The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature

During the Chen-yüan period ¹ there lived a young man named Chang. He was agreeable and refined, and good-looking, but firm and self-contained, and capable of no improper act. When his companions included him in one of their parties, the others could all be brawling as though they would never get enough, but Chang would just watch tolerantly without ever taking part. In this way he had gotten to be twenty-three years old without ever having had relations with a woman. When asked by his friends, he explained, “Teng-t’u tzu² was no lover, but a lecher. I am the true lover—I just never happened to meet the right girl. How do I know that? It’s because things of outstanding beauty never fail to make a permanent impression on me. That shows I am not without feelings.” His friends took note of what he said.

Not long afterward Chang was traveling in P’u,³ where he lodged some ten tricents east of the city in a monastery called the Temple of Universal Salvation. It happened that a widowed Mrs. Ts’ui had also stopped there on her way back to Ch’ang-an. She had been born a Cheng; Chang’s mother had been a Cheng, and when they worked out their common ancestry, this Mrs. Ts’ui turned out to be a rather distant cousin once removed on his mother’s side.

This year Hun Chen ⁴ died in P’u, and the eunuch Ting Wen-ya proved unpopular with the troops, who took advantage of the mourning period to mutiny. They plundered the citizens of P’u, and Mrs. Ts’ui, in a strange place with all her wealth and servants, was terrified, having no one to turn to. Before the mutiny Chang had made friends with some of the officers in P’u, and now he requested a detachment of soldiers to protect the Ts’ui family. As a result all escaped harm. In about ten days the imperial commissioner of inquiry, Tu Ch’üeh,⁵ came with full power from the throne and restored order among the troops.

Out of gratitude to Chang for the favor he had done them, Mrs. Ts’ui invited him to a banquet in the central hall. She addressed him: “Your widowed aunt with her helpless children would never have been able to escape alive from these rioting soldiers. It is no ordinary favor you have done us; it is rather as though you had given my son and daughter their lives, and I want to introduce them to you as their elder brother so that they can express their thanks.” She summoned her son Huan-lang, a very attractive child of ten or so. Then she called her daughter, “Come out and pay your respects to your brother, who saved your life.” There was a delay; then word was brought that she was indisposed and asked to be excused. Her mother exclaimed in anger, “Your brother Chang saved your life. You would have been abducted if it were not for him—how can you give yourself airs?”

After a while she appeared, wearing an everyday dress and no make-up on her smooth face, except for a remaining spot of rouge. Her hair coils straggled down to touch her eyebrows. Her beauty was extraordinary, so radiant it took the breath away. Startled, Chang made her a deep bow as she sat down beside her mother. Because she had been forced to come out against her will, she looked angrily straight ahead, as though unable to endure the company. Chang asked her age. Mrs. Ts’ui said, “From the seventh month of the fifth year of the reigning emperor to the present twenty-first year, it is just seventeen years.”

Chang tried to make conversation with her, but she would not respond, and he had to leave after the meal was over. From this time on Chang was infatuated but had no way to make his feelings known to her. She had a maid named Hung-niang with whom Chang had managed to exchange greetings several times, and finally he took the occasion to tell her how he felt. Not surprisingly, the maid was alarmed and fled in embarrassment. Chang was sorry he had said anything, and when she returned the next day he made shame-faced apologies without repeating his request. The maid said, “Sir, what you said is something I would not dare repeat to my mistress or let anyone else know about. But you know very well who Miss Ts’ui’s relatives are; why don’t you ask for her hand in marriage, as you are entitled to do because of the favor you did them?”

“From my earliest years I have never been one to make any improper connections,” Chang said. “Whenever I have found myself in the company of young women, I would not even look at them, and it never occurred to me that I would be trapped in any such way. But the other day at the dinner I was hardly able to control myself, and in the days since, I walk without knowing where I am going and eat without hunger—I am afraid I cannot last another day. If I were to go through a regular matchmaker, taking three months and more for the exchange of betrothal presents and names and birthdates ⁶—you might just as well look for me among the dried fish in the shop.⁷ Can’t you tell me what to do?”

“Miss Ts’ui is so very strict that not even her elders could suggest anything improper to her,” the maid replied. “It would be hard for someone in my position to say such a thing. But I have noticed she writes a lot. She is always reciting poetry to herself and is moved by it for a long time after. You might see if you can seduce her with a love poem. That is the only way I can think of.”

Chang was delighted and on the spot composed two stanzas of spring verses which he handed over to her. That evening Hung-niang came back with a note on colored paper for him, saying, “By Miss Ts’ui’s instructions.”

Chang understood the message: that day was the fourteenth of the second month, and an apricot tree was next to the wall east of the Ts’uis’ courtyard. It would be possible to climb it.

On the night of the fifteenth Chang used the tree as a ladder to get over the wall. When he came to the western chamber, the door was ajar. Inside, Hung-niang was asleep on a bed. He awakened her, and she asked, frightened, “How did you get here?”

“Miss Ts’ui’s letter told me to come,” he said, not quite accurately. “You go tell her I am here.”

Chang was both happy and nervous, convinced that success was his. Then Miss Ts’ui appeared in formal dress, with a serious face, and began to upbraid him: “You did us a great kindness when you saved our lives, and that is why my mother entrusted my young brother and myself to you. Why then did you get my silly maid to bring me that filthy poem? You began by doing a good deed in preserving me from the hands of ravishers, and you end by seeking to ravish me. You substitute seduction for rape—is there any great difference? My first impulse was to keep quiet about it, but that would have been to condone your wrongdoing, and not right. If I told my mother, it would amount to ingratitude, and the consequences would be unfortunate. I thought of having a servant convey my disapproval, but feared she would not get it right. Then I thought of writing a short message to state my case, but was afraid it would only put you on your guard. So finally I composed those vulgar lines to make sure you would come here. It was an improper thing to do, and of course I feel ashamed. But I hope that you will keep within the bounds of decency and commit no outrage.”

As she finished speaking, she turned on her heel and left him. For some time Chang stood, dumbfounded. Then he went back over the wall to his quarters, all hope gone.

A few nights later Chang was sleeping alone by the veranda when someone shook him awake. Startled, he rose up to see Hung-niang standing there, a coverlet and pillow in her arms. She patted him and said, “She is coming! She is coming! Why are you sleeping?” And she spread the quilt and put the pillow beside his. As she left, Chang sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. For some time it seemed as though he were still dreaming, but nonetheless he waited dutifully. Then there was Hung-niang again, with Miss Ts’ui leaning on her arm. She was shy and yielding, and appeared almost not to have the strength to move her limbs. The contrast with her stiff formality at their last encounter was complete.

This evening was the night of the eighteenth, and the slanting rays of the moon cast a soft light over half the bed. Chang felt a kind of floating lightness and wondered whether this was an immortal who visited him, not someone from the world of men. After a while the temple bell sounded. Daybreak was near. As Hung-niang urged her to leave, she wept softly and clung to him. Hung-niang helped her up, and they left. The whole time she had not spoken a single word. With the first light of dawn Chang got up, wondering, was it a dream? But the perfume still lingered, and as it got lighter he could see on his arm traces of her makeup and the teardrops sparkling still on the mat.

For some ten days afterward there was no word from her. Chang composed a poem of sixty lines on “An Encounter with an Immortal” which he had not yet completed when Hung-niang happened by, and he gave it to her for her mistress. After that she let him see her again, and for nearly a month he would join her in what her poem called the “western chamber,” slipping out at dawn and returning stealthily at night. Chang once asked what her mother thought about the situation. She said, “She knows there is nothing she can do about it, and so she hopes you will regularize things.”

Before long Chang was about to go to Ch’ang-an, and he let her know his intentions in a poem. Miss Ts’ui made no objections at all, but the look of pain on her face was very touching. On the eve of his departure he was unable to see her again. Then Chang went off to the west. A few months later he again made a trip to P’u and stayed several months with Miss Ts’ui.

She was a very good calligrapher and wrote poetry, but for all that he kept begging to see her work, she would never show it. Chang wrote poems for her, challenging her to match them, but she paid them little attention. The thing that made her unusual was that, while she excelled in the arts, she always acted as though she were ignorant, and although she was quick and clever in speaking, she would seldom indulge in repartee. She loved Chang very much, but would never say so in words. At the time she was subject to moods of profound melancholy, but she never let on. She seldom showed on her face the emotions she felt. On one occasion she was playing her zither alone at night. She did not know Chang was listening, and the music was full of sadness. As soon as he spoke, she stopped and would play no more. This made him all the more infatuated with her.

Some time later Chang had to go west again for the scheduled examinations. It was the eve of his departure, and though he had said nothing about what it involved, he sat sighing unhappily at her side. Miss Ts’ui had guessed that he was going to leave for good. Her manner was respectful, but she spoke deliberately and in a low voice: “To seduce someone and then abandon her is perfectly natural, and it would be presumptuous of me to resent it. It would be an act of charity on your part if, having first seduced me, you were to go through with it and fulfill your oath of lifelong devotion. But in either case, what is there to be so upset about in this trip? However, I see you are not happy and I have no way to cheer you up. You have praised my zither-playing, and in the past I have been embarrassed to play for you. Now that you are going away, I shall do what you so often requested.”

She had them prepare her zither and started to play the prelude to the “Rainbow Robe and Feather Skirt.”⁸ After a few notes, her playing grew wild with grief until the piece was no longer recognizable. Everyone was reduced to tears, and Miss Ts’ui abruptly stopped playing, put down the zither, and ran back to her mother’s room with tears streaming down her face. She did not come back.

The next morning Chang went away. The following year he stayed on in the capital, having failed the examinations. He wrote a letter to Miss Ts’ui to reassure her, and her reply read roughly as follows:

I have read your letter with its message of consolation, and it filled my childish heart with mingled grief and joy. In addition you sent me a box of ornaments to adorn my hair and a stick of pomade to make my lips smooth. It was most kind of you; but for whom am I to make myself attractive? As I look at these presents my breast is filled with sorrow.

Your letter said that you will stay on in the capital to pursue your studies, and of course you need quiet and the facilities there to make progress. Still, it is hard on the person left alone in this far-off place. But such is my fate, and I should not complain. Since last fall I have been listless and without hope. In company I can force myself to talk and smile, but come evening I always shed tears in the solitude of my own room. Even in my sleep I often sob, yearning for the absent one. Or I am in your arms for a moment as it used to be, but before the secret meeting is done I am awake and heartbroken. The bed seems still warm beside me, but the one I love is far away.

Since you said good-bye the new year has come. Ch’ang-an is a city of pleasure with chances for love everywhere. I am truly fortunate that you have not forgotten me and that your affection is not worn out. Loving you as I do, I have no way of repaying you, except to be true to our vow of lifelong fidelity.

Our first meeting was at the banquet, as cousins. Then you persuaded my maid to inform me of your love; and I was unable to keep my childish heart firm. You made advances, like that other poet, Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju.⁹ I failed to repulse them as the girl did who threw her shuttle.¹⁰ When I offered myself in your bed, you treated me with the greatest kindness, and I supposed, in my innocence, that I could always depend on you. How could I have foreseen that our encounter could not possibly lead to something definite, that having disgraced myself by coming to you, there was no further chance of serving you openly as a wife? To the end of my days this will be a lasting regret—I must hide my sighs and be silent. If you, out of kindness, would condescend to fulfill my selfish wish, though it came on my dying day it would seem to be a new lease on life. But if, as a man of the world, you curtail your feelings, sacrificing the lesser to the more important, and look on this connection as shameful, so that your solemn vow can be dispensed with, still my true love will not vanish though my bones decay and my frame dissolve; in wind and dew it will seek out the ground you walk on. My love in life and death is told in this. I weep as I write, for feelings I cannot express. Take care of yourself; a thousand times over, take care of your dear self.

This bracelet of jade is something I wore as a child; I send it to serve as a gentleman’s belt pendant. Like jade may you be invariably firm and tender; like a bracelet may there be no break between what came before and what is to follow. Here are also a skein of multicolored thread and a tea roller of mottled bamboo. These things have no intrinsic value, but they are to signify that I want you to be true as jade, and your love to endure unbroken as a bracelet. The spots on the bamboo are like the marks of my tears,¹¹ and my unhappy thoughts are as tangled as the thread: these objects are symbols of my feelings and tokens for all time of my love. Our hearts are close, though our bodies are far apart and there is no time I can expect to see you. But where the hidden desires are strong enough, there will be a meeting of spirits. Take care of yourself, a thousand times over. The springtime wind is often chill; eat well for your health’s sake. Be circumspect and careful, and do not think too often of my unworthy person.

Chang showed her letter to his friends, and in this way word of the affair got around. One of them, Yang Chü-yüan,¹² a skillful poet, wrote a quatrain on “Young Miss Ts’ui”:

Yüan Chen¹⁴ of Honan¹⁵ wrote a continuation of Chang’s poem “Encounter with an Immortal,” also in thirty couplets:

All of Chang’s friends who heard of the affair marveled at it, but Chang had determined on his own course of action. Yüan Chen was especially close to him and so was in a position to ask him for an explanation. Chang said, “It is a general rule that those women endowed by Heaven with great beauty invariably either destroy themselves or destroy someone else. If this Ts’ui woman were to meet someone with wealth and position, she would use the favor her charms gain her to be cloud and rain or dragon or monster—I can’t imagine what she might turn into. Of old, King Hsin of the Shang and King Yu of the Chou²⁵ were brought low by women, in spite of the size of their kingdoms and the extent of their power; their armies were scattered, their persons butchered, and down to the present day their names are objects of ridicule. I have no inner strength to withstand this evil influence. That is why I have resolutely suppressed my love.”

Over a year later Ts’ui was married, and Chang for his part had taken a wife. Happening to pass through the town where she was living, he asked permission of her husband to see her, as a cousin. The husband spoke to her, but Ts’ui refused to appear. Chang’s feelings of hurt showed on his face, and she was told about it. She secretly sent him a poem:

She never did appear. Some days later when Chang was about to leave, she sent another poem of farewell:

After this he never heard any more about her. His contemporaries for the most part conceded that Chang had done well to rectify his mistake. I have often mentioned this among friends so that, forewarned, they might avoid doing such a thing, or if they did, that they might not be led astray by it. In the ninth month of a year in the Chen-yüan period, when an official, Li Kung-ch’ui,²⁶ was passing the night in my house at the Pacification Quarter, the conversation touched on the subject. He found it most extraordinary and composed a “Song of Ying-ying” to commemorate the affair. Ts’ui’s child-name was Ying-ying, and Kung-ch’ui used it for his poem.

“The Story of Ying-ying” (the name of the heroine means “Oriole”) is perhaps the most celebrated of all classical-language short stories. It is also probably the best known of all Chinese love stories, regardless of genre or language. Extremely well crafted, this beautiful and moving story formed the basis for the medley entitled “Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance” (see selection 215) and the splendid Yüan drama Record of the Western Chamber (recently translated in full into English as The West Wing), by Wang Shih-fu (fl. 1234).

The writing of fiction, even in the classical language, was traditionally considered by Confucian purists to be a trivial pursuit, and literati would seldom publicly admit that they indulged in it (this was, of course, particularly the case with vernacular-language fiction). Nonetheless, there are good grounds for attributing the story of Ying-ying to the famous poet and statesman Yüan Chen. Among these is the long, stuffy poem by him that appears near the end of the story. Yüan was descended from Tabgatch royalty (the non-Han rulers of the Northern Wei dynasty). At the age of fourteen, he was already well versed in the classics and had passed the first of several competitive examinations. In 822 he was appointed to one of the highest bureaucratic offices in the empire but was removed from it shortly thereafter due to factional infighting at court. Yüan was a close friend of the renowned poet-official Po Chü -yi (see selection 149).

1. Chen-yü an (785–804) was the last of the three reign periods of Emperor Te Tsung of the T’ang dynasty.

2. Teng-t’u was an archetypal lecher. This allusion originates from the character ridiculed in Sung Yü’s (fl. 3rd century B.C.E.) rhapsody, “The Lechery of Master Teng-t’u.”

3. P’u-chou, also known as Ho-chung in T’ang times, was under the jurisdiction of Chiang-chou. It is modern-day Yung-chi district in Shansi province, located east-northeast of Ch’angan.

5. Tu Ch’ü eh, originally prefect of T’ung-chou (in modern-day Shensi), was appointed, after the death of Hun chen, the prefect of Ho-chung as well as the imperial commissioner of inquiry of Chiang-chou.

7. An allusion to the parable of help that comes too late in chapter 9 of the pre-Ch’in philosophical work Chuang Tzu (see selection 8).

8. After this Brahman music was introduced into China, it was dignified by the elegant name given to it by Emperor Hsü an Tsung of the T’ang dynasty and by the performance of his favorite consort, Yang Kuei-fei (see selection 149).

9. An allusion to the story of the Han poet Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (179–117 B.C.E.), who enticed the young widow Cho Wen-chün to elope by his zither-playing (see selection 129).

10. A neighboring girl, named Kao, repulsed Hsieh K’un’s (280–322) advances by throwing her shuttle in his face. He lost two teeth.

11. Alluding to the legend of the two wives of the sage ruler Shun, who stained the bamboo with their tears.

13. In T’ang times the term “Hsiao-niang” referred to young women in general. Here it means Ying-ying.

15. The Honan Circuit in T’ang times covered the area to the south of the Yellow River in both the present provinces of Shantung and Honan, up to the north of the Huai River in modern-day Kiangsu and Anhwei.

16. Hsi Wang-mu, the Queen Mother of the West, is a mythological figure supposedly dwelling in the K’un-lun Mountains in China’s far west. In early accounts she is sometimes described as part human and part beast, but since early post-Han times she has usually been described as a beautiful immortal. Her huge palace is inhabited by other immortals. Within its precincts grow the magic peach trees which bear the fruits of immortality once every three thousand years. This might be an allusion to Ying-ying’s mother.

18. Possibly a reference to the goddess of the Lo River. This river, in modern-day Honan, is made famous by the rhapsody of Ts’ao Chih (192–232), “The Goddess of Lo.”

19. In “The Lechery of Master Teng-t’u” (see note 2 above), Sung Yü tells about the beautiful girl next door to the east who climbed up on the wall to flirt with him.

22. Also known as the Central Mountain, it is located to the north of Teng-feng county in Honan province. Here the one ascending the mountain may refer to Chang.

24. Hsiao Shih was a well-known flute-playing immortal of the Spring and Autumn period.

25. Hsin Chow was the infamous last ruler of the Shang dynasty, whose misrule and fall are attributed to the influence of his favorite concubine, Ta-chi. King Yu (reigned 781–771 B.C.E.), last ruler of the Western Chou, was misled by his consort Pao-ssu. The behavior of both rulers is traditionally attributed to their infatuation with the women they loved.

26. Kung-ch’ui was the style of the T’ang poet Li Shen (780–846; see selection 47).