recollect from what department or district he came. His family was
very poor; and once, when returning home after failure at the
examination, he ran quite out of funds. Being ashamed to beg, and
feeling uncomfortably hungry, he turned to rest awhile in the Wu
Wang[228] temple, where he poured out all his sorrows at the feet of
the God. His prayers over, he was about to lie down in the outer
porch, when suddenly a man took him and led him into the presence of
Wu Wang; and then, falling on his knees, said, “Your Majesty, there is
a vacancy among the black-robes; the appointment might be bestowed on
this man.” The King assented, and Yü received a suit of black clothes;
and when he had put these on he was changed into a crow, and flew
away. Outside he saw a number of fellow-crows collected together, and
immediately joined them, settling with them on the masts of the boats,
and imitating them in catching and eating the meat or cakes which the
passengers and boatmen on board threw up to them in the air.[229] In a
little while he was no longer hungry, and, soaring aloft, alighted on
the top of a tree quite satisfied with his change of condition. Two or
three days passed, and the King, now pitying his solitary state,
provided him with a very elegant mate, whose name was Chu-ch‘ing, and
who took every opportunity of warning him when he exposed himself too
much in search of food. However, he did not pay much attention to
this, and one day a soldier shot him in the breast with a cross-bow;
but luckily Chu-ch‘ing got away with him in her beak, and he was not
captured. This enraged the other crows very much, and with their wings
they flapped the water into such big waves that all the boats were
upset. Chu-ch‘ing now procured food and fed her husband; but his wound
was a severe one, and by the end of the day he was dead--at which
moment he waked, as it were, from a dream, and found himself lying in
the temple.
The people of the place had found Mr. Yü to all appearance dead; and
not knowing how he had come by his death, and finding that his body
was not quite cold, had set some one to watch him. They now learnt
what had happened to him, and making up a purse between them, sent him
away home. Three years afterwards he was passing by the same spot,
and went in to worship at the temple; also preparing a quantity of
food, and inviting the crows to come down and eat it. He then prayed,
saying, “If Chu-ch‘ing is among you, let her remain.” When the crows
had eaten the food they all flew away; and by-and-by Yü returned,
having succeeded in obtaining his master’s degree. Again he visited Wu
Wang’s temple, and sacrificed a calf as a feast for the crows; and
again he prayed as on the previous occasion. That night he slept on
the lake, and, just as the candles were lighted and he had sat down,
suddenly there was a noise as of birds settling, and lo! some twenty
beautiful young ladies stood before him. “Have you been quite well
since we parted?” asked one of them; to which Yü replied that he
should like to know whom he had the honour of addressing. “Don’t you
remember Chu-ch‘ing?” said the young lady; and then Yü was overjoyed,
and inquired how she had come. “I am now,” replied Chu-ch‘ing, “a
spirit of the Han river, and seldom go back to my old home; but in
consequence of what you did on two occasions, I have come to see you
once more.” They then sat talking together like husband and wife
reunited after long absence, and Yü proposed that she should return
with him on his way south. Chu-ch‘ing, however, said she must go west
again, and upon this point they could not come to any agreement. Next
morning, when Yü waked up, he found himself in a lofty room with two
large candles burning brightly, and no longer in his own boat. In
utter amazement he arose and asked where he was. “At Han-yang,”
replied Chu-ch‘ing; “my home is your home; why need you go south?”
By-and-by, when it got lighter, in came a number of serving-women with
wine, which they placed on a low table on the top of a broad couch;
and then husband and wife sat down to drink together. “Where are all
my servants?” asked Yü; and when he heard they were still on the boat,
he said he was afraid the boat people would not be able to wait.
“Never mind,” replied Chu-ch‘ing; “I have plenty of money, and I’ll
help you to make it up to them.” Yü therefore remained with her,
feasting and enjoying himself, and forgetting all about going home. As
for the boatmen, when they waked up and found themselves at Han-yang,
they were greatly astonished; and, seeing that the servants could find
no trace of their missing master, they wished to go about their own
business. They were unable, however, to undo the cable, and so they
all remained there together for more than a couple of months, by the
end of which time Mr. Yü became anxious to return home, and said to
Chu-ch‘ing, “If I stay here, my family connections will be completely
severed. Besides, as we are husband and wife, it is only right that
you should pay a visit to my home.” “That,” replied Chu-ch‘ing, “I
cannot do; and even were I able to go, you have a wife there already,
and where would you put me? It is better for me to stop where I am,
and thus you will have a second family.” Yü said she would be so far
off that he could not always be dropping in; whereupon Chu-ch‘ing
produced a black suit, and replied, “Here are your old clothes.
Whenever you want to see me, put these on and come, and on your
arrival I will take them off for you.” She then prepared a parting
feast for her husband, at which he got very tipsy; and when he waked
up he was on board his boat again, and at his old anchorage on the
lake. The boatmen and his servants were all there, and they looked at
one another in mutual amazement; and when they asked Yü where he had
been, he hardly knew what to say. By the side of his pillow he
discovered a bundle in which were some new clothes Chu-ch‘ing had
given him, shoes, stockings, &c.; and folded up with them was the suit
of black. In addition to these he found an embroidered belt for tying
round the waist, which was stuffed full of gold. He now started on his
way south, and, when he reached the end of his journey, dismissed the
boatmen with a handsome present.
After being at home for some months, his thoughts reverted to
Han-yang; and, taking out the black clothes, he put them on, when
wings immediately grew from his ribs, and with a flap he was gone. In
about four hours he arrived at Han-yang, and, wheeling round and round
in the air, espied below him a solitary islet, on which stood a house,
and there he proceeded to alight. A maid-servant had already seen him
coming, and cried out, “Here’s master!” and in a few moments out came
Chu-ch‘ing, and bade the attendants take off Mr. Yü’s feathers. They
were not long in setting him free, and then, hand in hand, he and
Chu-ch‘ing went into the house together. “You have come at a happy
moment,” said his wife, as they sat down to tell each other all the
news; and in three days’ time she gave birth to a boy, whom they
called Han-ch‘an, which means “born on the Han river.” Three days
after the event all the river-nymphs came to congratulate them, and
brought many handsome presents. They were a charming band, not one
being over thirty years of age; and, going into the bedroom and
approaching the bed, each one pressed her thumb on the baby’s nose,
saying, “Long life to thee, little one!” Yü asked who they all were,
and Chu-ch‘ing told him they belonged to the same family of spirits as
herself; “And the two last of all,” said she, “dressed in white like
the lily, are the nymphs who gave away their girdles at Hankow.”[230]
A few months passed away, and then Chu-ch‘ing sent her husband back in
a boat to his old home. No sails or oars were used, but the boat sped
along of itself; and at the end of the river journey there were men
waiting with horses to convey him to his own door. After this he went
backwards and forwards very frequently; and in time Han-ch‘an grew up
to be a fine boy, the apple of his father’s eye. Unhappily his first
wife had no children, and she was extremely anxious to see Han-ch‘an;
so Yü communicated this to Chu-ch‘ing, who at once packed up a box and
sent him back with his father, on the understanding that he was to
return in three months. However, the other wife became quite as fond
of him as if he had been her own child, and ten months passed without
her being able to bear the thought of parting with him. But one day
Han-ch‘an was taken violently ill, and died; upon which Yü’s wife was
overwhelmed with grief, and wished to die too. Yü then set off for
Han-yang, to carry the tidings to Chu-ch‘ing; and when he arrived, lo!
there was Han-ch‘an, with his shoes and socks off, lying on the bed.
He was greatly rejoiced at this, and asked Chu-ch‘ing what it all
meant. “Why,” replied she, “the term agreed upon by us had long
expired, and, as I wanted my boy, I sent for him.” Yü then told her
how much his other wife loved Han-ch‘an, but Chu-ch‘ing said she must
wait until there was another child, and then she should have him.
Later on Chu-ch‘ing had twins, a boy and a girl, the former named
Han-shêng and the latter Yü-p‘ei; whereupon Han-ch‘an went back again
with his father, who, finding it inconvenient to be travelling
backwards and forwards three or four times in a year, removed with his
family to the city of Han-yang. At twelve years of age Han-ch‘an took
his bachelor’s degree; and his mother, thinking there was no girl
among mortals good enough for her son, sent for him to come home, that
she herself might find a wife for him, which she did in the person of
a Miss Chih-niang, who was the daughter of a spirit like herself. Yü’s
first wife then died, and the three children all went to mourn her
loss, Han-ch‘an remaining in Hu-nan after the funeral, but the other
two returning with their father, and not leaving their mother again.
FOOTNOTES:
[228] The guardian angel of crows.
[229] In order to secure a favourable passage. The custom here
mentioned was actually practised at more than one temple on the river
Yang-tsze, and allusions to it will be found in more than one serious
work.
[230] Alluding to a legend of a young man meeting two young ladies at
Hankow, each of whom wore a girdle adorned with a pearl as big as a
hen’s egg. The young man begged them to give him these girdles, and
they did so; but the next moment they had vanished, and the girdles
too.
XL.
THE FLOWER NYMPHS.
At the lower temple on Mount Lao the camellias[231] are twenty feet in
height, and many spans in circumference. The peonies are more than ten
feet high; and when the flowers are in bloom the effect is that of
gorgeous tapestry.
There was a Mr. Huang, of Chiao-chow, who built himself a house at
that spot, for the purposes of study; and one day he saw from his
window a young lady dressed in white wandering about amongst the
flowers. Reflecting that she could not possibly belong to the
monastery,[232] he went out to meet her, but she had already
disappeared. After this he frequently observed her, and once hid
himself in a thick-foliaged bush, waiting for her to come. By-and-by
she appeared, bringing with her another young lady dressed in red,
who, as he noticed from his distant point of observation, was an
exceedingly good-looking girl. When they approached nearer, the young
lady in the red dress ran back, saying, “There is a man here!”
whereupon Mr. Huang jumped out upon them, and away they went in a
scare, with their skirts and long sleeves fluttering in the breeze,
and perfuming the air around. Huang pursued them as far as a low wall,
where they suddenly vanished from his gaze. In great distress at thus
losing the fair creatures, he took a pencil and wrote upon a tree the
following lines:--
“The pangs of love my heart enthrall
As I stand opposite this wall.
I dread some hateful tyrant’s power,
With none to save you in that hour.”
Returning home he was absorbed in his own thoughts, when all at once
the young lady walked in, and he rose up joyfully to meet her. “I
thought you were a brigand,” said his visitor, smiling; “you nearly
frightened me to death. I did not know you were a great scholar whose
acquaintance I now hope to have the honour of making.” Mr. Huang asked
the young lady her name, &c., to which she replied, “My name is
Hsiang-yü, and I belong to P‘ing-k‘ang-hsiang; but a magician has
condemned me to remain on this hill much against my own inclination.”
“Tell me his name,” cried Huang, “and I’ll soon set you free.” “There
is no need for that,” answered the young lady; “I suffer no injury
from him, and the place is not an inconvenient one for making the
acquaintance of such worthy gentlemen as yourself.” Huang then
inquired who was the young lady in red, and she told him that her name
was Chiang-hsüeh, and that they were half-sisters; “and now,” added
she, “I will sing you a song; but please don’t laugh at me.” She then
began as follows:--
“In pleasant company the hours fly fast,
And through the window daybreak peeps at last.
Ah, would that, like the swallow and his mate,
To live together were our happy fate.”
Huang here grasped her hand[233] and said, “Beauty without and
intellect within--enough to make a man love you and forget all about
death, regarding one day’s absence like the separation of a thousand
years. I pray you come again whenever an opportunity may present
itself.” From this time the young lady would frequently walk in to
have a chat, but would never bring her sister with her in spite of all
Mr. Huang’s entreaties. Huang thought they weren’t friends, but Hsiang
said her sister did not care for society in the same way that she
herself did, promising at the same time to try and persuade her to
come at some future day. One evening Hsiang-yü arrived in a melancholy
frame of mind, and told Huang that he was wanting more when he
couldn’t even keep what he had got; “for to-morrow,” said she, “we
part.” Huang asked what she meant; and then wiping away her tears with
her sleeve, Hsiang-yü declared it was destiny, and that she couldn’t
well tell him. “Your former prophecy,” continued she, “has come too
true; and now it may well be said of me--
‘Fallen into the tyrant’s power,
With none to save me in that hour.’”
Huang again tried to question her, but she would tell him nothing; and
by-and-by she rose and took her leave. This seemed very strange;
however, next day a visitor came, who, after wandering round the
garden, was much taken with a white peony,[234] which he dug up and
carried away with him. Huang now awaked to the fact that Hsiang-yü was
a flower nymph, and became very disconsolate in consequence of what
had happened; but when he subsequently heard that the peony only
lived a few days after being taken away, he wept bitterly, and
composed an elegy in fifty stanzas, besides going daily to the hole
from which it had been taken, and watering the ground with his tears.
One day, as he was returning thence, he espied the young lady of the
red clothes also wiping away her tears alongside the hole, and
immediately walked back gently towards her. She did not run away, and
Huang, grasping her sleeve, joined with her in her lamentations. When
these were concluded he invited her to his house, and then she burst
out with a sigh, saying, “Alas! that the sister of my early years
should be thus suddenly taken from me. Hearing you, Sir, mourn as you
did, I have also been moved to tears. Those you shed have sunk down
deep to the realms below, and may perhaps succeed in restoring her to
us; but the sympathies of the dead are destroyed for ever, and how
then can she laugh and talk with us again?” “My luck is bad,” said
Huang, “that I should injure those I love, neither can I have the good
fortune to draw towards me another such a beauty. But tell me, when I
often sent messages by Hsiang-yü to you, why did you not come?” “I
knew,” replied she, “what nine young fellows out of ten are; but I did
not know what you were.” She then took leave, Huang telling her how
dull he felt without Hsiang-yü, and begging her to come again. For
some days she did not appear; and Huang remained in a state of great
melancholy, tossing and turning on his bed and wetting the pillow with
his tears, until one night he got up, put on his clothes, and trimmed
the lamp; and having called for pen and ink, he composed the
following lines:--
“On my cottage roof the evening raindrops beat;
I draw the blind and near the window take my seat.
To my longing gaze no loved one appears;
Drip, drip, drip, drip: fast flow my tears.”
This he read aloud; and when he had finished, a voice outside said,
“You want some one to cap your verses there!” Listening attentively,
he knew it was Chiang-hsüeh; and opening the door he let her in. She
looked at his stanza, and added impromptu--
“She is no longer in the room;
A single lamp relieves the gloom;
One solitary man is there;
He and his shadow make a pair.”
As Huang read these words his tears fell fast; and then, turning to
Chiang-hsüeh, he upbraided her for not having been to see him. “I
can’t come so often as Hsiang-yü did,” replied she, “but only now and
then when you are very dull.” After this she used to drop in
occasionally, and Huang said Hsiang-yü was his beloved wife, and she
his dear friend, always trying to find out every time she came which
flower in the garden she was, that he might bring her home with him,
and save her from the fate of Hsiang-yü. “The old earth should not be
disturbed,” said she, “and it would not do any good to tell you. If
you couldn’t keep your wife always with you, how will you be sure of
keeping a friend?” Huang, however, paid no heed to this, and seizing
her arm, led her out into the garden, where he stopped at every peony
and asked if this was the one; to which Chiang-hsüeh made no reply,
but only put her hand to her mouth and laughed.
At New Year’s time Huang went home, and a couple of months afterwards
he dreamt that Chiang-hsüeh came to tell him she was in great trouble,
begging him to hurry off as soon as possible to her rescue. When he
woke up, he thought his dream a very strange one; and ordering his
servant and horses to be ready, started at once for the hills. There
he found that the priests were about to build a new room; and finding
a camellia in the way, the contractor had given orders that it should
be cut down. Huang now understood his dream, and immediately took
steps to prevent the destruction of the flower. That night
Chiang-hsüeh came to thank him, and Huang laughed and said, “It serves
you right for not telling me which you were. Now I know you, and if
you don’t come and see me, I’ll get a firebrand and make it hot for
you.” “That’s just why I didn’t tell you before,” replied she. “The
presence of my dear friend,” said Huang, after a pause, “makes me
think more of my lost wife. It is long since I have mourned for her.
Shall we go and bemoan her loss together?” So they went off and shed
many a tear on the spot where formerly Hsiang-yü had stood, until at
last Chiang-hsüeh wiped her eyes and said it was time to go. A few
evenings later Huang was sitting alone when suddenly Chiang-hsüeh
entered, her face radiant with smiles. “Good news!” cried she, “the
Flower-God,[235] moved by your tears, has granted Hsiang-yü a return
to life.” Huang was overjoyed, and asked when she would come; to which
Chiang-hsüeh replied, that she could not say for certain, but that it
would not be long. “I came here on your account,” said Huang; “don’t
let me be duller than you can help.” “All right,” answered she, and
then went away, not returning for the next two evenings. Huang then
went into the garden and threw his arms around her plant, entreating
her to come and see him, though without eliciting any response. He
accordingly went back, and began twisting up a torch, when all at once
in she came, and snatching the torch out of his hand, threw it away,
saying, “You’re a bad fellow, and I don’t like you, and I shan’t have
any more to do with you.” However, Huang soon succeeded in pacifying
her, and by-and-by in walked Hsiang-yü herself. Huang now wept tears
of joy as he seized her hand, and drawing Chiang-hsüeh towards them,
the three friends mingled their tears together. They then sat down and
talked over the miseries of separation, Huang meanwhile noticing that
Hsiang-yü seemed to be unsubstantial, and that when he grasped her
hand his fingers seemed to close only on themselves, and not as in
the days gone by. This Hsiang-yü explained, saying, “When I was a
flower-nymph I had a body; but now I am only the disembodied spirit of
that flower. Do not regard me as a reality, but rather as an
apparition seen in a dream.” “You have come at the nick of time,”
cried Chiang-hsüeh; “your husband there was just getting troublesome.”
Hsiang-yü now instructed Huang to take a little powdered white-berry,
and mixing it with some sulphur, to pour out a libation to her,
adding, “This day next year I will return your kindness.” The young
ladies then went away, and next day Huang observed the shoots of a
young peony growing up where Hsiang-yü had once stood. So he made the
libation as she had told him, and had the plant very carefully tended,
even building a fence all round to protect it. Hsiang-yü came to thank
him for this, and he proposed that the plant should be removed to his
own home; but to this she would not agree, “for,” said she, “I am not
very strong, and could not stand being transplanted. Besides, all
things have their appointed place; and as I was not originally
intended for your home, it might shorten my life to be sent there. We
can love each other very well here.” Huang then asked why Chiang-hsüeh
did not come; to which Hsiang-yü replied that they must make her, and
proceeded with him into the garden, where, after picking a blade of
grass, she measured upwards from the roots of Chiang-hsüeh’s plant to
a distance of four feet six inches, at which point she stopped, and
Huang began to scratch a mark on the place with his nails. At that
moment Chiang-hsüeh came from behind the plant, and in mock anger
cried out, “You hussy you! what do you aid that wretch for?” “Don’t be
angry, my dear,” said Hsiang-yü; “help me to amuse him for a year
only, and then you shan’t be bothered any more.” So they went on,
Huang watching the plant thrive, until by the spring it was over two
feet in height. He then went home, giving the priests a handsome
present, and bidding them take great care of it. Next year, in the
fourth moon, he returned and found upon the plant a bud just ready to
break; and as he was walking round, the stem shook violently as if it
would snap, and suddenly the bud opened into a flower as large as a
plate, disclosing a beautiful maiden within, sitting upon one of the
pistils, and only a few inches in height. In the twinkling of an eye
she had jumped out, and lo! it was Hsiang-yü. “Through the wind and
the rain I have waited for you,” cried she; “why have you come so
late?” They then went into the house, where they found Chiang-hsüeh
already arrived, and sat down to enjoy themselves as they had done in
former times. Shortly afterwards Huang’s wife died, and he took up his
abode at Mount Lao for good and all. The peonies were at that time as
large round as one’s arm; and whenever Huang went to look at them, he
always said, “Some day my spirit will be there by your side;” to which
the two girls used to reply with a laugh, and say, “Mind you don’t
forget.” Ten years after these events, Huang became dangerously ill,
and his son, who had come to see him, was very much distressed about
him. “I am about to be born,” cried his father; “I am not going to
die. Why do you weep?” He also told the priests that if later on they
should see a red shoot, with five leaves, thrusting itself forth
alongside of the peony, that would be himself. This was all he said,
and his son proceeded to convey him home, where he died immediately on
arrival. Next year a shoot did come up exactly as he had mentioned;
and the priests, struck by the coincidence, watered it and supplied it
with earth. In three years it was a tall plant, and a good span in
circumference, but without flowers. When the old priest died, the
others took no care of it; and as it did not flower they cut it down.
The white peony then faded and died; and before long the camellia was
dead too.
FOOTNOTES:
[231] The text has _nai-tung_ (“endure the winter”), for the
identification of which I am indebted to Mr. L. C. Hopkins, of H.M.’s
Consular service.
[232] Women, of course, being excluded.
[233] Although the Chinese do not “shake hands” in our sense of the
term, it is a sign of affection to seize the hand of a parting or
returning friend. “The Book of Rites,” however, lays down the rule
that persons of opposite sexes should not, in passing things from one
to the other, _let their hands touch_; and the question was gravely
put to Mencius (Book IV.) as to whether a man might even pull his
drowning sister-in-law out of the water. Mencius replied that it was
indeed a general principle that a man should avoid touching a woman’s
hand, but that he who could not make an exception in such a case would
be no better than a wolf. Neither, according to the Chinese rule,
should men and women hang their clothes on the same rack, which
reminds one of the French prude who would not allow male and female
authors to be ranged upon the same bookshelf.
[234] The _Pæonia albiflora_.