from a popular drama
Anonymous (before 1700)
A young nun am I, sixteen years of age;
My head was shaven in my maidenhood.
For my father, he loves the Buddhist sūtras,
And my mother, she loves the Buddhist priests.
Morning and night, morning and night,
I burn incense and I pray, for I
Was born a sickly child, full of ills.
So they sent me here into this monastery.
Amitābha! Amitābha!1
Unceasingly I pray.
Oh, tired am I of the humming of the drums and the tinkling of the bells;
Tired am I of the droning of the prayers and the crooning of the priors;
The chatter and the clatter of unintelligible charms,
The clamor and the clangor of interminable chants,
The mumbling and the murmuring of monotonous psalms.
Prajñāpāramitā, Mayura-sūtra,
Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 2
Oh, how I hate them all!
While I say Mitābha,
I sigh for my beau.
While I chant saparah,
My heart cries, “Oh!”
While I sing tarata,
My heart palpitates so!
Ah, let me take a stroll,
Let me take a stroll!
(She comes to the Hall of the Five Hundred Lohan,3 where there are clay figures of the Buddhist saints, known for their distinctive facial expressions)
Ah, here are the Lohan,
What a bunch of silly, amorous souls!
Every one a bearded man!
How each his eyes at me rolls!
Look at the one hugging his knees!
His lips are mumbling my name so!
And the one with his cheek in hand,
As though thinking of me so!
That one has a pair of dreamy eyes,
Dreaming dreams of me so!
But the Lohan in sackcloth!
What is he after,
With his hellish, heathenish laughter?
With his roaring, rollicking laughter,
Laughing at me so!
—Laughing at me, for
When beauty is past and youth is lost,
Who will marry an old crone?
When beauty is faded and youth is jaded,
Who will marry an old, shriveled cocoon?
The one holding a dragon,
He is cynical;
The one riding a tiger,
He is quizzical;
And that long-browned handsome giant,
He seems pitiful,
For what will become of me when my beauty is gone?
These candles of the altar,
They are not for my bridal chamber.
These long incense containers,
They are not for my bridal parlor.
And the straw prayer cushions,
They cannot serve as quilt or cover.
Oh, God!
Whence comes this burning, suffocating ardor?
Whence comes this strange, infernal, unearthly ardor?
I’ll tear these monkish robes!
I’ll bury all the Buddhist sūtras;
I’ll drown the wooden fish,4
And leave all the monastic putras!5
I’ll leave the drums,
I’ll leave the bells,
And the chants,
And the yells,
And all the interminable, exasperating, religious chatter!
I’ll go downhill, and find me a young and handsome lover—
Let him scold me, beat me!
Kick or ill-treat me!
I will not become a Buddha!
I will not mumble mita, prajna, para!
Translated by Lin Yutang
This is a traditional scene from K’un-ch’ü (southern-style opera) that appears in several of the better-known plays of the repertoire.
1. The Buddha of the Western Pure Land (paradise).
2. The names of important Buddhist scriptures.
3. Saints; worthies; advanced disciples of the Buddha Śākyamuni. Lohan is an abbreviated Chinese transcription of Sanskrit arhat.
4. Carved, hollow wood blocks for beating time in Buddhist ceremonies.
5. Some of the Sanskritic-sounding terms used by the young nun are intentional deformations meant to express contempt for the religion which constrains her.