The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei, Volume One

The Gathering

David Tod Roy, David Roy

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781400847631
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The first volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novel This is the first volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form—not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context.With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in the earlier Chinese fiction tradition, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.

Chapter 1

WU SUNG FIGHTS A TIGER ON CHING-YANG RIDGE; P’AN CHIN-LIEN DISDAINS HER MATE AND PLAYS THE COQUETTE

PROLOGUE¹

THERE IS a lyric to the tune “Pleasing Eyes”² that goes:

The hero grips his “Hook of Wu,”

Eager to cut off ten thousand heads.

How is it that a heart forged out of iron and stone,

Can yet be melted by a flower?

Just take a look at Hsiang Yü and Liu Pang:³

Both cases are equally distressing.

They had only to meet with Yü-chi⁴ and Lady Ch’i,⁵

For all their valor to come to naught.⁶

The subject of this lyric is the words passion and beauty, two concepts that are related to each other as substance is to function. Thus, when beauty bedazzles the eye, passion is born in the heart. Passion and beauty evoke each other; the heart and the eye are interdependent. This is a fact that, from ancient times until the present day, gentlemen of moral cultivation ought never to forget. As two men of the Chin dynasty once said, “It is people just like ourselves who are most affected by passion”;⁷ and “Beauty is like the lodestone which exerts its unseen pull on the needle even when obstacles intervene. If this be true even for nonsentient objects, how much the more must it be so for man, who must spend his days striving to survive in the realm of passion and beauty?”⁸

“The hero grips his ‘Hook of Wu.’ ” Hook of Wu is the name of an ancient sword. In those days there were swords with names such as Kan-chiang, Mo-yeh, T’ai-o, Hook of Wu, Fish Gut, and Death’s-head.⁹ The lyric speaks of heroes with temperaments of iron and stone and the sort of heroic prowess that vaults across the heavens like a rainbow, who yet did not escape the fate of allowing their ambitions to be blunted by women. It then goes on to refer to the Hegemon-King of Western Ch’u, whose name was Hsiang Chi, or Hsiang Yü. Because the First Emperor of the Ch’in dynasty¹⁰ was so lacking in virtue that he:

Garrisoned the Five Ranges to the south,

Built the Great Wall to the north,

Filled in the sea to the east,

Constructed the O-pang Palace¹¹ in the west,

Swallowed up the Six States,

Buried the scholars alive, and

Burned the books,¹²

Hsiang Yü rose up in rebellion against him and was joined by the King of Han, whose name was Liu Chi, or Liu Pang. Liu Pang rolled up like a mat the territory in which the capital of the First Emperor had been located and thus put an end to the Ch’in dynasty. Later he and Hsiang Yü agreed to make the Hung Canal¹³ a boundary line between their territories and divided the empire between them.

Now, in the course of their conflict, Hsiang Yü was able, with the help of plans provided by Fan Tseng,¹⁴ to defeat the King of Han in seventy-two military engagements. But he was so infatuated with his favorite, Yü-chi, who possessed the kind of beauty that can topple kingdoms, that he took her with him on his campaigns so they could be together day and night. The result of this was that he was finally defeated by Liu Pang’s general, Han Hsin,¹⁵ and had to flee by night as far as Yin-ling, where the enemy troops caught up with him. Although Hsiang Yü was defeated, he might have sought help from the area east of the Yangtze River, but he could not bear to part with Yü-chi. Hearing the armies that surrounded him on all sides singing the songs of his homeland, the region of Ch’u, he realized that his situation was hopeless and expressed his sorrow in song:

My strength can uproot mountains,

My valor knows no peer;

But the times are against me,

And my steed will run no more.

My steed will run no more,

So what can I do?

Oh, Yü-chi, Yü-chi,

What is to be done?¹⁶

When he finished singing his face was streaked with tears.

“Your highness must be sacrificing important military considerations on my account,” Yü-chi said to him.

“Not really,” the Hegemon-King replied. “It’s just that we can’t bear to give each other up. Moreover, you’re such a beauty that Liu Pang, who is a ruler addicted to wine and women, is sure to take you for himself if he should see you.”

“I would rather die in an honest cause than compromise myself in order to save my life,” Yü-chi wept.

Then, asking Hsiang Yü for his sword, she slit her throat and died. The Hegemon-King was so moved by her act that, when the time came, he followed suit by cutting his own throat.

A historian has composed a poem to commemorate this event:

Gone was the strength that could uproot mountains,

the dream of hegemony destroyed;

Laying aside his sword, he merely sang

that his steed would run no more.

As bright moonlight flooded the encampment

beneath the liquescent sky;

How could he bear to turn back his head

and bid Yü-chi farewell?¹⁷

Now the King of Han, Liu Pang, was originally no more than a neighborhood head in Ssu-shui. Yet, with his three-foot sword in hand, he slew the white snake¹⁸ and rose in righteous revolt in the mountainous area between the districts of Mang and Tang. Three years later he destroyed the Ch’in dynasty, and in the fifth year of his reign destroyed the Ch’u, thereby winning the empire for himself and establishing the Han dynasty.¹⁹ But he became infatuated with a woman whose maiden name was Ch’i.

Lady Ch’i gave birth to a son whose title was Prince Ju-i of Chao.²⁰ Because Empress Lü²¹ was jealous of her and wished her no good, Lady Ch’i was extremely uneasy. One day when Emperor Kao-tsu²² was ill and lay with his head in her lap, Lady Ch’i began to weep, saying, “After you have fulfilled your ten thousand years, on whom shall my son and I be able to rely?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” the emperor said. “When I hold court tomorrow I’ll depose the heir apparent and set up your son in his stead. How would that be?”

Lady Ch’i dried her tears and thanked him for his favor.

When Empress Lü heard about this she summoned her husband’s chief adviser, Chang Liang,²³ for a secret consultation. Chang Liang recommended that the Four Graybeards of Mount Shang be induced to come out of retirement and lend their support to the heir apparent.

One day the Four Graybeards appeared in court with the heir apparent. When Emperor Kao-tsu saw these four men with their snow-white hair and beards and imposing caps and gowns, he asked them who they were. They identified themselves as Master Tung-yüan, Ch’i-li Chi, Master Hsia-huang, and Master Lu-li. Greatly astonished, the emperor asked, “Why did you not choose to come when We offered you employment in the past, only to appear today in the company of our son?”

“The heir apparent is destined to be the preserver of what Your Majesty has established,” the Four Graybeards replied.

Upon hearing this Emperor Kao-tsu felt dejected and upset. As the Four Graybeards were on their way out of the palace he summoned Lady Ch’i into his presence, pointed them out to her, and said, “I would have liked to replace the heir apparent, but these four men have lent him their support. Now that his wings are full-grown his position will prove difficult to shake.”

Lady Ch’i wept inconsolably and the emperor extemporized a song to explain the situation:

The great swan soars aloft,

A thousand li in one flight.

Once his pinions are complete,

He can range the Four Seas.

He can range the Four Seas,

So what can we do?

Of what avail are stringed arrows,

Against a target that lies beyond their reach?²⁴

The emperor finished his song and, in the end, did not make the Prince of Chao his heir apparent.

After the death of Emperor Kao-tsu, to rid herself of her apprehensions, Empress Lü had Prince Ju-i of Chao put to death with poisoned wine and so mutilated Lady Ch’i as to turn her into a “human pig.”²⁵

Poets have remarked, on reaching this point in their evaluations of these two rulers, that Liu Pang and Hsiang Yü were certainly heroes of their day and yet did not escape the fate of suffering their ambitions to be blunted by these two women.

Although the position of wife is superior to that of concubine, the calamity that befell Lady Ch’i was even crueler than that which befell Yü-chi. Thus it is that the way of a wife or concubine who wishes to serve her husband faithfully and yet keep her head and neck intact within her own windows is hard. With regard to these two rulers, is it not true that:

They had only to meet ...