And there the body lay, age after age,
Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying,
Like one asleep in a green hermitage,
With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing,
And living in its dreams beyond the rage
Of death or life; while they were still arraying
In liveries ever new the rapid, blind,
And fleeting generations of mankind.
In the days of the Tang dynasty China was long happy under the sceptre
of a good Emperor, named Sin-Woo. He had overcome the enemies of the
land, confirmed the friendship of its allies, augmented the wealth of
the rich, and mitigated the wretchedness of the poor. But most
especially was he admired and beloved for his persecution of the
impious sect of Lao-tsze, which he had well-nigh exterminated.
It was but natural that such an Emperor should congratulate himself
upon his goodness and worth; yet, as no human bliss is perfect, sorrow
could not fail to enter his mind.
“It is grievous to reflect,” said he to his courtiers, “that if, as ye
all affirm, there hath not been any Emperor of equal merit with myself
before my time, neither will any such arise after me, my subjects must
inevitably be sufferers by my death.”
To which the courtiers unanimously responded, “O Emperor, live for
ever!”
“Happy thought!” exclaimed the Emperor; “but wherewithal shall it be
executed?”
The Prime Minister looked at the Chancellor, the Chancellor looked at
the Treasurer, the Treasurer looked at the Chamberlain, the Chamberlain
looked at the Principal Bonze, the Principal Bonze looked at the Second
Bonze, who, to his great surprise, looked at him in return.
“When the turn comes to me,” murmured the inferior functionary, “I
would say somewhat.”
“Speak!” commanded the Emperor.
“O Uncle of the stars,” said the Bonze, “there are those in your
Majesty’s dominions who possess the power of lengthening life, who
have, in fact, discovered the Elixir of Immortality.”
“Let them be immediately brought hither,” commanded the Emperor.
“Unhappily,” returned the Bonze, “these persons, without exception,
belong to the abominable sect of Lao-tsze, whose members your Majesty
long ago commanded to cease from existence, with which august order
they have for the most part complied. In my own diocese, where for some
years after your Majesty’s happy accession we were accustomed to impale
twenty thousand annually, it is now difficult to find twenty, with the
utmost diligence on the part of the executioners.”
“It has of late sometimes appeared to me,” said the Emperor, “that
there may be more good in that sect than I have been led to believe by
my counsellors.”
“I have always thought,” said the Prime Minister, “that they were
rather misguided than wilfully wicked.”
“They are a kind of harmless lunatics,” said the Chancellor; “they
should, I think, be made wards in Chancery.”
“Their money does not appear different from other men’s,” said the
Treasurer.
“I,” said the Chamberlain, “have known an old woman who had known
another old woman who belonged to this sect, and who assured her that
she had been very good when she was a little girl.”
“If,” said the Emperor, “it appears that his Grace the Principal Bonze
hath in any respect misled us, his property will necessarily be
confiscated to the Imperial Treasury, and the Second Bonze will succeed
to his office. It is needful, however, to ascertain before all things
whether this sect does really possess the Elixir of Immortality, for on
that the entire question of its deserts obviously depends. Our
Counsellor the Second Bonze having, next to myself, the greatest
interest in the matter, I desire him to make due inquiries and report
to us at the next council, when I shall be prepared to state what fine
will be imposed upon him, should he not have succeeded.”
That night all the members of the Lao-tsze sect inhabiting prisons
under the jurisdiction of the Principal Bonze were decapitated, and the
P.B. laid his own head upon his pillow with some approach to peace of
mind, trusting that the knowledge of the Elixir of Immortality had
perished with them.
The Second Bonze, having a different object to attain, proceeded in a
different manner. He sent for his captives, and discoursed to them
touching the evil arts of unprincipled courtiers, and the facility with
which they mislead even the best intentioned princes. For years had he,
the Second Bonze, pleaded the cause of toleration at court; and had at
length succeeded in enlightening his Majesty to such an extent that
there was every prospect of an edict of indulgence being shortly
promulgated, provided always that the Elixir of Life was previously
forthcoming.
The unfortunate heretics would have been only too thankful to prolong
the Emperor’s life indefinitely in consideration of securing peace for
their own, but they could only inform the Bonze of the general
tradition of their sect. This was that the knowledge of Lao-tsze’s
secret was confined to certain adepts, most of whom were plunged into
so deep a trance that any communication with them was impossible. For
the administration of the miraculous draught, it appeared, was attended
with this inconvenience, that it threw the partaker into a deep sleep,
lasting any time between ten years and eternity, according to the depth
of his potation. During its continuance the ordinary operations of
nature were suspended, and the patient awoke with precisely the same
bodily constitution, old or young, as he had possessed on falling into
his lethargy; and though still liable to wounds and accidents, he or
she continued to enjoy undiminished health and vigour for a period
equal to the duration of the trance, after which he sank back into the
ranks of mortality, unless he could repeat the potion. All the adepts
who had come to life under his present Majesty’s most clement reign had
immediately emigrated: the only persons, therefore, capable of giving
information were now buried in slumber, and of course would only speak
when they should awake. They were mostly concealed in the recesses of
caverns, those inhabited by wild beasts being usually preferred for the
sake of better security, as no tiger or bear would harm a follower of
Lao-tsze. The witnesses, therefore, advised the Bonze to ascertain the
residences of the most ferocious tigers in his diocese, and to wait
upon them personally, in the hope of thus discovering what he sought.
This suggestion was exceedingly unpalatable to the Bonze, who felt
almost equally unwilling to venture himself into a wild beast’s den or
to give any other person the chance of making the discovery. While he
hesitated in unspeakable perplexity he was informed that an old man,
about to expire at the age of an hundred and twenty years, desired to
have speech with him. Thinking so venerable a personage likely to have
at least a glimmering of the great secret, the Bonze hurried to his
bedside.
“Our master, Lao-tsze,” began the old man, “forbids us to leave this
world with anything undisclosed which may contribute to the advantage
of our fellow-creatures. Whether he deemed the knowledge of the cup of
immortality conducive to this end I cannot say, but the question doth
not arise, for I do not possess it. Hear my tale, nevertheless. Ninety
years ago, being a hunter, it was my hap to fall into the jaws of an
enormous tiger, who bore me off to his cavern. I there found myself in
the presence of two ladies, one youthful and of surpassing loveliness,
the other haggard and wrinkled. The younger lady expostulated with the
tiger, and he forthwith released me. My gratitude won the women’s
confidence, and I learned that they were disciples of Lao-tsze who had
repaired to the cavern to partake of the miraculous draught, which they
were just about to do. They were, it appeared, mother and daughter, and
I distinctly remember that the composition of the beverage was known to
the daughter only. This impressed me, for I should naturally have
expected the contrary. The tiger escorted me home. I forswore hunting,
and became, and have secretly continued, a disciple of Lao-tsze. I will
now indicate the position of the cavern to thee: whether the ladies
will still be found in it is beyond my power to say.”
And having pointed out the direction of the cavern, he expired.
The thing had to be done. The Bonze dressed himself up as much like a
votary of Lao-tsze as possible, provided himself with a body-guard of
_bona fide_ disciples, and, accompanied by a small army of huntsmen and
warriors as well, marched in quest of the den of the tiger. It was
discovered about nightfall, and having tethered a small boy near the
entrance, that his screams when being devoured might give notice of the
tiger’s issue from or return to his habitation, the Bonze and his
myrmidons took up a flank position and awaited the dawn. The distant
howls of roaming beasts of prey entirely deprived the holy man of his
rest, but nothing worse befell him, and when in the morning the small
boy, instead of providing the tiger with a breakfast, was heard crying
for his own, the besiegers mustered up courage to enter the cavern. The
glare of their torches revealed no tiger: but, to the Bonze’s
inexpressible delight, two females lay on the floor of the cave,
corresponding in all respects to the description of the old man. Their
costume was that of the preceding century. One was wrinkled and hoary;
the inexpressible loveliness of the other, who might have seen
seventeen or eighteen summers, extorted a universal cry of admiration,
followed by a hush of enraptured silence. Warm, flexible, fresh in
colour, breathing naturally as in slumber, the figures lay, the younger
woman’s arm underneath the elder woman’s neck, and her chin nestling on
the other’s shoulder. The countenance of each seemed to indicate happy
dreams.
“Can this indeed be but a trance?” simultaneously questioned several of
the Bonze’s followers.
“_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!_” exclaimed the Bonze; and he
thrust his long hunting spear into the elder woman’s bosom. Blood
poured forth freely, but there was no change in the expression of the
countenance. No struggle announced dissolution; not until the body grew
chill and the limbs stiff could they be sure the old woman was indeed
dead.
“Carry the young woman like porcelain,” ordered the priest, and like
the most fragile porcelain the exquisite young beauty was borne from
the cavern smiling in her trance and utterly unconscious, while the
corpse of her aged companion was abandoned to the hyænas. So often did
the bearers pause to look on her beauty that it was found necessary to
drape the countenance entirely, until reaching the closed sedan in
which, vigilantly watched by the Bonze, she was transported to the
Imperial palace.
And so she was brought to the Emperor, and he worshipped her. She was
laid on a couch of cloth of gold in the Imperial apartments. Wonderful
was the contrast between her youthful beauty, so still in its repose,
and the old haggard Emperor, fevered with the lust of beauty and love
of life.
“O Majesty,” said his wisest counsellor, “is there any sect in thy
dominions that possesses the secret of perpetual youth?”
And the Emperor made proclamation, but no such sect could be found. And
he mourned exceedingly, and caused strong perfumes to be burned around
the sleeper, and conches to be blown and gongs beaten in her ears,
hoping that she would awake ere he was dead or wholly decrepit. But she
stirred not. And he shut himself up with her and passed his time
praying to Fo for her awakening.
But one day the door of the chamber was beaten down, and his old wife
came in passionately upbraiding him.
“Sin-Woo,” she cried, “thou hast not the heart of a man! Thou wouldest
be deathless, leaving me to die! I shall be laid in the grave, and thou
wilt reign with another! Wherefore have I been true to thee, if not
that our ashes might mingle at the last? Thou hoary sensualist!”
“Su-Ti,” said the Emperor, with feeling, “thou dost grievously misjudge
me. I am no heartless sensualist, no butterfly sipper at the lips of
beauty. Is not my soul entirely possessed by this divine creature, whom
I love with an affection infinitely exceeding that which I have
entertained for thee at any period? And how knowest thou,” added he,
striving to soothe her, “that I will not give thee to drink of the
miraculous potion?”
“And keep my grey hairs and wrinkles through all time! Nay, Sin-Woo, I
am no fool like thee, and were I so, I am not in love with any youth.
And know I not that even if I would accept the boon, thou would’st
never give it?”
And she rushed away in fury and hanged herself by her Imperial girdle.
Whereupon all the other wives and concubines of the Emperor did
likewise, as custom and reason prescribe. All the palace was filled
with lamentation and funerals. But the Emperor lamented not, nor turned
his gaze from the sleeper, nor did the sleeper awaken.
And his son came to him angry with exceeding wrath.
“Thou hast murdered my mother. Thou would’st rob me of the crown that
is rightfully mine. I, born to be an Emperor, shall die a subject! Nay,
but I will save thee from thyself. I will pierce thy leman with the
sword, or burn her with fire.”
And the Emperor, fearing he would do as he threatened, commanded him to
be slain, as also his brothers and sisters. And he paid no heed to the
affairs of State, but gave all into the hand of the Second, now the
Principal Bonze. And the laws ceased to be observed, and rebellions
broke out in the provinces, and enemies invaded the country, and there
was famine in the land.
And now the Emperor was well-nigh ten years nearer to the gates of
death than when the Sleeping Beauty had been brought to his court. The
love of beauty was nearly quenched in him, but the longing for life
grew more intense. He became angry with the sleeper, that she awakened
not, and with his little remaining strength smote her fiercely on the
cheeks, but she gave no sign of reviving. Remembering that if he gained
the potion of immortality he would himself be plunged into a trance, he
made all preparations for the interregnum. He decreed that he was to be
seated erect on his throne, with all his imperial insignia, and it was
to be death to any one who should presume to remove any of them. His
slumbering figure was to preside at all councils, and to be consulted
in every act of state, and all ministers and officers were to do homage
daily. The revived Sleeping Beauty was to partake of the draught anew,
at the same time and in the same manner as himself, that she might
awake with him, and that he might find her charms unimpaired. All the
ministers swore solemnly to observe these regulations; firmly purposing
to burn the sleeper, if sleep he ever did, at the very first
opportunity, and scatter his ashes to the winds. Then they would fight
for the Empire among themselves; each, meanwhile, was mainly occupied
in striving to gain the rebels over to his interest, insomuch that the
people grew more miserable day by day.
And as the aged Emperor waxed more and more feeble, he began to see
visions. Legions of little black imps surrounded him crying, “We are
thy sins, and would be punished—would’st thou by living for ever
deprive us of our due?” And fair female forms came veiled with drooping
heads, and murmured, “We are thy virtues, and would be
rewarded—would’st thou cheat us?” And other figures came, dark but
lovely, and whispered, “We are thy dead friends who have long waited
for thee—would’st thou take to thyself new friends, and forget us?” And
others said, “We are thy memories—wilt thou live on till we are all
withered in thy heart?” And others said, “We are thy strength and thy
beauty, thy memory and thy wit—canst thou live, knowing thou wilt never
see us more?” And at last came two warders, officers of the King of
Death, and one of them was laughing. And the other asked why he
laughed, and he replied:
“I laugh at the Emperor, who thinks to escape our master, not knowing
that the moment of his decease was engraved with a pen of iron upon a
rock of adamant a million million years or ever this world was.”
“And when comes it?” asked the other.
“In ten minutes,” said the first.
When the Emperor heard this he was wild with terror, and tottered to
the couch on which the Sleeping Beauty lay. “Oh, awake!” he cried,
“awake and save me ere it is too late!” And, oh wonder! the sleeper
stirred, and opened her eyes.
If she had been so beautiful while sleeping, what was she when awake!
But the love of life had overcome the love of beauty in the Emperor’s
bosom, and he saw not the eyes like stars, and the bloom as of peaches
and lilies, or the aspect grand and smiling as daybreak. He could only
cry, “Give me the potion, lest I die, give me the potion!”
“That cannot I,” she said. “The secret was known only to my daughter.”
“Who is thy daughter?”
“The hoary woman, she who slept with me in the cavern.”
“That aged crone thy daughter, daughter to thee so youthful and so
fresh?
“Even so,” she said, “I bore her at sixteen, and slumbered for seventy
years. When I awoke she was withered and decrepit: I youthful as when I
closed my eyes. But she had learned the secret, which I never knew.”
“The Bonze shall be crucified!” yelled the Emperor.
“It is too late,” said she; “he is torn in pieces already.”
“By whom?”
“By the multitude that are now coming to do the like unto thee.”
And as she spoke the doors were burst open, and in rushed the people,
headed by the most pious Bonze in the Empire (after the late Principal
Bonze), who plunged a sword into the Emperor’s breast, exclaiming:
“He who despises this life in comparison with another deserves to lose
the life which he has.” Words, saith the historian Li, which have been
thought worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold in the Hall of
Confucius.
And the people were crying, “Kill the sorceress!” But she looked upon
them, and they cried, “Be our Empress!”
“Remember,” said she, “that ye will have to bear with me for a hundred
years!”
“Would,” said they, “that it might be a hundred thousand!”
So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously. Among her good acts is
enumerated her toleration of the followers of Lao-tsze. Since, however,
they have ceased to be persecuted by man, it is observed that wild
beasts have lost their ancient respect for them, and devour them with
no less appetite than the members of other sects and denominations.