes were dumbstruck and two hearts were aglow.
Indeed, “the young man full of desire comes across a maiden filled with passion.”
But because they had barely met, there were so very many thoughts they could not express,
So they could only stick to the rules of etiquette and exchange a few questions.
Their conversation finished, the prince announced his departure, but the beauty asked him to stay,
Saying, “We have here a study that is nice and clean where you can rest from your travels.”
The little book boy chimed in and played along by saying, “That would truly be marvelous!
Milord just wanted to recuperate from his exertions and take care of his mount before moving on.”
The prince replied, “How could I dare refuse this offer now you, my teacher’s wife, allow me to stay?
Staying here will also make it easier to prepare the sacrificial offerings to be offered to my teacher.”
While he was saying “I’m deeply grateful” and went to that study,
His old servant moved his luggage into the guest room.
Not much later the red sun sank in the west while the round moon rose,
And the little book boy went back inside to ask for a silver lamp.
When that woman saw the book boy, she immediately told him to sit down:
Didn’t this stir up a full heaven of romance, a limitless infatuation!
She asked him, “Do you know how old His Lordship may be?”
And the book boy replied, “He was born in a mao year, in a mao month, on a mao day, and in a mao hour.”
As soon as she heard these words, the woman was bereft of her soul:
“How strange! Why are his eight characters exactly the same as mine?”13
She also asked, “And from which family is the bride of His Lordship?”
The book boy replied, “He is not yet engaged, but there is something weird.
His Lordship once swore an oath in the presence of his father and mother
That he only wanted to marry a woman with the same eight characters as himself.”
The woman said, “That our eight characters are the same is a rare coincidence,
But even despite this coincidence, it wouldn’t work since the disparity in wealth cannot be ignored.”
The book boy replied, “As long as the eight characters are completely the same,
His Lordship doesn’t care about noble or lowly and poor or destitute.
If Auntie Zhuang can act as the matchmaker, that would be very convenient;14
Once we have a matchmaker, I promise that one word of mine will clinch the deal.”
Because her spring heart was aroused, this woman told him her honest desire,
But alas, she mistook a rope of hemp for a red string.15
Suddenly we will once again see in this world of man the ritual performed;
A second time we witness the crossing of the two stars in heaven above.16
CHAPTER FOUR: SPLITTING THE COFFIN
The book boy transmitted the message, his face all wreathed in a smile;
The beauty received the good news, and her joy knew no bounds.
The red luan danced once again in front of the mandarin-duck mirror;17
Purple swallows would nest all over again on tortoise-shell beams.
Displaying his dashing style to the full, he pursued the Luo maiden;18
Readying herself for clouds and rain, she waited for King Xiang.19
Only because the heaven of passion and the ocean of evil deluded her true nature
Did she fail to recognize that her new lover was actually her old lover!
Now tell that the prince quite eagerly agreed to the match:
That very evening was a lucky hour and good day to enter the bridal room.
The woman moved Master Zhuang’s coffin to some other location,
And in noisy disorder the servant and book boy together helped her out.
In a little while, everything had been arranged in an orderly fashion,
Truly the household was filled with joy: everything came in pairs.
After a little while, midnight approached and the lucky hour drew near,
So the book boy said, “Let’s ask the bride and groom to bow in the hall.”
That handsome prince, clad in brocade, a belt of jade, was the image of fashion;
That handsome beauty, in halcyon feathers and pearls, was quite heavily made up.
The two of them came together into the hall and bowed to Heaven and Earth,
And they silently prayed, “May we be like Liang Hong and Meng Guang—the tray lifted as high as the eyebrows!”20
After husband and wife had bowed to each other, exchanged the common cup, and finished the ritual,
Their wish was to be granted—in the silence of midnight for the first time to taste the crab-apple fragrance!
But suddenly she heard the prince scream and shout, “Too bad!”
And his body collapsed with a crash then and there in the hall.
The beauty supported him with her hands and asked, “What’s the matter?”
But she saw that his body was stretched out straight, that his faced had turned yellow.
Heavily moaning and with his eyes closed, he was barely breathing;
Shivering all over, he clenched his teeth and his hands were ice-cold.
When she asked the book boy whether the prince had earlier suffered these symptoms,
The book boy replied, “This is the heart pain from which he suffers.
Who could have expected it would manifest itself here today in this place—
It just so happens we didn’t bring his medicine, so this will soon spell his death.”
“What kind of medicine did His Lordship use when earlier he suffered this illness?”
Before the book boy had opened his mouth, his tears gushed down.
“No other medicine at all but the brains of a living person—
An infusion of that, and his illness is cured, he’s healthy again!
Here this medicine can’t be found, so this man cannot be saved.
It must have been determined by his eight characters he’d die here.”
As he was saying this, he was weeping so much that it seemed he was drunk,
But the woman said, “Now don’t be so sad, there’s something we have to discuss.
Tell me whether the brains of a dead person are any good;
If those can be used, we’ll quickly ask someone to find a way.”
The book boy said, “Those that are dead less than three days are still good,
But I’ve never heard of a drugstore where they sell human brains.”
But that woman said in her ferocity, “It can’t be helped!
In order to save my new husband, I’ll have to appeal to my former beau.”
With the help of the servant and book boy, she set to work
And carried the prince back to the study.
She told them strictly, “Now guard him well and don’t leave his side
While I go everywhere to ask someone to find me a brain.”
After she had so deceived the servant and book boy, she went back inside,
And once in her room, she took off her long gown and put on a short skirt.
At her toilet table she removed hairpins and bracelets, wrapping her hair in a white scarf:
Dressed in this light and convenient manner, she was ready for murder!
Once she had found a merciless ax in the kitchen,
She ran as fast as she could to the small mourning chapel.
Lightly she opened the door and then sneaked inside,
And in front of the coffin she silently prayed to her dear deceased husband:
“While you were alive, good deeds were your gate, compassion your root,
And that’s why I dare come to you now to borrow your brains.
Saving a single life surpasses building a seven-story stupa, and you also will benefit;
That’s why I here by helping my new groom am also helping you.”
With quite some effort she managed to split the coffin’s cover and lightly tossed it aside,
Then saw how Master Zhuang suddenly sat up, with a smile all over his face.
She was so scared that she collapsed on the ground and kowtowed, asking, “Don’t kill me!”
And Master Zhuang said, “I’ve recovered from my illness and come back to life.”
The woman said, “When I heard you moaning, I came here to save you!”
But Master Zhuang replied, “If you want to save me, quickly ask someone to find a brain!
‘Saving a single life surpasses building a seven-story stupa, and you also will benefit.’
‘This is the way in which you are helping the new groom and also helping the old.’ ”
When he said this, she was so ashamed she had no face at all to defend her behavior,
And in her desperation, she decided to commit suicide in order to find death.
With a white scarf around her neck21 this woman went off to the underworld,
While Master Zhuang found the Way in the Yellow Courtyard and became an immortal.
When you search the histories, Master Zhuang never played this trick on his wife;
This is all a fictional fantasy as performed in the Pear Garden.22
Using this fantasy, I wrote a fantastic tale in a fantastic style
In order to awaken you all from the most fantastic dream of all eternity.
Sir, don’t love the spring flowers and autumn willows:
Those willow leaves and plum sprigs are dew on grass.
Here in my study I have ten thousand scrolls of the sages,
So I wrote these few lines of extraordinary writing.
Text published by the Wenshengtang in Shengjing in Guangxu 19 (1893)
[Zhang Shouchong, ed., Manzu shuochang wenxue: Zidishu zhenben baizhong, 13–19]
1. He rejected the king’s offer to join his government as prime minister.
2. The “houses of Chu and the mansions of Qin” refer to courtesan houses and bordellos. Flowers and willows are common images for courtesans and prostitutes.
3. The Long Mulberry Master (Changsangzi) instructed Master Zhuang in immortality techniques.
4. Daode Zhenjun can be translated in a very general sense as “a Perfected Lord of the Way and Its Virtue,” as I have done, but many contemporary readers probably will have read this title as a shortened form of Qingxu Daode Zhenjun. According to the widely popular late Ming novel The Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi), Qingxu Daode Zhenjun is one of the twelve “golden immortals” below the supreme Daoist deity, Yuanshi Tianzun. His most effective weapon is his Five-Fire Seven-Bird Fan, which can destroy any demon in an instant. Mentioning Qingxu Daode Zhenjun here would point forward to the appearance of the young widow and her fan.
5. Zithers that are tuned in harmony are a common image for a happy marriage.
6. In the Ballad of the Lute (Pipa xing) by the famous Tang poet Bai Juyi (772–846), an aging courtesan, whose husband-patron has left her, once again sings for customers to the accompaniment of the lute.
7. Dragon Daughter (Longnü) is Guanyin’s female acolyte. Like her mistress, Dragon Daughter can assume any shape. In other versions of this legend, it is Guanyin herself who manifests herself in the shape of a young widow.
8. In many places in China, riddles were posted on or next to the lanterns displayed at the Lantern Festival of the first full moon of the new year.
9. Mount Tai in modern Shandong is the holy Marchmount of the East.
10. This is a common image used to denote disciples and students.
11. The capping ceremony, when a young man started to put up his long hair and wear a cap, was held when a boy became an adult.
12. The teacher’s wife is addressed more literally as “teacher-mother.” A sexual relation between a student and his teacher’s wife would be considered akin to incest.
13. The “eight characters” refer to the four two-character combinations for the hour, day, month, and year of a person’s birth, which determine his or her future. In marriage negotiations, the eight characters of the two prospective partners are compared in order to ascertain that the intended marriage will be blessed.
14. Auntie Zhuang refers to a female family servant.
15. According to a well-known classical tale from the Tang dynasty (608–906), predestined marriage partners are tied together by the Old Man of the Moon using a red string.
16. Buffalo Boy and Weaving Maiden are two stars (Vega and Altair) separated by the Heavenly River (Milky Way). They are lovers who are allowed to meet only once a year, on the night of the seventh day of the Seventh Month, when magpies form a bridge across the river.
17. The luan is a phoenix-like bird. Once a captive single luan desiring a mate danced in front of a mirror until it died.
18. Once, when crossing the Luo River, the poet Cao Zhi (192–232) had a vision of the river goddess. He describes her seductive charms at length in “Rhapsody on the Goddess of the Luo” (Luoshen fu).
19. When King Xiang of Chu visited Mount Wu, the goddess of the mountain shared his couch in his dream. As she left, she identified herself as the morning clouds and evening rain.
20. Liang Hong (first century C.E.) lived in retirement. When his bride, Meng Guang, presented herself to him in all her finery, he ignored her, but when she dressed simply and brought him his meal, lifting the tray as high as her eyebrows as a sign of respect, he treated her most affectionately.
21. This means that she committed suicide by hanging.
22. Pear Garden has been a designation for the theater ever since the Tang emperor Xuanzong had actors and actresses trained in the Pear Garden of the palace grounds.