Wei Hsüeh-yi (c. 1606–c. 1625)
During the Ming period there was an ingeniously skilled craftsman named Wang Shu-yüan who could make houses, implements, human figures, and even birds, beasts, trees, and rocks from a piece of wood an inch in diameter. He never failed to image the shape of an object in accord with the configuration of his raw material, and each of his creations possessed its own sentiment and mood.
Wang bequeathed to me a peach-stone boat that might well be entitled “The Elder Su Drifting on the River at Red Cliff.” From stem to stern the boat was approximately eight tenths plus a fraction of an inch long, and its height was roughly that of a bit more than two millet grains. In the center was a lofty, spacious part which served as the cabin. This was covered by a mat made of broad-leaved bamboo. Small windows were inserted on the sides, four each to the left and the right for a total of eight shutters. When the windows were thrown open and you looked in, you could see across to the carved railings on the opposite side. If you closed them, on the right was engraved “MOUNTAINS HIGH MOON SMALL; WATER RECEDES STONES EMERGE,” and on the left was engraved “PURE WIND SLOWLY COMES; WATERY WAVES NOT RISE.” The characters were filled in with azurite pigment.
Seated in the prow were three men. In the center, with a high-peaked cap, was East Slope (Su Tung-p’o).1 To his right was Buddha Imprint2 and to his left was Simple Straight (Huang T’ing-chien).3 Su and Huang were reading a handscroll together. East Slope held the beginning of the scroll with his right hand and was patting Simple Straight’s back with his left hand. Simple Straight held the end of the scroll with his left hand and was pointing to the scroll with his right hand, as though he were saying something. East Slope’s right foot was showing and Simple Straight’s left foot was showing. Both of their bodies were leaning slightly. Their two knees that were next to each other were hidden beneath the bottom of the scroll and in the folds of their clothing. Buddha Imprint bore an extremely close resemblance to Maitreya.4 His chest was bare and his breasts were revealed. Head raised, he was looking upward in a spirit quite unlike that of Su and Huang. His right knee was stretched out horizontally, and his bent right arm was supported by the boat while he dangled a rosary from his left arm, which rested on his perpendicular left knee. The rosary beads could be counted one by one.
A scull was lying horizontally across the stern. To the left and right of the scull there were two boatmen. The one on the right side had his hair tied up in the shape of a mallet. His left hand was braced against a horizontal board and his right hand was grabbing his right toes. He looked as though he were shouting. The one on the left held a fan made of palm leaves in his right hand and was touching a stove with his left hand. On top of the stove was a kettle. The man had a fixed gaze and a quiet expression, as though he were listening to the tea-water.
The back of the boat was rather even and the craftsman had written an inscription on its surface. The inscription read: “Carved by Wang Yi, styled Shu-yüan, of Yü-shan,5 on an autumn day in the jen-hsü year6 of the Heavenly Revelation.” The characters, black in color, were fine as the legs of a spider, yet each of the strokes was clearly distinct. There was also a seal, red in color, written in an archaic script. It read: “Hermit of Ch’u-p’ing.” 7
If we calculate for the whole boat, there were five men, eight windows, one broad-leaved bamboo mat, one scull, one stove, one kettle, one hand-scroll, and one rosary. All together, there were thirty-four characters in the matching couplets, the inscription, and seal. Yet, when we calculate the length of the boat, it was not even a full inch. As a matter of fact, the craftsman had made it from a long, narrow peach-stone that he had selected. After I had finished scrutinizing the boat in detail, I marveled, “Ah! that skill could be so preternatural! There are a good many stories recorded in the Chuang Tzu 8 and the Lieh Tzu9 in which beholders are startled by those who possess supernatural skills, yet who among them could let a knife play freely in a piece of material less than an inch in size while producing figures with beards and eyebrows that are clearly visible? If someone were to repeat my own words to me, I would certainly suspect that they were exaggerating. But now I have seen the peach-stone boat with my own eyes. Judging from what I have observed, it is not necessarily impossible to carve a female monkey on the tip of a jujube thorn.10 Ah! that skill could be so preternatural!”
Translated by Victor H. Mair
Late Ming society displayed a particular fondness for such minor arts as inside-painted snuff bottles, decorated incense burners, detailed ivory figurines, elaborately carved buckles, and engraved seals. This sort of kitschy craftsmanship, which fueled European chinoiserie in the following centuries, was mirrored in literature by a taste for intricately descriptive essays. Art and literature come together in this famous piece inspired by an actual object, the likes of which may still be seen—with the aid of a magnifying glass—in the National Palace Museum (Taipei, Taiwan). The boat made of a kernel was, in turn, inspired by Su Shih’s celebrated “Red Cliff Rhapsody” (selection 127 in this volume), which is quoted directly by Wei Hsüehyi.
The author, a brilliant young student, died of grief over the death of his father at the hands of the notorious eunuch faction of the Ming court.
1. Su Shih, the famous Sung period scholar-official and author of the “Red Cliff Rhapsody.”
2. Fo-yin, a monkish friend of Su Tung-p’o.
3. A celebrated calligrapher and poet who was also a close associate of Su Tung-p’o (see selection 57).
4. The Buddha of the future. Popularly referred to as the “Laughing Buddha,” he is usually depicted with an exposed fat belly.
5. In the province of Kiangsu.
6. I.e., 1622.
7. Ch’u-p’ing is the soubriquet of Wang Yi (Shu-yüan). It is likely that he adopted this fancy name from the legend of Huang Ch’u-p’ing, a Taoist recluse for more than forty years who was said to have been able to metamorphose rocks into goats.
8. See selection 8.
9. See selection 10.
10. A feat falsely claimed by a couple of tricksters in the book attributed to Master Han Fei (d. 233 B.C.E).