Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge: Two Memoirs About Courtesans (Translations from the Asian Classics) 0231186843, 9780231186841

Citation preview

Plum Shadows AN D

Plank Bridge

R

T WO MEMOIRS ABOUT COURTESANS

by M AO X I A NG and Y U HUAI

Translated and edited by WA I - Y E E L I

Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge

B

T R A N S L AT I O N S F RO M T H E A S I A N C L A S S I C S

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS

editorial board Paul Anderer Allison Busch David Lurie Rachel McDermott Wei Shang Haruo Shirane

Plum Shadows AND

Plank Bridge

B TWO MEMOIRS ABOUT COURTESANS

by MAO XIANG and YU HUAI

Translated and edited by WAI- YEE LI

Columbia University Press New York

This publication was made possible in part by an award from the James P. Geiss Foundation. Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for assistance given by the Wm. Theodore de Bary Fund in the publication of this book. Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for assistance given by the Pushkin Fund in the publication of this book.

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2020 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Li, Wai-yee, translator author of introduction. | Yu, Huai, 1616–1696. Ying mei an yi yu. English. | Mao, Xiang, 1611–1693. Ban qiao za ji. English. | Li, Wai-yee, translator author of introduction. Title: Plum shadows and Plank Bridge : two memoirs about courtesans / Mao Xiang and Yu Huai ; translated by Wai-yee Li. Other titles: Plank Bridge Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019023901 (print) | LCCN 2019023902 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231186841 (cloth) | ISBN 9780231186858 (paperback) | ISBN 9780231546867 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Courtesans—China—History—17th century. | Courtesans in literature. | Mao, Xiang, 1611–1693—Criticism and interpretation. | Yu, Huai, 1616–1696—Criticism and interpretation. Classification: LCC HQ250.A5 P58 2020 (print) | LCC HQ250.A5 (ebook) | DDC 306.740951/09032—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023901 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023902

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover image: Beautiful Woman in Her Boudoir, traditionally said to be a portrait of Madame Hedong or Liu Rushi (1618–1664) by Wu Zhuo (active 17th century), ca. 18th century, Qing dynasty. Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk. © Harvard Art Museums/Arthur Sackler Museum, Oriental Objects Fund - detail. Photo: President and Fellows of Harvard College Cover and book design: Lisa Hamm

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

VII

Abbreviations

ix

Introduction

xi

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent Mao Xiang 1 Miscellaneous Records of the Plank Bridge Yu Huai 65 Two Famous Courtesans 185 Notes

247

Works Cited Index of Names

311 323

Acknowledgments

Research leave made possible by the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Society of Learned Societies (2018–2019) allowed me to undertake this translation. I am deeply grateful for their generous support. Suggestions from the three anonymous reviewers were very helpful. Ellen Widmer read an early draft and offered encouragement and excellent advice. I thank Leslie Kriesel for her careful editorial work, Christine Dunbar for her help during the review process, and Christian Winting for steering the book to production. I want to express appreciation to the Harvard Art Museums for permitting the use of the image on the cover, the Freer Gallery of Art for the reproduction of Gu Mei’s paintings, and Wu Hung for providing me with a high-definition version of Dong Bai’s portrait in the Nanjing Museum. My family provides unwavering support, as always.

Abbreviations

Æki Yasushi བྷᵘᓧ. BĎ JĎ to “Eibaian okugo” no kenkyĝ. ߂㽴ǽ Njᖡẵᓥ៦䃎njȃ⹄ウ. Tokyo: Kyĝko Shoin, 2010. BQ Yu Huai ։ᠧ. Banqiao zaji (wai yizhong) ᶯ⁻䴌䁈˄ཆаぞ˅. Annotated by Li Jintang ᵾ䠁า. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000. LRS Chen Yinke 䲣ᇵᚚ. Liu Rushi biezhuan ḣྲᱟࡕۣ. 3 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1980. Lu Lu Qinli 䙟Ⅽ・. Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbei Chao shi ‫╒〖ݸ‬ 兿ᱹইेᵍ䂙. 3 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983. MPJ Mao Xiang ߂㽴. Mao Pijiang quanji ߂䗏⮶‫ޘ‬䳶. Ed. Wan Jiufu 㩜ѵᇼ and Ding Fushengбᇼ⭏. 2 vols. Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2014. QMZ Qian Qianyi 䥒䅉⳺. Qian Muzhai quanji 䥒⢗啻‫ޘ‬䳶. Annotated by Qian Zeng 䥒ᴮ. Ed. Qian Zhonglian 䥒Ԣ㚟. 8 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2003. QTS Quan Tang shi ‫ޘ‬ୀ䂙. Compiled by Peng Dingqiu ᖝᇊ≲ et al. 25 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960. SJ Shijing zhuxi 䂙㏃⌘᷀. Annotated by Cheng Junying 〻‫׺‬㤡 and Jiang Jianyuan 㭓㾻‫ݳ‬. 3 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2017. WMC Wu Weiye ੣‫ٹ‬ᾝ. Wu Meicun quanji ੣ẵᶁ‫ޘ‬䳶. Ed. Li Xueying ᵾᆨま. 3 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990. BJ

x

YH Zuo

Abbreviations

Yu Huai ։ᠧ. Yu Huai quanji ։ᠧ‫ޘ‬䳶. Ed. Li Jintang ᵾ䠁า. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2011. Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan. Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals.” Trans. and annotated by Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016.

Introduction

This volume includes two memoirs about courtesans in seventeenth-century China: Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent (hereafter Plum Shadows) by Mao Xiang (sobriquets Pijiang and Chaomin, 1611–1693) and Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge (hereafter Plank Bridge) by Yu Huai (sobriquets Danxin and Manweng, 1616–1696).1 It also presents anecdotes, stories, and poetic writings related to two of the most famous courtesans from that period: Liu Rushi (1618–1664) and Chen Yuanyuan (b. 1623). The world these materials evoke is that of the Lower Yanzi area in the final decades of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and in the aftermath of its collapse in the early years of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). This was a period when a chorus of voices elevated aesthetic refinement and romantic sensibility and showed an extraordinary interest in recording perceptions, sensations, emotions, and memories. Often the same voices showed deep political engagement and were committed to bearing witness to contemporary turmoil and to remembering the world before Qing conquest. These writings therefore not only provide a window into the sights, sounds, smells, and texture of pleasures and passions but also bear the burden of memory and nostalgia and show us the moral reasoning justifying apparent indulgence.

xii

Introduction

CO URT ESANS I N CH I NESE H ISTORY

The words for “courtesans” in Chinese, chang ၬ and ji ࿃, are etymologically related to the more ancient graphs chang ّ and ji Ծ, whose meanings include musician, singer, actor, and entertainer. The function of the courtesan is to provide pleasure, and the continuity between aesthetic and sensual pleasure implies an inherent ambiguity in her role. As object of desire and sexual exploitation, she could experience shame and degradation, yet as entertainer she was also, at least potentially, an artist who could claim self-expression and, in rare instances, even self-invention. In the hierarchy of sexual transactions, courtesans were distinguished from mere prostitutes because of their accomplishments.2 From the fifth and sixth centuries on, there are records of famous courtesans who entertained not only with music, songs, and dance but also by mastering the ornaments of literati culture— zither, chess, wine games, poetry, painting, calligraphy, and refined, witty conversation. Mastery of such skills, often prized above beauty, sometimes meant a courtesan was less sexually available, although it also played a standard part in the game of seduction. The fascination with courtesans is bound up with the idea of permeable boundaries. The courtesan escaped the well-defined roles and relationships of traditional Chinese society. Classified as “debased” ( jian), she yet consorted with elite men, sometimes as intellectual equals, and could reclaim respectability through marriage (congliang).3 She could befriend elite women. Starting from the sixteenth century, we find poetic exchanges between elite women and courtesans; some of them are even vaguely homoerotic in tone, unavoidable perhaps because poetic conventions for praising female beauty and talent are often rooted in male desire. In the eighteenth century, for example, it was not uncommon for elite women to invite famous courtesans to join them on pleasure excursions on the painted boats of Qinhuai. Theoretically “off limits,” Daoist priestesses could sometimes be de facto courtesans, as in

Introduction

xiii

the cases of the famous Tang poets Yu Xuanji (842–872) and Li Ye (eighth c.). Several renowned seventeenth-century courtesans, including Wang Wei (ca. 1595–ca. 1647), Bian Sai (1620s–ca. 1663), and Liu Rushi, embraced Daoism and Buddhism, implicitly negating the sensuous existence they once embodied but also potentially developing a new kind of allure. A courtesan was often born or sold into that station, but an elite or even aristocratic woman could have been reduced to that status because her family belonged to a vanquished dynasty, was an ousted faction in court, or simply got into political or economic troubles, and as such she retained the allure of what might otherwise have been inaccessible.4 A particularly notorious case was the Yongle emperor of the Ming dynasty (r. 1402–1424). He ruthlessly eliminated officials who opposed his violent usurpation of the throne in 1402. Female family members of his opponents were often condemned to join the ranks of courtesans and prostitutes.5 In this sense, state control of courtesans answered the perceived need to maintain distinctions between the “debased” and the “respectable” (liang). The legends that Guan Zhong (d. 645 BCE), a Qi statesman for whom Confucius expresses both admiration and criticism in the Analects, invented the institution of “women’s wards” (nülü) in order to use “the earnings of their nocturnal unions” to enrich the state6 or that the ancient Yue king Goujian (fifth c. BCE) kept widows on a hill to entertain his soldiers7 point to the notion that “women of pleasure” could serve the “public good.” The rationale is that the errant energy of society could thus be channeled and controlled to facilitate its proper functioning. Taxes levied on courtesans were called “flower contribution” (huajuan) or “powder money” (huafen qian, zhifen qian) in various periods.8 Song courtesans were drafted as vendors of wine, which was sold through government monopoly. In the late thirteenth century the first Ming emperor (r. 1368–1398) established sixteen towers to house official courtesans (guanji) in Nanjing, then the capital. The purpose was apparently to increase

xiv

Introduction

revenue and to encourage urban revival.9 Almost six centuries later, the Qing loyalist general Zeng Guofan (1811–1872), “taking Guan Zhong as example,” tried to revive the economy of the Lower Yangzi area by lifting the ban on courtesans, which had been enforced by the insurgents during the Taiping Wars (1850–1864). Taxation and public records defined the parameters of state control. Entertainers under the control of the Registry of Musicians (yueji), formalized in 528 in north China during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534), had a debased status that was hereditary: they could not marry “respectable” persons and could not easily remove their names from the registry (luoji, tuoji), and sumptuary rules applied to them.10 The enforcement of such rules varied greatly in different periods. Entertainers in the registry came to belong to the Right and Left Bureau of Music Instructions ( jiaofang si) upon their establishment in 714. This early Tang (618–907) reorganization of a late sixth-century Sui (581–618) institution was to last in one form or another till the end of the imperial era.11 The bureau specialized in the training of court entertainers. These entertainers were sometimes called official courtesans and could be summoned for performance in state celebrations and official feasts. In 606, Emperor Yang of Sui (r. 604– 618) dazzled a Turkish delegation with a large-scale musical gala in the Sui capital Luoyang. As many as 30,000 female entertainers were involved in this extravagant display of state power.12 Courtesans could also be asked to entertain foreign delegations or serve at state banquets. Flourishing in tandem with official courtesans were private courtesans (siji), usually associated with an independent establishment in an urban setting. Indeed, by the seventeenth century, the period in which the texts translated in this volume were written, the boundaries between official and private courtesans were blurred. Belonging to the Music Registry seemed to involve little more than special taxes and the obligation to attend certain official feasts. Unlike entertainers kept inside the confines of rich and powerful families ( jiaji) as property of their master, both official

Introduction

xv

and private courtesans had choices about their accessibility that was in varying degrees negotiable. From about the tenth century onward, the relationship between officials and courtesans was curiously both legitimized and criminalized. During the Song dynasty (960–1279), official courtesans entertained and performed at social gatherings, but officials could be demoted because of sexual liaisons with them.13 There are stories of courtesans who sacrificed themselves rather than own up to rumors of their intimate relationship with an official. Thus did the courtesan Yan Rui defend the official Tang Yuzheng: in stories that cast the famous Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (1130– 1200) as the unforgiving and unsympathetic moralist, Yan Rui refused to implicate Tang, endured flogging, and earned the reputation of being a heroic “woman knight-errant” (xianü).14 At the same time, there were Song courtesans who married civil and military officials. One notable example was Liang Hongyu, who married Han Shizhong (1090–1151) before he attained prominence as a military commander; she is remembered in miscellanies, fiction, and drama as the heroic woman who beat the war drum on the battlefield as the Song fought the Jurchens.15 Ming laws stipulated that officials who took courtesans as wives and concubines would be flogged and forced to separate from them, and strict sumptuary laws were supposed to apply to denizens of entertainment quarters. Yet various sources indicate that it was common practice for officials to take courtesans as concubines. Throughout the Qing there were periodic decrees prohibiting prostitution and forbidding liaisons between officials and courtesans. As in earlier periods, they were consistently ignored, although from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century prohibition seems to have encouraged elite men to patronize instead male actors and singers, who were de facto male courtesans referred to as “likely ladies” (xianggu).16 Enforced interdiction invited bold banter. Around 1796, the famous poet Yuan Mei (1716–1798) sent poems to a governor protesting the prohibition decrees, and Zhao Yi

xvi

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(1727–1814), another well-known poet and scholar-official, lauded him as “the excellent monk protecting the Dharma of the pleasure lanes” ᒣᓧ䆧⌅ྭ⋉䮰, one who “specializes in rescuing armies of ladies in our all-too-human world” 㙁ᮁӪ䯃၈ᆀ䓽.17 The relationship between patron and courtesan encompasses many gradations of sexual, romantic, and intellectual intimacy. There was little social space for men and women not related by kinship to meet as equals in premodern China, although there were rare exceptions. Friendships between courtesans and the literati offer tantalizing glimpses into what seems to have been difficult to attain in the relationship between the sexes. The Tang courtesan poet Xue Tao (768–834?), for example, left behind social and occasional poems that implied her friendship with elite men. The late-Ming poet Wang Zhideng (1535–1612) and the courtesanpainter Ma Xianglan (1548–1604) were tied by mutual appreciation tinged with romantic attachment.18 Another late-Ming courtesan, Zhao Yanru, was said to have “shared the affection of brother and sister” with “famous gentlemen” in her old age.19 Literati who wrote prefaces or colophons for works by courtesans seem to have been privy to the latter’s anxieties and melancholy, implying their bond as soul mates. Despite pointed avoidance of or only veiled reference to their status as courtesans in such writings, there is also a keen sense that a courtesan’s literary and artistic accomplishments added to her allure. Friendship with elite men, especially as expressed through their tributes to a courtesan’s mastery of literati culture, was vital for her claim to be a “famous courtesan” (mingji). Such friendships supposedly took her to a more exalted sphere beyond mere sexual transaction; at the same time, these relationships were still often defined by sexual tension. In other words, literati accomplishments and friendship might promise a courtesan escape from the fate of commodification, yet they could also just mean that she had become a more prized commodity. Writings by and about late Ming courtesans are especially rich in evidence of intriguing ties of friendship with the literati. The

Introduction

xvii

affinities that allow a courtesan to address herself or be addressed in male or gender-neutral terms like xiong (older kin) or di (younger kin) suggest deliberate avoidance of romantic and sexual innuendoes. Thus Dong Qichang (1555–1636) and Chen Jiru (1558–1639) address the courtesan Wang Wei as daoxiong (brother in the Way), Chen Liang calls Gu Mei (1619–1664) “Mei xiong,”20 Chen Zilong (1608–1647, jinshi 1637) refers to Liu Rushi as “Master Liu” in his preface to her first poetry collection, and Liu Rushi refers to herself as di in her letters to the rich Anhui merchant and literatus Wang Ruqian (1577–1655).21 At the same time a longing for romance sometimes introduced instability into such friendships, and literary exchanges reveal the negotiation of expectations. Possible romance between courtesans and their clients has long captured the Chinese imagination. With arranged marriages, whereby husband and wife met only at their wedding, being the norm in premodern China, the pleasure quarters might well have been the only place where agency, tension, yearning, and uncertainty—the ingredients of romance— could come into play. Countless anecdotes, poems, songs, stories, novels, and plays trace the contours of the courtesan romance. The male protagonist is usually a man of letters, not least because these accounts are often built around poems—his poems for and about a courtesan, or literary exchanges between him and a courtesan poet. From frank sensuality to tortuous longing, from mournful involutions to hedonistic revelry, from the celebration of a courtesan’s freedom to the clear-eyed depiction of her degradation, from themes of betrayal and abandonment to stories of improbable unions, from the romantic glorification of love to its ironic deflation, these writings encompass a great range of possibilities and include some of the best known works in various genres in the tradition. New art forms often first emerged or became popular in the pleasure quarters, even as courtesans were sometimes “trend setters” in sartorial fashions. Song lyrics in the tenth century, dramatic arias in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, vernacular songs and

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Introduction

kun opera in the sixteenth century, and the sentimental courtesan novel in the nineteenth century were all cultural innovations rooted in the pleasures and passions of the courtesans’ world.22 The relationship between the literatus and the courtesan was symbiotic. The lyricist Liu Yong’s (987–1053, jinshi 1034) fabled popularity among courtesans is a case in point. He spread their fame in his song lyrics, and by singing his compositions the courtesans confirmed Liu Yong’s reputation. 23 We may surmise that to thus externalize and objectivize one’s feelings and fantasies— that is, have them sung by courtesans— could be a mode of selfaffirmation for men of letters. Sun Qi’s Accounts of the Northern Ward (Beili zhi, 884) includes a story about a dying courtesan who invited poets to write dirges for her; one may presume that the gratification was mutual.24 We also have negative examples, whereby a literatus could exert power over a courtesan by mocking and defaming her.25 In the texts in this volume, the authors often include poems (sometimes their own) that spread a courtesan’s fame. At the same time, a courtesan’s most appealing trait could be her “appreciation of talent” (liancai), which means that men also sought and treasured her recognition. As collective object of desire, the courtesan defined the relationship between men. The poets Bai Juyi (722–846) and Yuan Zhen (779–831) both patronized the courtesan Linglong, who seemed to have served as a conduit for their feelings for each other. In Yuan Zhen’s words: “Do not send Linglong to sing my poems, / My poems are all words about parting from you” Ձ䚓⧢⫿ୡᡁ䂙, ᡁ䂙ཊᱟࡕੋ䂎.26 The Song courtesan Li Shishi is said to have inspired rivalry among her lovers, including Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1126) and the poet Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121).27 Courtesans functioned as gifts in a system of exchange based on patronage and service. Tang poets like Liu Yuxi (772–842) and Du Mu (803–ca. 853) received “family entertainers” from their superiors’ households as gifts in recognition of their poetic talents. It was not uncommon for scholar-officials to “present” courtesans or opera

Introduction

xix

singers to their superiors to advance their careers. All the famous liaisons between literati and courtesans were collectively celebrated, especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, for such a union would instantly become a poetic topic, especially among the man’s friends. Passion was validated through public display and reaffirmed bonds among elite men. As we will see, Mao Xiang’s memoir of Dong Bai (1624–1651) was written in part to invite compositions from his friends. Mao also requested his friend Zhang Xun to paint scenes from Plum Shadows (MPJ 1:629– 30, 2:1113).28 Collected Writings of Kindred Spirits (Tongren ji, compiled 1673–ca. 1692), Mao Xiang’s anthology of writings by himself and his family members and friends, includes many pieces on Dong Bai. Major decisions in the relationship between Mao and Dong were made in front of his friends. At crucial junctures in their relationship, his friends facilitated their union in decisive ways. The civil service examination, from its institution in the seventh century, was a crucible determining various aspects of the relationship between courtesans and the literati. To become a scholar-official through the examination was the major, if not the only, goal available to most literati during the imperial period. The disappointment of failure (and possibly the prospect of few resources) led some to end their relationship with courtesans, as Yu Huai did with Meiniang and Mao Xiang did with Chen Yuanyuan and almost did with Dong Bai, as we will see in Plank Bridge and Plum Shadows. Success brought entitlement. During the Tang, the top candidates (the so-called “presented scholars” or jinshi) were fêted, courtesans in attendance, at Winding Brook (Qujiang). Sometimes success meant that the newly appointed jinshi would abandon a courtesan in pursuit of more eligible and advantageous unions, as in Jiang Fang’s “Huo Xiaoyu’s Story” (ninth c.), or it could give him the wherewithal to marry her, as in another Tang tale, Bai Xingjian’s (776–826) “Li Wa’s Story.” Historians argue that the latter scenario was very unusual during the Tang, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it might have become more

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Introduction

common in later periods. The late Ming (ca. late sixteenth–midseventeenth c.) was especially notable in its rich lore of courtesanliteratus romances, some of which resulted in marriages, such as the famous unions between Gu Mei and Gong Dingzi (1615–1673, jinshi 1634) and between Liu Rushi and Qian Qianyi (1582–1664, tanhua 1610). In both cases the erstwhile courtesans became concubines but were treated like principal wives.29 The fact that the courtesans’ quarters and the examination hall faced each other in late Ming Nanjing (Jinling) meant that the relationships with courtesans often amount to “the outer chapter in the battle of letters.”30 Mao Xiang recalled in 1689 how fifty years earlier he had composed mental drafts of examination essays every night for a whole month when he was staying with the courtesan Li Shiniang.31 The literati’s abiding concern with the examination system must account for its refraction and reflection in the courtesans’ world. The idea of “flower cases” (hua’an) or “flower examination lists” (huabang) seems to have originated during the Song.32 By the mid- and late Ming it had become very popular to have courtesans compared to various flowers and to have them ranked like examination candidates in “civil” and “martial” categories, with evaluative poems appended to their names.33 Examples include Yang Shen’s (1488–1559, zhuangyuan [top graduate] 1511) appraisal of Sichuan courtesans (Ranking Flowers by the River [Jianghua pinzao], 1556), Cao Dazhang’s (1521–1575, jinshi 1553) writings about courtesans in Qinhuai (Classification of Qinhuai Ladies [Qinhuai shinü biao], Rankings for a Gathering of Immortals at the Lotus Terrace [Liantai xianhui pin]), Pan Zhiheng’s (1556–1621) commendation of courtesans in Nanjing (Ranking of Jinling Courtesans [ Jinling jipin], Record of the Bend [Quzhong zhi]), Shen Menghuan’s Supreme Examples of Yangzhou Ladies (Guangling nüshi dianzui), and Binghua Meishi’s Ranking of Courtesans in the Northern Capital (Yandu jipin).34 The Many Charms of Suzhou Beauties (Wu ji baimei, 1617 preface) by Wanyuzi (Zhou Zhibiao) and The Many

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Charms of Jinling Beauties (Jinling baimei, 1618 preface) by Weilinzi (Li Yunxiang) demonstrate how this genre is connected to contemporary literary taste and a flourishing print culture. In addition to evaluative poems in classical genres, The Many Charms of Suzhou Beauties includes vernacular songs, probably sung by courtesans. 35 Feng Menglong added comments and a postscript to The Many Charms of Jinling Beauties and seems to have facilitated the production of both works through his publication networks.36 We find an account of a public evaluation of courtesans in Plank Bridge. The practice continued throughout the Qing and even gained momentum with late-nineteenth-century journalism. The lateQing novelist Li Boyuan (1867–1906) instituted “flower examination lists” nominated and elected by readers to boost the sale of Entertainment News (Youxi bao), which he founded in 1896.37 The game outlasted the civil service examination itself, which was abolished in 1905. (The last newspaper-sponsored “flower examination list” dated to 1909, although “flower contests” in other forms lasted until 1920.) For countless aspiring scholars in late-imperial China, the examination system was a Kafkaesque machine that respected neither talent nor industry. For those who failed, the right to evaluate must have seemed a kind of compensatory justice. For the successful candidates, the “flower lists” reproduced and continued their glory. The courtesans’ world was a malleable alternative reality. As with the real examination system, however, stories about unjust and arbitrary flower rankings abound.38 The language of connoisseurship in the “flower examination list” and the literature “appraising courtesans” (pinji) is symptomatic of deeper ambiguities. Courtesans are lauded for their talents and beauty, yet at the same time they are treated as mere objects affording pleasure for their patrons. Their favors could be purchased, yet they are routinely praised as unattainable immortals (xian) and goddesses (shennü). Their trade by definition made them “unchaste,” yet many stories extol their fierce loyalty. The lore of courtesans, especially in the late Ming, celebrates the passionate,

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unconventional, and independent spirit that defies prescribed roles and sometimes even gender boundaries.39 In the midst of prevalent illiteracy, courtesans were customarily honored, beginning with Xue Tao, as “collators of texts” ( jiaoshu), and many courtesans were noted poets. Gender roles were well defined in traditional China, but courtesans sometimes defied them by martial feats (e.g., the horse-riding Xue Susu [1598–1637]),40 military interests (e.g., the Ming loyalist Liu Rushi), extensive travels (e.g., Wang Wei), cross dressing (Liu Rushi), consorting with men as friends or their intellectual equals (implicit in many of Yu Huai’s portraits), or boldly pursuing union with their lovers (e.g., Dong Bai, Chen Yuanyuan). Caution is in order, of course, lest we overromanticize. One well-known vernacular tale from the sixteenth century is the love story between an oil peddler and a famous courtesan. At one point the latter is humiliated as a common prostitute by a man she spurns and is left to fend for herself by the wayside, with her shoes and foot-binding cloth removed.41 Zhang Dai (1597–1679), who eulogized ethereal and refined courtesans like Zhu Chusheng and Wang Yuesheng,42 also dwelled on their lesser counterparts in Yangzhou: “Numbering as many as five or six hundred, these vulgar courtesans come out of the alleys every day at dusk. Bathed, adorned, and perfumed, they linger and mill around teahouses and wine shops, doing so-called ‘sentry-duty at the passes.’ . . . When one of them sees a plausible candidate, she will draw close and drag him away. But the said courtesan will also suddenly know her place and respectfully let the client go first, while she follows him with slow steps.” Those left behind would sometimes sing, banter, or feign loud merriment to pass the time and hide their misery, “but their words and laughter gradually begin to sound pathetic and gloomy. When night deepens, they have no choice but to slink away in the dark stealthily like ghosts. When they see their old madam, they may have to endure hunger and flogging for all we know.”43 The texts in this volume describe an opposite world. The issue is not, however, a simple either-or choice

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between a glamorous aura and a sordid reality. There are many gradations and nuances in the spectrum, and the romanticism and heroism in these texts are often convincing. However, we should recognize that the sense of freedom, independence, and splendor is all the more treasured and celebrated precisely because it is recognized as a precariously sustained, carefully wrought, and passionately defended illusion, especially when the political turmoil of the Ming-Qing transition fuses memories of courtesans with lamentation for the fall of the Ming dynasty and nostalgia for the romantic and aesthetic values of late Ming culture.

WRITING ABOU T COURTESANS

Starting with Cui Lingqin’s Accounts of the Bureau of Music Instruction ( Jiaofang ji, ninth c.) and Sun Qi’s Accounts of the Northern Ward, and especially from the mid-sixteenth century onward, we have a steady stream of works devoted to courtesans. These include the aforementioned works offering evaluations and praise of courtesans as well as guidebooks detailing the lore of the pleasure quarters and its codes of conduct, such as Elegant Expressions from the Blue Tower (Qinglou yunyu, 1616) compiled by Zhu Yuanji and Zhang Mengzheng.44 Mei Dingzuo’s (1553–1619) Records of Lotus in Mud (Qingni lianhua ji) tells stories of virtuous courtesans in Chinese history, and Pan Zhiheng devotes long sections of his Long History (Gen shi) and Miscellanies of Luanxiao (Luanxiao xiaopin) to courtesans and his relationships with them. Ranking of Flowers (Pin hua jian, early seventeenth c.) is the earliest extant anthology of writings on courtesans.45 Mao Xiang’s Plum Shadows, however, is a radical departure from this tradition. It unfolds as profoundly personal memories tracing Mao’s relationship with the courtesan Dong Bai over twelve years, from their fleeting encounter in 1639 till Dong’s death at age twenty-eight in 1651. Although there is a long tradition of

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elegiac poetry and biographical writings, Mao Xiang’s memoir is an unprecedented attempt to bring the minutiae of daily life and the frank avowal of emotions to the commemoration of a beloved woman. Portrayed as withdrawn and frail, Dong nevertheless actively pursued union with the initially reluctant Mao Xiang and, after overcoming many obstacles, became his concubine in 1642. Two years later, the Ming dynasty collapsed. They endured great hardships during the turmoil of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. Mao gave a vivid account of their peregrinations and sufferings, paying mournful tribute to Dong’s strength, resourcefulness, and selfless devotion to him and his family. In other words, although Mao disclaims any explicit political agenda, the love story of Dong and Mao comes to be conflated with a higher moral-political purpose. It is as if Dong’s moral exemplarity vindicates the romanticaesthetic values that form the basis of their initial bond. Plum Shadows follows a broadly chronological arc, but fragmentation, lyricism, and the aesthetic organization of experience hold sway. The compartmentalization of memories can be especially startling if we reconstruct all the events chronologically: Mao and Dong seem to have enjoyed the pleasures of travels; reveled in the connoisseurship of tea, incense, and flowers; and pursued arcane scholarly labors in the shadow of dynastic collapse or even while suffering dislocation in the midst of political turmoil. To the modern reader Mao Xiang may come across as a selfish, inconstant, and cowardly lover; his self-perception and selfpresentation seem to be that he set the right priorities by placing filial piety and devotion to his family and lineage above private passion. Contemporary public opinion might well have been on his side. Despite social acceptance of dalliances with courtesans, critiques of potential excesses abound. Mao’s friend and fellow Revival Society member Wei Xuelian (1608–1644, jinshi 1643) initially disapproved of his relationship with Dong.46 The scholarofficial Huang Daozhou (1585–1646) sent a poem entitled “Summoning Liu’s Soul” (Liu zhao) to his disciple, Mao Xiang’s sworn

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brother Liu Lüding (1597–1645), to urge him to leave the world of pleasure quarters (QMZ 5:593–94). The scholar and thinker Huang Zongxi (1610–695) criticized Hou Fangyu (1618–1655), a good friend of Mao Xiang and Yu Huai, for drinking with courtesans in 1639 when his father was in prison. When a friend defended Hou as one who could not bear solitude, Huang replied, “If a person cannot bear solitude, where would he not descend to?”47 In Huang’s view, consorting with courtesans when moral obligations beckon was indefensible. Mao Xiang was born in 1611 to a distinguished scholar-official family in Rugao (Jiangsu) that traced its ancestry to a Mongol prince. He was a prolific writer. Aside from the aforementioned anthology (Collected Writings of Kindred Spirits), he left behind collections of his prose and poetry. Despite early success in passing the lowest level of the civil service examination and a reputation for literary precocity, Mao attained only a place on the supplementary list for provincial graduates in 1642. He was a staunch member of the Revival Society (Fu she). Established in 1629, it consisted of a late Ming group of scholars, officials, and literati committed to purifying politics and reinvigorating literature.48 Repeated attempts to take the examination meant many sojourns in Nanjing, where fervent literary and political discussions often took place on the painted boats of Qinhuai in the company of courtesans. Political idealism, romantic passion, engagement with contemporary crisis, and pursuit of pleasure seem to have been inextricably intertwined. After the fall of the Ming, Mao did not serve under the Qing government. Some have suggested that he might have been covertly involved in anti-Qing resistance in the 1650s, but the inference is based on oblique references.49 In the aftermath of Qing conquest, to become a loyalist (literally, “remnant subject” or subject of a bygone regime) who “refused to serve two dynasties” was to take a path widely recognized as honorable. Unlike loyalists who embraced ascetic withdrawal from the new order, however, Mao

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retained a lifestyle of relative opulence and sometimes socialized with Qing officials. Despite suffering losses during the dynastic transition, the Mao family retained enough of its wealth to build a garden estate, the Painted-in-Water Garden (Shuihui yuan), in the 1650s. Mao offered refuge to his loyalist friends and their descendants, hosting literary gatherings and theatrical performances that were often suffused with mournful nostalgia.50 The family’s financial situation eventually deteriorated considerably, in part because of a family feud, and by the late 1670s Mao Xiang was making a living by selling his calligraphy. Even then, he was actively involved in charity efforts to ameliorate the effects of famine in his hometown. Dong Bai was one of the courtesans whom Yu Huai wrote about in Plank Bridge, the second work included in this volume. Indeed, a number of characters appear in both books besides Dong Bai and Mao Xiang: these include Gu Mei, Gong Dingzi, Li Daniang, Sha Cai, Wei Xuelian, Hou Fangyu, Fang Yizhi (1611– 1671, jinshi 1640), Qian Qianyi, Wu Qi (1619–1694), and Zheng Yuanxun (1604–1645). Yu Huai and Mao Xiang were good friends and had much in common: both failed in the examination system despite their great talent, both belonged to the same literary circles in Jiangnan, both were actively involved in the Revival Society, and both lived as Ming loyalists after the fall of the Ming, combining covert political engagement with a lifestyle that did not eschew sensuality and refinement.51 For all that, the logic and organization of the two works are different. Mao Xiang focuses on one courtesan who became his concubine, while Yu Huai offers a series of anecdotes and memories about twenty-seven courtesans. Mao Xiang implicitly defends the continuity of their former lifestyles, but Yu Huai emphasizes rupture. Mao seems to want to impose orthodox moral and social order on romantic sentiments and political chaos, even while aestheticizing that order, whereas Yu proposes an order that transcends conventional boundaries as

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it emerges from the vagaries of memory. Both can sound by turns boastful and defensive about their participation in the world of courtesans, but Mao is more consistently self-righteous about his choices. Unlike Plum Shadows, Plank Bridge distinctly evokes the aforementioned tradition of writing about courtesans. Works written in the shadow of dynastic collapse to preserve the memories of cities at the height of their glory, including memories of their entertainment and pleasure quarters, such as Meng Yuanlao’s (twelfth c.) Record of Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital (Dongjing menghua lu) and Wu Zimu’s (late thirteenth c.) Record of a Millet Dream (Meng liang lu), also inform its sensibility.52 Plank Bridge draws upon the style and narrative modes of those earlier works, but it bears the distinct imprint of its era. Yu Huai was born in 1616 in Putian (Fujian), but at a young age he moved to Jinling with his parents and never returned to his hometown. In 1669 he moved to Suzhou; he died there in 1696. He had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, among them many famous men of letters. In their extant writings we find Yu Huai praised as a young man of extraordinary talent and promise and, with advancing years, a person of wide interests and deep political engagement. He served as the secretary of Fan Jingwen (1587–1644), a former minister of war, from 1640 to 1644. (To become a secretary and unofficial advisor of officials was a common path for the literati who could not enter officialdom through success in the examination.) He did not advance beyond the lowest degree in the civil service examination and alluded to his failure in the 1642 provincial examination in Plank Bridge. Some scholars suggest that his peregrinations in the Yangzi area from the mid-1640s to the late 1660s were tied to anti-Qing resistance, although the evidence is not conclusive.53 Yu Huai’s extant corpus, a mere fraction of what he wrote, includes many poems of political lament, and he made a point of not using the reign titles

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of Qing emperors, but there are no direct references to resistance. Both fellow loyalists and Qing officials feature prominently in Yu’s literary exchanges. Plank Bridge is the only work by Yu Huai that had wide circulation during the Qing dynasty.54 Yu wrote Plank Bridge in 1694, fifty years after the fall of the Ming. Eight centuries earlier, Sun Qi wrote Accounts of the North Ward in the aftermath of the devastating Huang Chao Rebellion (880) and implied that his “forgotten stories of an era of peace” offer a warning on how “things going to one extreme must end in reversal.” Yu Huai also referred to his book as a warning against sensual indulgence, but compared to Sun Qi’s his tone is much more personal and frankly nostalgic. Yu mixes recollections of the pleasure quarters along the Qinhuai River in Nanjing with reported anecdotes about courtesans and their clients. He claims to use these memories to sum up “what is bound up with the rise and decline of an era and the melancholy reflections over all those years.” Yu Huai’s deep nostalgia for late Ming courtesan culture bears the toll of personal loss and national calamity: mourning lost years and friends who are no more, he also uses his account of the destruction of the Qinhuai pleasure quarters to lament the fall of the Ming dynasty. Plank Bridge has played a decisive role in establishing the late Ming courtesan as a cultural ideal. Yu Huai chronicles the beauty, wit, and refined taste of these courtesans and their accomplishments as poets, painters, calligraphers, and musicians. He empathizes with their plights and dilemmas, successes and failures, unconventionality and free spirit, and above all their role in the political struggles of the period. By paying tribute to the political convictions of these courtesans and their patrons, Yu Huai implies, like Mao Xiang, that heroism and moral integrity can accommodate romantic liaisons; further, apparently self-indulgent behavior may actually mask or even encourage moral resolve. Again and again Yu Huai refers to the statesman Xie An (320– 385) and the poet Du Mu as his models: these are figures deeply engaged with

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political and military issues despite their aesthetic sensibility and romantic dalliances.55 Both Plank Bridge and Plum Shadows spawned many imitations during the Qing dynasty. Almost all Qing accounts of courtesan quarters evoke Plank Bridge and affect a melancholy tone in their prefaces; in the cases of works written in the aftermath of the Taiping Wars and during the late Qing dynastic crisis, their authors drew explicit parallels between confronting political turmoil and pursuing or remembering pleasures and passions. Plank Bridge was first reprinted and translated in 1772 in Japan and had significant reverberations in Japanese literature.56 Eighteenthand nineteenth-century memoirs about wives and concubines follow the model of Plum Shadows.57 Chen Peizhi’s (1794–1826) Reminiscences of the House of Fragrant Orchids (Xiangwan lou yiyu) in particular contains many deliberate echoes of Plum Shadows. Chen’s memoir in turn became the basis of a play, The House of Fragrant Orchids (Xiangwan lou, 1825 preface) by Peng Jiannan. Shen Fu’s (1763–after 1809) Six Records of a Floating Life (Fusheng liuji) and Jiang Tan’s (ca. 1820–1862) Fragments of Memories Under the Autumn Lamp (Qiudeng suoyi) both bear the imprint of Plum Shadows.58 Wang Tao’s (1828–1897) Memoir of the Meizhu Convent (Meizhu an yiyu, ca. 1853) describing his unrealized romance with a young woman also evokes Mao Xiang’s work. Six Records contains a section on “The Delights of Leisure,” which reminds us of the passages on the art of living in Plum Shadows; these passages in turn evoke the Ming-Qing literature of connoisseurship. The emphasis on personal, private experiences and the definition of value beyond the fulfillment of familial and sociopolitical roles in these works have given them a new appeal since the early twentieth century. In the section “Two Famous Courtesans,” I have included stories and poems about Liu Rushi and Chen Yuanyuan. Liu was a poet who consorted with renowned men of letters and eventually became Qian Qianyi’s concubine. The great historian Chen Yinke

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(1890–1969) reconstructed details of her life, including her covert involvement in anti-Qing resistance, and claimed that she represents “the independence of spirit and freedom of thought of our people.” Liu Rushi was not from Qinhuai, hence her exclusion from Yu Huai’s memoir. Chen Yuanyuan was from nearby Suzhou and was active in Nanjing; Yu could have included her but chose not to, perhaps for political reasons.59 Chen Yuanyuan plays a significant role in Plum Shadows, but the dramatic story of her supposed role in the fall of the Ming dynasty is told in other materials. Both Liu and Chen embody the intersection of romantic and political passions that are also central to Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge and account for their abiding appeal.

N O T E O N T R A N S L AT I O N

It was common for elite men and women, as well as courtesans, to have sobriquets and style names (zi, hao). Men can also be designated by their official titles, the location where they served, their place of provenance, titles of their collections, or their posthumous honorifics. A person’s given name (ming) is rarely used in conversation and in writing, except in formal biographies. For the sake of clarity, I have mostly unified nomenclature under given names. I have adhered to the traditional Chinese way of calculating age, whereby a person is one year old at birth. Places often have multiple names—for example, Nanjing is also called Jinling, Moling, Baimen, Baixia, and the Stone City. I have modernized and unified place names in some cases. In the Chinese lunar calendar, the beginning of the first month usually comes sometime in late January or in February. For example, the Chongzhen emperor (r. 1627– 1644) killed himself on the nineteenth day of the third month in 1644, and that was April 25 in the Gregorian calendar. I have rendered cun (varying through history from 2.25 to 3.2 cm.) and chi (10 cun) as “inch” and “foot,” although the Chinese measurement

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units are smaller. One li is about a third of a mile. A tael and a catty (16 taels) weigh a little more than an ounce and a pound. The qin (koto in Japanese), a horizontal string instrument, is translated as “zither,” while pipa, which resembles a lute, is left in transliteration. Lan, translated as “orchid” here, bears little resemblance to the familiar ornamental plants with that name; these herbal plants can grow wild and have long narrow leaves and smaller, more fragrant flowers (see figs. 2.1, 2.2). I have added Chinese characters for poems and titles of poems in the notes and in the supplementary materials. I have not done so for the poems in Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge because the original texts are easy to find.

Reminiscences O F TH E

Plum Shadows Convent

g MAO XIANG

“Portrait of Dong Xiaowan (Dong Bai)” (1814) by Zhou Xu (early nineteenth century). Based on a portrait of Dong Bai painted by Mao Xiang’s friend Xiao Yuncong (1596–1673). Ling Xiao bought Xiao’s portrait in 1800 and let his friend Zhou Xu make several copies in 1814. Nanjing Museum

P R E FAC E T O T H E B R I E F AC C O U N T OF MY DECEASED CONCUBI NE1

Love arises from intimacy, and being intimate means that there is nothing one does not embellish. Given the tendency to follow embellishments and attach them to the beloved, there are very few truly lovable ones in the whole wide world. Furthermore, hidden light and quiet brilliance are found behind screens in the depths of the inner chamber, and all depends on the imagination and description of men of letters given to ornate and intricate elaboration. They spin fantastic templates of the goddess Magu and all too readily transmit stories about the divine woman of Mount Wu.2 More recently, enthusiasts also resort to fashioning lyrics and songs to indulge in hyperboles about wondrous unions.3 As a result, everyone seems to have the likes of Xi Shi, Yiguang, Wenjun, and Xue Tao in their abodes.4 This too is a grave injustice to the truly talented beauties of the inner chambers and nothing but the dreadful practice of angling for fame.5 My deceased concubine, née Dong, was named Bai. She had the sobriquets Xiaowan and Qinglian.6 Her place of provenance was Qinhuai,7 and she moved to Suzhou. Although she had a reputation for alluring beauty in the world of the pleasure quarters, that had nothing to do with her true colors. After a brief chance

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meeting8 that resulted in a deep bond, she vowed to follow me. Her wisdom, talent, and judgment began to show in various ways only after she became my concubine. Over nine years, she had no conflicts and no misunderstandings with anyone, be they above or below her, inside or outside the household, young or old. She helped me with writing books and with pursuing a full life in reclusion. She helped my wife with fine needlework. Whether in the course of personally attending to domestic duties in mundane life or during moments of crisis, as when she encountered calamities and endured sickness, she was never anything but the same person, treading dangerous terrain as if it were a level road, savoring bitter herbs as if they were a delicacy. Now all of a sudden she is dead, and I do not know whether she has died or I have died. All I can see is how my wife is lonesome and helpless without her, looking at her left and right hands, not knowing where to put them. Everyone, be they above or below her, inside or outside the household, young or old, is grieving and filled with sorrow, knowing full well that there will never be anyone like her again. When I tell of her heart of wisdom and secret good deeds, those who listen and heave sighs all, without exception, say that men of letters and heroes of integrity can hardly measure up to her. I already wrote an elegy of several thousand words to mourn her.9 Limited by the prosodic rules of poetic form, I cannot give all the details, which is why I am again briefly recording the broad outlines here. Whenever I contemplate her whole life in quiet pain, scenes from the nine years I spent with her surge in my heart and block my eyes. Even if I had the heart and mind of ancient masters who swallowed the enchanted bird or dreamed of magical flowers,10 I would not be able to recapture and recount all of them. Mine is but a meager brush soaked in tears: my writing is austere, arduous, lackluster, and pared down. I cannot with all my effort convey my love; what room is there for embellishment? Further, that she served me was, from beginning to end, not the result of a sensual bond of intimacy. I am already forty—my eyebrows and

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beard are grizzled and spiky. Fifteen years ago, the esteemed Chen Jiru said of me that I “regard the romance of the brocade vest and the honor of the green gauze-clad poem with a dismissive smile and a blank stare.”11 How can I then at this point in my life still imitate frivolous fellows in carelessly spinning tales of sensual passion and deceive the one who rests beneath the earth? If those who trust me deeply manage to know, through me, how truly extraordinary she was, and bestow on us their grand writing and beautiful words, and I get to rely on their help to offer her this recompense, then she can have died without regret, and I can live without regret.12

RECORD OF FI RST ENCO UNT ERS

In the early summer of the jimao year (1639), I was going to take the examination at Nanjing and met with Fang Yizhi. He said, “Among the beauties of Qinhuai there recently appeared a fairy maiden named Dong Shuangcheng.13 She is quite young, and her talents and beauty have no match in our time.” I went to visit her, but, having become weary of the extravagance and commotion of Nanjing, she had taken her family to the Suzhou area. Some time later, after I had failed the examination,14 I traveled to my heart’s content in the Suzhou area and tried to visit her several times at Bantang,15 but at the time she was staying in the Dongting Mountains16 and had not come back. The courtesans whose reputation came close to hers were Sha Jiuwan and Yang Yizhao.17 Day in and day out I tarried among them, but I failed to meet her despite our proximity. When I was about to return, I went to visit her again, hoping for a meeting. Her mother was gracious and worthy. She consoled me: “You, sir, have come several times. Fortunately my daughter is at home, not having quite awakened from slight inebriation. But in a while she will have to go out again.” They then emerged from a narrow path as her mother supported her at the

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zigzagging balustrade, and we met. Her face was faintly aglow with the hint of early spring, and her eyes, still slightly intoxicated, wandered and lingered. Charming and beautiful, she was fair as white jade. She had a natural and artless grace, and was too languid to exchange a word with me. Surprised by the encounter, I was filled with tender feelings toward her. Concerned that she might be fatigued, I took my leave and returned. This was the first of our delightful meetings. She was then sixteen. 555

[Translator’s note] Fang Yizhi, who first mentioned Dong Bai to Mao Xiang, was a famous scholar and poet. After the fall of the Ming, he took the tonsure, was involved in anti-Qing resistance, and died a Ming martyr.18 According to Han Tan’s funereal essay on Mao Xiang, Mao Xiang, Fang Yizhi, Hou Fangyu, and Chen Zhenhui (1605– 1656), all famous young scholars of distinguished pedigree in the 1630s and 1640s, were called at the time “the four noble sons” (si gongzi) (MPJ 2:754–56). Fang Yizhi and Sun Lin (1611–1646) organized a “beauty contest” for the public ranking of Qinhuai courtesans on Double Seventh in 1639.19 Mao Xiang was twenty-nine when he first met Dong Bai. In the spirit of avoiding romantic clichés that he avows in the preface, he describes their encounter as almost accidental, and his tone is restrained. Mao Xiang’s friend Zhang Mingbi (1584–1652, jinshi 1637) presents this first meeting as more deliberate and fateful in his biography of Dong Bai:20 In the jimao year (1639), He [Mao Xiang] took the examination and came to Qinhuai. Wu Yingji (1594–1645), Fang Yizhi, and Hou Fangyu all excitedly heaped praise on Dong Bai. 21 Mao Xiang said, “Nothing can be certain until she has been

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seen by the eyes of the truly discerning.”22 She [Dong Bai] had also often heard people speaking about Mao Xiang at the feasts and gatherings of the distinguished, and she made inquiries about what sort of person he was. Someone told her: “This is a famous talented scholar of our time, someone who is buoyed by the heroic spirit of integrity and yet who takes pleasure in his romantic panache.” Thus she too stored him in her heart. But when Mao Xiang and Fang Yizhi tried several times to visit her, she had moved to Suzhou, having become tired of the hubbub of Qinhuai. Right around that time he did not succeed in the examination, and he saw his father off as the latter took office in Guangdong. He then stayed a while in Suzhou. He heard that she was living in Bantang and went to visit her again and again, but often failed to meet her. At that time, she was suffering from the commotion around her: when she was not tied up in dealing with the rich and powerful, she escaped to quiet and remote pathways. One day, as she was sleeping from inebriation, she heard that Mao Xiang was at the door. Her mother, who was also intelligent and pleasing, tried her best to help her come out. They saw each other under the flowers by the zigzagging balustrade. Host and guest were like a pair of luminous jades, it was as if they were shrouded in the moonlight flowing over the hall and the doorway. And then they stared at each other without a word. For Mao Xiang was thinking that she was foremost among the women he had seen and this was someone with whom he could tie the red silk thread of romantic union. As for Dong Bai, she was saying to herself: “I observe him quietly and can understand his spirit and élan. This is indeed the person to whom I can entrust heart and soul.” However, she feared that it would seem too hasty to want to marry him. Thus it was like a meeting in a dream between old lovers and friends of long standing. The harmonious communion of two minds defied all comparisons. The only thing she could do was to

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repeat as she looked at her mother: “An extraordinary man! An extraordinary man!” 555

In the summer of the gengchen year (1640), I was staying for some time at the Garden of Reflections.23 I wanted to go visit her, but found out from a guest who had come from Suzhou that she had left for West Lake and was also going to travel to White Peak and Yellow Mountain.24 Consequently, my trip did not come to fruition. In the early spring of the xinsi year (1641), I set out on a journey to see my father at Mount Heng, taking the Zhejiang route.25 Passing by Bantang, I sought news of her, and found out that she was still staying at Yellow Mountain. His honor Xu Zhi was heading toward Guangdong to take up his post, and we traveled on the same boat.26 One day, quite by chance, he said to me upon returning from a drinking party, “There is a courtesan named Chen here—she has superb mastery of the arts of the Pear Garden.27 We must not fail to meet her.” Only after I helped him bespeak a boat and made several trips back and forth did we get to meet her. She was delicate and refined, graceful and ethereal. Wearing clothes made of the finest silk, she would now and then look back on her trailing skirt. She truly seemed like a phoenix in mist and clouds.28 That day she was performing The Story of the Red Plum Tree and singing in the Yiyang style.29 Take an opera steeped in northern practice and tunes that were high-pitched, loud, and fast and furious, and let the sounds come from courtesan Chen’s mouth, and the music would be like clouds emerging from the peaks or pearls dropping onto a basin, sending one to the heights of ecstasy.30 The clepsydra marked the fourth drum,31 and it suddenly started to rain and become windy. Chen insisted on taking the small boat and leaving. I tugged her clothes and tried to arrange for another meeting. She answered, “The plum blossoms

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at Guangfu are like ten thousand acres of cold clouds.32 Will you be able to accompany me to travel there tomorrow morning? If so, we can stay there for half a month.” Under pressure from the mission to meet my father, I told her I did not dare to tarry. I also said, “My boat will be turning back from the Southern Peak, and I expect to wait for you among the cassia trees at Tiger Mound.” For by my calculation of the dates, I would be returning in the eighth month.33 555

[Translator’s note] The unnamed courtesan Chen is Chen Yuanyuan (see “Two Famous Courtesans”). By the time Mao Xiang was writing Plum Shadows in 1651, Chen had become the concubine of Wu Sangui, a military commander who played a key role in facilitating the Qing conquest of China. The Yiyang singing style, dominated by percussion instruments and a fast tempo, originated in Jiangxi but was also popular in Beijing34 and might have merged with regional singing styles in the north, hence the reference to “northern practice.” Most among the literati favored the slower and subtler Kun singing style. Mao Xiang claims, however, that Chen Yuanyuan’s artistry makes even the strident Yiyang tunes irresistible. According to Zou Shu, Chen also excelled in singing in the Kun style, and played the maid Hongniang in The Western Chamber (Xixiang ji) to perfection.35 Mao Xiang was a great connoisseur of music, and the Mao family, like a lot of wealthy families at the time, kept its own theatrical troupe (BJ 129– 71). In his diary chronicling his journey to Hunan to see his father, Mao Xiang did not indicate any special connection between him and Chen Yuanyuan. On the third day of the second month in 1641, he ascended Tiger Mound with Chen Yuanyuan and the aforementioned Yang Yizhao. He marveled at Chen’s operatic singing the following day. That day he made a plan to see the plum

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blossoms at West Mountain with his friend Zhu Kui, a fellow Revival Society scholar and poet. On the sixth day he got drunk and did not get up in time for the excursion: “The following day we untied the hawser and left. The plum blossoms of Tianping and Guangfu are like cold clouds and bright snow, but I did not get to fulfill the promise of visiting the plum blossoms with Yunzi (Zhu Kui). This journey is urgent, and I am eager to see my father. I would rather break a promise to the landscape and to my friend” (MPJ 1:327–28). Mao did not mention Chen Yuanyuan’s overtures. 555

I parted from her, and returned with my mother on precisely the day for watching the tides.36 When we reached West Lake, I was tormented by burning anxiety because my father had been reappointed to another office at Xiangyang, which had fallen into the rebels’ hands. 37 When the opportunity arose, I asked for news about the courtesan Chen, but a powerful family related to the throne by marriage had already taken her away by force. I heard that and was devastated. By the time we reached Suzhou, the currents were sluggish and the boat was stranded. All the way from the Xu Lock,38 for about fifteen li, boats filled the waterways and there was no way to proceed. I met a friend by chance, and in our conversation I lamented that “such a fair one is hard to come by again.” 39 My friend said, “You are mistaken. The one who was taken away by force by powerful people some time earlier was a substitute who took her place. Her hiding place is quite close to us. I will go with you.” I arrived and indeed got to meet her—she was like a fragrant orchid in a secluded valley. We looked at each other and smiled. She said, “You have come at last. Weren’t you the one who made the wonderful promise on the boat on that rainy night? Back then I was moved by your sincerity, but being so rushed, I did not get to arrange another meeting with you. And now I was almost lost to the tiger’s jaws. That I managed to escape

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and meet you again is indeed the grace of Heaven. I live in a rather remote place and have also taken to regular abstinence from all but plain vegetarian food. With a bowl of tea and a burner with incense, I will make you stay for a wholehearted outpouring under the bright moon and in the shadows of the cassia. Furthermore, there is something I want to discuss with you.” On account of the many obstacles along the river in the Chu area and the fact that I had my aged mother in the boat, I led about a hundred strongmen to protect us on the way.40 They were all by the canal, and I was eager to return. Once dusk fell, the cannon and artillery became deafening, and the sounds of cannon fire seemed to be right next to our boat. I rushed back at full speed. It turned out to be some imperial eunuchs arguing for the right of way on the canal and getting into a fight with our guards, and they left only after I resolved the conflict. From then on I no longer went on shore. The following morning, the courtesan Chen came, simply attired and wearing little makeup, and asked to be presented to my mother, the senior honored lady.41 After the meeting, she again firmly extracted a promise that I should pass by her house. That night, the boat was still blocked by obstacles, and I took advantage of the moonlight to go and meet her. Suddenly she declared: “Now that this body of mine has escaped the cage, I want to choose someone I can serve in marriage. As for the person who can be entrusted with my whole life, there is none better than you. Just now I met the senior honored lady, and it was as if I was protected by spring clouds and was imbibing sweet dew. Truly I have found the master of my fate. You must not decline.” I smiled and said, “Things are never this simple in our world. Furthermore, my father is caught in the flames of war. After I return home, I should be prepared to abandon my wife and children and follow him in death. That I twice stopped by your abode was because obstacles on our way sent me aimlessly wandering. Your words came so unexpectedly—I am quite startled. Even if things are as you

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described, I have to stop my ears and firmly decline. I cannot lead you on for no good reason.” She gently and delicately persisted: “So long as you don’t ultimately reject me, I vow to wait for your glorious return from the mission to serve your father.” I answered, “In that case, I should make a pact with you.” Surprised by joy, she dilated on various plans and injunctions—much was said, and I cannot fully recall everything. I composed eight quatrains right then and there and presented them to her.42 I returned home and spent the autumn and winter seeking reprieve in thousands of arduous ways.43 Finally, in late spring of the renwu year (1642), various gentlemen responsible for remonstrance in the capital government sympathized with the endeavors of the toiling official and took pity on the anguish of his only son, and hurriedly sent news—first notifying me—that they had taken due account of the situation, and my father was to be reassigned to another post. At that time I was in Piling [in Jiangsu]. Getting the message was like having a stone lifted from my heart. When the opportunity arose, I went to Suzhou to console the courtesan Chen. For toward the end of winter she urged me several times to hurry, but I did not have the chance to answer any of her missives. By the time I arrived, it turned out that she was again subjected to pressure and taken away under duress by the henchmen of the powerful family related to the throne by marriage. The one who had hidden her earlier gathered a thousand persons to clamor for her release and got her back by force. The powerful family then threatened and deceived with big words, and they also did not balk at spending several thousand taels of silver on bribes.44 The local officials were worried about inviting trouble, and so she who had been taken out was sent back again.45 When I arrived, I was hopelessly despondent. However, for the sake of relieving my father’s distress in his moment of danger, I could not regret betraying the trust of a woman. That night I was filled with melancholy and thus went with my friend to look for a boat for a night excursion to Tiger Mound. I

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was going to send someone to Xiangyang the next day, then untie the hawser and return home. As our boat passed by a bridge, I saw a small storied structure by the water. I casually asked my friend: “What is this place? Whose house is this?” My friend replied that it was the House of Shuangcheng.46 She had been on my mind for three years. I could not help but be overjoyed and was about to stop the boat for a visit. My friend objected: “She too suffered quite a shock because of pressure from a powerful family and has been very sick for eighteen days. Her mother just died, and she has locked the door and is not receiving any guests.” I insisted on going ashore, and only after I knocked on the door quite a few times did someone open it. Under the light of a solitary lamp, I gingerly made my way upstairs and found medicine strewn everywhere on the low table and the couch. She moaned and asked whence I came. I told her I was the one she had met yesteryear by the zigzagging balustrade, when she was slightly inebriated. As the memory came to her, tears streamed down her face: “Back then you visited me several times. Although we had only one meeting, my mother often praised your extraordinary talent behind your back. She thought it was a pity that I did not get to spend more time with you. Now three years have passed. My mother just died. The sight of you makes me remember my mother—her words are still in my ears. Now where have you come from?” She then struggled to get up, raised the bed curtains, and looked at me carefully. She also moved the lamp and invited me to sit on the couch. After conversing for a while, I wanted to take my leave, being filled with tender concern for her sickness. She tugged at my clothes and tried to make me stay: “For eighteen days I have given up on both sleep and food. Sunk in a haze, I seemed to have been dreaming, and my unsettled soul found no rest. Now that I have seen you, I feel that my spirit is at ease, my energy revitalized.” She thereupon ordered the servants to prepare wine and food, and we drank in front of her couch. Time and again she encouraged me to drink. I tried to leave several times, and every time she

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detained me and would not let me go. I told her: “Tomorrow I will be sending someone to Xiangyang to tell my father the happy news about his reassignment to a new post. If I stay overnight at your place, I will not be able to send the message that all is well tomorrow morning. Let us first send the messenger on his way. It would be better to wait a little while.” She said, “You are indeed extraordinary. I do not dare to detain you.” We thus parted. The following morning, the messenger heading to Hunan went on his way. I was eager to return, but my friend and the servants all said, “She merely ‘tilted her carriage top against yours’ 47 yesterday—she is so earnest that you must not fail her.” I thus still went to say good-bye. By the time I arrived, she was fully dressed and made up, leaning against the balustrade upstairs and intently focusing her gaze. When she saw my boat drawing close to the bank, she moved quickly toward us and got on the boat. I explained in some detail that I was about to set out. She said, “I am dressed in preparation for this. I will see you off along the way.” 48 I wanted to decline her offer but could not; I wanted to stop her but could not bear to do so. From Xu Lock to Piling, Yangxian, Chengjiang, and all the way to Beigu, twenty-seven days passed, and all together we bade farewell twenty-seven times, but she insisted on following me. When we ascended Mount Jin,49 she made a vow, calling on the river currents as witness: “May my body go east like the river: I will definitely not return to Suzhou.” I changed color and demurred, protesting that this could not be. I explained that the date of the provincial examination was close and pressing, that over the last year I had been leaving family affairs in disarray and had been neglecting my mother because my father was being detained in treacherous territory, and that it was only at that moment that I could return and take care of everything. Furthermore, she had quite a number of debtors demanding overdue payments in Suzhou,50 and removing her name from the Music Registry in

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Jinling would also require planning and deliberation. I suggested that she should nevertheless return to Suzhou: wait till late summer when I would be going to take the examination, and we could arrange to go together to Jinling. Only when the autumn examination was over, depending on whether I succeeded or not, would I have the time to attend to this matter. To be entangled and clinging at this point would mean that we would become a burden to each other and no good would come of it. Even then she was hesitant and refused to go. At that moment there was a set of dice on the low table. One friend said in jest: “If your wish is ultimately fulfilled, may you obtain the lucky number with one throw.” She solemnly bowed at the boat window and, after finishing her prayer, got all sixes with one throw. At the time everybody on the boat declared this extraordinary. I said if our union was indeed ordained by Heaven, then rash haste would bring no benefit and would instead ruin everything. It would be better for her to leave for now and plan this later. It was only then that she, being left with no choice, covered her face and cried bitterly, losing her voice as she bade me farewell. Although I pitied her, I felt as if I was relieved of a great burden when I was able to return home without encumbrance. Not long after I reached Hailing, I went to take the examination. 51 When I got home in the sixth month, my wife said to me: “The courtesan Dong sent her father to cross the river and come here with this message: she has returned to Suzhou and will be keeping a vegetarian diet and will not be leaving her house. The only thing she would do is to raise her head expectantly to listen for news about the trip with you to Jinling. I heard these words and my heart marveled at her. I sent her father away with ten taels and these words: I already sympathize with her on her resolve and accede to this. But just wait till he quietly completes the examination first—there is nothing to be said against that.” I was grateful for my wife’s generosity in facilitating this

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and giving her blessing. I therefore did not fulfill the promise of going to meet her. Instead I went to Jinling, waiting for the examination to be over before I could repay her devotion. On the morning of the fifteenth day of the cassia month,52 right after I left the examination quarters, she suddenly arrived at my lodgings at Peach Leaf Crossing. As it turned out, she was expectantly waiting but there was no news from me, so all on her own she bought a boat and set out from Suzhou, taking an old woman servant with her. During the boat trip, they encountered brigands. Their boat was hidden among reeds and the oars were damaged, so they were not able to cook any food for three days. On the eighth day they arrived at Three Mountains Gate, but wary of disturbing my focus as I started the first round of examination essays, they delayed their entry into the city for two more days. She was very happy when she met me, but as she recounted in detail how, in the hundred days since we parted, she had kept to a vegetarian diet and locked her door, and described her terror during the travails of a boat trip threatened by brigands, she looked and sounded disconsolate. She became even more adamant about her wish to marry me. At that time, various fellow Revival Society members from Weitang [Zhejiang], Yunjian [Jiangsu], Fujian, and Henan all without exception praised her judgment and pitied her sincerity, and they all composed poems and created paintings to support her resolve.53 Once the examination was over, I preposterously assumed that I would surely succeed. I figured that thereafter I would be able to attend to her affairs as recompense for her determination. How could I have known that news would suddenly come on the seventeenth day that my father’s boat had reached the riverbank? As it turned out, he had not gone to Baoqing, where he had been transferred, to take up the new appointment; instead he had retired from office at Chu [Hunan]. By then two years had passed since I tried to fulfill my filial duties. That he should have survived the flames of war and come back unscathed filled me with joy

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beyond expectation. I therefore did not get around to conferring with her about her plans to come or stay. Instead, I just followed my father’s boat from Dragon’s Deeps till we reached Luanjiang.54 When my father read my examination essays, he said I would certainly succeed, and he had me stay at Luanjiang to wait for the posting of pass lists. From my lodgings at Peach Leaf Crossing, she still took a boat and followed me. Impeded by a storm at Swallow Rock, she was again almost overtaken by disaster. We once more dallied on the boat at Luanjiang. Seven days later, the pass lists were posted, and my name was on the supplementary list.55 Day and night I devoted all my effort to returning to my hometown, but she cried bitterly and followed me, refusing to turn back. Yet upon carefully considering the state of her affairs in Suzhou, I did not have the wherewithal to resolve them on my own. Her debtors, seeing that I had come from afar, further heightened their already extravagant expectations, and barking and snarling voices were legion. Furthermore, my father had just come back, and I was also despondent because of my failure in the examination. It was absolutely impossible that our plans could come to fruition right away. When my boat reached the Hackleberry Nest outside the city walls, 56 I thus, with a cold face and a steely heart, bade her farewell and made her return to Suzhou. For it was only by temporarily satisfying the demands of those debtors that we could make plans for later. In the tenth month, I passed through Runzhou and paid my respects to my examiner, the honorable Zheng.57 At that time Liu Daxing, who hailed from Fujian, had arrived from the capital.58 Together with General Chen and my sworn brother Prefect Liu, we were drinking in my boat. Just then a servant came from her with this message: “Upon her return, she has not taken off the clothes she was wearing when she left with you. Even now she is wearing gauze-thin clothes.” He said that if I did not hurry to make plans on her behalf, she would rather freeze to death. Liu Daxing pointed at me and said, “You have always been known for

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your deep feelings and heroic integrity. Why would you fail a woman in this manner?” I said, “The heroic deeds of the knighterrant in yellow clothes and the Officer of the Guards Gu cannot be undertaken by Li Yi and Wang Xianke on their own.”59 The prefect raised his cup and shook his sleeve as he said, “If I am given a thousand taels to handle this in any way I want, I would go today.” General Chen immediately lent him several hundred taels, and Daxing assisted him in the effort by offering several catties of ginseng.60 Who could have known that when the prefect went to Suzhou, he would prove to be inept at mediation, and the clamorous crowd would reach a breaking point with him? He then left for Wujiang. I again returned to my hometown and did not have a chance to inquire what was happening. She was all alone, and every choice pointed to dire straits; the situation was impossible to manage. When the Minister of Rites from Yushan, Qian Qianyi, heard about this, he personally went to Bantang and brought her to his boat.61 In the interval of three days, he planned and sorted out everything on her behalf—from affairs of dignitaries above to those of the marketplace below, all matters big and small were meticulously managed, and papers of redeemed claims from creditors were more than a foot high. He hosted a farewell feast for her on his storied boat near Tiger Mound. Shortly thereafter, Minister Qian bought a boat and sent her to our home at Rugao. On the fifteenth day of the eleventh month, as I was attending to my father and drinking with him at the Hall of Preserving Ineptness in the gathering dusk, news suddenly came that she had reached the riverbank. Only when I received the letter from the minister, which recounted everything in detail and with flourish, did I fully understand the situation.62 Furthermore, the minister was going to send a letter right away to his honored protégé Zhang, an official in the Bureau of Sacrifices, so that he could immediately remove her name from the Music Registry. Whatever unresolved minor problems might arise in Suzhou would

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be taken care of by Zhou, an official in the Bureau of Ceremonies.63 As for affairs in Nanjing, Censor Li, formerly of the Ministry of Rites, would put in his effort.64 It was only after ten months that our wish came to be fulfilled. But the vines twining back and forth grew from being irrigated by ten thousand pints of our hearts’ blood. 555

Du Jun65 comments: “This piece elaborates events tirelessly and comes to several thousand words. Its flow is grand and powerful, like a river that rises from the Kunlun Mountains in the west and pours eastward toward the deep dark seas. Generously expansive yet gracefully subtle, it takes up different sides and separate branches, assuming multifarious aspects and shapes, overflowing with charm and alluring beauty. All of a sudden it makes works like ‘Encountering the Immortal’ and ‘Everlasting Sorrow’ pale in comparison.66 No one but Mao Xiang could have written this, and no one but she could have deserved such a composition. Truly this is a magnificent thing to behold: how can one regard it as merely words about love?”

R E C O R D O F T R AV E L S

At the end of the fourth month of the renwu year (1642), she saw me off all the way to the foot of Mount Beigu. She insisted on her wish to follow me as I crossed the river and returned to my hometown. I emphatically declined, but this only made her more forlorn and earnest, and she refused to leave. Our boat was moored by the riverbank. At the time the Western gentleman Bi Jinliang [Francesco Sambiasi] had sent me a bolt of Western summer cloth.67 It was as thin as cicada-wing gauze, and pure and dazzling like driven snow. Laying it over pink fabric, I had a light dress made for her. It was not any less enchanting than the Consort

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Zhang Lihua’s rainbow skirt in the Cassia Palace.68 Together we ascended Mount Jin. At that time four or five dragon boats came up crashing against the waves.69 On the mountain there were several thousand travelers. Some followed us, pointing to us as immortals. As we went around the mountain, wherever the two of us stopped, dragon boats vied to meet us, making several rounds and not leaving. I called them and asked them what that was about, and it turned out that all the rowers on the boats were oarsmen on the government boat I had taken to return to Zhejiang last autumn. I honored their exertion with geese and wine, and at the end of the day we returned to the boat. We had a big white Xuande porcelain bowl on the boat,70 and we used it to hold a good measure of cherries and ate them together. One could no longer distinguish what were the cherries and what were the lips.71 The splendor of rivers, mountains, and personalities epitomized the glory of those times. To this day people still speak about the occasion with immense admiration. On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival at Qinhuai, my various friends in the Revival Society, who had come from all corners of the realm, were moved by how she braved the dangers of brigands and storms to follow me and defy obstacles on the road. They thus set forth wine for a gathering at Peach Leaf Quayside Pavilion. Among the guests were Lady Gu of Mei’s Tower and Lady Li of the Studio of Wintry Grace—they were both like her closest kin. Glorying in the way she had entrusted herself to me, they all came to offer congratulations. That day there was a new performance of The Swallow’s Letter, which offered a delicate yet probing depiction of the beauty of romantic love. When it came to how Huo and Hua were separated and reunited, she wept, and Gu and Li also wept. For that moment, talented scholars and lovely ladies, mist and stream around towers and terraces, the new music and the bright moon—everything deserved to be remembered for the ages to come. Even now, as I think about it, it is

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no different from dreams and illusions on the Pillow for Roaming in the Realm of Immortals.72 555

[Translator’s note] On this occasion two other courtesans, Gu Mei and Li Xiaoda,73 join the gathering. Mao refers to them by the honorifics they would gain later. The Swallow’s Letter is a play written by Ruan Dacheng (ca. 1587–1646), widely reviled by Revival Society members for his ties with the eunuch Wei Zhongxian. Ruan persecuted these Revival Society scholars after he became a minister during the yearlong continuation of Ming rule under the Hongguang emperor (r. 1644–1645) in Nanjing after the fall of Beijing in 1644. Here Mao simply emphasizes how affecting The Swallow’s Letter is. The play traces the vicissitudes in the love story between the scholar Huo Duliang and two women, the courtesan Hua Xingyun and a minister’s daughter, Li Feiyun. The courtesans obviously empathize more with Hua’s fate. In his postscript to “Song of the Past” ᖰ᱄㹼 (1679) by his friend She Yiceng (MPJ 2:1350–54), Mao Xiang recalled events from the final years of the Ming dynasty, including the political significance of the above episode in his life. One of his fellow examination candidates in 1642 was Wei Xuelian, son of the Donglin martyr Wei Dazhong (1575–1625, jinshi 1616).74 When Wei saw Dong Bai coming into Mao’s abode with her cosmetics box and bedding,75 he “changed color and left for Chen Liang’s residence.” 76 He was offended because of his own stringent standards of proper conduct. “Since the calamity visited upon his father and brother, Wei Xuelian did not wear silk or have more than one dish at a meal. He did not watch opera, nor did he meet any woman.” He was mollified, however, when Mao explained to him and Chen Liang what Dong Bai had gone through to follow him:

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Wei Xuelian righted his robe and hat and bowed to her. He also made a painting of a beauty for her and inscribed a poem on it, saying: “She was not deterred by the dangers of bandits and storms to follow Mao Xiang—she is truly worthy of our respect. I have broken my own rule: I have created a painting and have appended a poem to it.” Chen Liang and Li Zijian took the lead to pool money for an operatic performance, so that we could have a feast on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival at Liu Lüding’s quayside pavilion to welcome her after her arduous journey. At that time Ruan Dacheng’s actors were just putting up The Swallow’s Letter; it was absolutely beautiful and extremely appealing. To perform the whole play required one catty of silver.77 . . . Now Wei Xuelian did not watch opera; still less would he have watched an opera using Ruan Dacheng’s actors! Unexpectedly Li Wen arrived with Wei . . . [They had met about rectifying Li Wen’s mistake in the examination and were so absorbed in that affair that they almost wandered to the place of Mao’s sojourn without meaning to.] . . . But Ruan’s actors at the last minute used the Ruan family feast as an excuse and would not come. Our group ordered the servants to raise a ruckus at Ruan’s door. Ruan then sent several men with long beards our way, bringing name cards, to accompany the whole theatrical troupe. His message to me said: “We did not know about your distinguished gathering for the wonderful festival. We have already canceled the family feast. I have given orders to the actors that they should not dare to expect rewards but should instead try to demonstrate their consummate artistry.” He also said: “Your father was formerly in charge of the examination in the southern capital.78 He and I were friends. I will come to wait on you tomorrow morning.” I said, “For our feast, we have bespoken actors at the actors’ quarters at Huaiqing. How could we have known whose family troupe it was? Once the examination is over, we are not so keen to take up social obligations, since we have made plans for literary and drinking parties as well as travels. Tomorrow we will be going

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to Bullhead Mountain. This is not my abode, how can I trouble you to pay us a visit?” We also sternly sent back the calling cards. But those men with long beards came and went the whole night without actually leaving. The opera was marvelous. For every scene I heaped praise on the singers and could not stop cursing the author, and everybody chimed in. Wei Xuelian was the most extreme in his denunciations and did not stop even as dawn broke. The actors returned with the men with long beards and wept as they told Ruan everything. (MPJ 2:1352–53)

What Mao Xiang recalled as the celebration of romantic love in Plum Shadows is also the occasion for political confrontation between Revival Society scholars and Ruan Dacheng. For Mao Xiang and his friends, the artistic merit and affective power of The Swallow’s Letter did not erase the moral bankruptcy of its author.79 Yet the bifurcation in that case confirmed for them their own success in fusing aesthetics, romance, and politics. Even Wei Xuelian’s initial rejection of opera and dalliance with courtesans was easily overcome, and he ended up taking the lead in celebrating Dong Bai and denouncing Ruan Dacheng as he watched the opera. One may argue that the way Mao and his friends spoiled for a fight with Ruan and relentlessly mocked him deepened divisions in the realm,80 but Mao still saw the confrontation as one of unalloyed good versus evil as he recalled this event thirty-seven years later. Seven years after he wrote this postscript (1686), Mao was to meet Kong Shangren (1648–1718), who incorporated this incident as an off-stage event in Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan, scene 4), the most famous play about the fall of the Ming dynasty.81 555

Wang Ruwei’s gardens at Luanjiang were truly splendid, and the small garden by the river especially brought forth the beauty of the river and the mountains. Ruwei once invited us to come to his plum

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blossom pavilion by the river on the last day of the chrysanthemum month in the renwu year (1642).82 The white waves of the Yangzi River, as if embracing elephants,83 rushed toward the bottom of our cups. She drank huge cups of wine with abandon and presided over wine games and drinking rules brightly and fairly. At that moment, the various courtesans present all slumped in inebriation, feeling overshadowed and defeated. She was always extremely gentle and prudent. That day when she showed such high spirits and unrestrained fervor was the only time I saw her like that. In the yiyou year (1645), I brought my mother and other family members to sojourn at Yanguan.84 In spring, we passed through Bantang and found that her old lodging was still right there. Her younger sister Xiaosheng, together with Sha Jiuwan, came on our boat for a visit.85 When they saw how I regarded her as “the pearl of wish-fulfillment,” and how, because my wife was kind and generous, she and my wife got along like milk and water, they were all happy for her, and they were all jealous of her.86 Together we ascended Tiger Mound. She pointed out to me all the places where she tarried, and we went over past events once again.87 It was said that those who knew her at Suzhou all acclaimed her excellent judgment, whereby she obtained the home she deserved. On Lovebirds Lake, the Tower of Mist and Rain rose high.88 To its east, at the end of a winding path, was the Bamboo Pavilion Garden, half of which jutted into the lake.89 Famous gardens and noteworthy temples flanked by shallow sandbanks and elevated streams surrounded the city on four sides, while the lake made its presence felt with ripples and sparkle. Travelers would ascend the Tower of Mist and Rain and believe that they had exhausted the wonders of the lake. Little did they know that the charm of its quiet, boundless expansiveness did not lie in that panoramic view.90 She and I once roamed there for a whole day. We also reminisced together about the marvels of blue waves and dark green crags at Tongjun Mountain and the Yan Rock Rapids on

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the Qiantang River.91 She said that the easy charms of the mountains and rivers of Xin’an lay right there by one’s pillows and stoves and were thus especially enjoyable.92 555

Du Jun comments: “Mount Jin is like a dot standing against the bolt of tumbling white silk that is the Yangzi River.93 The land of Jinling is infused with the scent of the rouge and powder of the Six Dynasties. The tower is called Mist and Rain and the lake, Lovebirds. The two of them, like truth-seeking Daoists, brushed aside clouds and picked the choicest blooms. Reading this makes one feel that every step promises the wonders of the immortal realm. How can this be no more than the misty green of the Tiandu Peak94 in Zhejiang sprinkling and wetting the hems of one’s clothes?” 95

RECORD OF H ER Q UI ET I NT ELLIGENCE

When the minister from Yushan [Qian Qianyi] sent her all the way to our hometown, Rugao, I was attending to my father and drinking with him at home. I did not dare to tell my strict father about this in haste. My attendance lasted until the fourth drum,96 and even then I did not get to leave. My wife did not wait for my return and took the initiative to clean and prepare a separate room for her, and in an instant it was complete with draperies and curtains, lamps and lights, vessels and implements, food and drink. When the drinking was winding down, I went to see her. She said, “When I first arrived, I just did not know why I did not see you. All I saw were women servants bringing me ashore, and I was secretly filled with doubts—nay, even deep suspicion and trepidation. But when I reached this room, I saw that nothing was left unprepared. I asked about it indirectly, and only then did I sigh in gratitude and admiration for the mistress’s generosity and kindness, and I feel

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more vindicated than ever: indeed I did not err in vowing to follow you over the last year.” From then on, she kept to this separate room, leaving behind musical instruments, washing off rouge and powder, and applying herself to the niceties of needlework. It often happened that she hardly opened the door for more than a month, indulging in the silence and enjoying the calmness. She said it was like emerging suddenly from ten thousand miles of flaming clouds and obtaining rest in the Realm of Purity and Coolness:97 looking back on five years of wind and grime in the world of the pleasure quarters, it had been like a dream and like hell. After a few months, there was no variety of needlework in which she did not beautifully excel. Her embroidered brocade was exceedingly resplendent. The scarves and robes she sewed had stitches so minute as to be almost invisible, and every day she could complete six measures of fabric. Be it cutting ribbons or weaving characters, making inlay gold threads or reversible verse98 —in all these things she fully mastered the skills. A goddess of needlework and its supreme talent,99 she certainly had no competitors even among the ancients.

RECORD OF H ER RESP ECT F UL ABST EMIO USNESS

After she had lived in the separate chamber for four months, my wife brought her back home. Once she came into the family, my mother, the senior honored lady, as well as my wife cherished her and looked upon her with special regard from the moment they set eyes on her. Her younger and older sisters-in-law in particular treasured her and drew close to her, claiming that her virtue, character, and deportment were truly not that of ordinary people. And yet the way she attended to her superiors by their side, serving them and toiling to meet their wishes, was if anything more assiduous than that of maids and servants. Whether she was making

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tea or peeling fruit, she always presented it with her own hands. Uncrease your eyebrows and she would understand the meaning. Scratch your back and she would infer the itch. Even when brutal cold seemed to break the sinew or when oppressive heat seemed to melt metal, she always stood respectfully by the seats of others. When she was forced to sit down and eat and drink, she would sit, eat, and drink, and shortly thereafter rise again to serve, and stand respectfully as before. Whenever my sons failed to meet my expectation as I taught them composition, I used corporal punishment.100 She always oversaw their work and had them make revisions until the essays were coherent and written out in proper calligraphy before they were presented to me, and she would do so untiringly till nighttime.101 In the span of nine years, she never had a word of disagreement with my wife. As for the way she treated others and managed the servants, she could not be kinder or more yielding, and they were all grateful to her for her beneficence. All my expenses for social obligations and for going inside and outside the house, as well as my wife’s daily domestic expenses—everything went through her hands. She had no private hoard and no interest in savings for herself, and she did not buy a single piece of jewelry. When she was dying, she managed to cling on, and the day after New Year’s Day, she insisted on seeing my mother before her eyes closed in peace. And yet, beyond what she was wearing, she refused to be buried with gold, pearls, or expensive garments. Truly she should be acclaimed as an extraordinary person. 555

Du Jun comments: “She definitely was someone who came with accumulated wisdom from past lives. She was meticulously honest down to the smallest details, and she did not die with even one thread of impurity. She came in utter sincerity and left in utter sincerity. I compare her to Dong Yong’s Weaver Maid and Xue Song’s Red Thread.” 102

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R E C O R D O F H E R I N T E R E S T I N P O E T R Y, H I S T O R Y, C A L L I G R A P H Y, A N D PA I N T I N G

For a few years, I had wanted to collect Tang poems from all four periods.103 I bought complete collections, categorized anecdotes, collected numerous comments, listed poets and their chronology in order, and for each collection I carefully made selections and wrote comments. Casting my net wide to include what had been forgotten or lost, I tried to establish an all-inclusive view of the whole era. For early Tang and high Tang, there was a measure of progress in ordering the materials, but for mid-Tang and late Tang, there were many cases of having the name but not the collection, having gaps in the collection, or missing both names and collections. The Graded Compendium offers only broad outlines of about six hundred poets.104 Even though Record of Events contains stories that to a certain extent preserve the names and biographical details of about a thousand poets, it does not include many of their poems.105 Remarks on Poems from the Entire Tang is even more sparse and sporadic.106 The esteemed Zhu Zhifan, in his preface to Twelve Tang Poets, claims that great families in Yuzhang [Jiangxi] have collected about seven hundred unpublished manuscripts by midand late Tang poets.107 Master Wang Duo from Mengjin told me that he bought the Complete Tang Poetry compiled by the Xu lineage from Lingbao, and the load filled several carts.108 When I was sojourning in Yanguan, Hu Zhenheng, who served in the Bureau of Operations, was just then reading and commenting on Tang poetry.109 The cost for carving the blocks and printing the works amounted to several thousand taels. Now I am living in a remote place, and there are no books I can borrow. Moreover, recently I have been housebound and cannot go out to travel and buy books. For that reason, planning and managing the project and searching for the works to be included have required tremendous exertion and mental energy.

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555

[Translator’s note] Mao Xiang’s ambitious project would have combined a comprehensive anthology of Tang poems with chronological arrangement, biographical anecdotes, and traditional commentaries, as well as his own comments. The works he mentions seem to have been examples he was striving to outdo or possibly incorporate. When he and his family fled to Yanguan (Haiyan in Zhejiang), they might have sojourned at Hu Zhenheng’s residence. Hu’s manuscript was one of the major source texts for Complete Tang Poems (Quan Tang shi), compiled under the aegis of the Qing court in 1705–1706. The other base text came from the famous book collector Ji Zhenyi (1630–1674), whose collection of Tang poems was built on the work of Qian Qianyi.110 Extant sources do not mention Mao Xiang’s effort, which does not seem to have come to fruition. 555

However, whenever I obtained a collection of Tang poems, I always carefully applied the red and yellow ink for comments and correction.111 Other works that referred to this collection were all listed at the top of a separate page and given to her for safekeeping. As for determining chronology and evaluating the poets’ character, History of the Tang provided the standard.112 All day long she helped me look up sources and copy out drafts. For days and nights on end, we carefully mulled over the texts and verified details, forgetting the need to talk as we faced each other. When she read poems, nothing was beyond her understanding, and she also interpreted them by coming up with her own astute insights. The Songs of Chu, poems by Du Fu and Li Shangyin, and Three Masters of Palace Poetry by Wang Jian, Lady Pistil, and Wang Gui—she loved to read them again and again.113 Books piled as high as her person

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surrounded her seat. In the middle of the night, between pillow and cover, she was still holding on to scores of poetry collections by Tang masters while lying in bed. Now these writings are all dust-bound and put away in hidden chambers. I cannot bear to open them. In the time to come, who would be able to fulfill my ambition with me? I can only heave a sigh. I still remember yesteryear, when I was reading the history of the Eastern Han and came to the biographies of Chen Fan, Fan Pang, and Guo Tai, they were so stirring that I slapped the low table.114 One by one, she asked to have their lives explained from beginning to end. Her face showed her indignation at the injustice they suffered, and yet she marvelously came up with views that granted justice for all sides. Her opinions deserved to be written down as a piece of disquisition on history. 555

[Translator’s note] Chen Fan (ca. 95–168), Fan Pang (137–169), and Guo Tai (128– 169) were all key figures in the battle of the literati against the eunuchs and the families related to imperial consorts during the Eastern Han (25–220). Both Chen Fan and Fan Pang were killed by the eunuchs. Mao Xiang obviously saw a parallel between the Han court and late Ming politics, when the eunuch Wei Zhongxian persecuted Donglin scholar-officials and when Wei’s onetime follower Ruan Dacheng sought vengeance against Revival Society members. While Dong Bai obviously empathized with the plight of the upright scholar-officials, she “came up with views that granted justice for all sides.” What were those views? Did she prefer the caustic purity and skillful self-preservation of Guo Tai? Did she criticize the Eastern Han scholars’ factionalism, selfrighteousness, and overzealous condemnation of corruption? Unfortunately Mao Xiang does not give us details of her perspective. The view that Donglin and Revival Society scholars might

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have exacerbated divisions in the realm because of their moral convictions was not uncommon in the early Qing retrospection on late Ming politics. 555

In the yiyou year (1645), when I was sojourning in Yanguan, I borrowed books from various friends for perusal. Whenever I came across wondrous and obscure items, I asked her to copy them out by hand. For stories related to the inner chamber, she compiled a separate fascicle. After we returned to Rugao, she and I looked through various books thoroughly and completed the work—we called it Beauties by the Boudoir Case. The wondrous splendor and surprising excellence of the book is such that it includes everything about women in time past—everything from head to toe, encompassing their clothing, food, vessels, and implements, their songs and dance in pavilions and on terraces, their genius with the needle and literary talent. Even when it comes to fish and fowl, birds and beasts, down to insentient grass and wood—so long as they have a connection with emotions, they belong to this world of fragrance and beauty. Now the pieces of red paper with small characters marking divisions into categories and sorting out the entries one by one are all in her boudoir case. Last spring, Lady Gu from afar asked to borrow this book for perusal. Lady Gu and Minister Gong had the highest praise for its excellence and urged me to have it printed in fine form.115 I should just bear with the pain and edit and collect the materials for her so that her ambition can be fulfilled.116 When she first came to our family and saw the “Rhapsody on the Moon”117 that Dong Qichang wrote for me in the style of Zhong Yao, she really fell in love with it and modeled her brushstrokes on it. Subsequently she looked everywhere for copies based on Zhong Yao’s calligraphy and used them as models for imitation. When she read “The Memorial on the War Chariot,” in which

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Zhong Yao called Guan Yu “the traitorous general,” she abandoned Zhong and instead used “The Stele on Cao E” as the model for imitation. Every day she wrote out several thousand characters, making no mistakes and not missing a single word. Whenever I made selections from my readings, she immediately made a fair copy and kept them in a fascicle. Be it history or poetry, forgotten events or marvelous lines—in all cases I regarded her as my Vermilion Pearl of Remembrance.118 She did calligraphy in small standard script on fans on my behalf, and these are in the keeping of relatives and friends. When it came to the mundane details of my wife’s domestic expenses or money coming in or going out of the household, she would without exception record them by hand and did not make the minutest omission. Her meticulousness and focus was such that even scholars like us rarely attain her level. 555

[Translator’s note] Dong Qichang (1555–1636) was a scholar-official famous for his painting and calligraphy. He praised Mao Xiang’s precocity (Mao was then fourteen) in his preface for Mao’s first poetry collection (MPJ 2:757). Mao Xiang was a notable calligrapher and honored Dong as a teacher (MPJ 2:907–07). Dong Qichang also wrote colophons on calligraphy pieces in the Mao family collection, and Mao collected some of Dong’s works and had them published as calligraphic model (MPJ 2:896– 98). Dong followed the style of Zhong Yao (151–230), a statesman and calligrapher during the Three Kingdoms Period. Zhong Yao submitted the “Memorial on the War Chariot” to the warlord Cao Cao (155–220), the de facto ruler in the north, to congratulate him on the Wei victory over Shu and on cutting down the Shu general Guan Yu (d. 220). It is one of the most famous calligraphic models. Offended by Zhong Yao’s derogatory reference to Guan Yu, who had become a symbol of loyalty

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as well as a deity by the Ming dynasty,119 Dong Bai switched to “The Stele on Cao E” by Wang Xizhi (303– 361) as calligraphic model. Cao E (130–143) was a famous filial daughter who jumped into the river to find her father after his drowning. Her corpse reemerged holding on to her father’s corpse (Hou Hanshu 84.2794). In other words, for Dong Bai aesthetic appeal and the artist’s character are intertwined. She can only embrace an artistic model that also embodies moral probity. Du Jun wrote in a colophon on Dong Bai’s calligraphy (her copy of Tang quatrains selected by Mao Xiang): “every brushstroke contains a brilliant edge, every word wants to dance” (MPJ 2:905). Du congratulates himself on being the first to see this work and imagines posterity’s jealousy. 555

She learned to paint in Suzhou without achieving mastery of the art. She could paint small clumps of bushes and wintry trees, and her brushwork was graceful and appealing.120 Oftentimes she practiced brushstrokes and made pictures by the inkstone at the low table. That was why she had a particular interest in things related to paintings past and present. When she obtained by chance a long scroll or a small one or took out old treasures in our collection, she would often unroll them, so absorbed in appreciation that she could not put them aside. During our peregrinations, as we were fleeing from chaos, she opted to discard her boudoir case and implements for adornment, so that she could tie up paintings and calligraphy and take them with her. Toward the end she let go of the boxes and cut out mounting paraphernalia and kept only the paper and silk; even then they did not escape destruction.121 Such was the calamitous fate of calligraphy and paintings. As for her obsessive devotion, it was genuine and extreme. 555

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Du Jun comments: “As for connoisseurs among well-born ladies and collators, there were Xue Tao in Tang and Li Qingzhao in Song.122 Xue Tao grew old and plain in the wind and grime of the world of the pleasure quarters; Li Qingzhao demeaned herself by marrying an unworthy man.123 These are ultimately blemishes detracting from their devotion to art and refinement. Wanjun’s (Dong Bai) literary and artistic talent was finely honed and exquisite, and through it her purity and integrity became even more manifest. Her true appreciation of art and extraordinary devotion to it were rooted in her nature. She could stand comparison with woman scholars from great families without any sense of inadequacy.”

RECORD OF H ER I NT EREST I N T EA, I N C E N S E , F L O W E R S, A N D T H E M O O N

She could drink. When she married me, she saw that my capacity for alcohol did not exceed the shallowest banana leaf cup and gave up on drinking. All she did was drink a few cups when she attended to my wife every night. But in her devotion to tea, she shared my nature, and we were both obsessed with jie tea.124 Every year, Gu Zijian125 of Bantang chose the finest of jie tea and sent it to us: it has the wonder of “armor plates” and “cicada wings.”126 “Applying the gentlest flame and watching for the thinnest wisp of smoke, using a small pot and long-flowing spring water,”127 she always personally attended to the washing of the vessels and tea leaves,128 as well as the blowing to manage the fire. I often recited the line, “Blowing air as she faces the pot,” from “Poem on My Sweet Daughters” by Zuo Si, which made her break into a smile.129 When it came to looking out for bubbles the size of “crab eyes” and “fish scales” while boiling water or choosing “the moon’s soul” and “the cloud’s spirit” in passing along teacups, her taste was especially impeccable.130 Ever so often, in front of the flowers and under the moon, we quietly tried the tea and savored it as we faced each other. The dark green tea leaves sank as the fragrance of the tea

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rose. Truly it was like magnolias touched by dew and jadeite grass facing the waves131—a full realization of the wonders of tea as described by Lu Tong and Lu Yu.132 Su Shi wrote: “It was not my fate to have the fair one holding up the jade cup.”133 For me the pure bliss of a lifetime was fully won over nine years; it was also fully used up over nine years. She often sat with me quietly in the incense chamber, carefully savoring and adjudicating on famous incense. The various types of palace incense are overpowering, while agarwood incense can be vulgar.134 Vulgar people put agarwood directly over fire; the smoke and grease are overwhelming, and it burns out in no time. Not only is the true nature of the incense not brought out, the aroma that clings to clothes would always have a burned and invasive undertone. Agarwood resin that is hard and has horizontal grains is called “horizontal partition agarwood,” 135 which is the same as “leathery agarwood with horizontal pattern,” one of the four kinds of agarwood incense.136 Its aroma is especially marvelous. There is another kind of agarwood resin that has taken shape but is not fully formed; the size of a small conical hat or a big mushroom, it is called “Penglai incense.”137 I kept a good supply of this variety. Often we burned it over fine sand heated by a slow flame, so that no smoke was visible, and then the whole chamber would be scented like wind wafting through tagara trees, dew soaking roses, amber being rubbed till it’s hot, fragrant alcohol being poured into a rhinoceros horn cup.138 When the aroma permeates pillows and quilt long enough and blends with the scent of flesh, it becomes extraordinarily sweet and alluring, comforting and intoxicating even in one’s dreams. In addition, there is an authentic recipe for Western incense. I obtained it from the imperial bureau inside the palace, and it is absolutely distinct from the offerings of the marketplace. In the bingxu year (1646), when we were sojourning in Hailing, she and I once crafted by hand a hundred pellets of this incense.139 It is indeed an extraordinary creation of the inner chamber. However,

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when burning this, it is also better not to have any smoke visible. Anyone who lacks her careful attention and subtle sensibility would not have been able to reach this kind of understanding. Ripe yellow comes from various foreign countries, and the one from Zhenla [Cambodia] is superior. The kind with a tough exterior is ripe yellow cylinder; it has an excellent and penetrating aroma. The black kind is striped ripe yellow. Recently, in the tea gardens in Dongguan in Guangdong, the natives have been growing ripe yellow, just as people in Jiangnan grow tea. The trees are short and their branches dense; the fragrance lies in their roots. Ever since the ones in the know from Suzhou140 cleaned its roots and cut off the white wood, chipping away all the loose and rotten bits from the resin, its iron mien and oleaginous tips have been fully revealed. When she and I were sojourning in Bantang, we knew that Jin Pingshu had expert skill in this, and bought this kind of incense from him several times at a high price.141 The slabs are clean and glossy; the long and spindly ones are like tree branches or tiny dragons. In all cases the incense maker follows where knots form on the root and carves according to the pattern. The result is like yellow clouds and purple embroidery half flecked with francolin spots; its appeal is both tactile and visual.142 In a small room on cold nights, we let down the draperies on four sides, piled colorful, finely woven blankets, and lit two or three tall red candles.143 We set forth several low tables of different heights and arrayed on them Xuande censers in various sizes, mixing and matching them.144 The censers were always hot from earlier use, and their color was like liquid gold and grain-colored jade. We carefully poked and moved an inch of ember, on top of which we put fine sand and then the chosen incense for steaming. The night was half gone, and the aroma became intense and concentrated. Neither burned nor spent, it was dense, powerful, and pervasive—it was pure and supreme.145 Warm fragrance sometimes has the scent of half-open plum blossoms, pears, and honeycombs.146 This is meditation and attainment of illumination

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through the nose: I remember how over the years we were enamored of this aroma and this realm of existence. Often even when the dawn bells rang, we still had not touched our pillows. She and I pondered boudoir laments—the sorrows of leaning against the censer cover, of poking cold ashes in the censer till the bitter end.147 It is as if the two of us were in the depths of the myriad fragrance of the Pistil Pearl Palace.148 Now both the person and the aroma are gone. If only I could get a pellet of the Incense for the Soul’s Return,149 so that I could bring her back to the secret chamber and the locked-up room. One variety, unripe yellow incense, is also made by taking the congealed resin from the withered, rotten, and disease-ridden parts of the agarwood tree, but it is young and not fully formed. When I was traveling in the three Wu areas and Baixia,150 I collected them wherever I could and put them in boxes. Big slabs the size of faces, pieces that Cantonese merchants carried with them, even large chunks of roots and branches encased in dust and earth—all these I found through careful search. After I brought them back, when she and I were devoting mornings and evenings to spiritual cultivation,151 we oversaw the maids chiseling and cleaning these pieces—sometimes a piece weighing about a catty would yield a mere fraction of a tael. A palm-size piece was pared down to a mere sliver; the carving and cleaning was so meticulous and thorough that not the slightest trace of impurities remained. Its aroma is like fragrant orchids just from smelling it—not to speak of burning or steaming. Put a piece on a small basin, and one can perceive how the color and fragrance of its different layers are special and distinct. Well worth stroking in appreciation, it is also a feast for the eyes. I once showed a piece or two to my Cantonese friend Li Suiqiu, and he asked in surprise what it was and whence I obtained such a marvelous thing.152 I am afraid this does not appear even in Fan Ye’s classic account of incense.153 For incense from Dongguan, the supreme specimen is maiden’s incense,154 so called because the natives always use young women

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to choose and pick resin. The young women kept the best and biggest pieces and secretly exchanged them for ointment and powder. The aficionados would buy them by unearthing them in vendors’ loads of ointment and powder. I once obtained several pieces from my friend Wang. She especially treasured them. In my homes and gardens, I always plant plum trees wherever space permits. With the advent of spring, one is always in a blooming expanse of fragrant snow, morning and evening, as one goes out and comes in. When the plum blossoms were still budding, she would already ponder how the reach and angle of the branches would match with the vases on the low tables. Sometimes she would have trimmed the trees in the previous year in suitable ways, so that when they bloomed they would be just right for cutting and arrangement for indoor appreciation. When it came to flowers and plants for the four seasons, she never failed to arrange them with superb taste and cleverness, her sensibility and understanding being extraordinarily refined. As a result, ethereal resonance and secret fragrance always subtly pervaded the zigzagging rooms and small chambers. As for luxuriantly sensual flowers in rich colors, they were not what she prized. When autumn came, her special love was late chrysanthemums. This was so even last autumn, when during her sickness a friend gave me a pot of “snipped peach red.”155 Its blossoms were dense and large and its leaves were dark green, the way they appear in paintings. The stems were clustered in a graceful way; every one of them conveyed the charm of chrysanthemums slanting in the wind or being half concealed by clouds. Having been sick for three months, she was half-hearted with grooming, but when she saw the chrysanthemums, she really loved them and thus kept the pot by her couch. Every night she burned tall bright candles, used six sections of white screen to frame three sides, and set up a small seat among the flowers. The chrysanthemum shadows had to be positioned in the most expressive and exquisite ways. Only then would she enter. She was among the chrysanthemums, and both

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the chrysanthemums and she were in the shadows. She returned her gaze to the screen, looked at me, and said, “The spirit of the chrysanthemums is fully expressed. But what is to be done about the frail one?” Even now, when I think about it, the scene has the intangible grace of a painting. She kept in her chamber spring orchids, nine-sectioned orchids, and autumn orchids. From spring to autumn, the spirit of the world evoked by The Songs of Chu was ever present.156 Tended and watered by her, the fragrance of the orchids was heightened.157 She copied out all of the songs on growing orchids, one for each of the twelve months, on green paper and pasted them on the walls.158 Last winter, when she was sick, more than half of the orchids withered and died. The yellow plum tree under her rooms usually yields thousands of blossoms every winter and provides three months’ worth of hair ornaments and flower arrangements. Last winter, when she moved her abode to the Garden of Fragrant Company for quiet recuperation, not a single bud grew on its hundreds of branches. One could only hear waves of the sound of wind rustling through the pine needles, adding to their disconsolate music. She loved the moon more than anything, and often let moonrise and moonset decide whither she would go or stay. In the summer, as she enjoyed the cool air in the courtyard and recited the Tang poems on the moon and on the fireflies and the silk fan with my young son, she often moved the chair159 and the little table to experience the moon from four directions. By midnight, when she returned to her room, she would open the windows and invite the moon to linger among the pillows and mats. After the moon was gone, she would still roll up the curtains, lean against the window, and gaze with longing. She said to me, “I wrote out Xie Zhuang’s ‘Rhapsody on the Moon’ and realized that the ancients were ‘wearied with merrymaking in the morning and enjoyed feasting at night.’160 For night is the time of ease and escape, and the aura of the moon is quiet. Against the sea and the sky in deep blue, the moon is like ‘frosty white silk,’ ‘pure as ice and snow.’161 Compared

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to the burning sun and the world of red dust, the difference is that between the immortal realm and mundane existence. Our lives are full of sound and fury that do not cease even at night. There are some who are already snoring before the moon comes out, and they do not have the good fortune to enjoy the purity and transcendence of moonlight.162 With you I have experienced to the full the gracefulness and purity of the moon in four seasons and have understood its secret aroma. The path to immortality and the secret of Zen enlightenment can be obtained in this quietude.” Li He’s poem says, “Drenched in moonlight, / waves of misty jade.”163 Whenever she recited these three words, she would go back and forth and repeat them again and again, saying, “The spirit, resonance, and spectacle of the moon are fully realized with these words.” She entered the world of “waves of misty jade.” Her eyes were sidelong ripples, her breath was like the mist on the Xiang River, and her body was like white jade. She was like the moon, and the moon, in turn, was like her. They were one and they were two. I feel that even Jia Dao’s lines about leaning against the pine’s shadow164 to “become three” are superfluous. But with his lines about “heedless absorption,” being “insatiable,” and being willing to “turn into a toad,” he has grasped the essence of enjoying the moon. 555

[Translator’s note] The remarks on tea and incense in this section overlap significantly with the Ming literature of connoisseurship, which in turn incorporates earlier treatises. For Mao Xiang, Dong Bai is the fellow connoisseur who heightens his own enjoyment of fine things. But Dong Bai is both the connoisseur and the object of connoisseurship, or more precisely, her persona as connoisseur confirms her superior sensibility and turns her into an object of beauty. The

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scene in which she frames herself with chrysanthemum shadows during her sickness in the autumn of 1650 evokes familiar lines: “She is, compared to the yellow blossoms, more frail” Ӫ∄哳㣡ⱖ;165 “The fallen blossoms are wordless: / A person with intangible grace like chrysanthemums” 㩭㣡❑䀰ˈӪ◩ྲ㧺.166 The affective correspondence between humans and nature is a common belief in the Chinese tradition. When Dong Bai is sick, flowers stop blooming or wither and die, reminding us of Baoyu’s declaration that the withering of haitang blossoms is an omen of the death of his maid Qingwen in The Story of the Stone (Shitou ji, also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber [Honglou meng], chapter 77) by Cao Xueqin (1715?–ca. 1763), a novel written a century after Plum Shadows. The poem on the fireflies and the silk fan refers to Du Mu’s “Autumn Evening” ⿻ཅ (QTS 524.6002): 䢰⠝⿻‫⮛ߧݹ‬ቿ 䕅㖵ሿᡷ᫢⍱㷒 ཙ䲾ཌ㢢⏬ྲ≤ 㠕ⴻ⢭⢋㒄ྣᱏ

Silver candles in the autumn glow chill the painted screens. With a small fan of light silk, she chases the flitting fireflies. On the palace steps, the night is cool as water as she lies down and gazes at the Cowherd and Weaving Maid stars.

She identifies with the innocent pleasures of the chase and the gaze. For Dong Bai, the moon symbolizes purity. Her enjoyment of the moon and of Li He’s poem seems to turn her into their perfect embodiment. We move beyond affective correspondence to an insistent fusion of perspectives and perfect empathic identification, whereby Dong Bai becomes the spectacle she cherishes. In the compass of late Ming sensibility, what is savored is not simply the object but also the experience and spectacle of aesthetic appreciation.

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Mao Xiang finds an analogue for this fusion of subject and object in Jia Dao’s (779–843) poem “Enjoying the Moon” ⧙ᴸ (QTS 571.6619), only he believes it is a more arduous journey in Jia Dao’s case. Jia Dao begins with an act of looking that links him to the pine tree and the moon: նᝋᵹ‫ي‬ᴸ ᡁ‫ي‬ᴸ⛪й

I just love the way the pine leans against the moon, I lean against the pine and we become three.

But he goes on to describe a more immediate bond: ↔Ჟ㜑ਟ৺ 㘼ᡁ㤖␛㙭

This scene is of course incomparable, but I am sunk in heedless absorption.

Just like common people greedy for gold, his longing for the moon is “insatiable” (wuyan). He concludes with a wish to be transformed into the mythical toad in the moon. Mao Xiang maintains that Jia Dao’s wish to “become three” still implies distance—the scene is too crowded, hence his criticism of superfluity. However, he believes the poem progresses toward a deeper union of subject and object in the process of absorption. 555

Du Jun comments: “Famous incense from the ends of the earth, the bright moon in the heavenly vault, wondrous flowers, and extraordinary tea— all these things use their allure to compete in distinction. Unless she was a true fairy of the immortal realm, she could not have understood all these things. With her beauty and genius, she appreciated these things day and night. Her jadelike arms and cloudlike tresses exuded fragrance and bliss in that crystal world of transcendence.”

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RECORD OF H ER CULI NARY SKI LLS

She was by nature abstemious and did not have the least interest in rich and lavish food. For each meal she soaked the rice with a small pot of warm jie tea and took some vegetables and a few salted beans on the side—and that would suffice for her. I am very sparing when it comes to eating and drinking, but have a special fondness for things fragrant and sweet as well as delicacies from the sea and the taste of smoked food. And these would usually not be for my own delectation, for I often enjoyed appreciating them with friends. She understood my wishes and created to the best of her powers beautiful and clean dishes as additions to my table. There were so many that I cannot supply a complete record. I will just randomly choose a few examples to give a glimpse of her skills.167 To distill maltose into a syrupy essence, one has to add salt and sour plum. In all cases with fragrant and colorful flowers, they should be picked and pickled when they have just bloomed. The fragrance and color will last a whole year and not change, staying as bright as when they were first picked. And as the juice of the flowers will have melted into the essence, when the latter enters the mouth and assails the nose, its marvelous fragrance and extraordinary allure are no longer that of the usual fare. Most lovely of all is the essence of autumn begonia. Begonia has no fragrance, but this treatment alone brings out the fragrance as the essence becomes concentrated. There is also something called “heartbreak grass” in common parlance.168 It is thought to be inedible, but its wonderful taste exceeds that of all other flowers. Second to that, in order of sequence, are plum blossoms, wild roses, roses, cassia, and species of chrysanthemums. As for yellow oranges, red oranges, Buddha’s hands,169 and fragrant yuan citron, remove the white pith and the color and taste will be even better. To bring out scores of these after drinking and to see how each in different colors floats and glistens in white porcelain will dispel the

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effect of inebriation and salve thirst. The dew collected by the immortal’s palm on the bronze pillar cannot compare to this.170 Take the juices of peaches and melons in the fifth month after washing them and removing all traces of seeds and fibrous strands. Use a low flame to cook it until the water is mostly evaporated, and only then mix in sugar for a gentle simmer. Peach jelly is like bright red amber, and melon jelly can be compared to the gold thread sweet treat in the imperial palace. Often, in the height of summer, she had to use her own hands to get the juice to ensure its cleanliness, and she sat by the pot and quietly watched the fire as the mixture turned into jelly so that it would not burn or dry up. She divided the jellies into different kinds according to the level of concentration. The color and taste of these are especially marvelous.171 For making fermented soybeans, the emphasis on color and smell takes precedence over the concern for taste. The soybeans have to be sun dried nine rounds and washed nine rounds. The skin of each bean has to be peeled off. Various condiments, such as melon peel, almond, ginger, and cinnamon, as well as the sauce for fermenting beans, all of the finest and purest quality, are mixed in. When the fermented beans are cooked and brought out, each bean is still distinct. The fragrance, rich color, and distinct taste are totally different from ordinary fare. After red fermented bean curd has been roasted and steamed five or six times, when its inside has become soft, peel off the outer layer and add condiments. What can be made over a few days is vastly superior to what has been stored for three years in Jianning.172 With other things, such as various vegetables pickled in salty water for winter and spring,173 she could make the yellow ones as creamy yellow as wax candles and the green ones as verdant as moss. Calamus, lotus roots, bamboo shoots, ferns, fresh flowers, wild vegetables, goji, artemesia, lotuses, and chrysanthemums—all these were made into food, and the scent of delicacies filled the table. Smoked meat kept for a long time is not greasy; it has the taste of pine and cypress. Smoked fish kept for a long time becomes like

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smoked meat; it has the taste of venison. Drunken clams look like peach blossoms; drunken sturgeon bones look like white jade.174 Snails poached in oil are like sturgeon; steamed dried shrimps are like dragon whisker grass; roasted hare and crispy pheasant are like pastries—they can be put in a bamboo steamer and eaten just like that. Dried mushrooms are like chicken cap fungi; tofu soup is like cow’s milk. She carefully investigated recipes, and if any special dish appeared by chance in a famed kitchen,175 no matter where it was, she would immediately try to find it and re-create it through clever modifications, and the results were always wonderful. 555

Du Jun comments: “Every ladle or piece of food had marvelous fragrance and superb taste. They bring to mind the feasts of the five noble houses and the eight ultimate delicacies.” 176

RECORD OF O UR SHARED P LIGH T

It was not until the fifteenth day of the fourth month that we got reliable news about the catastrophe on the nineteenth day of the third month in the jiashen year (1644).177 The administrator of our district was quite a coward.178 Malefactors occupied the city like jackals and tigers in all their hideous ferocity and declared their intention to burn and loot. Alarming news spread in the prefecture about how the Xingping army was collapsing and turning into renegade troops heading in different directions.179 The great gentry families of scholars and officials fled like birds and beasts in terror and all went south of the river. Our family home was on the Lane of Gathered Worthies. We had been honest and yielding for generations,180 and my father confirmed his resolve of staying by not leaving the family compound. Several days passed, and of the twenty or thirty families around us, ours was the only one with

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smoke coming out of the kitchen stoves and chimneys. My mother and my wife were fearful and fled, staying temporarily outside the city walls and leaving my concubine behind to look after me. She kept to the inner chambers, sorting out clothes, calligraphy and paintings, papers and deeds. Having divided them into various categories of importance, she distributed them and put them under the care of various servants and maids. She wrote all of the designations for the sealed boxes. Bands of miscreants engaged in daily looting, cutting people down like grass. Among our neighbors, human traces were as sparse as morning stars, and the momentum of the situation was such that holding out on our own would be well nigh impossible. I had no choice but to look for a small boat to carry my parents and the rest of the family along with our dependents, hoping to defy dangers and travel from the South River to the north of the Cheng River.181 Covering sixty li in the dead of night,182 we reached the Zhu residence on Fanhu Island. By then bandits were as ubiquitous as swarming wasps along the river. I first dressed incognito and took a narrow and remote side road to see my father off as he set off from Jingjiang.183 In the middle of the night, my father said to me, “For the journey I will need small pieces of silver. There is no way to make the necessary preparations.” I turned to her to ask for them, and she took out a cloth bag. Inside were small pieces of silver, weighing anything from about one fen to one qian.184 Every ten taels amounted to several hundred of these small pieces, and on all of them the weight was written in small characters, so that they could be used in haste. When my father saw this, he sighed in amazement, wondering how she had found the time to be as thoughtful and meticulous as that. At that time, various expenses had risen tenfold compared to the usual prices, and even then the boatmen refused to go. There was a delay of another day. I used a hundred taels to bespeak ten boats and another hundred taels to hire two hundred men to protect the boats. After we had traveled just a few li, the tides fell and

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the boat was stranded, unable to proceed.185 Hundreds of bandits perched on six boats formed two sides of an angle, keeping guard at the narrow sections and waiting for us. Fortunately, it was low tide, and they could not come down and press close to our boats. The Zhu residence sent a strongman to come through the waves to reach us with an urgent message: bandits had cut off the route of return at the bank behind us and we must not turn back. Furthermore, among the two hundred men supposedly protecting the boat were many in league with the bandits. At that point there was uproar on the ten boats, and the servants were shouting, wailing, and crying. I smiled and pointed to the crowd on the river: “Three generations of my family and about a hundred people are all on these boats. From my ancestors down to my grandfather and my father, and their sons and grandsons, for sixty or seventy years, whether serving as officials or living as gentry in our hometown, we have never done anything that betrayed heaven or betrayed other people. If today we all die at the hands of the bandits and are to be buried in the bellies of fish, that means there is no high heaven above and no endless earth below. The tides suddenly fell earlier than usual, and their boats as well as ours are stranded and they cannot come close to us—that is already heavenly assistance. All of you: have no fear. Even if our boats are turned into enemy terrain, they cannot harm us.” The night before, as we packed our luggage and prepared to board the boats, I had thought about how the great river is linked to the sea and how my aged mother and young sons had never experienced such extraordinary dangers. What if our way forward was blocked because of a big storm?186 If we wanted to go ashore— depending on where we were along the route—how were we to find sedan chairs and carriages? At the third drum187 I offered twenty taels to a man surnamed Shen and asked him to hire two sedan chairs, one carriage, and six men. Shen and the others were all surprised and laughed at me, saying that next morning, once we set sail, we could reach the other shore before noon, so why

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bother, in the middle of the night, to incur this extra and pointless expense looking for something hard to find? When I asked the boatman to hire men for the sedan chairs, the spectators were beside themselves with laughter. I insisted on getting these two things done before I boarded the boat and started the journey. And now, at this moment, although I preserved my composure, it was clear that advance and retreat would both land us in dire straits: there was simply no way to fly and escape. I then made an inquiry: since we had not gone that far, was there indeed another place where we could go ashore and reach Fanhu Island? The boatman said, “If we go horizontally for half a li and go ashore, there is a small road— go for six or seven li and you will get there.” I immediately gave the order to row ashore. The sedan chairs, carriage, and men I had hired were just enough to take seven adults and children. The rest of the luggage and the servants and maids were all abandoned on the other boats. After a while we arrived at the Zhu residence. Only then did everybody exclaim that my insistence on being prepared for both a land route and a river route in the middle of the night was amazingly apposite. The bandits found out that we had escaped in the middle of everything. The Zhu residence also contacted several hundred people to escort our luggage and dependents and sent them on their way. Although the bandits had dispersed, the threat persisted because their goals had not been satisfied. Taking advantage of the fact that the net of the law did not extend to the river, and also that in any case we had come upon lawless times, they openly gathered several hundred people and sent someone to negotiate with me: unless I gave them a thousand taels, they would encircle the Zhu residence and set it ablaze on four sides. I then smiled and said, “The bandits are truly stupid. They could not stop me in the middle of the river. And now they want to attack us by fire on land right in the midst of several hundred families? How can this be done?” However, though the men of Fanhu Island were nominally our guards, many of them were also miscreants. I gave all I had to

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summon and pay all the men on the estate. I had them set forth wine and sacrificial meat:188 they were to be united in the effort to stay outside the estate and be prepared against any unforeseen dangers. These several hundred men drank the wine and divided up the money and all headed to different places. That night I supported my aged mother with one hand and led my wife with the other. In addition, my two sons were small, and Jifu had just been born ten days earlier.189 Jifu and his mother were entrusted to the care of a faithful servant accompanying them as they emerged, tottering, from the bamboo groove behind the estate. At that moment, I did not have another hand to help my concubine. I turned around and said to her, “If you hurry with your steps, you can be right behind me. Any delay and you will not be able to catch up.” She stumbled along on her own, hurrying and exhausted, falling forward as she walked for one li or so. It was only then that we found the sedan chairs and carriage we had hired the day before. Rushing along urgently till the fifth drum,190 we reached the city wall. The bandits and the miscreants at the Zhu residence did not yet know that our entire family had left. However, though we managed to escape, most of our luggage was gone. My concubine lost everything that she treasured. She said to me when we returned to our abode: when facing a great calamity, it was right that I should above all be concerned about my aged mother, and my next concern should be my wife, my sons, and my little brother. As for her, even had she not been able to catch up as she stumbled along, even had she died in the deep bamboo grove, she would have had no regrets. We returned home at the time of the Dragon Boat Festival.191 For a hundred days I donned armor and carried weapons to manage coexistence with malefactors inside the city. It was only at the Mid-Autumn Festival that I crossed the river and entered the Southern Capital [Nanjing].192 Five months after I parted from her, I abandoned my official appointment toward the end of the last month of the year and returned home.193 I took my family to

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follow my father to his post as overseer of the transportation of grains and headed for Jiangnan.194 Then we sojourned at Yanguan. I have to sigh in admiration over the degree to which she understood the highest principles of duty and mastered pragmatic calculations when facing exigencies. Can those who have perused thousands of scrolls till they’re in tatters rise to her level? In the yiyou year (1645), we sojourned in Yanguan. In the fifth month, we were again faced with dynastic collapse and devastation.195 There were no more than eight of us in my family. Our troubles on the river the year before were due to the fact that servants and maids were rushing forth in chaotic clamor and that our group often numbered as many as a hundred people. Also, we could not easily leave by ourselves, as the boats and carts were bursting with our heavy luggage, which also invited unwelcome attention. This time around I was determined to put aside all consideration of our chances for survival, lock up the doors, and not go anywhere. Even so, the bandits were fighting each other in the city of Yanguan, and the turmoil was strident. My parents could not tolerate the situation and moved outside the city to Dabai House.196 I asked my concubine to lead the women servants on her own in guarding the house, and I refused to send anybody or anything outside the city and add to our burden. Even if I had to attend to my parents and take my wife and children on a course of homeless wanderings, I wanted to do so by myself. However, things did not turn out as planned. In the raucous chaos, the servants took the luggage and left against my order. The Great Army pressed close to Zhuili just as the order for hair shaving came down, and everybody was even more terrified.197 My father had gone to Mount Re earlier, and no one inside or outside the house knew what to do. I thus bade her farewell: “The collapse and dispersal this time around will not be like last time when, being close to home, we still had people who could help us. I will be struggling on my own with great burdens. Instead of parting from you at a moment of crisis, it would be better to prepare

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and make arrangements ahead. I have a friend who took the examination with me in the same year.198 He is a trustworthy and righteous man of many talents—I am going to entrust you to him. Hereafter, if we see each other again, then of course we will have a lifetime of love, but if not, I will let you decide your own fate, and you should not think of me any longer.” She said, “Your words make sense. The entire family depends on you for survival; there aren’t any decisions that don’t come from you. For the generations above and below you, there are those who are a hundred times more important than me. If your mind cannot be at peace because of me, then not only would it not do any good, it would cause great harm. I will leave with your friend. If I manage to protect myself and survive, I vow to brave whatever difficulty and exert myself to the utmost to wait for you. If anything untoward happens, the endless raging waves within our purview, when formerly you and I had a panoramic vision of the sea, will be where I bury myself.” I was about to have her leave when my parents regretted my decision to let her go,199 and again we took her with us. From then on, for a hundred days, we were all struggling to wind our way through deep forests and remote roads, among thatched huts and fishing boats. We sometimes moved once a month, sometimes once a day, sometimes a few times per day. The hunger, the cold, the wind, and the rain: I will not give a full account of our suffering. Finally, at Saddle Mountain, we encountered the Great Army, and the killings and plunder were unbelievably horrifying and devastating. Fortunately, we got hold of a small boat and the eight of us swiftly crossed the river, and the family managed to survive intact. As for the shock, terror, distress, and sickness from exhaustion she suffered, they were extreme and unfathomable. 555

Du Jun comments: “Talented scholars and great beauties are often born in troubled times. Think of Wang Zhaojun, Cai Yan, Green Pearl: the

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examples are too numerous to count.200 That she should have been born in these times was fitting indeed. She suffered as she fled chaos and dangers, but ultimately she survived, lovely as ever, and got to die at home in her beautiful chamber. Furthermore, thanks to her husband’s marvelous brush, she attains immortality. Who can say that she is unfortunate?”

R E C O R D O F H E R M I N I S T R AT I O N S DURING MY SICKNESS

In the aftermath of the calamity we suffered at Qinxi, only the eight of us in the family managed to survive. At that time, almost twenty of our servants and maids were killed or abducted. Nothing remained of the fine things, clothes, and money we had accumulated. When the chaos had subsided somewhat, we made our way with difficulty into the city and sought urgent help from various friends. We did not even have sheets and blankets. At night we found shelter at the home of Uncle Fang Gongqian, who obtained the jinshi degree in the same year as my father.201 Fang too had been in hiding and had just returned. We had only one blanket, and I wrapped myself together with my third brother as we lay in the side chamber. It was then late autumn, and wind was shooting in from the windows in all directions. The following day, after going our separate ways to beg for a peck of rice and a bundle of firewood from various families, we temporarily brought my parents and my family back to our old abode. Afflicted by the cold, I became sick first with dysentery and then with malaria. A horizontal white plank, propped a few inches from the ground, became our bed. We gathered a few rags as defense against the cold and burned mulberry branches over the stove for warmth. Medicine that could restore deficiencies was lacking. Furthermore, turmoil roiling Suzhou blocked our way, and we also heard rumors that disaster had suddenly struck back home. 202 From Double Ninth onward I collapsed and became delirious, and by the time

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right before Winter Solstice I was stiff and unconscious. 203 One night I revived, and only then did we with great difficulty obtain a derelict boat and, traversing a veritable forest of exposed bones and thickets of rotting flesh, braved great dangers and crossed the river. Even then we did not dare to go home and stayed temporarily at Hailing. Through winter and spring, only after a hundred and fifty days, did I somewhat recover from my illness. For these hundred and fifty days, she wrapped herself in nothing more than a dilapidated mat and lay right next to me on the bed. She embraced me when I was cold, fanned me when I was hot, caressed me when I was in pain. Sometimes she pillowed me on her body, sometimes she protected my feet, sometimes, as I stretched and yawned, rose or fell back, she guarded me right and left. Whatever granted comfort to my ailing body, she used her being to provide it. Even through the flow of endless nights, as forms and sounds were lost to the senses, she maintained her vigilance, looking and listening. She used her hands and mouth to help me imbibe medicine. Even when it came to excrement, she always used the judgment of her eyes and nose, carefully discerning its color and smell as the basis for determining whether she should be worried or glad.204 Every day she took one meal of coarse grains. Besides imploring Heaven and kowtowing in prayers, all she did was kneel straight-backed in front of me, comforting me and diverting me with clever words so as to win my smile. In my sickness I was no longer myself and had frequent outbursts of anger and ill temper. Even as I railed at her and heaped abuse on her, she was not in the least offended. She persevered like this over five months, as if they were but one day. When they saw how her lovely cheeks were drained of color like wax and how her frail frame was all skin and bones, my mother and my wife, filled with pity and gratitude, wanted to take her place so that she could get some rest. She said, “I will exert all strength of mind and body to the utmost to follow him in life and death. If he lives, then even if I die, it will be as if I were still living. If by any chance he is overtaken by

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disaster and I remain behind in these flames of war, where will I turn for comfort and purpose?” I also remember that when I was seriously ill, there were long nights that I could not sleep, and roof tiles seemed to be flying in the relentless wind. Inside the city of Yanguan, scores and hundreds were killed every day. In the middle of the night the cries of ghosts murmuring and whistling came to our broken windows, sounding as mournful as insects chirping and as fearsome as arrows flying. The whole house was filled with starving and hungry people who were all sleeping and snoring after toil and exhaustion. I sat with my back to her heart. Her hand held mine firmly as we listened quietly with full attention. The sounds were disconsolate and unyielding, bleak and woeful, and our sighs were mixed with tears. She said to me, “I have entered your doors for four whole years. Day and night I see how you act: you are generous and honorable, and never come close to pettiness or deviance even by a hair’s breadth or in the minutest details. In all cases when you have received blame, only I have understood you and empathized with you. In truth, I respect your heart and mind more than I love your body. This is a body over which gods and spirits sigh in admiration and from which they keep a respectful distance in awe. If there is a sentient being in the Dark Vastness, it will certainly bless you with protection in silence. Even so, to face such situations in human existence, to experience in full such extraordinary horrors and unbelievable dangers, one can rarely escape being worn down and perishing unless one is made of metal or stone. In the days to come, if we are so lucky as to survive and return, you and I should regard myriad existence as expendable205 and roam in freedom beyond the realm of things. 206 Take care not to forget these words at this moment.” Alas! Alas! How can I pay her back in this life? She most certainly was not an ordinary woman of the mundane realm. In the dinghai year (1647), rumors and slander were clamorous enough to destroy everything.207 The thousand winding paths on the Taiheng Mountains took shape without warning on human

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faces.208 I felt as if the Five Peaks rose abruptly within my chest, 209 and was anxious and frustrated with pent-up feelings through the long summer. The only thing I could do was to burn prayers on two pieces of paper as offerings to Lord Guan in the morning and at night.210 For a long period I was afflicted with a strange illness and excreted a vast amount of blood, and my stomach and intestines seemed to have accumulated rocks by the thousands. By sudden turns cold and hot, I raved on and on, speaking thousands of words in mere moments, and there was no rhyme or reason to them. Sometimes I slept for several days and nights without waking. The doctors erroneously bombarded me with medicine designed to repair a weak and deficient constitution, and my condition deteriorated even further. For about twenty days I could barely swallow a mouthful of water. None could avoid the conclusion that this time I would certainly die. But my mind was totally clear, for my sickness did not arise from my external state.211 This was when the fire of summer seemed enough to melt metals, but there she was—not brushing sweat away, not driving away mosquitoes, just day and night sitting next to the medicine caldron, carefully watching me by my pillow or at my feet for sixty days and nights. Whatever my mind could think of and whatever my mind did not yet think of, she always attended to the matter before or soon afterward. In autumn of the jichou year (1649), ulcerous abscesses grew on my back, and I was again sick for a hundred days. In five years, I was seriously ill three times, and what I suffered in all cases were deadly ailments. The only thing was that I did not treat them as fatal, but if it had not been for her efforts, I am afraid I might not have been able to persist in doing so and avoid death. Now she has died before me, and when we bade each other eternal farewell, her only worry was that her death would add to my sickness, and that she would not be there to take care of me when I got sick. That her loving care for me should have twined its way through life and death! What pain! What pain!

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555

Du Jun comments: “This sincerity and steadfastness moved heaven and earth. She poured out her heart’s blood: in her devotion she matched the loyalty of Guan Longfeng and equaled the filial piety of Zeng Shen and Min Ziqian.212 She should receive sacrifices for all ages to come, and her story should be transmitted and should never fade.”

RECORD OF T H E OMENS

Every year, on New Year’s Day, I invariably divined about events of the coming year by drawing one bamboo lot in front of Lord Guan. In the renwu year (1642), my ambition for achieving fame and honor was great. I prayed and saw that the first word on the lot was “remember” [yi]. For this was the verse: I remember, back then, the halved hairpin in the orchid room. Now letters and messages are suddenly cut off. Foolish longing makes me hope for union like branches twined; who could have known that this would finally come to naught?

At that time I pondered this and did not understand. Even considering the whole verse, the words had nothing to do with success in the examination. And then I met her. On the last day of the fourth month, we parted after Mount Jin. She took to a vegetarian diet. Upon her return, she earnestly divined about us in front of Lord Guan at his temple in Tiger Mound. She avowed her wish to serve me for the rest of her life and got precisely the same lot. In autumn, when I passed through Qinhuai, she told me the story about the lot and was fearful that we would “finally come to naught.” When I heard that, I was surprised and told her that

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the lot was the same as the one I had obtained on New Year’s Day. At that time, a friend who was present said, “I should do a joint divination for the two of you at Xihua Gate.”213 And he still got the same lot. She became even more doubtful and apprehensive. Furthermore, she was concerned that, having seen the lot, I would slacken my effort, and she was visibly worried. But later she finally fulfilled her wish. “Orchid room,” “halved hairpin,” “foolish longing,” “branches twined”—these are all words befitting the sentiments of the inner chamber. And that it “would finally come to naught” is an omen fulfilled today! Alas! All the years left to me will be years of remembering and longing. How extraordinary the word “remember” is, that it should be shown as an omen destined to be fulfilled. All her clothes and jewelry were lost during the calamity we suffered. Upon our return, she was contented and indifferent to finery,214 and did not have any jewelry made. On Double Seventh in the wuzi year (1647), she was looking at the colorful evening clouds and all of a sudden wanted to depict their pattern on a gold bracelet. She asked me to write down the two words qi qiao (begging for cleverness). 215 I could not think of an expression that would form a parallel with it. She said: “Some time ago, in a wealthy family in Yellow Mountain, I saw a true Xuande censer with the pattern of ‘Covering with Auspicious Clouds.’216 The style was superb. I beg to use fu xiang (“covering with auspiciousness”) as the parallel of qi qiao.”217 The imitation of the calligraphy and the carving were quite marvelous. One year later, the bracelet suddenly broke in the middle. We made another one. It happened to be the seventh month, and I changed the words to bi yi (“paired wings”) and lian li (“twined branches”). When she was on the brink of death, for everything from head to toe, she did not want to wear any gold, pearls, or silk. She kept only the bracelet, not letting it leave her hand, because I had had the characters inscribed on it. The secret vow at the Palace of Lasting Life was what the guest at the gods’ city conveyed to Emperor Xuanzong after the

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death of Consort Yang.218 Why did I so thoughtlessly write those words then? For they have led to the setting of the “Song of Everlasting Sorrow” to music once again. Her calligraphy was graceful and appealing. Her imitation of Zhong Yao’s style was on the delicate side; later she used Wang Xizhi’s “Cao E” stele as model.219 Whenever I set forth red and yellow ink for editorial work, she always sat facing me, ready with ink and brush for copying. Sometimes she burned incense in the quiet night and carefully copied by hand poems by women; this history of poetry from the inner chambers formed a fascicle—these are all the traces that she left behind. Now and then she composed poems, but most of the time she did not bother to keep them. Last year, on the second day of the New Year, she was copying for me the complete Tang pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic quatrains in two scrolls. That day she happened to read some lines by a seven-year-old girl: My sigh is for people who cannot be like wild geese: They do not return in one line.220

She was moved to tears. That night she composed eight quatrains in matching rhymes to harmonize with that poem. Their tone of grief and reverberations of sorrow were such that one could not bear to finish reading them. Once I saw this as I was trimming the wick of the lamp, I was extremely unhappy. I then snatched them away and burned them. I thus lost her manuscript. How woeful and how strange that was! This year, it was precisely on the same day as that episode that she left us forever. 555

[Translator’s note] Mao Xiang burned Dong Bai’s poems because they seemed inauspicious. But in his anxiety to avert loss, he had doubled his

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loss because he no longer had the poems that could remind him of Dong. A late seventeenth-century anthology of song lyrics by women writers includes three works said to be by Dong Bai. One of them purports to be a letter to Mao Xiang:221 ⋣┯ᆀ TO THE TUNE “HE MANZI” Ḝ䗏⮶ཛᆀ LETTER TO MY HUSBAND PIJIANG

⵬ᓅ䶎䰌ॸٖ ⴹ䯃ᗞᑦ⿻Ⰵ ᜩкᗳ九᧘н৫ ␂␂唟唟⎸兲 䂖୿␵ᇥ‫ي‬᷅ ᜏ佈㻛ߧ俉ⓛ

䟰ቡ㭹㚢ཌ䴘 ᒫᡀḣ㢢ᵍ䴢 Ⅲ䃚‫❑❦׍‬ਟ䃎 ↔ᛵ䚴䁡䃠䄆 ᖵሽ᰾⟸⦘඀ ‫ݏ‬Ԇ␊╜㖵ᐮ

The eyes are indifferent to midday languor, but faint traces of autumn mark the eyebrows. What creeps up on the heart cannot be pushed aside— a dark, forlorn longing. Leaning against a pillow on a quiet night—what of it? What remains: a cold coverlet and warm fragrance. An inevitable turn: night rain makes music on plantains, an illusion complete: morning clouds color the willows. Desiring to speak, yet no words can be found. Who may yet be allowed to judge this feeling? There’s naught to do but sit alone facing the bright lamp and give him the tear-stained handkerchief as recompense.

An anthology of poetry by Qing women writers compiled in the eighteenth century includes one quatrain under Dong’s name:222 ㏐デ‫ڦ‬ᡀ INCIDENTAL COMPOSITION BY THE GREEN WINDOW

⯵⵬ⴻ㣡ᜱᙍ␡ ᒭデ⦘඀ᔴ⪔⩤ 哳呍Ӗլ⸕Ӫ᜿ ḣཆᱲᱲ䘱ྭ丣

My sickly eyes look upon the flowers: sorrowful thoughts run deep as I sit alone by the secluded window, playing the jade zither. The yellow oriole seems to discern human feelings and ever so often sends along good music from beyond the willows. 555

In the third month of last spring, I wanted to return again to Yanguan to visit various friends who had helped us during the calamity we suffered. When I reached Hanshang, I was detained by friends from the Revival Society.223 At that time, which happened to be my fortieth birthday, my various distinguished friends all composed poems for me.224 Minister of Rites Gong chose to tell the story of my concubine from beginning to end in several thousand words. 225 Luo Binwang’s “Poem of the Capital” and Yuan Zhen’s “Song of Lianchang Palace” cannot compare to it.226 The minister said, “If you do not add your annotations, then my deep intentions cannot be revealed. For example, the line ‘Peach blossoms most fragile suffused her face, tinted with wine in spring’ combines two scenes: your meetings in the jimao year (1639) when she was drunk, and in the renwu year (1642) when she was sick. Who would be able to understand that?” I assented then, but did not start writing right away.

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Other lines all celebrate my good fortune to have obtained her. Thus Wu Qi: From time past men of letters have been praised as filial sons; true indeed that the distinguished gentleman should love the supreme beauty.227

Du Jun: His main wife walks with him, his concubine follows.228

Deng Hanyi: They are among the trees for a reason: She who comes under the flowers has the gift of literature.229

Huang Chuanzu: By the coral brush rest are traces of her fragrant steps, right next to works for famed mountains is the wine flask of the golden chamber.230

Yao Quan: By the brocade zither, the fair one will contentedly grow old. In the lotus garden, myriad flowers bloom.231

Peng Sunyi: Now at forty you can rise high as a recluse; I envy you for your virtuous wife and her helper.232

The esteemed Li Zhichun from my hometown:

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He hides his grand vision for the realm in one Hackleberry Nest, while roaming among flowers and orioles in two chambers of harmony.233

Li Dan: The fair one asks hard questions by the books behind curtains.

How could we have known that the words that encouraged me to drink another cup would describe my vows in front of her grave? Reading my miscellaneous account should make one understand the excellence of the poems by the various gentlemen. That I did not annotate Minister Gong’s poem last spring but rather postponed it till today just means that blood and tears will be mixed with ink.234 At the end of the third month, I moved my residence again and stayed at Zhao Erbian’s Friends of Clouds Studio.235 I have been on the road for a long time. As I lay there in the rain, my longing for home was intense. In the evening, when the rain stopped and it cleared up, Minister Gong, together with Du Jun and Wu Qi, came by to console me, and they stayed to drink. As we listened to the young musicians making music on strings and pipes, my desire to return home became even more urgent. We then set the rhymes and each wrote four poems.236 For reasons unknown, the poems all have the mournful and disconsolate mood of the shang note. At the third drum 237 we parted. Once my head hit the pillow, I dreamed of returning home. I saw everyone in the family, all except her. I hastened to ask my wife, who did not answer. I then looked for her everywhere, and only saw my wife shedding tears behind my back. I cried out in the dream, “Could she have died?” A sharp pang of grief woke me up. She had been sick every spring, and I was filled with doubt and foreboding. Subsequently I returned, and she was actually not ill. When I had the chance, I told her about the dream. She said, “How strange! That night I

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also dreamed of several persons taking me away by force. I hid myself and luckily escaped, but they were still barking away endlessly.” Who would have known that the dream was real and that the omen had first come to me in the poems! 555

Du Jun comments, “For a distinguished gentleman and a distinguished lady, their essence and spirit came together and often communed with the gods. That was why divination and ominous words from the brush seemed as palpable as a conversation. Yet why did the Creator not extend her allotted span even by a little? What a pity!” 555

[Translator’s note] The elliptical and enigmatic ending of Plum Shadows has bred speculations that perhaps Dong Bai did not die at all, but was abducted by Qing troops.238 Xu Zhiyan (d. 1923) tells the story that she entered the Qing palace and became the Shunzhi emperor’s beloved consort, Lady Dong’e, and her early death is said to have prompted the emperor’s Buddhist renunciation of the throne.239 At the turn of the twentieth century, some scholars of The Story of the Stone believed that the novel is a roman à clef encoding these episodes about Dong Bai and the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1661).240 The historian Meng Sen (1869–1938) has convincingly refuted these speculations.241 (However, Plum Shadows and The Story of the Stone do share a focus on memory, nostalgia, evanescent beauty, the refinements of daily life, and the symbolic ties between women and flowers, even though direct influence is not provable [BJ 395–420].) On the level of narrative, Mao’s dream of Dong’s death and Dong’s simultaneous dream of the threat of abduction merely confirm spiritual affinities and a deep attachment: there is no need to infer elision of hidden

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secrets. It is perhaps also fitting that Dong’s death should be portrayed as the fulfillment of Mao’s dream, as the memoir is suffused with subjective illumination and defined by Mao’s perspective that may ultimately tell us more about his desires and fears than about the historical Dong Bai. The relationship between Mao Xiang and Dong Bai has been lauded as one of the great love stories in the tradition. To the modern reader there remains something asymmetrical in their bond, as evinced by Mao’s lack of self-questioning and his sense of entitlement when it comes to what is expected of a woman’s devotion. In 1661, ten years after Dong’s death, Chen Weisong (1626–1682) wrote an account of Wu Koukou based on Mao’s narration of her life.242 Koukou had been Mao’s favorite for a number of years, and Mao was about to formally make her his concubine when she died at the age of nineteen. The account of Wu Koukou is full of echoes of Plum Shadows: Koukou seems to share many of Dong’s virtues. Indeed, Dong said to Mao before she died, “This child is adorable. She will be the one in the boudoir for you in the future.” In this system, a woman expects herself to be replaceable. Any attempt to glorify the love story of Mao and Dong must take into account its firm setting in gender hierarchy and its corollary definition of female virtue as self-denial.

Miscellaneous Records O F TH E

Plank Bridge

g YU HUAI

P R E FAC E

Someone asked me, “On what account was Miscellaneous Records of the Plank Bridge written?” I responded, “It was written for a good reason.” Another observed: “There are countless things one could glorify or record in the rise and decline of an era and in the melancholy reflections over all those years. Yet you have told us only about pleasure quarters and have transmitted none but romantic stories: is that not misguided?” I broke into a smile: “This is precisely what is bound up with the rise and decline of an era and the melancholy reflections over all those years. On no account is this merely a matter of telling only about pleasure quarters or transmitting none but romantic stories. “Since ancient times, Jinling has been called the charmed land1—the ornaments of its culture have flourished in Jiangnan,2 and the aura of its accomplishments has been unrivaled in the realm. The Blue Stream of Baixia, Peach Leaf, and the ‘Round Fan’—the romantic stories are indeed legion! 3 During the early years of the Hongwu reign (1368–1398), the sixteen towers were built to house official courtesans.4 With names such as Faint Mist, Light Powder, Repeated Translations, and Arriving Guests, they were deemed elegant affairs giving distinction to the period. Since then, in the following three hundred years, some of them had

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fallen into disuse, though some had survived. Ancient sites were sinking into oblivion, and the only ones that remained were the South Market, the Pearl Market, and the Old Quarters. 5 The South Market was where lowly courtesans lived. In the Pearl Market, one would now and then come upon extraordinary beauties. As for the Old Quarters, that was where the famous courtesans of the South Bend and the leaders of the profession were to be found. “I was born too late, and did not get to behold the ‘mist and flowers’ of Southland or the official courtesans of the Courtyard Fit for Spring.6 Even so, I was fortunate enough to have grown up in an era of peace, and could now and then roam the Northern Ward.7 Along the long Plank Bridge, I chanted and intoned poems, proudly surveying the scene. My compositions found popularity with the fair ladies; famous courtesans favored me with their gaze and cited them.8 I also took pride in regarding myself as the ‘safe and sound’ Secretary Du.9 “Ever since the dynastic transition, times have changed. In ten years of old dreams, there are only vague contours of Yangzhou.10 The realm of pleasures is now completely overgrown with weeds.11 Music from red sandalwood clappers decorated with strands of jade and gentle strains accompanying wondrous dancing are not there to be heard. Cavernous rooms with ornately carved windows, silk curtains, and embroidered draperies are not there to be seen. The finest flowers and fairy herbs, brocade zithers and intricate instruments are not there to be appreciated.12 In the moments I have passed by the place, brambles have filled my vision. Towers and buildings have tumbled in kalpic ashes and beauties have turned into dust. Can anything exceed this when it comes to the melancholy reflections over rise and decline? Before frustrated ambition could find fulfillment, I encountered chaos and devastation. As I quietly think back on events past, there is no wherewithal to reclaim them. All I can do is to record what I saw and heard and compile these accounts, following the example of Record of Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital,13 drawing attention to the ways

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of that world.14 How can this be merely a matter of telling only about pleasure quarters or transmitting none but romantic stories?” My guest leaped up and said, “In that case, we cannot afford not to have this recorded.” I thus wrote Miscellaneous Records of the Plank Bridge. 555

[Translator’s note] Yu Huai prefaces his work by paying tribute to Jinling (Nanjing). It was the capital of the kingdom of Wu (from 229 till its conquest by Jin in 280), Eastern Jin (317–420), the Southern Dynasties of Song (420–479), Qi (479–502), Liang (502–557), and Chen (557–589), and the kingdom of Southern Tang (937–975). These are remembered as southern dynasties steeped in romantic sensibility and cultural refinements. The “Song of Peach Leaf ” and “Song of the Round Fan,” as well as Feng Yansi’s (903– 960) lines cited later (83), evoke that world. The first Ming emperor drove out the Mongols who had ruled China for ninety years and made Nanjing the capital again in 1368. Although the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–1424), who deposed his nephew and usurped the throne in 1402, moved the capital to Beijing in 1421, Nanjing remained the auxiliary capital and a great cultural center. Yu Huai begins with references to the first Ming emperor so as to tie his work to early Ming glory. The names of the sixteen towers imply political significance: while Faint Mist and Light Powder are names redolent with refined pleasures, Repeated Translations and Arriving Guests are terms culled from the classics and early historical texts: they refer to foreign emissaries visiting the Shang, Zhou, and Han courts. Political purpose is thus entwined with the pursuit of pleasure. The Veritable Record of the first Ming emperor mentions the construction of ten towers with wine shops for receiving visitors and foreign emissaries.15 Zhou Hui (sixteenth– seventeenth c.) lists the names of the sixteen towers

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built in the early Ming to house official courtesans in Stories About Jinling (Jinling suoshi). He also notes that only one tower was still standing by the mid-sixteenth century; it was a haunt for “butchers and men of the marketplace.” Instead of Faint Mist and Light Powder, Zhou has Light Mist and Faint Powder. Other miscellanies by Hu Yinglin (1551–1602), Gu Qiyuan (1565–1628), Xie Zhaozhi (1567–1624), and Shen Defu (1578–1642) variously claim that there were ten, fourteen, or fifteen towers during the Hongwu reign.16 From another perspective, Yu Huai stakes his claim to significance by invoking the late Tang poet Du Mu. Despite his romantic dalliances, Du Mu is known for his probity and wrote extensively on political and military issues. By comparing himself with Du Mu, Yu Huai is claiming the same confluence of romantic longing and political engagement. Yu’s career also shows a parallel with Du’s: as noted in the introduction, he served as Fan Jingwen’s secretary from 1640 to 1644. Perhaps the most compelling rationale for this work, however, is the imperative of preserving memories that will otherwise fade into oblivion.

MISCELLANEO US RECORDS OF T H E P LANK B R I D G E , PA R T I : E L E G A N T A S S O C I AT I O N S

Jinling was the place where kings and emperors established their capitals. Lords and imperial relatives built grand houses that soared to the clouds. Noblemen and princes dazzled with their fur cloaks and horses. And then there were the young men from the most distinguished lineages:17 whenever their roaming took them to the lakes and the sea, they never failed to bring their bows or play their flutes as they passed by the houses of famous courtesans.18 Every time they held feasts and entertained, they would send for denizens of the Music Registry, and fine silks would waft their

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fragrance. Wine cups were raised as the wine made its round, and the special ones were asked to tarry as other guests were sent off. When the drinking was over and the chess games were done, earrings would have fallen and hairpins would have been left behind.19 It was truly the fairy precinct of the realm of desire, and the domain of pleasures in an era of peace and prosperity. People called the Old Quarters the Bend.20 Its front gate faced Wuding Bridge, and its back gate was on Treasury Street.21 The families of courtesans, arrayed closely like fish scales, lived in houses that were next to one another. The houses were tasteful and meticulously clean, gracefully laced with flowers and vegetation. This was truly the opposite of the mundane realm of dust and grime.22 Reach the entrance and the gates with copper rings would open, while pearly curtains hung low. Go up the steps and pet dogs would bark at the guests, and parrots would call for tea. Ascend the hall and the madam would respectfully welcome you 23 and conduct rituals proper for hosts and guests. Enter the court and the maid would have finished applying makeup for the beauty; she would emerge followed by her maid. Sit long enough and all manner of delicacies would arrive and various tunes and songs would strike up. Reach an understanding and her gaze would stir your heart, and tender feelings would deepen. Privileged young men in silken garments, talented scholars gifted with refined words—they were without exception lost in this battle formation of sensual beauty and gave up their spirit to the female sway. In families of courtesans, servants and maids called a courtesan “mistress.” People outside the household called her “young mistress.” The madam passing on a message would call her “mistress child.” When clients came, they were called “brothers-in-law.” And the clients would call the madam “Grannie.” The Music Registry was under the control of the Bureau of Music Instruction with its own presiding official. It had authorized quarters, official seats, officers, implements of punishment, and

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tallies for summons and the like. The men there sported official costumes with cap and belt, but they would not dare to simply bow and hold their hands together when they met the clients.24 Courtesans in their various houses made distinctions among themselves and vied to charm and excel in beauty, excellence, and extraordinary accomplishments. Daybreak came with morning drinks and fragrant baths, and the scent of clothes wafted over entire gardens. By noon the aroma of orchids, jasmine, and exquisite incense could be traced for miles. With the advent of evening, the sounds of those playing the flutes, plucking the zithers, or singing in dramatic performance penetrated the Nine Heavens. Of the courtesans, Li Daniang and the Bian sisters (Bian Sai and Bian Min) ranked highest. Sha Cai and Gu Mei were next, and Zheng Tuoniang, Dun Wen, Cui Ke, and the Ma sisters (Ma Jiao and Ma Nen) were one rung down.25 The Long Plank Bridge was scores of steps beyond the walls of the Old Quarters. A luminous expanse of gentle green opened up, and water and mist merged in jadeite dreaminess. Flanked by the Returning Light Temple and the Eagle Peak Temple, the East Garden of the Lord of Zhongshan stretched out in front of it, while the Vermilion Bird Bridge curved around its back.26 It was indeed a place to gladden the eyes and delight the heart, a place where one could be cleansed of the dust and grime of the mundane world. Ever so often, as the cool night calmed the spirit, when the breeze was refreshing and the moon shone bright, distinguished gentlemen and peerless beauties with flowers pinned in their coiffure held hands in a leisurely stroll, leaned against balustrades, and lingered. Or one would suddenly encounter a certain lady, and laughter and words would joyfully ripple. On one side some would be playing the flute, on the other some would be composing exquisite songs. The fish would emerge to listen as all else became quiet. This was indeed a glorious affair in an age of peace and prosperity. The splendor of the lantern boats of Qinhuai was unmatched in all under heaven. On its two banks were riverside houses, with

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their carved balustrades and painted thresholds, delicately latticed windows and silk screens, and pearly curtains that extended for ten li.27 The host would claim to “have become inebriated,” while the guest would protest: “Dawn has not broken.”28 On boats going to and fro were men who said, pointing with their fingers and directing their gaze, “Such-and-such famous courtesan is in suchand-such river house.” The one who won the acknowledged “queen of flowers” became the victor. Shortly after dusk, the lantern boats all gathered. Like a fiery dragon turning and gliding, their glow lit up heaven and earth. Waving drumsticks struck the drums and stamping feet kept the beat on these boats amid the currents. From the Gathering Treasures Gate Lock to the Free Pass Gate Lock, the exhilarating commotion lasted till the morning. At the Peach Leaf Crossing, the voice of those vying to cross never ceased. As I wrote in “The Song of the Qinhuai Lantern Boats”:29 Pointing to Mount Zhong in the distance, where the hues of trees bloom, as the fragrant grass of the Six Dynasties turns toward the Agate Terrace 30— a circle of lantern flames descends from heaven, and ten thousand coral pieces come, riding the waves.

It also has these lines: Spring crimson from a dream, spanning ever so long, has secretly stolen, from behind curtains, a superb fragrance.31 Colorful clouds fly out from the Bronze Dragon Spouts. So many fair ladies are adorned with the same fine taste.

And also this: With divine strings, immortal pipes, and crystal cups, a fiery dragon is turning and gliding on high waves.

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Clouds wreathe the Golden Gate— a Heavenly Entrance far away; stars dance in the Silver City—the snow grottoes open.

These are all factual records. Alas, can this ever be seen again! The Pear Garden of the Bureau of Music Instruction was the only place that transmitted religious music of the court, which was the legacy of the Zhengde emperor’s southern tour.32 But famous courtesans, aloof like fairy maidens, were deeply ashamed of going on stage and performing plays. They would consent to perform only when their best friends gathered and repeatedly cajoled and urged them to do so. Their singing voices and the shadows of their fans as they danced would captivate all present. The hosts, feeling greatly flattered, would add to their recompense tenfold.33 As for Old Dun’s pipa playing or Zheng Tuoniang’s arias, those were fitting only for heaven and would be hard to come by in the human realm!34 555

[Translator’s note] Zhang Dai offers a slightly different account of the courtesans’ attitude toward taking the stage: “In the South Bend, courtesans regarded operatic performance as an elegant thing and threw themselves into it heart and soul. Yang Yuan, Yang Neng, Gu Mei, Li Tenth, and Dong Bai were all famous for singing in operas.”35 Old Dun was the grandfather of Dun Wen, a courtesan famous for her skill on the zither—her story is told later. Old Dun was a descendant of Dun Ren, who gained the Zhengde emperor’s favor and served as a music teacher in the Jinling Bureau of Music Instruction. Dun Ren later followed the emperor to Beijing and learned northern music there.36 Zheng Tuoniang (b. 1584) (given name Ruying, sobriquet Wumei) was one of the famous courtesans of Qinhuai.37 Her poems are included in the anthology of

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Ming poetry compiled by Qian Qianyi. Kong Shangren (1648– 1718) turned her into a clown in Peach Blossom Fan, but she was in fact famous for her talent and beauty. 555

Beautifully groomed young men were there with their vests and perfectly oiled coiffures. The flower vendors came by midday, with baskets and hampers in tow. They loudly called out the names of their merchandise: deodorizing grass 38 and jasmine blossoms. Charming maids rolled up curtains, spread out cash, and vied to buy them, catching each other by the arm and brushing against each other’s breasts. In a moment, dark clouds of hair would be piled with snow-white blossoms, and whole bodies would emit a beguiling fragrance. For jasmines form buds by midday and open up on pillows—this is truly a seductive flower that lends pleasure to the night and a bewitching plant that entangles one’s desires. Orchids, on the other hand, are elegant, lofty, and disdainful of crowds. They should be placed in gauze cabinets and on painted terraces, sharing the gentle harmony of Buddha’s hands and quinces.39 Their subtle scent belongs to the reverberations of wine games and tea competitions. How can seductive flowers and bewitching plants be compared to what is called “the fragrance of princes” and “jade pendants of the goddess of the Xiang River”?40 The style and fashion of the South Bend were held up as a model by all corners of the realm.41 In general, the dominant tone was understated elegance and simplicity. Glamour and sensual appeal were not valued as prime attributes. The ones who had just turned sixteen were said to have “coiffed hair.” 42 Those who had become grown women were said to “sport a chignon.” Their patrons supplied them with all their wardrobe and jewelry. Clever designs and fine tailoring came from the madams, who helped themselves to the leftover items. That was why even though the madams were advanced in years, they were still elaborately adorned and

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beautifully dressed, capturing attention with their radiance. The length of upper garments or the width of sleeves changed every so often, and those who saw such transformations called their fashion “the style of the times.” 43 The young ladies in the Bend were mostly biological daughters of the madams, who therefore doubly cherished them. Good patrons who came their way were allowed to tarry for as long as they wanted—money would not become an issue. If they refused to consort with vulgar men or rich merchants, their mothers would not be angry with them. Entering into marriages and removing their names from the Music Registry was the province of the Bureau of Rituals. For such arrangements, one would not have to pay much to the biological mother of a courtesan, while an adoptive mother would demand a high price. The common saying that “the young mistress loves the looks, while the procuress loves money” applied only in the case of adoptive mothers. The Old Quarters and the Examination Quarters faced each other across the distance, separated only by the river.44 The setting was from the beginning meant for talented scholars and beauties. When it came to the year of the triennial examination, examination candidates from the four corners of the realm all gathered there in the season of autumn breezes and cassia blossoms.45 Traveling in groups, they chose among beauties and sought out the best songs. Exquisite singers trilled their notes and marvelous dancers swirled rhythmically.46 When the music from pipes and singing voices of opera rose together in unison, fragrance would pervade the water as the boats turned around. The men might invite the women for a few days of pleasure, or they might pledge their troth for a hundred years. Under the grape arbor, some tossed gold coins in jest;47 by the balustrade with peonies, some gently dropped jade horses as love tokens.48 These were glorious affairs in the pleasure quarters, and the outer chapter in the battle of letters. As for gentlemen mired in sensual pleasures and ladies who grew tired of

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their lovers, the moment would come when fur cloaks became worn and gold ran out, and joys were few and sorrows abundant.49 Although these were but the usual tricks of those who set traps for patrons, sojourners of the pleasure quarters should have been deeply wary. The faithless ones in the blue towers—what sort of creatures were they?50 The markets in the Bend were extraordinarily clean. Perfumed sachets, shoes with cloud patterns, famous wines, excellent teas, sweets, little delicacies, pipes and flutes, zithers and horizontal lutes—everything was of the finest kind. When visitors from outside were buying, they did not begrudge the high prices. Among the things the ladies gave as gifts, there were no vulgar things. This was just as Li Xianyuan wrote in “Collected Lines on the Sixteen Towers”:51 The sounds of the marketplace rise like waves in spring, the color of trees looms dark green at dawn. Drinking companions send each other off, returning to pavilions with scented brocade.

The female family members of the political foes of the Yongle emperor were sent to elephant stalls and married to slaves tending and training elephants.52 Those unwilling to submit to the shame committed suicide. Hu Run’s wife and daughters were assigned to the Bureau of Music Instruction and became prostitutes.53 These were acts without precedent in all previous ages. I heave sighs as I recite from memory the verses on “the fiery dragon” and “iron cavalry.”54 Among the poems entitled “Miscellaneous Topics on Jinling” by Qian Qianyi of Yushan are the following:55 Bearing lovely names like Faint Powder and Light Mist,” they were built in a splendid age—the capital city of memory.56

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And now they are also included in the section on “mist and flowers”: the lanterns on the wine house were just like Bianjing.57 On red notepaper, she consented to pledge her troth one night— she who had long been famous in the quarters for ten years. In the small courtyard of bygone days, beneath the mottled bamboo curtain, was the sound of a parrot calling the guest—still lingering in memory. (Feng Er of the Old Quarters: her style name was Chaocai.)58 Forlorn over parting, detaining her lover, she hated the horses’ hooves. The moon shone bright over the quarters as crows cawed at night. I do not know why it mattered to Wang Third that he should urge me to seek pleasures and with me return.59 Feelings all his own, an appetite for wine unlike any other. Let him be faithless, and bear with his wild ways. Heaven wants to cut off the line of one devoted to mist and flowers, and let Xiao Boliang of Guazhou sink in drunken oblivion.60 Old Dun’s pipa playing follows old models. The sandalwood frets sound raw as sparse notes ring out. Who will ask about the religious music from the southern tour? The gray-haired Zhou lad hides his tears as he listens. (Zhou Yuxi of Shaoxing likes to listen to Old Dun’s pipa playing.)61 With old songs and new poems she prevailed in the quarters. In silken garments, white hair drooping, she mourns among lakes and rivers.62

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Leisurely she opens the last section of Poems to teach her granddaughter:63 she is Zheng Tuoniang of the former dynasty. (Zheng Ruying’s sobriquet was Tuoniang.)64 555

[Translator’s note] Qian Qianyi (sobriquet Muzhai, 1582–1664) was a famous poet and scholar-official deeply involved in late Ming factional politics. After the fall of Beijing and the suicide of the Congzhen emperor on the nineteenth day of the third month (April 25 in the Gregorian calendar) in 1644, the Chongzhen emperor’s cousin Zhu Yousong (Prince Fu) ascended the throne in Nanjing two months later and adopted the reign title Hongguang. This yearlong continuation of Ming rule is sometimes called “the Southern Ming.” Qian Qianyi served as minister of rites in the Hongguang court and surrendered to Qing forces when Nanjing fell in the fifth month of 1645. Qian then went north to Beijing and served for a few months in the Qing government. He wrote extensively on mournful remembrance of the Ming during the early Qing. The full title of this poetic sequence is “Miscellaneous Topics on Jinling: Twenty-Five Quatrains, Following Poems Composed in the Yiwei Year (1655)” (QMZ 4:415– 22). Chen Yinke dates these quatrains to 1656 or 1657 and believes that Qian traveled to Jinling in 1655 and 1657 in order to make connections with Ming loyalists in preparation for Zheng Chenggong’s (1624–1662) planned expedition to recapture the Lower Yangzi area. Chen also thinks that Yu Huai deliberately avoids the political poems in this poetic sequence (LRS 3:1073–1104, 1155– 63). Qian refers in his title to “poems composed in the yiwei year,” but the earlier quatrains on Jinling are from 1656 (bingshen), not 1655 (yiwei) (QMZ 4:280–91). 555

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Among the “Miscellaneous Poems on Qinhuai” by Wang Shizhen of Xincheng are these two: For romantic élan in the Old Quarters, few surpassed Dun and Yang.65 Remembering things past in the Pear Garden, tears soak our lapels. Facing the wine flask, the white-haired ones speak of the Tianbao era:66 Tuo Shiniang is now worn out and cast off in the human realm.67 Bygone events in the Southern dynasty stir pity, to this day, it is local mores to vie to charm and enthrall. Along Qinhuai, string music and singing voices rise at night; Dropped with abandon are jade note markers as they play ornate flutes. 555

[Translator’s note] Wang Shizhen (sobriquets Ruanting and Yuyang, 1634–1711) was a canonical early Qing poet famous for his style of “ineffable essence and resonance” (shenyun). Although he hailed from the north (Xincheng in Shandong), his tenure as police magistrate in Yangzhou (1659–1665) gave him the chance to become entranced with Jiangnan culture. During the early 1660s, he befriended older Jiangnan poets, many of them loyalists. In “Twenty Miscellaneous Poems on Qinhuai” (1661), two of which are cited here, Wang notes how the Qinhuai musician Ding Jizhi introduced him to that lost world. Carefully tracing the process of imagining loss, Wang participates symbolically, through a kind of mediated nostalgia, in the romantic-aesthetic culture of the previous generation.

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555

The above poems are all compositions mourning the present and lamenting the past, lingering over deep emotions. They can serve as aids in conversations as one speaks about the South Bend, so I have recorded them, letting them pass for stirring, melancholy music. Huang Tingjian wrote: “Who knows how to write the heartbreaking lines of Southland? / In all the world there is only He Fanghui.” If one were to meet the singers of the Banner Pavilion, one could not but leave marks on the walls. 555

[Translator’s note] He Zhu (sobriquet Fanghui) (1052–1125), a lyricist and scholarofficial, wrote one of the most famous love poems in the tradition: lj䶂⦹ṸNJTO THE TUNE “GREEN JADE TABLE”

߼⌒н䙾ₛຈ䐟 նⴞ䘱 㣣ລ৫ 䥖⪏ᒤ㨟䃠㠷ᓖ ᴸ⁻㣡῝ ⪓デᵡᡦ ਚᴹ᱕⸕㲅 伋䴢޹޹㰵ⲻ᳞ ᖙㅶᯠ乼㞨ᯧਕ 䂖୿䯁ᜱ䜭ᒮ䁡

Her light steps do not come by the Hengtang Road. My eyes can only bid farewell to clouds of fragrant dust. With whom would she pass these years of longing? Moon bridge and flowers in the courtyard, latticed windows and vermilion gates: only spring knows where. Flying clouds gently rising, angelicas in dusk: lines of heartbreak, newly inscribed by a beautiful brush. Dare one ask how much idle sorrow?

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аᐍ➉㥹 ┯෾付㎞ ẵᆀ哳ᱲ䴘

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A river of mist and grass, a city filled with windblown catkins, the rain that comes when plums ripen to yellow.

The last two lines of Huang Tingjian’s (1045–1105) quatrain, “Sent to He Fanghui” ᇴ䋰ᯩഎ, differ slightly from Yu Huai’s quotation: “Who knows how to write the heartbreaking lines of Southland? / In this age there is only He Fanghui” 䀓֌⊏ইᯧ 㞨ਕˈਚӺୟᴹ䋰ᯩഎ. The longing, melancholy, evanescence, and potential political meaning (some have interpreted it in terms of He Zhu’s political disappointment) of the lyric fit Yu Huai’s vision of his own writing. In an anecdote from Xue Yongruo’s (ninth c.) Collection of Strange Stories ( Jiyi ji), three Kaiyuan-era poets—Wang Changling (698– 765), Gao Shi (ca. 704– 765), and Wang Zhihuan (688– 742)—are drinking in Banner Pavilion. As they listen to four courtesans singing, each makes a mark on the wall whenever his poem is chosen for performance, trying to determine who is most popular. Wang Zhihuan wins this competition because the most beautiful courtesan sings his poem.68 The anecdote captures the convivial symbiosis between the poet and the courtesan. The analogues for the “singers of Banner Pavilion” would be courtesans who can demonstrate appreciation of Yu Huai’s records through performance. The difference is that the circuit is more reflexive in Yu Huai’s case: while the Tang poets write about a range of topics, Yu Huai confines himself to memories of the pleasure quarters.

PA R T I I : C L A S S I F I C AT I O N O F T H E B E A U T I E S

I was born in the final years of the Wanli reign (1572–1620). As for forming connections with gentlemen from four corners of the

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realm and entering the lotus tent to serve Minister of War Fan as the “safe and sound” secretary, that happened after the gengchen (1640) and xinsi (1641) years of the Chongzhen reign.69 I did not get to see any of the famous courtesans of the Bend from an earlier generation, such as Zhu Dou’er, Xu Pianpian, and Ma Xianglan.70 I thus arranged my entries based on what I have seen: in some cases I classified and appraised their beauty and accomplishments, in other cases I merely recorded their names. This would give credence to the romantic élan east of the river and preserve the sensual aura of the Six Dynasties.71 Formerly, even when the Song emperor Huizong was imprisoned in the City of Five Domains, he still wrote a biographical account of Li Shishi, for he feared that the fair one would sink into oblivion and thus found an artful way to convey his inexorable longing.72 “The wind suddenly rises, creating ripples in a pond of spring water.” Why should this concern you? 555

[Translator’s note] The Southern Tang minister and lyricist Feng Yansi wrote a lyric (to the tune “Visiting the Golden Gate” 䄱䠁䮰) about a lovelorn woman that contains these lines: “The wind suddenly rises, / Creating ripples in a pond of spring water” 付ѽ䎧ˈ੩⳪а⊐᱕≤. The Southern Tang ruler Li Jing (916–961, r. 943–961) reportedly quoted these lines to Feng and teased him, “Why should this concern you, sir?” ᒢযօһ Feng replied, “This is not as good as Your Majesty’s line, ‘The chill of the jade flute’s notes seeps through the small tower’ ” ᵚྲ䲋лNjሿ⁃੩ᗩ⦹ㅉሂnj. Li Jing was pleased. The anecdote captures the mood of romantic conviviality in the Southern Tang court. Li Jing could be playfully chiding his minister for unbecoming concern with feminine

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sorrow, but Feng cleverly deflected the potential criticism with a compliment on Li Jing’s lyric written in a similar mode. This anecdote is included in Lu You’s (1125–1210) History of the Southern Tang (Nan Tang shu). Lu You, writing with the fall of the Northern Song in 1127 in mind, regarded the lyrics by Feng and Li as proof of their obliviousness to the political crisis facing the Southern Tang. Others see melancholy with political meanings in these lyrics. The woman poet Li Qingzhao (1084–1151), for example, described them as “the mournful longing of the music of a fallen state.” 73 Yu Huai implicitly identifies with the latter position. 555

That is the fair one.74 How lovely her knowing smile, her beautiful eyes, how clear and bright!75 Those are noble men indeed!76 In my heart of hearts I keep them, never will I forget them.77

Yin Chun had the sobriquet Zichun. Her appearance was not particularly impressive, yet the grace of her deportment was as dignified as that of a well-born lady. She had a gentle character, her conversation was witty and refined, and she was quite free from the manners of feminine affectation. Her specialty was dramatic performance, and she was equally adept at playing the male lead and the female lead. I met her in her sunset years, and invited her home to perform The Thorn Hairpin, for which she played the role of Wang Shipeng.78 When it came to the two scenes “Meeting the Mother” and “Sacrifice by the River,” 79 the tragic pathos was so intense, as her singing mingled with tears, that the entire audience

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was enthralled. Even seasoned opera singers sighed and acknowledged her superiority. I said, “This is Xu Hezi’s ‘Song of Yongxin.’ Who can play the part of General Wei Qing?”80 I thus presented this poem to her as a gift: Honghong marked beats; Caichun sang.81 Hearing the songs, I too cried out: What is to be done?82 Who will sing the heartbreaking lines of Southland? What remains: blue coat, white hair, dancing shadows.83

Yin Chun also wept when she received the poem. I do not know where she ended up afterward. Among her descendants was Yin Wen. Blessed with a glowing complexion and great charm, she was an ardent free spirit. Surveying the scene with complacent delight, she was considerably above others in that world. Zhang Weize from Taiping was enamored of her. Whatever she desired, he would provide it, and they were very happy together. He wanted to make her his concubine, but Wen was not immediately willing. Zhang asked his friends to urge her to agree. Wen laughed and said, “That is not hard to do. If I marry him, in three years he will be finished.” She finally married Zhang. Not long after, Wen died. Zhang also died, ten years or so afterward. He rose to the position of commissioner. He had great talent, engaged in knightly exploits, treated money lightly, and formed deep bonds with friends and associates: he was a frank, open, and gallant person. 555

Li Shiniang’s (Li Tenth) given name was Xiangzhen, and her sobriquet was Xueyi.84 She would respond in her mother’s womb when she heard the sound of zither music or singing, as if ready to stir. Endowed with a natural grace and loveliness, she had fair skin that was snow white. “Her gaze lingers with her winsome smile.”85

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Indeed, she was what Tao Yuaming described in “Rhapsody on Stilling Passions” as “Unmatched and peerless in the world, rising above the crowd.” She was by nature zealous about cleanliness. She could play the zither and sing without accompaniment. Having some knowledge of fine writing, she loved men of letters and talented scholars. Her residence had zigzagging enclaves and secluded chambers. Draperies and curtains, wine vessels and tripods: everything was tasteful and appealing. In the middle was a long room. To its left was an ancient plum tree. When it bloomed, falling petals drifted like fragrant snowflakes on low tables and couches. On its right were two paulownia trees and scores of giant bamboos. Morning and evening, as one washed the paulownia trees and brushed the bamboo, their greenness enchanted all one’s senses.86 Entering her abode, one wondered whether it was still the mundane realm. Whenever I had literary gatherings with friends, I used her home to host. Each guest was provided with a superior maid who served by his inkstone and mat, grinding ink, burning incense, and offering tea and fruit. In the evening we all gathered for music, drinking, and feasting, reveling in everything to the fullest before disbanding. For all that, host and guests abided by propriety and did not descend into licentiousness. At that time roving bandits were wreaking havoc north of the river.87 There were many notable men of distinction who crossed the river and sojourned in Jinling, and without exception they coveted Li Shiniang’s company. Shiniang tried even harder to live in seclusion. Claiming to be sickly, she did not adorn herself and refused to entertain guests. Her mother sympathized with her and cherished her, and complied with her wishes. With tactful and delicate words, she staved off attention and did not let aspirants come too close. But with her two or three true friends, she delighted in personally entertaining them, forgetting her fatigue in the general merriment. Later, she changed her name to Zhenmei [meaning chaste and beautiful] and had a seal carved with these words: “The seal of

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Li Tenth Zhenmei.” I teased her: “Beautiful, to be sure, but chaste, not quite.” Shiniang wept and said, “You are one who knows me, how can you come out with these words? Although I am a lowly creature of the pleasure quarters, I do not love being wanton and spurn all scruples like Xia Ji or the woman from Hejian.88 If it is someone I care for, even if we treat each other decorously like host and guest, my feelings are already in harmony with his; if it is not someone I care for, even if I am made to share with him the same pillow and mat, I will not be one with him. That I am unchaste is fate! How can it be helped?” As she finished speaking, tears streamed down and wet her lapels. I collected myself and solemnly apologized, “I misspoke! It’s my fault!” Shiniang had a niece called Sister Mei. She was but a little over thirteen, had a fair complexion, bangs over her forehead, and eyes and eyebrows as beautiful as a painting. My heart yearned for her. Mei also knew my feelings, and her sweet cries trilled quaveringly as she danced “the dance in the palm.”89 Shiniang said, “I should be your matchmaker.” In the renwu year (1642) I took the provincial examination.90 Every day, Mei tossed coins as if they were dice, trying to divine whether I would succeed.91 The time came when the results were made public, and I was not among the successful candidates. I thus became ill from frustration and melancholy, and hid in a temple in Qixia Mountain. Years passed, and we did not hear from each other. After the fall of the dynasty, Chen Danxian, the provincial governor of Taizhou, was staying at Cassia Garden.92 He had in his embrace a courtesan said to have the surname Li. I raised the curtain and saw her—it turned out to be Mei. We were both forlorn and raised our sleeves to hide tears. I asked about Shiniang. Mei said, “She has already married someone.” I asked where she was living. “In the water pavilion of Qinhuai.” I asked about their old home. “It had become dilapidated and was turned into a vegetable garden.”

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“Did the old plum tree, the paulownia trees, and the bamboos survive?” “They have all been cut down and used as firewood.” “Is her mother still alive?” “She died.” On that occasion I presented her with this poem: I have already drifted among rivers and lakes for ten years, But she of cloudlike chignon still divines with the gold coins of old. Xueyi has flown away, and Xian’ge is growing old.93 Do not, with the pipa in your embrace, move to another boat.94 555

[Translator’s note] According to Mao Xiang, Li Shiniang and Li Daniang (see below) were sisters. He called Shiniang by the names “Shisheng” (Tenth One)95 and “Shimei” (Tenth Sister): “Shisheng was famous not because of her beauty. Speaking with her expressive eyes and eyebrows, she was supremely intelligent and quick. Her unaccompanied singing was as fine and delicate as a strand of hair. Zhang Kui of Suzhou excelled at playing the flute, and Li would not make music if Zhang was not there. When she quietly drank tea with others, she treated them like guests and like monks— one could not be untowardly familiar with her. I remember when I took the examination in 1639, my teacher Ni Sanlan gave me thirty topics of composition to be completed before the examination. At the time there was an unending stream of social obligations. At midnight, on Shisheng’s pillow, I would make a mental draft of an examination essay, and in a month I completed the assignment. My friends could not stop talking about this, and Shisheng also in her heart approved of me.”96 In other words, Mao Xiang spent at least a month at Li Shiniang’s abode.

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The phrase for tacit approval (xinxu) can also imply that Li hopes for a romantic union with Mao. 555

Ge Nen’s sobriquet was Ruifang. I was very good friends with Sun Kexian of Tongcheng. Kexian’s given name was Lin. He was supremely gifted in both literary talent and military strategy. He could, while leaning against a horse, promptly produce a lengthy composition.97 He could pull a bow with a draw weight of five dan98 and excelled in shooting with both his left and right hands. Compact and fearless, he called himself “the Flying General.”99 He had wanted to throw down his brush, polish his shield, and seek military glory, and he had another style name, Wugong [Martial Lord].100 Yet he loved consorting with courtesans: it was his nature to indulge in drinking and to burst into song. At first he was enamored of Wang Yue, a courtesan in the Pearl Market.101 Yue was forcibly carried off by a powerful family, and Sun, unable to free himself from deep gloom, was idly sitting with me at Li Shiniang’s home. Shiniang lavishly praised Ge Nen for being peerless in talent and accomplishments, so Sun went to visit her. He barged into Ge Nen’s bedchamber. Just then Nen was combing her hair. Her long tresses reached all the way to the ground, her wrists were delicately round like lotus roots, her complexion was ivory fair, her eyebrows had the hue of distant mountains,102 and her eyes were jet black. She let out the words, “Please sit.” Sun Lin said, “This is the realm of sensuous delight. I will just grow old here!”103 That night they confirmed their passion, and for a month he did not emerge from Nen’s quarters. He finally made her his concubine. During the catastrophe of the jiashen year (1644), he moved his family to Yunjian.104 Taking a byway to Fujian, he became the military supervisor for the commandant Yang Wencong. Upon their

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army’s defeat, he was seized, and Ge Nen too was arrested. The chief commander [of the Qing army] wanted to molest her. Nen loudly cursed him, bit her tongue into pieces and, holding blood in her mouth, spat at his face. The commander put her to the blade himself.105 Sun Lin, seeing that Nen had died a martyr, laughed out loud: “Today Sun Third attains immortality!” He too was killed. Commandant Yang, together with his two sons, died as martyrs on the same day. 555

[Translator’s note] Sun Lin (1611–1646) hailed from Tongcheng in Anhui. His older brother, Sun Jin, was the vice minister of war, but Sun Lin did not advance beyond the higher licentiate degree (gongsheng). He married Fang Ziyao (also called Fang Yao, 1613–1688), the daughter of the prominent scholar and official Fang Kongzhao (1590–1655) and the younger sister of the even more famous scholar and poet Fang Yizhi.106 Fang Yizhi and Fang Ziyao were brought up by their aunt, the woman poet Fang Weiyi (1585–1668). Fang Ziyao was herself a poet and also wrote a treatise on educating her sons.107 In 1683, the loyalist poet Qian Chengzhi (1621–1693) wrote a stirring biographical account of Sun Lin, describing Sun as an excellent musician who played the flute and composed songs.108 His reputation was such that courtesans prized his attention. “Sun Lin was also quite proud of this. His brother-in-law Fang Yizhi once said to him: ‘You are supremely talented, but if you let your will drown in such indulgence, you will ultimately not achieve anything.’ Sun Lin heard this and was blithely indifferent.” As we shall see later, Fang Yizhi’s admonition did not prevent him from joining Sun Lin in romantic adventures at Qinhuai. Qian chronicled Sun’s martial prowess with admiration but also a hint of irony:

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When it came to cavalry, archery, or swordsmanship, there was nothing that he did not take up, and none of which he did not consider himself a master. His associates all secretly laughed at him, and Sun Lin sometimes also laughed at himself. . . . But his nature was stubborn, and he refused to acknowledge his inferiority. Even with matters for which he had no expertise, he would force things and claim competence. Afterward, he would want to find ways to give credence to his own claims and would secretly apply himself to the matter in question. As time passed, he would become capable even in what he could not master to begin with. One night, while drinking with gusto, he spoke about current affairs with fervor and heroic abandon. Burning his finger on the flame of a candle, he vowed: “If I fail to exterminate the bandits, may I be like this finger!” He thus changed his sobriquet to Wugong.

Sun Lin joined his father-in-law Fang Kongzhao’s successful military expeditions against the rebel insurgents in Hubei in 1637, and took special delight in “composing poems on horseback.” But when Fang suffered reversals, he was maligned and imprisoned. Sun was advised to avoid “rash talk of military affairs”: Sun Lin felt quite defeated, and indulged even more in consorting with courtesans. At that time, many from our region were fleeing the bandits and ended up in Baixia [Nanjing], and for days on end they were feasting and carousing. Sun Lin had a courtesan with whom he was enamored, and often took her with him in excursions to the foot of Mount Zhong in heavy snow. Along with his brother-in-law Fang Zhizhi [Fang Yizhi’s younger brother], they galloped through the city in martial garb, and some who did not get out of their way soon enough fell by the wayside. He helped the courtesan, wearing a red skirt and a purple sable wrap, to sit on a horse, and she followed him, holding on to a pipa. As for their friends who could not ride horses, he forced

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them to do so. While the horses in front galloped, those behind also sprinted, and their riders, on the brink of tumbling, trembled fearfully, which was a source of general merriment. When they arrived, they had a mat spread in front of the plum blossoms, got down from their horses and sat with their legs spread out, set forth the wine, and listened to the Wu singer’s string music and songs. After a few arias, they started wine games, and the courtesan corrected their mistakes and came up with many extravagant “punishments.” In a state of inebriation, having enjoyed themselves to the fullest, they galloped back. In my heart I was secretly skeptical: this is a picture of “making merry at the frontier.” Now we, as southerners, gladly did the same thing. Could that be an omen of things to come?

Was this courtesan (the Wu singer) Wang Yue, Ge Nen, or someone else? (According to Zhang Dai, Wang Yue mastered Wu-style singing.) Qian did not mention Ge Nen in his biography. What is certain is that Qian took a more critical view of Sun’s romantic exploits even as he commemorated his heroic martyrdom. Ming resistance coalesced around various Ming princes after the fall of Nanjing and the collapse of the Hongguang court in 1645. Sun Lin was involved in loyalist resistance on several fronts. In 1646, Zhu Yujian (1602–1646), the Prince of Tang, became the Longwu emperor in Fujian (r. 1646). The Longwu court appointed Yang Wencong (1597–1646) the vice minister of war, and Sun Lin became his military advisor. After Qing troops defeated Yang’s forces, Sun urged his wife to leave. “He knew that the end was inevitable and bid his wife Lady Fang farewell: ‘I joined Yang’s insurrection, it is my righteous duty to not let Yang die alone.109 You should plan for yourself—find your way back and let my mother know what happened.’ When the troops came, they asked about his identity. He said defiantly, ‘I am the assistant military supervisor Sun.’ They therefore tied him up and took him away. He died together with Yang Wencong, and their corpses were left by the side

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of the road.” Yang Wencong was a famous painter and served in the government of the Hongguang emperor and the Prince of Tang. When Yang’s forces were routed by Qing troops, he was captured and executed. In Kong Shangren’s Peach Blossom Fan, Yang is an ambiguous character and his martyrdom is not mentioned. Sun Lin met Ge Nen in 1637, and they died in 1646. Yu Huai makes no attempt to explain the psychological mechanism that prompts the pair’s shift of role from lover/seductress to resistance fighters/martyrs. Instead, in a tone of relatively unembellished record keeping, Yu Huai juxtaposes romantic, sensual desires with martial aspirations and heroic determination and thereby implies a continuum between these spheres of experience. Ge Nen’s martyrdom emerged as a favorite topic as romantic passion and nationalist striving became increasingly intertwined in the twentieth century. Nationalist revolution took up anti-Manchu rhetoric in the name of Han resurgence. Ge Nen is the heroine of Flowers of Blood (Bixie hua) by Wang Yunzhang (1884–1942), published in Fiction Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao) in 1911, the year the Qing dynasty collapsed. Aying (Qian Xingcun, 1900–1977) produced a modern play on Ge Nen (1939–1940) during the Sino-Japanese War (1937– 1945); it was also called Flowers of Blood, with the alternative titles Ge Nen and Sorrow at the End of the Ming (Ming mo yihen). Her story continued to be told in fiction, cinema, and Beijing opera through the early 1940s, reflecting her importance as a symbol of anti-Japanese resistance during the Sino-Japanese War. 555

Li Daniang, also called Xiaoda, had the sobriquet Wanjun. She was by nature unrestrained and extravagant. Being a woman, she yet had the intrepid spirit of a man. Her abode, with its terrace, pavilion, courtyard, and chambers, was extremely beautiful and magnificent. Of attendants in trailing silk skirts, there were ten or so. During grand feasts and gatherings, they played the pipa and the

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zither in unison, and sometimes intimates such as Shen Yun, Zhao Mao, and Zhang Kui played the flute and the sheng pipes and sang popular songs. When they had had enough wine, they would play the ten-variation ensemble.110 After sunset, splendid lamps continued the light. Silken curtains fluttered in the wind, and before one knew it the roosters were crowing and dawn had broken in the east. Daniang once said, “In this world there are noble sons who have time on their hands, as well as clever and handsome young men. Once they come to my house, without exception their will is swayed, their spirit is enthralled, and they revel in pleasures without turning back. But I too relish abandon and extravagance. How can I follow the mean ways of market prostitutes leaning against doors and haggling over money with people!” On account of this, she got the reputation of being a “knightly courtesan” living between Mochou Lake and Peach Leaf Crossing.111 Later she married Wu Tianxing from Xin’an.112 (Some said the name should be Wu Danian.) Tianxing was enormously wealthy; what he owned amounted to millions. He was frail and had always been sickly. With numerous beauties in his harem, he was exhausted from rushing about to fulfill his mission.113 Li Daniang was frustrated and unhappy. She bribed a servant and a maid to bring messages to and from her old lover, a scholar named Xu. Eventually, she pretended to be sick. A guest recommended Xu as a capable doctor,114 and he got to enter the house and meet Daniang. Daniang put gold, silver, and jewelry in the medicine hamper for Xu to smuggle out, and she pledged troth with him. Later, after Tianxing died, she finally married Xu. Scholar Xu was originally a poor man. His house had only four bare walls to begin with, but he gradually became rich after obtaining the riches from the Wu family. Xu and Daniang enjoyed themselves with drinking and feasting, and she taught a few girls singing and dancing. And then it was Scholar Xu’s turn to die from indulgence in pleasures. Daniang was already old. Disillusioned and drifting, she still made a living by teaching girls singing and dancing. I still got to

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see her.115 Even with advancing years, the aging beauty, like Lady Xu, could still be enchanting.116 When she spoke about her old friends, her eyes brimmed with tears. It was truly like the palace ladies of Huaqing Palace speaking about half-forgotten events from the Kaiyuan and Tianbao reigns.117 Formerly, Du Mu met Zhang Haohao east of the city walls of Luoyang. Moved by the past and feeling melancholy, he inscribed a poem as a gift to Haohao.118 These are its final lines: “Are your friends still here?”119 Unbound and unmoored, what can I still do? Coming on the wake of wailing at the official gate120 is the scene of early autumn with its streams and clouds. The setting sun hangs on dying willows, cool wind rises from the seat’s corner. I wept my fill of tears and could only write an all-too-brief song.121

They spoke directly to the present on that day. I thus wrote them on a white fan and gave it to her. Daniang held up the fan and wept. Sometimes she chanted it while leaning carelessly on the bed, and her lament moved her neighbors. 555

[Translator’s note] From 1630 to 1644, Mao Xiang went to Nanjing five times for the provincial examination, and he seems to have spent a lot of time with Li Daniang. He wrote in a poem dated 1689: ሂ⿰啻␡䚐唋⁃ ॱᒤ䞓㠕↔㣣䙺

Deep in the Studio of Wintry Grace, in the distant tower of pleasure, for ten years I lay intoxicated, tarrying in this fragrance.

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In the preface to this poem, Mao recalled his own and his friends’ adventures in Qinhuai: “My sojourn was most extended in the Studio of Wintry Grace (Hanxiu zhai) and a certain Tower.122 The Studio of Wintry Grace was where Li Xiaoda read books. Li’s reputation directly followed that of Ma Xianglan. When Chen Zhenhui visited her, his frequent offerings exceeded a thousand and seven hundred taels of silver, and even then she did not lightly grant a meeting. One can imagine what she was like. By the early years of the Chongzhen reign, she had already married a rich merchant.”123 Li Daniang’s reputation as a “knightly courtesan” was based on her extravagance and liberality in entertaining guests, but this grand indifference to money depended on the high price she set for her favors. In 1657, Qian Qianyi wrote a sequence of quatrains entitled “Meeting a Former Collator at the Water Pavilion at Qinhuai, I Offered Her Twelve Poems” 〖␞≤ӝ䙒㠺ṑᴨ䌖䌸ॱҼ俆, with one edition adding this note: “the Daoist priestess Jinghua” ྣ䚃 ༛␘㨟 (QMZ 4:402–06).124 In one rescension of Qian’s collection, this sequence has the alternative title, “Twelve Poems for Li Xiaoda” 䌸ᵾሿབྷॱҼ俆 (QMZ 4:2). Is the “former collator” Li Xiaoda? The events alluded to in these poems (e.g., this courtesan’s sojourn in Qian’s Vermilion Clouds Tower, her meeting with Qian in 1643, her marriage to a much older man) have no counterparts in Yu Huai’s account. But this has led some to assert that Li Xiaoda became a Daoist priestess after the fall of the Ming and had the religious name Jingchi (Holding on to Purity).125 555

Gu Mei [the graph for charm ჊] had the sobriquet Meisheng, and was also called Mei [the graph for eyebrow ⴹ]. She was serene and charming, lovely and elegant, with a graceful bearing far above the crowd. Her tresses were like clouds; the hue of peach blossoms suffused her complexion. Her bound feet were tiny and delicate,126

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her waist slender and yielding. Well versed in literature and history, she excelled in painting orchids, and in that way followed the model of Ma Xianglan, with the difference that her beauty outshone Ma’s. People at the time praised her as the foremost courtesan in the South Bend. She had her home in Mei’s Tower. It had intricate latticed windows and embroidered curtains. Scrolls with ivory tabs and jade rollers were arrayed in piles on the desks; jadeinlaid zithers and brocade lutes were displayed on right and left. Incense smoke twirled; wind chimes on the eaves tinkled. I once said in jest: “This is not Meilou [Mei’s Tower]—this is Milou [Tower of Enchantment].” As a result, people called it Milou.127 At that time, Jiangnan was extravagant and immersed in the pursuit of pleasure. For all feasts with drinking and literary panache, where beauties and scholar-officials commingled, no gathering would be content without Gu Mei. The Gu family kitchen, especially, was the stuff of legend and much admired. Aficionados compared it with the culinary legends of famous Tang gourmands like the Lord of Xun and Minister of War Li.128 That was why not a day passed without someone hosting a feast at Mei’s Tower. However, though many admired her, there was no lack of jealous detractors. Just then a vulgarian from Eastern Zhejiang was competing with a poet for Gu Mei’s favor.129 He conspired with a certain provincial graduate from Jiangxi to start a row, using intoxication as an excuse to curse those present. A court case was brought to the bureau in charge, and Gu Mei was wrongfully accused of stealing some gold and rhinoceros wine cups. The whole purpose was to arrest and humiliate Gu Mei. At that point I was filled with righteous indignation and composed a proclamation denouncing the truly guilty party. It contained these lines: “Soand-so is not a good patron of sensibility to begin with, but he falsely claims to be a romantic roué, a latter-day Prince Duan.130 In a realm meant for glorious lovebirds and resplendent phoenixes, he set forth a battle formation recalling the huge boar and long serpent.131 He used the scheme of deceiving Chu and luring it for

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“Orchids and Rocks,” paintings by Gu Mei (1619–1664), calligraphy by Gong Dingzi (1615–1673), ink on satin, 27 cm x 170.8 cm (fifth and sixth of twenty images) Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. https://www.freersackler.si.edu/object/S1987.269

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Qin, to carry out the plot of crushing the orchid and breaking the jade.132 This is to sow the seeds of injustice for karmic cycles to come, and to kill joy for all concerned at this present moment, etc., etc.” The vulgarian’s uncle was the junior counselor of war in the southern capital. When he saw this proclamation, he reprimanded the vulgarian and ordered him to return east. The court case was thus dismissed. Gu Mei thought I played a key role in this and was very grateful. She set her heart on performing an opera on stage to celebrate my birthday at the hall of Fang Qu’an of Tongcheng.133 From that point on she avoided attention and freed herself from worldly affairs, and vowed to extricate herself from the pleasure quarters. Not long afterward, she became the concubine of Minister Gong Dingzi from Hefei [Anhui]. The minister’s heroic and generous spirit surpassed all in his generation, and he regarded gold and jade as mere dirt and dung. With Gu Mei’s encouragement, the minister went further than ever in being liberal and generous toward friends, and in cherishing talent and extending courtesy to able men. His reputation became even greater than before. Letters requesting poems and compositions from the minister as well as begging for orchid paintings from Gu Mei often filled hampers and cases. Paintings with the signature “Lady Sidelong Ripples” were the ones from her hand.134 In the year dingyou (1654), the minister took his lady and came again to Nanjing, sojourning in Central Woods Hall in the Garden of the Recluse in the Market.135 It happened to be the lady’s birthday. Lamps were lit, a feast was spread; they invited hundreds of guests and had veterans of the Pear Garden like Guo Changchun perform operas. The hearty drinkers Ding Jizhi, Zhang Yanzhu, and the two gentlemen surnamed Wang [the imperial secretary Wang Shizhi and Wang Huanzhi, who served in the Ministry of Water Management] performed scenes from The Queen Mother’s Jade Pool Feast.136 The lady, sitting behind a bead curtain, invited her former companions from the South Bend, those whom

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she called sisters, to join the feast. Li Daniang, Li Shiniang, and Wang Jieniang were all present. At that time, a protégé of the minister’s, Yan from Chu,137 on his way to take up a post as commissioner in Zhejiang, was staying there. He raised the wine goblet over his head, lifted the curtain, knelt with a straight back, and said as he held up the goblet in both hands: “Your lowly son honors your birthday!” Everyone sitting there left their seats, knelt, and bowed with their foreheads touching the ground.138 The lady joyfully drained three cups; the minister was quite exultant. Wu Qi, Deng Hanyi, and I composed long poems to commemorate the event.139 Some time later, she returned to the capital and died from an illness. When she was placed in the coffin, the mien of an old monk was revealed.140 Carriages with mourners numbered by the hundreds; the funeral was the epitome of elegiac glory. Because she later changed her surname to Xu, the world also called her Lady Xu. The minister wrote The Legend of the Willows of White Gate [about their love story], and it circulated widely.141 555

[Translator’s note] Gu Mei, like Ma Xianglan before her, was famous for her orchid paintings. Orchids symbolize lofty virtue often unrecognized or misunderstood by the world; perhaps that was why it became a favored topic among courtesan painters. Fan Wenguang (d. 1651)142 eroticizes Gu Mei’s painterly skills but also shows how her allure lies precisely in transcending sensual appeal in the following song lyric, “Presented to Gu, a Courtesan of Jinling” 䌸䠁䲥亗လ, to the tune “Gazing to the River’s East” ᵋ⊏ᶡ: ֌ⴹྲ֌㱝㠷ᆇ ㅶᖡ‫ٿ‬侂俉ણ

Just as she fashions her eyebrows, she fashions orchids and calligraphy: fragrance stealthily pervades the shadow of her brush.

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ཊ᡽ཊ䏓ެཊ㰍 ॱ䔹⊏ই਽༛

ࡠ䮰䂎ᇒ‫ء‬ᠧࡪ ᇋྲ㢟ᴻ⴨լ െᴨ䩈唾‫⫠ء‬ժ 䴓䁈䎧付⍱һ

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Full of talent, full of wit, and also full of the artist’s power, for ten years she has been the distinguished spirit of Southland. The poets coming to her gates all bear calling cards, being no different from good friends. Surrounded by paintings, books, and antique vessels, it is hard to make room in the mind for romantic affairs.

The verb zuo (translated here as “fashion”) means to make or to create: Fan deliberately links artistic creation with the application of makeup, for Gu Mei’s beauty is inseparable from her act of creation. He honors her with the epithet mingshi, translated here as “distinguished spirit” but often rendered as “famous gentleman”: men of talent and distinction who are also free spirits. The use of a male term is pointed: Gu’s patrons regard her as a “good friend” (liangpeng); they come to her with calling cards (ci or mingci) used for visiting equals. The elegant décor of Gu Mei’s abode pleases the senses but also seems to keep mere sensual longing at bay. As noted in the introduction, intriguing ties of friendship between the literati and courtesans allowed a courtesan to address herself or be referred to in male or gender-neutral terms like xiong (older kin) or di (younger kin). Chen Liang repeatedly referred to Gu Mei as “Mei xiong” in his letters to Mao Xiang.143 Fan added in a postscript: “The lady is a fine poet and calligrapher, and excels in painting orchids. On many occasions she waves her brush in front of guests and finishes in an instant. Often her free and unconstrained conversation startles everyone present. When men of letters get together, she is sure to accompany them. She also takes it upon herself to embrace refinement and wants to

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enter their ranks and be considered a member of their groups. Whenever there are gatherings for literature and wine, she is sure to linger, being reluctant to leave. That is why people like us esteem her even more. At the moment when she holds the brush in her mouth and stretches out the paper, the brightness of her eyes and the shadow of her coiffure move and soar with the spirit of brush and ink in seamless interaction. She is now twenty-six, and has already been famous for ten years. She also loves living in her tower, and various friends vie to write poems about it; that is why Collection of Mei’s Tower (Mei lou ji) is circulated widely.”144 Fan Wenguang’s song lyric is included in Song Lyrics: First Collection (Yisheng chuji, 1660), an anthology of late Ming and early Qing romantic song lyrics compiled by Zou Zhimo (seventeenth c.) and Wang Shizhen. By then Gu Mei was called “Lady Gu” in the postscript. Later accounts of Gu Mei’s paintings, such as Chen Weisong’s entry in Writing Women (Furen ji), focus on her distinct style: “Lady Gu has superior understanding and excellent judgment, and excels especially in painting orchids. Her style is free, sweeping, and unrestrained, leaving behind all formulae and models. Her painting is truly where her spirit and feelings find their home.” In Gong Dingzi’s collection, we find poems inscribed on Gu’s paintings of plum blossoms, lotus, and narcissus. She also painted a portrait of Xiaoqing, the late Ming symbol of deep feelings and tragic fate.145 Gu Mei’s poetry collection, Willow Catkins Pavilion (Liuhua ge ji), did not survive, although a few of her poems and song lyrics are included in various anthologies. As mentioned above, Zhang Dai noted her keenness for operatic performance. In the anecdote he told, she played the male lead.146 The historian Meng Sen (1869–1938) identified the poet who competed with the vulgarian for Gu Mei’s attention as Liu Fang,147 but the evidence is not conclusive. (Liu and Gu Mei were supposed to have plighted their troth, and he later committed suicide when Gu Mei turned against him.) Meng Sen also suggested that the

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lawsuit petered out because the vulgarian’s uncle was the subordinate of Fan Jingwen, Yu Huai’s patron.148 However, the account here highlights the pivotal role of Yu Huai’s denunciatory proclamation (xi), a genre traditionally associated with the formal justification of a policy, a war, or an insurrection, often by castigating the enemy.149 Yu Huai’s intervention was not premised on the proclamation’s efficacy as legal procedure; rather, its mock-heroic rhetoric and clever parallelism must have ensured its circulation and publicly shamed the vulgarian. The gratifying notion that one can sway public opinion and save a woman through writing is classic literati fantasy. Gu Mei’s friend Chen Liang also seems to have played a role in resolving this court case. He wrote in a letter to Mao Xiang: “Today, on a painted fan by Mei xiong, there was a certain word.150 I strongly encouraged her to leave the pleasure quarters, seek a true companion, and make plans for an ultimate solution. When you see her, you should also encourage her with these words. Inviting Mei will dispel that man’s anger. Forbid her to come forth hereafter; do it in front of him in order to drive away any thoughts he might have of seeking her out. What about that?”151 The intercession of Chen Liang and Mao Xiang apparently involved arranging a meeting between Gu Mei and the vulgarian. Gu Mei’s promise to avoid attention might have been made in part to mollify the vulgarian, who probably saw himself as the party injured by her flamboyance and inconsistency. Gong Dingzi was a Ming official who surrendered first to the rebels led by Li Zicheng (1606–1645) and then to Qing forces in 1644. He rose to high office under the Qing despite demotions on several occasions. He is honored, together with Qian Qianyi and Wu Weiye (1609–1672, jinshi 1631), as “the three great masters of the Lower Yangzi,”152 although most literary historians consider him a somewhat lesser talent than the other two, in part because of his supposedly less tormented acceptance of the new order, as compared to Qian’s and Wu’s. (All three were former Ming officials

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who served under the Qing.) Although by traditional moral standards Gong betrayed the principle of loyalty and “lost his integrity” (shijie), there were many contemporary voices defending him or empathizing with his dilemma, perhaps because he was so generous in helping his friends and offering them refuge, including many Ming loyalists. Gong met Gu in 1639, and they probably plighted their troth shortly thereafter, judging from their poems inscribed on a portrait of Gu painted in 1639,153 although she did not become his concubine until 1643. Gu Mei’s encouragement of Gong’s generosity, noted by Yu Huai, is borne out in Gong’s own note on a set of poems he composed in a gathering with the famous loyalist poets Yan Ermei (1603–1679) and Ji Yingzhong (seventeenth c.): “I remember how Shanchi jun [Holding on to Goodness, a Buddhist name Gu Mei used after her marriage] often helped me in offering aid to friends in difficulty. Now we cannot behold such scenes again.”154 According to the poet Yuan Mei (1716–1798), when Yan Ermei was a fugitive wanted by Qing authorities, Gu Mei hid him in a side room, and that was how he escaped calamity. For this Yuan Mei praised her as a knight-errant on par with Liu Rushi.155 She is also said to have encouraged Gong to help the poet and scholar Zhu Yizun (1629–1709) upon reading one of his song lyrics.156 Gu Mei played a role in the vicissitudes of Gong’s career. In 1646, Gong was accused of various misdemeanors, including ostentatiously indulging in pleasures with Gu Mei while in mourning for his father. Gong was demoted two ranks. Their sojourn in Nanjing took place when they were on their way back from another demotion for Gong (by eight ranks) to a post in Guangdong. (His efforts to exonerate two Ming loyalists, Tao Runai in 1653 and Fu Shan in 1654, seem to have contributed to that demotion in 1654.) One of Gu Mei’s surviving poems, “Sitting as It Rains in the Tower of the Moonlit Sea” ⎧ᴸ⁃඀䴘, might have been written during this stay in Nanjing, since it contains these lines:

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㠚ᝋѝ᷇ᡀሿ䳡 ᶮ付аΎ䮹儈᡹

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I love being something of a recluse in Central Woods, closing the tall gates as pine wind fills the couch.157

The ironic role reversal during Gu Mei’s birthday celebration is unmistakable. Gu Mei and her courtesan friends are in the audience, while two scholar-officials are performing operatic scenes. A courtesan or entertainer is classified as debased or lowly ( jian), yet an official ostentatiously demonstrates self-abnegation by calling himself Gu Mei’s “lowly son.” 555

Having become Gong Dingzi’s concubine, Gu Mei tried every possible way in quest of an heir, but ultimately did not have a son. She even went so far as to have a baby boy carved out of a special fragrant wood. With all four limbs movable, it was wrapped in swaddling cloth of brocade and embroidered silk. A wet nurse was hired to suckle it, and a nurse would raise its front garment when she pretended that it was urinating. People inside and outside all called it “little master,” and Gong did not put a stop to it. At that time Gong, as overseer of ritual, had his residence by West Lake, and the Hangzhou people called this “baby” “the human anomaly.” Later, Gong actually treated Gu like a second principal wife. His original wife, Lady Tong, twice received honorary titles from the Ming dynasty. Gong became an official in the present dynasty and held offices up to the rank of minister of rites. Lady Tong adhered to high principles. She stayed in Hefei and refused to follow Gong when he served in the capital. She also said, “I already twice received honors from the Ming dynasty. From now on the beneficence conferred by this dynasty may be yielded to Lady Gu.” Gu thus enjoyed exclusive favor and accepted official honors. Alas! Lady Tong was much more worthy and honorable than men!158

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555

[Translator’s note] Gu had a daughter, but she died from smallpox when she was a few months old.159 The version of Plank Bridge included in Collectanea from an Illustrious Era (Zhaodai congshu), complied by Zhang Chao (1650– after 1707), preserves only the first sentence of this entry. The rest might have been omitted out of respect for Gong Dingzi’s memory.160 Gong Dingzi was Yu Huai’s good friend. As Li Jintang points out, it is a measure of Yu’s impartiality that he criticizes Gong. Others are more forgiving. Thus Gong’s loyalist friend Yan Ermei: ᴹᠧᆹ⭘␡⴨᝗ ❑䐟օ࿘਴㠚㹼

You have what you cherish—why be ashamed? The road is gone—why not each find his way?161

Even Ji Liuqi (b. 1622), who recorded the oft-repeated story of how Gong blamed his failure to embrace martyrdom on Gu Mei (“He often said to others, ‘I had wanted to die, but what could I do when my concubine refused?’”),162 also recognized that “for those who almost died but did not die” like Gong Dingzi, “the noble man should nevertheless empathize with their intent.”163 References to the torture he suffered and his suicide attempts in Gong’s collection, as well as its moments of melancholy, selfrecrimination, and self-questioning, point to the complexity of political choices in that period. Recalling how his loyalist friend Gu Jingxing (1621–1687) had believed rumors of his and Gu’s suicide in 1644, Gong wrote: “Grateful, in the midst of calamities, that you expected me to die” ཊ䴓ᝏੋᵏᡁ↫164 —even his presumed suicide is almost a badge of honor. Guilt and self-justification are inextricably intertwined:

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・ᘇ㤖нং ✹䗘䋎㠷␛

I set my goals, but sadly miss the mark. How to tell integrity from shamelessness?165

㻛㽀ᣡ⨐⦹

The one clothed in rags comes hugging pearls. How to tell the false from the real?166

ᆠ䗘‫ڭ‬㠷ⵏ

But so much of traditional historical judgment hinges on the readiness to “perish with the state” that Gu Mei is also used to highlight Gong’s cowardice: in one account Gu supposedly said to Gong: “Are you willing to die? I can first hang myself.”167 This story is almost certainly apocryphal. One of Gong’s song lyrics recalls the moment Gong and Gu jumped into a well in 1644. I quote the first stanza: lj㏪㖵俉NJ TO THE TUNE “FRAGRANT SILK” (TOGETHER WE ROSE FROM THE WELL AND I COMPOSED THIS AS RECORD, USING SHI BANQING’S RHYME IN HIS LYRIC ON SPRING RAIN ਼䎧㠚Ӆѝ䌖䁈ˈ⭘ਢ䛖য᱕䴘丫.)168

ᕡ㗭ປ▞ ᜱ厁ᑦ㹰 ࠍᵋᇞ ✏᳞ ᒦભ卋卖 䃠ٙ㰅㎢⮉տ ᩤᶌ㰕 ↓ࡷᠧ⒈ ⨕⪔⻗

Weak feathers try to fill the tides, doleful cuckoos cry with traces of blood. We gaze at the palace locusts in evening mist. Lovebirds with a shared fate: Who sent the lotus threads that keep you here? Holding on to angelicas, Qu Yuan longs for the Xiang River. Adorned with verdant jade,

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ᇃླₛ⎖ 䃔᢯ਇ ਨભཊᛵ а䴉ொ䕹ᯧ㞨䐟

the Goddess of the Luo crosses the stream. Having received by mistake feelings too intense from the god of fate, the pair calls out to turn from the road of heartbreak.

The first three lines are all standard tropes on hopeless endeavors and mourning for a fallen state: the Jingwei bird (erstwhile daughter of the legendary Red Emperor) who tries to fill the sea with bits of wood and pebbles she carries in her beak (line 1), the ancient Shu king who is transformed into a cuckoo and weeps blood lamenting his lost kingdom (line 2), and the mist-shrouded locust with which the Wang Wei (699– 759) laments the fall of the Tang capital Chang’an (line 3). Lotus threads (the threads that dangle when one cuts the lotus root) are threads of longing (“lotus root” [ou] is homophonous with “mate” and “threads” [si] with “longing”): does love keep them from political martyrdom? Gong compares himself to Qu Yuan and Gu Mei to the Goddess of the Luo (lines 7–10), evoking the world of The Songs of Chu, where political and romantic passions exist in perpetual tension and mutual implication. Were they hiding in a well like the infamous last Chen ruler Chen Shubao (553–604) and his consorts? Was this a suicide attempt they survived? We will never know for sure. Whatever the case, Gu Mei remains a lynchpin in the ways Gong’s political choices are understood by himself, his contemporaries, and posterity. 555

Dong Bai had the sobriquet Xiaowan, and another cognomen, Qinglian. Endowed with keen intelligence and consummate skills, she was also graceful and beautiful. When she was seven or eight, her mother taught her reading and writing, and she often grasped the meaning in no time. As she grew older, she learned to cherish

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herself, looking on her own reflection with pity. A veritable goddess with the needle and a master of music, she had excellent understanding in everything, from culinary arts to treatises on tea. It was her nature to love seclusion and tranquility. When she came across a hidden wood or a distant stream, a lonely rock or a solitary cloud, she would tenderly linger, unable to tear herself away. As for the mixed company of men and women, where singing, music, and loud noise filled the space, she disdained it, feeling weariness in her heart and showing her melancholy. Having always admired the mountains and streams of Suzhou, she moved to Bantang and built a small abode by the river— a thatched hut with a bamboo fence. Those who passed by her door often heard her chanting poems or playing the zither, and they all said, “There is a special person in there.” Not long afterward, she traveled around West Lake on a small boat, ascended Yellow Mountain, and paid her respects at White Peak 169 before returning to Suzhou. Her mother passed away; she became sickly and lived in a painted tower. In the company of Mao Xiang of Rugao, she passed through Mount Hui, crossed the Cheng River and Jing Stream, reached Jingkou, ascended the highest peak of Mount Jin,170 and watched the dragon boat race at the Yangzi River before returning. Later, she finally became Mao Xiang’s concubine. She served Mao Xiang for nine years, and died at twenty-seven from toil and exhaustion.171 When she died, Mao Xiang wrote Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent in about two thousand and four hundred words to lament her.172 The elegiac verses from his friends were quite numerous, but only the ten quatrains by Wu Weiye, the warden of princely affairs, suffice to transmit Dong Bai’s story. I quote four of them here:173 A priceless pearl, a flawless jade— eager to look for the name, you asked where was my home. The quest reached White Embankment: I emerged, answering your call—174

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under the bright moon, traces of snow lit up the plum blossoms. “Thinking of the Breakup of Home and Realm,” “Calm the Waves”:175 you marked the beats of the music; I followed the music and sang. Most hateful was Minister Ruan of the Southern dynasty,176 who brought my husband so much sickness and sorrow. With a chignon combed in confused haste, I came down from the tower, as the whole family, unmoored and shattered, passed the crossing. Jeweled boxes, gold hairpins—all had been discarded: the Gao troops were right there in Yangzhou.177 In the river town in light rain, in the village of peach blossoms, the east wind of the Cold Food Festival is with the cuckoo’s soul.178 I want to elegize Xue Tao:179 pity the dream broken by a grave’s gate— a greater barrier than a lord’s gate, a deeper unknown. 555

[Translator’s note] Details in the story of Dong Bai and Mao Xiang have been discussed in connection with Plum Shadows. Yu Huai’s account (especially the first part) closely echoes Zhang Mingbi’s biography of Dong Bai. What remains implicit in Dong’s act of “looking on her own reflection with pity” is explicitly stated in Zhang’s

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biography: “With this kind of beauty and intelligence, even if I were to bow my head and become the wife of a mediocre man, I would still lament that the splendid phoenix has followed a crow—how much more so then when I have become a drifting blossom and a withering leaf?” The image also evokes Xiaoqing, the icon of late Ming sensibility mentioned above. In the eponymous story, Xiaoqing is a concubine maltreated by a jealous principal wife. “She often came to the pond and looked at her reflection, speaking softly with questions and answers.” Some of her lines capture this: ⱖᖡ㠚㠘᱕≤➗ য⮦ៀᡁᡁៀয

She comes to her slender double, reflected in the spring stream: You should pity me, as I pity you.

What looks like narcissism is also longing that has not yet found its object and rancor against cruel fate. In Dong Bai’s case, Yu Huai and Zhang Mingbi are turning the idea of self-love into the impetus of her determined quest for a worthy mate. The famous poet Wu Weiye (1609–1672) wrote eight quatrains on a portrait of Dong Bai, from which Yu Huai selects the second, sixth, seventh, and eighth poems. He also wrote two quatrains on a fan painted by Dong, hence the “ten quatrains” that Yu refers to. The first quatrain here describes the first real meeting of Dong and Mao. “White Embankment” marks the location and also encodes Dong Bai’s name (Bai means white). The second one begins with titles of musical tunes whose semantic meanings have obvious political reverberations. The image of Dong Bai singing (line 2) reminds us of Zhang Dai’s account of her passionate interest in operatic performance mentioned above: she is obviously not merely the reclusive and ethereal beauty celebrated by Yu Huai, Mao Xiang, and Zhang Mingbi. Ruan Dacheng, a gifted poet and playwright, also wrought much havoc in late Ming politics because

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of his corruption and abuse of power through ties with the eunuch Wei Zhongxian. As the minister of war in the Hongguang court, Ruan continued his persecution of the Revival Society, of which Mao Xiang was a prominent member. Dong Bai’s aversion for Ruan endows her love with political purpose. The third cited poem recalls the dangers and confusion of the arduous journey that Mao and Dong undertake to escape the fighting during the dynastic transition. The final poem mourns Dong Bai’s death. The last line alludes to a poem sent by Cui Jiao (early ninth c.) to his erstwhile maid who has been resold to a general: “A lord’s gate, once entered, leads to a world deeper than the sea” ‫ן‬䮰а‫( ⎧ྲ␡ޕ‬QTS 505.5744). The maid was his lover, but now no communication is possible.180 The comparison of death with “a lord’s gates” has led some to speculate that Dong Bai did not die but was taken into the harem of a Qing noble or perhaps even the Shunzhi emperor. While this theory has no merit, it has had a life of its own in later discussions of Plum Shadows and the eighteenthcentury masterpiece The Story of the Stone.181 555

Bian Sai was also called Saisai. Later, when she became a Daoist priestess, she called herself the Daoist Yujing. She was literary, was adept at calligraphy in small standard script, excelled in painting orchids, and played the zither. She loved to create the windblown gracefulness of orchids, and once her brush descended, she would use ten or more sheets of paper. At eighteen, she traveled to Suzhou and sojourned at Tiger Mound. Her house, with its mottled bamboo blinds and small pine table, was immaculate; there was not a speck of dust on the ground. When she received guests, she would initially be reticent, but eventually her wit and humor would shine ever so often, and her conversations would rise like clouds, captivating everyone present. She subsequently returned to Qinhuai.

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Caught in the turmoil, she again traveled to the Suzhou area. Wu Weiye wrote the “Song of Listening to the Daoist Bian Yujing Playing the Zither” as a gift to her. It contained these lines: Last night, on the city wall, they were blowing the military fife. The quarters had also received urgent summons. Among the ranks of courtesans reigned the terror of being chosen, outside the gates of the musicians’ camp, young women wept. I secretly changed my garb and came to the river’s edge, by chance encountering, at Danyang, boats at the sandbank. I cut a robe of coarse yellow silk and coveted entry into the Way, carrying an ancient zither to tell of the woes of fair ones.182

They were precisely about that time. As a Daoist she dressed like one, but still she sometimes entertained guests. Her maid Rourou attended to her by the inkstone and mat like a disciple, obeying Bian’s every wish. She too was a quiet and gentle woman. Two years later, she crossed the river to Zhejiang and married a lord in Kuaiji.183 She was not happy, offered Rourou to take her place, and begged to reclaim her person and shaved her head. She again returned to the Suzhou area and lived as the dependent of a fine physician, Guardian Zheng,184 who built a separate residence for her. Keeping to a vegetarian diet and embroidering images of the Buddha, she was very strict in observing Buddhist rules and abstinences. She pricked her tongue for blood to copy the Lotus Sutra as recompense to the physician. A little over ten years later, she died and was buried at the Zhituo Temple at Brocade Forest in Mount Hui. 555

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[Translator’s note] Yu Huai’s account is derived from the biographical account appended as preface to Wu Weiye’s “Passing by the Grave of the Daoist Yujing at Brocade Forest” (WMC 1:250–53, 1668).185 Wu Weiye attained prominence as a scholar-official at an early age and is regarded as one of the greatest seventeenth-century poets. Under pressure from his family and from the Qing authorities, he held office under the Qing from 1654 to 1656. Wu’s post-1644 writings are filled with lamentation for the fall of the Ming dynasty, nostalgia for the Ming world before its collapse, and, after his northward journey to take office in 1653, regret and anguish over his own irresolution and compromises. What Yu Huai left out in his account of Bian Sai is the relationship between Wu and Bian. Wu Weiye uses one of his sobriquets, Luqiao Sheng, and refers to himself as “the scholar” or “he” (sheng) in the biographical preface. His palpable presence reminds the reader that the story of Bian Sai’s transformation from a famous courtesan into an icon of Buddhist devotion is told from his perspective: The provenance of the Daoist Yujing was not known. Some said she was from Qinhuai. Her surname was Bian. She was literary, adept at calligraphy in small standard script, and could paint orchids and play the zither. At eighteen she sojourned at Hill Pond of Tiger Mound [near Suzhou]. Her abode, with its mottled bamboo blinds and small pine table, was austere and immaculate, without the slightest speck of dust. The limpid depths of her eyes reflected, day after day, fine ink and good paper. When she received guests, she would initially be reticent, but eventually her wit and humor would shine ever so often and captivate everyone present. After one spent enough time in her company, she often showed signs of regret and rancor. When asked about it, she usually deflected the question with words

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about other subjects. Her keen intelligence was such that even the literati could not measure up to her. Once she met Luqiao Sheng, she wanted them to plight their troth. Intoxicated with wine, she leaned against the low table and looked at him. “Are you then interested?” He pretended not to understand. She heaved a long sigh and fixed her gaze. Subsequently she never spoke about it again. Eventually she was caught up in the turmoil of the times and they parted. She returned to Qinhuai for five or six years. A long time elapsed, and someone heard that she had again gone east, being hosted by an old friend from Haiyu [Changshu]. He happened to pass through the same place. A certain minister prepared a feast and insisted on inviting her on his behalf.186 All the guests put down their cups and stopped drinking when a message came that said she had arrived. Some time later, the carriage turned and entered the inner quarters. She was called several times, but to the end she refused to come out. He was devastated and at a loss, and finally could not suppress his feelings. He returned home and wrote four poems to tell of their final separation, and then he sighed and said, “I was the one who betrayed her; how can this be helped!” Several months passed, and Yujing suddenly came. A maid named Rourou followed her. On that occasion she wore yellow clothes and took up Daoist garb, called Rourou to fetch the zither she had brought along, and played a couple of tunes for him. She said tearfully, “When I was in Qinhuai, I saw in the former mansion of Lord Zhongshan his incomparably beautiful daughter.187 Her name was among those chosen for the Inner Palace. Before she entered the palace, chaos broke out. A military officer used a whip to send her on her way. For the likes of me to sink into misery and oblivion is fate. How can anybody be blamed?” All the assembled guests shed tears. Rourou was modest and intelligent. When the Daoist painted orchids, she liked to create their

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windblown gracefulness. Once her brush descended, she would use more than ten sheets of paper. Rourou attended to her by her inkstone and seat like a disciple, hardly resting the whole day. Sometimes the guests tried to bring her into conversation, but she would not respond; or they would give her wine, but she would not drink. Two years passed. Yujing crossed the river to Zhejiang and married a lord in Kuaiji. She was not happy, and offered Rourou to serve him. She begged to reclaim her person and shave her head, and lived as the dependent of a fine physician, the Guardian, in Wuzhong. The Guardian was over seventy. A clansman of the lord, he built a separate residence for her and provided for her generously. After the lord died, Rourou, who had borne a son, was married off. The family she married into met with calamity, and it was not known what became of her.188 The Daoist was very strict in observing Buddhist rules and abstinences. Luqiao Sheng was a cousin of the physician, and thus could meet her with proper religious rituals. The Daoist spent three years pricking her tongue for blood to copy the Lotus Sutra for the physician. Upon its completion, the Daoist wrote the preface herself. Clergy and laity all raised their hands in admiration. A little over ten years later, she died. Her grave is on the plain near the Zhituo Temple at Brocade Forest in Mount Hui.

In his Remarks on Poetry (Meicun shihua), Wu Weiye notes that Bian Sai “was fond of composing short poems” and records a poem she wrote on a fan when Bian and Wu were together at a gathering seeing off Wu’s cousin Wu Jishan as the latter left for office in Sichuan in 1643 (WMC 3:1139): ࢚⠝ᐤኡࡕᙍ䚉 䘱ੋ㱝ᾛ⑑⊏ⲻ

We trim candles, speaking of Mount Ba: such is distant longing. I see you off, as orchid oars take you across the river.

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予ሷаᑵ♏⒈ぞ ᇴ㠷᱕付୿㯋☔

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My wish is to have one sheet with Xiao Xiang orchids sent via spring winds to convey my regards to Xue Tao.

Bian Sai must have painted orchids on the fan. The Xiao and Xiang rivers are associated with The Songs of Chu tradition and suggest a pure, lofty spirit: with Xiao Xiang orchids Bian marks her affinity with the Tang courtesan-poet Xue Tao, who lived in Sichuan. The first line recalls Li Shangyin’s (813–858) famous lines: “How will it be when, trimming candles together at the west window, / we talk of rainy nights at Mount Ba?” օ⮦‫࢚ޡ‬㾯デ ⠝, ফ䂡ᐤኡཌ䴘ᱲ.189 Taking a moment of future retrospection as the focus of longing, Bian’s quatrain follows Li’s rhetoric of friendship.190 The poems that Bian must have addressed to Wu are no longer extant. Wu’s own song lyrics about his trysts with Bian are frankly sensual. Perhaps that is why he refers to them in his Remarks on Poetry but not in the adulatory tribute cited above. Bian and Wu might have parted around 1643. In autumn 1650, while hosting Wu Weiye, Qian Qianyi invited Bian Sai. She came but went to the inner chambers to stay with Liu Rushi and refused to meet with Wu. Wu then wrote “Zither River: Remembrance of Things Past, Four Poems with Preface” ⩤⋣ᝏ㠺ഋ俆 (WMC 1:159–61), which dwell on evanescence, tortuous mediations, and final noncommunication. Bian and Wu did meet about three months later, but the brief romantic reunion would have no place in a narrative presenting personal and political loss as the basis for Bian’s religious transformation. The biographical preface to “Passing by the Grave” thus moves directly from their failure to meet in 1650 to Bian’s performance of a song of remembrance in her new guise as a Daoist priestess in the late spring of 1651. Yu Huai quotes a few lines from Wu’s poem on that meeting, but the poem deserves to be quoted in full. Yu quotes the lines

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about Bian’s religious transformation, but most of the poem is devoted to the sufferings Bian witnesses during the dynastic transition. WU WEIYE, “SONG ON LISTENING TO THE DAOIST BIAN YUJING PLAYING THE ZITHER” (WMC 1:63–64) 㚭ྣ䚃༛঎⦹Ӝᕸ⩤ⅼ

倅厍䙒ཙ付 ेੁ傊伋匤 伋匤‫ޕ‬ཌᙕ ‫ڤ‬㚭ᕸ⩤㚢 ُ୿ᕸ㘵䃠 Ӂᱟ⮦ᒤ঎⦹Ӝ ⦹Ӝ㠷ᡁইѝ䙷 ᇦ䘁བྷ࣏ൺᓅ䐟 ሿ䲒䶂⁃བྷ䚃䚺 ሽ䮰ফᱟѝኡտ ѝኡᴹྣᄼ❑䴉 ␵⵨ⳃ喂඲᰾⫛ ᴮഐ‫ޗ‬ᇤⴤⅼ㡎 ඀ѝⷕ㾻ງ匹哳 ୿ᒤॱ‫ޝ‬቉ᵚჱ

Wild geese met with heavenly wind, turned north and cried in fearful flight. Flight and cries became more urgent with night. Turning my head, I heard someone playing a zither. I asked, “Who is the player?” They said it was Bian Yujing of yesteryear. Yujing and I met in the southern capital. Her home was by the road beneath the Great Merit Avenue— “The small courtyard of the blue tower flanked the avenue, facing the gate where none other than Lord Zhongshan lived. Lord Zhongshan had a daughter of peerless charm, with bright eyes, gleaming teeth, and dangling earrings. Once, for a feast in the inner quarters, I had to sing and dance. Espying, among the seated, one with a trace of heightened color,191 I asked about her age—sixteen and not yet married,

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⸕丣䆈ᴢᕸ␵୶ ↨ֶྣդ⍇㌵࿍ ᶹሷ㎅ᢰ⸌ᒣᓧ ྲ↔㓄䏣⮦‫⦻ן‬ 㩜һ‫ⲷع‬൘ই⑑ བྷᇦᒮᰕ㜭᷍ỗ 䂄ᴨᘭл䚨㴮ⴹ ㍠俜䕅䓺н⸕ᮨ ѝኡྭྣ‫ݹ‬ᗈᖺ аᱲ㊹唋❑Ӫ亗 㢧㢢⸕⛪ཙлۣ 儈䮰ᜱ㻛ᯱӪ࿜ ⴑ䚃⮦ࡽ哳ቻሺ 䃠⸕䕹⴬㌵乿䃔 ই‫ޗ‬ᯩⴻ䎧Ṳᇞ े‫ޥ‬ᰙ๡㠘⬌↕ 㚎䚃ੋ⦻䎠⦹側

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she knew music, mastered songs, and played the scales. Upon return, with my female companions I washed off makeup— in vain did we take pride in our great skills, lording over Pingkang.192 Only someone like her sufficed to be matched with lords and rulers. Everything was in distressing chaos with the southward crossing; for how many days could the imperial house keep up its dignity? An edict suddenly came down, decreeing choice of beauties: one lost count of the slender horses and light carriages. The good daughter of Lord Zhongshan, her brilliance shimmered: all of a sudden, none heeded the other rouged and powdered ladies. Her beauty, we know, was told by all under heaven, and a noble house must fear being the target of others’ envy. All said that right there was the glory of the gold-domed carriage; who would have known, in the twinkling of an eye, the fair one’s ruin? At the South Court, just as they beheld the Cassia Palace being built, word came that the northern army was closing in on Guabu. We heard that the emperor had fled on his fine steed,

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⣒䓺н⭘㚈ᱝᇩ ᒨ䚢䓛‫ޕ‬䲣ᇞ㻿 ফᰙປ਽ԓ㉽ѝ ‫〰׍‬䁈ᗇ⽱㠷䱞 ਼ᱲӖѝйᇞ䚨 ਟៀ‫ء‬ᵚ䆈ੋ⦻ 䓽ᓌᢴ਽㻛偵䚓 ╛䂐㠘᱕⫺⁩ㇷ ⦹乿䴦㩭င㣡䡯 ⮦ᱲ䥟ᙘ七ᬂ㱾 ᕥᆄ᢯ᚙᐢॱᒤ նᮉаᰕ㾻ཙᆀ ⦹‫⛪⭈ނ‬ᶡ᰿↫ 㖺䓺ᵋᒨ䱯䃠⸕ 䶂ຊ␂⏬ㄏྲ↔ ᡁੁ㣡䯃ᣲ㍐⩤ аᕸйⅾ⛪ۧᗳ

calf-drawn carriages would not be used for betrothing consorts. Fortunate to have delayed being taken into the Southern Palace— yet her name was already put down in the Northern Registers. In hazy contours, I remember Qi and Ruan— at that same time, also chosen for the three palaces.193 Pity indeed, that none had even met the emperor when the army took down their names, driving them on. Slowly they sang the songs ‘Facing Spring’ and ‘Agate Trees,’194 until their fair faces wasted away, as hair ornaments fell. At that moment, it was wrong to blame Han Qinhu: for Zhang and Kong had already enjoyed royal favor for ten years. Let her but see the son of heaven for one day— Yu’er would have gladly died for the Benighted Lord.195 Their longing for imperial favor—who would have known it? The green grave is desolate, desolate like this. I turn to the flowers, strumming a plain zither: one sweep of notes and three sighs—I grieve for them,

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᳇ሷࡕ厐䴒呎ᕅ ማ‫ޕ‬ᛢ付ᙘ䴘੏ ᱘ཌ෾九੩㈣㈕ ᮉൺҏ㻛ۣબᙕ ⻗⦹⨝ѝᙅ唎⮉ ′⠏䮰ཆⴗᇦ⌓ ⿱ᴤ㼍ᶏࠪ⊏䚺 ᚠ䙷ѩ䲭л⑊㡩 㘖ቡ哳㍱䋚‫ޕ‬䚃 ᭌֶ㏐㏪䁤ᄻ၏ ↔ൠ㑷ֶⴋⅼ㡎 ᆀᕏй⨝ॱ⮚啃 ᴸ᰾㍳㍒ᴤ❑㚢 ኡຈᇲሎ䚝‫ޥ‬㤖 ॱᒤ਼դ‫ޙ‬йӪ ⋉㪓ᵡ乿ⴑ哳൏ 䋤ᡊ␡䯘䱼кລ

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secretly bringing the tunes of ‘Parting Geese and Riven Phoenixes’ into the chant of mournful wind and bitter rain. Last night, on the city wall, they were blowing the military fife. The quarters had also received urgent summons. Among the ranks of courtesans reigned the terror of being chosen, outside the gates of the entertainers’ camp, young women wept. I secretly changed my garb and came to the river’s edge, by chance encountering, at Danyang, boats at the sandbank. I cut a robe of coarse yellow silk and coveted entry into the Way, carrying an ancient zither to tell of the woes of fair ones. In this place, singing and dancing had always flourished: three troupes of performers, ten-variation ensembles. The moon is bright, yet the strings yield no sounds. Hill Pond, ravaged by war, is all silenced and forsaken. Of companions over ten years, two or three remain; the glowing faces of Sha and Dong have all returned to earth.196 Noble ladies deep inside the boudoir: mere dust on the path,

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੮䕙仴䴦օ䏣ᮨ ඀ᇒ㚎䀰䎧ⅾఏ ⊏ኡ㮝⪏䳡ᛢㅣ 㧛ሷ㭑ྣ䚺九ᴢ 㩭ⴑ੣⦻㤁㼑㣡

For the likes of us to be adrift and lost, how can it matter?” The assembled guests heard these words and heaved sighs, From bleak rivers and mountains, a fife’s sad notes faintly drifted. Do not let the songs of Cai Yan beyond the frontier bring down all the flowers in the palaces of Wu.

Bian Yujing sings of the misfortunes of the daughter of the Lord of Zhongshan, whose mansion was close to Bian’s own abode. Bian’s appreciation of her beauty and musical talents paradoxically reveals that the courtesan and the noblewoman share a common fate (lines 11–19). Her misfortune is tied up with the Ming collapse. The fall of Beijing is starkly juxtaposed with the southern court’s preoccupation with the choice of consorts for the Hongguang emperor (lines 20–23). This very concern exposes the court’s oblivious self-indulgence and links it to other decadent southern dynasties like Qi and Chen (lines 30, 34, 40–43). With the fall of Nanjing, Zhongshan’s daughter and the other ladies narrowly escaped recruitment into the palace, only to be abducted by Qing troops (lines 34– 35). The only fitting analogy for the senseless victimization of these would-be consorts “taken north” may be Wang Zhaojun living and dying in the land of barbarians; Bian thus invokes the memory of her desolate, green grave beyond the frontier (line 47). Political turmoil has taken its toll on both her courtesan companions and noble ladies, and her sufferings pale in comparison (lines 64– 67). The poem concludes with the audience’s empathetic appreciation and invokes Cai Yan (late second– third c.). Daughter of the famous scholar Cai Yong (133–192), she was abducted and detained by the Xiongnu and was forced to leave her half-Xiongnu sons behind when Cao Cao (155–220)

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ransomed her. The poems attributed to her tell of these devastating experiences and she comes to emblematize exile and poetic testimony authenticated by suffering. Here Bian is shown to have mastered Wu’s own mode of empathy and historical judgment in his poems on contemporary turmoil as she sings of the sufferings of women who are victimized by both the inept, crumbling old order (the Southern Ming) and the ruthless new one (the Qing). Hers is the authoritative voice of the poet-historian (shishi): it mediates witnessing and historical reflection and fuses personal sufferings with the vicissitudes of history. For Bian, the burden of witnessing calls for decisive action: she becomes a Daoist. In “Passing by the Grave,” Wu’s last recorded poem devoted to Bian, he contrasts his irresolution with her religious transcendence (lines 5–8): 䴒ࡕ⊹੏ᒮ䘤亗 䙺㎢དྷᯧ㣡᷍ᛏ 㘫ㅁ㹼Ӫᙘ㩭㣡 ᗎࡽ㑭㻛᱕付䃔

We parted. In hesitation I looked back again and again; gossamer dreams were cut off, the flowering branch awakened. She even laughed at passersby who regretted the fallen blossoms— in those days we were too often fooled by the spring wind.

The courtesan, once rejected, now seems to mock Wu’s regrets and laughs at their common delusion and misguided belief in permanence. The idea of mutability also acquires a distinct historical and political dimension, and Wu’s mourning of lost love merges with regrets over his compromises. 555

Yujing had a younger sister named Min. Tall, slender, and fair as white jade, she was graceful and charming. People who saw her

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felt as if they were in the presence of a standing crystal screen. She too excelled in painting orchids and playing the zither. After playing one or two tunes for her guests, she would push the instrument away and fold her hands, blushing all over. When she painted orchids, she also stopped at a few small bamboo branches and two or three orchid blossoms, quite different from Yujing’s lush branches and leaves going in all directions, painted with ink dripping and splashing. But while one stood out with her luxuriance, the other was prized for her sparseness. Each in her distinct way reached the heights of wonder, and connoisseurs treasured both. When she was brought to Suzhou, for a period all vied to admire her, and visitors constantly filled the space outside her door. But her heart was weary with the clamor of the marketplace, and she married the jinshi Shen Weijiu.197 Weijiu was the grandson of a grand councilor.198 By nature unconventional and lavish, he loved having guests. His poetry and writings were famous within the realm, and worthy, valiant men from all over associated with him. Having obtained Min, he felt more gratified than ever, for she was his good friend of the inner chambers. Some time later, Weijiu became ill and died, and his family declined. Min married again, this time to a high official surnamed Chen who held office in Fujian. When turmoil roiled Fujian, Chen put all his concubines to the blade before he cut his own throat.199 I heard that Min was among the pile of corpses. Some said that she died of illness three years after the marriage. 555

[Translator’s note] According to Jin Rongfan ( jinshi 1748), Wu Weiye’s “Song of Painting Orchids” ⮛㱝ᴢ was written for Bian Min. His hypothesis is based in part on Wu’s friendship with Shen Weijiu.200 The poem is quite typical of how a courtesan’s aesthetic creation is

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eroticized. In this case the painted orchid merges with the woman (lines 5–10):201 㴰㍉⮦デማ⮩㱝 ਓ㜲俉अ‫∛ޕ‬ㄟ 㞅䕅ḃ唋␫㣭᱃ 䠗䟽㡂㺛᭮㩹䴓 լ㜭н㜭ᗇ㣡᜿ 㣡ӖྲӪੀ⥦ᵚ

Facing the windows, she paints orchids on Sichuan paper. The fragrance of her lip gloss wafts to the brush tip. A light wrist makes it easy to paint eyebrows and add shoots, but with heavy bangles, her sleeves and the leaves strain to unfurl. She seems to be doing it, but not really: she gets the blooms’ intent. The flowers, like the person, are evasively open, only not quite yet.

But if this poem is indeed about Bian Min, then her marriage with Shen seems less ideal than Yu Huai’s description (lines 25–28): 㚎䚃㖵ᑳᙘ䴒㍒ 响➔厍㎩䯂ే֌ ৸Ӂោᛤ䶎᱄ᱲ ㅶᒺ㘑㘐ཊ䴦㩭

I heard that behind the silk drapes, she resents his departures, while ink and fine silk still come now and then into use. They also said that she is worn out and not like before, that the jadeite ornaments of the brush rest have fallen off.

In the final third of the poem, the host asks Wu Weiye for a landscape painting, and Wu in return requests a chance to see Bian Min paint. Wu reminisces about past tenderness, and the poem concludes with him looking at the orchid painting he brings home:

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he sees “traces of tears” and “dots and dyes of true heartbreak on raw silk” 㞨ᯧ⭏㎳唎ḃⵏ. Would it have been socially acceptable to write so intimately about a friend’s concubine? Did this poem circulate? Did Shen’s unconventional character explain his tolerance? Perhaps it was Bian’s status as a former courtesan that made this ambiguous gesture of flouting decorum possible. 555

Fan Jue had the sobriquet Shuangyu [meaning paired jades; the character jue is written with the jade radical and the graph for jade]. She was abstemious and quiet, and had few cravings. Everything that was sensual, elaborate, or luxurious about clothing, adornment, singing, or music—she abjured them all. She did nothing but close the door, burn incense, and brew tea, facing the medicine pot and scrolls of sutras. She loved to paint landscapes, taking as her models Shi Zhong and Gu Yuan.202 She painted ancient trees with gnarled, uneven branches, distant mountains, and steep torrents—there was a natural spirit and resonance in the ways she used brush and ink. She was a Fan Kuan among women.203 555

Dun Wen, whose sobriquet was Shaowen, was the granddaughter of Old Dun the pipa master. Intelligent and literate, she could recite many Tang poems. She was taught how to place her fingers and produce deep and fast notes with the strings, but she disdained it and refused to fully master the art. When she learned to play the zither and came to the “Three Repetitions”204 of refined music, she felt its clarity and purity, as if her spirit was drenched in it— some said that was why she had another cognomen, Qinxin [the heart of the zither]. Qinxin lived in an era of turmoil, and Old Dun

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relied on her to survive; that was why she could not remove herself from the Music Registry early on. She rented a house on Blue Stream Lane, a hovel with a brushwood gate and a meager excuse of a window.205 It was a bleak and desolate existence. Time and again she was tormented by strongmen and vulgarians. Finally she was forced into an association with a man surnamed Li, and through him got implicated and thrown into prison. Although she managed to save her life when the circumstances became known, she was still under the surveillance of prison guards who were like the Bullhead Apang from Hell.206 One of her patrons, Scholar Wang, got me involved in trying to save her by mediating with the authorities. Together we visited her. Her hair windblown and mist-shrouded;207 she was worn out and pitiable. Even then she took to the zither and played the song of “Parting Phoenixes and Riven Simurghs.” It was like the gibbon’s chants and the cuckoo’s cries; 208 one could not bear to listen to it. I persuaded Commissioner Xu from Neixiang to intervene.209 He charged his protégé to approach the person behind the case and have her released. Later she returned to her former abode. Wang Qichang of Wu was staying at Zhang Yanzhu’s house and became Qinxin’s neighbor.210 They admired and loved each other. Wang was generous and had a knightly spirit, and he poured money into helping Qinxin, ameliorating her poverty and troubles. He was about to take her back home and set her up in a separate household when he was suddenly caught up in an unexpected disaster. Those who came to round him up arrived and, upon seeing Qinxin, exclaimed: “This is truly a femme fatale!” Having realized that she was not guilty, they pitied her and arrested only Wang. Wang was executed and Qinxin escaped. Ultimately she married a man of dubious morals. Alas, “a beauty suffers a sad fate”! For someone like Qinxin, it is only too true! Too true! 555

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[Translator’s note] Dun Wen’s ancestor Dun Ren, as mentioned above, found favor as a musician with the Zhengde emperor. Her grandfather, Old Dun, was a consummate pipa player and was knowledgeable enough about northern music and phonology to debate those issues with the scholar He Liangjun (1506–1573).211 Contemporary literati accounts treat masterful pipa players as “one of us” (wo bei zhong ren). In his “Song of Pipa, with Preface” (WMC 1:55–60, ca. late 1640s to early 1650s), Wu Weiye notes how scholar-officials such as Kang Hai (1475–1540) and Wang Jiusi (1468–1551) were renowned pipa players who used their music to lament demotion and exile. Wu writes about the father and son pipa players, Bai Zaimei and Bai Yuru, with immense admiration. Their pipa music reenacts the wars, chaos, and devastation of Ming collapse and brings about a cathartic ritual of spiritual communion and historical commemoration for their audience. For Dun Wen, however, the pipa was still too deeply steeped in the culture of entertainment, and she rejected it in favor of the zither, an instrument of greater antiquity that is deeply connected with the idea of moral and spiritual self-cultivation. Her choice of sobriquet, Qinxin, shows her desire to identify with the virtues of the zither. What is translated as “femme fatale” here is literally “calamitous water” (huoshui). In a story about Zhao Feiyan, the consort of Emperor Cheng of Han (r. 33– 7 BCE), one of the palace ladies describes Zhao Feiyan and her sister Hede thus: “This is calamitous water that will surely put out the fire of Han!”212 (Han had the virtue of fire in the system of cosmological correspondences.) Since Dun Wen played no role in Wang Qichang’s troubles, the comment merely means that she is so beautiful that she will bring troubles and bad luck. 555

Sha Cai was beautiful and radiant, sensual and lithe. She was alluring through and through—a heaven-endowed bewitching creature.213

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She excelled in playing chess, performing on the flute, and composing songs. She grew her nails long and adorned herself with care, and her trailing skirts and wide, sweeping sleeves made for resplendent raiment.214 Later, she brought her younger sister, Nen, and traveled to Wujun.215 They found their abode at Bantang. For a good while their fame soared, and people without exception regarded them as the “two Zhaos” or “two Qiaos.”216 Unfortunately, later Cai ruined half of her face because of some sores. Nen married an uncouth Shazhali and died unhappy and unfulfilled.217 555

Ma Jiao had the sobriquet Wanrong. She had a fresh, pure beauty, cleansed like willows in spring moonlight, 218 shimmering like lotuses emerging from water. Indeed, she lived up to the word jiao [which means lovely, charming] in her name. She understood music and knew all about songs; her singing fit the scales marvelously well. Even old masters of the art praised her as peerless. Still she lamented her fate of having by mistake fallen into the world of the pleasure quarters. She wanted to choose the right man to serve and did not dare to lightly promise herself to anyone. Eventually she married Yang Longyou from Guizhu. Yang Longyou’s given name was Wencong. He was famous for his poetry and painting. Dong Qichang of Huating heaped praise on him. Some time earlier, Guo Shengpu of Fujian had taken two concubines, one called Li Tuona, the other, Zhu Yuye.219 After Shengpu died, Yang married Yuye, and also obtained various fine things and antique vessels Guo had owned—such as paintings and calligraphy, vases and inkstones, low tables and staffs. Embracing Wanrong on top of gaining all that, all day long he reveled in fondling his treasures as he laughed and chatted with the ladies. After the calamity of the jiashen year (1644), Ma Shiying of Guiyang installed the Hongguang emperor and made himself the prime minister. Drawing on the help of Ruan Dacheng, the

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erstwhile “adopted son” of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, they fomented factionalism and abused their power, wreaking havoc in the whole world and bringing about the debacle of the fifth month (1645), when the court fled. The people of the capital torched the estates of the Ma and Ruan families. Yang Wencong, on account of his kinship and connection with Ma, also had his house burned down by raging flames, and in an instant everything turned to ashes. At that time Yang was commissioner of Suzhou and Songjiang, and he fled with all his family and valuables. By then Yuye had long been dead. No one knew what became of Wanrong. Yang and his sons died as martyrs in Fujian, and he left no progeny. His aged mother survived; she begged her way back to Jinling and relied on the support of a family servant to live out her last years. Wanrong had a younger sister named Nen, and she too was famous. There was also a Little Ma Nen. She was lithe, buoyant, and lighthearted, and took pride in her own romantic flair. A salt merchant from Zhenzhou bought her with a thousand pieces of silver and offered her to Chen, a noble son from Liyang.220 Chen was not enamored of her for too long before he gave her, along with her dowry, to Chen Yunheng of Yuzhang.221 She gave birth to a son and a daughter. This was like Wang Xianzhi taking Taogen [Peach Root] as concubine.222 555

[Translator’s note] Yang Wencong, mentioned earlier in connection with Sun Lin, was a low-level Ming official. During the short-lived Hongguang reign, he rose to become commissioner of five prefectures and also assumed significant military responsibility, in part because he married the niece of Ma Shiying, chief minister of the Southern Ming court. (As mentioned above, Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng are vilified as the miscreant ministers of the Southern Ming.) After the fall of Nanjing in 1645, he continued in Ming loyalist resistance and served as Zhu Yujian’s (Prince of Tang, also called the Longwu

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emperor) military advisor. In 1646, his forces were defeated at Quzhou and he was executed along with his sons. Yang was a notable painter, and various early Qing poems commemorating his martyrdom are preserved as colophons on his paintings and albums. In Kong Shangren’s Peach Blossom Fan, Yang Wencong is an ambiguous character, befriending both the sympathetic characters—the Revival Society scholars and the righteous courtesans and entertainers of Qinhuai— and the vilified ones—Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng. He is also the lynchpin of the plot, arranging the marriage between the courtesan Li Xiangjun (see below) and the scholar Hou Fangyu, as well as painting on Li’s bloodstained fan and turning it into the peach blossom fan, the key symbol of romantic and political passion in the eponymous play. For obvious political reasons, Kong does not mention Yang’s martyrdom; he is the only character whose ending is unaccounted for in the play. (Kong must be aware of it, however, since he cites in his “Textual Verification” various sources paying tribute to Yang.223) Even though Yang died in resistance, some Ming loyalists could not forgive his ties with Ma and Ruan. Qian Chengzhi, for example, disparaged his appetite for wealth and sensual pleasures, as we have seen. Here Yu Huai merely hints at a critique of Yang’s oblivious indulgence, but he gives him his due by affirming his political courage and martyrdom. 555

Gu Xi had another name, Xiaoxi. She was an unconventional and generous free spirit, and her figure was full and sensual. Her feet were not small, and people called her Gu Big Feet. They also called her Flesh Screen.224 But her air of charging forth without a care and her mien of soaring to the heavens and rising above the common crowd meant that she was no ordinary creature languishing between fence and wall.225 A fitting comparison may be the Han general Li Ling leading three thousand soldiers as he reached Dihan Mountain and entered the Narrow Valley: one could charge

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forward, but one would be defeated and would have to surrender.226 The “Rhapsody Lamenting Lady Li” by Emperor Wu of Han has this line: “Loveliness that holds light.”227 I inscribed those four words to name her abode. I do not know whom she ended up with in the aftermath of the turmoil. Some said that she married a young man from a noble family. Zhu Xiaoda had quite a reputation for beauty. I did not get to see her. But I heard that she was slender, lovely, unspoiled, and well versed in the arts. With her powder sketches, ink traces, and scrolls piled in all directions, she was of the ilk of Li Qingzhao.228 She married Li, the minister of imperial affairs from Zhaoyang [present-day Xinghua in Jiangsu]. Calamity overtook the minister, and his family was destroyed. Wang Xiaoda was born with a natural grace. She was smooth and quick, and was very good at dealing with people. At grand feasts and big gatherings, whenever someone urged her to drain a cup of wine, she always knelt by the mat and gladly accepted it. An excellent overseer of wine games and rules of drinking,229 she did not make the slightest error ever. She could resolve the conflicts among drinkers and dispel their resentments, and people at the time called her the “soup of harmony.”230 Gu Ermai of Yangzhou, whose sobriquet was Buying, was the esteemed younger brother of the Lord of Zhenyuan.231 Relying on the wealth that came with hereditary titles and imperial connections, he went back and forth to the pleasure quarters. He was enamored of Xiaoda, set her up at Heting, and frequently summoned guests for extravagant bouts of drinking. Following the examples of Chen Zun and Gao Jishi,232 he appointed Wang the woman general with the seal for officiating at wine games. She gave orders right and left, and the guests all drank a lot and sank into a drunken stupor. There were inebriated guests who tried to escape. Gu would lock the gates and take off their shoes, and they would sleep on the floor until they woke up at midday. At the time Fan Jingwen from Wuqiao was

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minister of war in the south, and Gu was a guest whom he treated as an equal.233 He was valiant and often resolved conflicts for others234 in the style of ancient knights-errant. The fame of his paintings and calligraphy rivals that of Zheng Yuanxun’s works.235 Zhang Yuan was lithe, slender, and had free and easy manners. She seemed to rise and drift off when facing the wind. Being somewhat older in a world dominated by youth, she was still appealing with her tiny waist and delicate steps. People called her Zhang Small Feet. Liu Yuan was also not that young. Yet she had free and easy manners and was delicate and lightfooted. Her bright eyes sparkled and pierced the four corners of a gathering. Once, a distinguished gentleman who had just crossed the river shared a bed with her. Yuan turned and faced the inside curtains without paying him any attention. He tapped her shoulder and said, “Don’t you know that I am a distinguished gentleman?” Yuan turned around and said, “What exactly is a distinguished gentleman? How much is it worth?” The story was passed around as a joke. Cui Ke was a fine creature who later rose to prominence. She did not see the exemplary models from the earlier generation, but still she had a natural charm and gracefulness. Ke too cherished herself and looked on her own reflection with pity, taking great pride in her beauty, raising her worth, and disdaining everything. In the end she was humiliated by a literatus. Dong Nian, a supreme beauty of Qinhuai, was Dong Bai’s sister. Her reputation for charm and loveliness also matched her sister’s. Zhang Ziding of Mount Zhong236 wrote elegiac poems entitled “Mourning Xiaowan,” one of which goes as follows: Of beauties born in Southland, I have see two fairy maidens named Dong.237 Spring shared its beauty with Nian,

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flowers honored Bai as covenant leader. The fair ones had no successors; butterfly dream is her former life. All is quiet, as all has turned to dust, and fragrant wind is entrusted to the brush. 555

[Translator’s note] Zhuang Zhou dreams of being a butterfly and when he wakes up, asks whether Zhuang Zhou dreams of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreams of being Zhuang Zhou (Zhuangzi jishi 2.112). Dong Bai’s death is a reminder of mutability even as her memory remains palpable. The line “All has turned to dust” suggests that Dong Nian had also died by the time Zhang wrote this poem. “Fragrant wind” or all things associated with the dead beauty can only be preserved through writing. The Many Charms of Jinling Beauties238 devotes a section to Dong Nian, paired with the cassia blossom and elevated as the “top candidate” (zhuangyuan). The author Li Yunxiang’s friend objects to this ranking because Dong Nian dallies with too many suitors, but Li defends it as acceptable professional conduct.239 The Many Charms has a preface dated 1618, which means that Dong Nian would have had to be more than twenty years older than Dong Bai. Perhaps Dong Nian was “like a sister” rather than a biological sister. Perhaps there were two courtesans named Dong Nian. If there was only one Dong Nian, then Dong Bai’s younger sister Xiaosheng (mentioned in Plum Shadows) should not be identified as Dong Nian, although many commentators maintain that Xiaosheng was Dong Nian’s sobriquet. 555

Li Xiang [meaning fragrance] had a slight build and a fair complexion the color of white jade. Intelligent, vibrant, and perceptive,

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she was peerless in her ability to rouse merriment with her wit. People gave her the nickname Fragrant Fan Pendant. I offered her this poem: From her earliest years a city-toppling beauty:240 that is Li Xiang. Embrace her slender loveliness; hide her in your sleeve. For what reason did the lady of the twelve Wu peaks deliberately come to see the Chu king in his dream?241

Wei Xuelian of Wutang 242 wrote this on her wall, and Yang Wencong of Guizhu painted soaring orchids and strangely shaped rocks to the left of Wei’s calligraphy. People at the time called this “the three brilliance.”243 As a result, Xiang gained a great reputation in the South Bend. Talented scholars from every direction all vied to meet her, considering it an honor to be able to do so. 555

[Translator’s note] Li Xiang is famous as the protagonist of Kong Shangren’s Peach Blossom Fan (completed 1699, first printing 1708), where she is also called Li Xiangjun. The play uses the love story of Li Xiangjun and the scholar Hou Fangyu to trace the decline and fall of the Ming dynasty and its short-lived continuation as the Hongguang court. Kong did not list Yu Huai’s Miscellaneous Records in his “Evidentiary Sources,” but the play has details that echo Yu’s account. In scene 2, which introduces Li Xiangjun, Yang Wencong comes to Li’s abode and is impressed by the poems of famous Revival Society leaders Zhang Pu (1602–1641, jinshi 1631) and Xia Yunyi (1596–1645, jinshi 1637) on her walls.244 (Kong Shangren might have decided to replace Wei Xuelian in Yu Huai’s account with Zhang and Xia because Wei surrendered to the rebels in 1644, and Kong

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prefers to emphasize Li’s connection with emblems of integrity.) Yang paints orchids next to rocks painted by Lan Ying (ca. 1585– 1664). The association of orchids with a ruler’s virtue, derived from a Zuozhuan story, leads Yang to give Li the name Xiangjun (meaning ruler of fragrance).245 Kong also turns Yu Huai’s poem into something Yang Wencong writes to celebrate the union of Hou and Li in scene 6. The same scene includes jocular references to Li as Fragrant Fan Pendant. The commendation of Zhang Pu and Xia Yunyi is also mentioned in Hou Fangyu’s biographical account of Li Xiang (“Li ji zhuan”), which emphasizes her political judgment:246 The courtesan Li was named Xiang. Her mother was called Zhenli. Zhenli had the spirit of a knight-errant. Once she gambled through the night and lost a thousand taels that vanished in no time. The men she associated with were all heroic and distinguished spirits of the era, and she was on especially good terms with Chen Zhenhui of Yangxian [present-day Yixing in Jiangsu]. Li Xiang was her adopted daughter. She too was knightly and intelligent. She had some acquaintance with literature, and could discern the worth or lack thereof among literati and scholarofficials. The academician Zhang Pu and the official Xia Yunyi praised her very highly. From a young age, she had a bright, pure spirit that raised her above others. At thirteen, she learned singing from Zhou Rusong of Wu.247 She fully mastered the musical niceties of the four plays by Tang Xianzu and excelled especially in singing Lyrics of the Pipa, but she did not take performing lightly and did so only for a good reason.248 The scholar Hou from Snowy Court 249 came to Jinling in the jimao year (1639) and got to know Li. She once invited Hou to compose poems and in return sang for him. Earlier, Ruan Dacheng from Anhui had suffered punishment on account of his former sycophantic connection with the eunuch Wei Zhongxian.

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Living in retirement in Jinling, he was the target of public criticism from men of principle. Chen Zhenhui of Yangxian (in Jiangsu) and Wu Yingji of Guichi (in Anhui) spearheaded the critique and persisted in their endeavor to expose him.250 Dacheng ran out of alternatives and wanted the scholar Hou to intervene on his behalf. He thus relied on the good offices of General Wang, with whom he was on good terms, and had him bring wine and food daily to spend time with Hou. Li said, “General Wang is poor and not the kind who cultivates friendships with generosity. Why don’t you ask him about it?” Hou asked three times, and the general then sent everybody away and told him about Dacheng’s intention. Li said to Hou in a private conversation: “From a young age I got to know the Yangxian gentleman through my adoptive mother. He was a person of high principles. I heard that Wu is especially uncompromising in his judgments. Now they are both on good terms with you. Why would you let down your closest friends because of Lord Ruan? Furthermore, with your distinguished lineage, why would you serve Lord Ruan? You, sir, have read thousand of scrolls of books. How can you lag behind a lowly woman in your judgment?” Hou cried out loudly and agreed. He slept in inebriation.251 This General Wang was very disappointed. He thus took his leave and did not try to be in communication with Hou again. Not long after, Hou failed in the examination. Li set forth wine at the Peach Leaf Crossing and sang Lyrics of the Pipa to send him off. She said, “You, sir, are in no way inferior to Cai Yong when it comes to reputation for talent and literary flourish. Cai Yong’s learning could not make up for the flaws of his conduct. Now of course the story told in Pipa has no factual basis.252 Even so, he once drew close to Dong Zhuo, and that cannot be covered up.253 You are generous, proud, defiant, and unrestrained, and now you also suffer disappointment. After this parting, it’s not clear when we will meet. I hope you will always cherish

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yourself and will not forget the Lyrics of the Pipa that I sang! I will also not sing again.”254 After Hou left, Tian Yang, a former provincial governor, offered three hundred taels of silver255 to invite Li for a meeting. She firmly declined. The provincial governor, humiliated and angered, found ways to malign her. She sighed: “Is Lord Tian any different from Lord Ruan? What was it that I earlier supported the noble son Hou in doing? If now I go to Tian because I covet his gold, I will have betrayed the noble son!” In the end she did not go.

In Hou Fangyu’s account, Li Xiang’s most important quality is her ability to “discern the worth or lack thereof among literati and scholar-officials.” The literature on courtesans is obsessed with ranking the women; here Li is the one who offers judgment of literati and scholar-officials. She draws parallels between her own singing and Hou’s writing, between Hou’s imperative to cut ties with Ruan Dacheng and her own rejection of Tian Yang’s advances. In Hou’s letter to Ruan (1643), he spelled out General Wang’s attempts to ingratiate himself with Hou (such as arranging entertainment in the pleasure quarters) and his stern refusal to be bought when it became clear that Wang was acting on behalf of Ruan.256 His biographical account of Li Xiang makes it clear that she played a key role in his decision.257 Another letter to Tian Yang is a rebuttal of Tian’s accusation that Hou had urged Li Xiang to spurn Tian’s offer:258 When I came to Jinling, Zhang Pu of Taicang by chance mentioned to me: “There is a courtesan surnamed Li in Jinling who sings Tang Xianzu’s arias with a unique flair.” I thus came to know her, and now and then sent her poems. Not long after, I failed in the examination and left and did not see her again. Half a year later, I heard that she refused your honor’s gold. I secretly marveled at this and said to myself: I had not fathomed the depth

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of this courtesan! On what basis could I have instructed her to act in a certain way? Furthermore, your honor invited her after I left Jinling. Now there’s more than one person in the whole world who knows about your honor. How is it possible that I alone should frequently bring up your honor’s name and tell this courtesan in advance that she must not go should you invite her in future? Had this courtesan lacked knowledge and judgment, with your honor’s significant offer of three hundred taels of silver and the dignity of your office as provincial governor, she should have rushed to obey your command and feared only her tardiness. Why would she still remember the words of a humble failed scholar? If she has the knowledge and judgment, so much so that she cannot be swayed at all by the significant offer of three hundred taels of silver and the dignity of a provincial governor’s position, then she must have a blueprint for action in her mind; why would she need to wait for me to tell her anything! The way a gentleman establishes and conducts himself must have its own basis and consequence. Reading your communication back and forth, I sweat even more in unease. Although I am but a scholar, I often fear that if I were to err in any way, I would be the object of scorn for this courtesan. How then could I, on the basis of my skills in having read a few scrolls of books and composed a few poems, silently direct her to act in a certain way?

In protesting that he could not have swayed Li Xiang to spurn Tian Yang, Hou ends up praising the courage of her convictions. Li rejected Tian because he served Wei Zhongxian. The “sweat of unease” at the end of the letter is about Hou’s fear of being judged by the courtesan. Li Xiang’s political passion is elaborated in key scenes of Peach Blossom Fan: her denunciation of Ruan Dacheng and rejection of the trousseau he supplied (scene 7) and her refusal to become Tian Yang’s concubine as she defends her chastity with a palace fan (a love token from Hou) that becomes blood-splattered and is

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transformed into the “peach blossom fan” through Yang Wencong’s painting (scenes 22–23). A slight shift in chronology259 turns Li into a symbol of resistance against not only corrupt forces in late Ming politics but also their continuation in the Southern Ming, since Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng instigate the scheme to have her forcibly taken to Tian. A comment at the end of scene 37 alludes to the symbolic quotient of Li’s blood, linking it to the blood of martyrdom shed by “the three loyal generals of the Southern dynasty”—Shi Kefa (1601–1645), Zuo Liangyu (1599– 1645), and Huang Degong (d. 1645). The unspoken adversary of the three generals is the Qing army. The politically acceptable version of history in the early Qing dictates their commemoration as loyal but misguided characters, since the Qing recognized Chongzhen as the last legitimate Ming emperor, and loyalty to the Ming after his death is by definition private, tragic, and delusional. For Kong Shangren and his early Qing audience, Li’s bloody defiance of Tian Yang is a neutralized and aestheticized version of political resistance, evocative of the three generals’ martyrdom without explicit reference, and safe to commemorate because it is directed against the Southern Ming court rather than the Qing.260 In Peach Blossom Fan, Li’s romantic passion and political integrity are intertwined. She refuses to marry Tian Yang out of loyalty to Hou even as she despises Tian’s politics. Hou’s biographical account of Li, by contrast, takes pains to emphasize her political acumen and uncompromising judgment instead of her romantic feelings. In Peach Blossom Fan, the key point of reference is Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion; through its arias Li comes into her own (scene 2) and articulates her anguish in front of the Hongguang emperor (scene 25). Hou mentions Li’s mastery of Tang Xianzu’s plays but shifts the focus to Gao Ming’s (1305–1370) Story of the Pipa. The historical counterpart of the play’s protagonist, Cai Yong, aligned himself with the warlord Dong Zhuo (d. 192). Li urges Hou to heed Cai’s negative example. “I will also not sing again”: this muted expression of love and regard is also an implicit appeal that Hou should cherish his political ideals. When did Hou

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write this account? Was it before or after he took the examination under the Qing in 1651, when retrospection on Li’s political courage might have been mixed with regret over his own compromise?261 According to the famous lyricist Chen Weisong, the eldest son of Hou’s friend Chen Zhenhui, Li had wanted to marry Hou, and her written avowal of love was determined and relentless. Chen Weisong kept it among his papers, but unfortunately it was not transmitted. Chen also included an informal letter from Hou to Chen Zhenhui. The tone is playful and mock heroic, and the context seems to have been a lovers’ quarrel. Chen apparently introduced Hou to another courtesan, and this so angered Li Xiang that she refused to allow Hou to join Chen for another gathering. Hou professed trepidation and humble submission and explained to Chen why he would not dare to go against Li.262

T H E FA M O U S C O U R T E S A N S O F P E A R L M A R K E T ( I N C L U D E D A S AT TAC H M E N T )

The Pearl Market was next to the Inner Bridge. It had winding lanes and small, narrow houses. But there were beauties in that district. Unfortunately, limited by location, it did not dare compete with the Old Quarters. From what I saw, ladies like Wang Yue offered a world of enchantment; 263 why is there any need to hanker after the names of Honghong and Juju!264 I fear that they would thus sink into oblivion, so much so that their lovely form and entrancing spirit 265 would decay with grass and wood. That is why I attached their stories to the end of the fascicle, the goal is to better augment the forgotten history of Jinling. 555

Wang Yue [meaning moon] had the sobriquet Weibo [meaning gentle ripples]. Her mother gave birth to three daughters—the oldest was Yue, after her Jie, and after Jie, Man. They were all

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extraordinarily beautiful. Wang Yue was especially clever and lovely. Adept at adornment, she was slender and tall, like a piece of jade standing straight. With her gleaming teeth and bright eyes, she was extremely alluring and captivating, and her reputation stirred lords and ministers. Sun Lin of Tongcheng was enamored of her and took her to a snowy cave at the foot of Qixia Mountain.266 They stayed there for a month without coming out. In the jimao year (1639), on Double Seventh, the night when the Weaver Maid Star and the Cowherd Star crossed the River of Heaven, he hosted a grand gathering of various courtesans at the quayside house where Fang Yizhi was sojourning. Carriages and horses of worthy and distinguished men from everywhere filled the streets. As for denizens of the Pear Garden, three troupes performed side by side. Outside the house, boats were arrayed in a circle like a wall. The “flower cases” were evaluated according to their excellence, and a tiered terrace was set up as a seat for the top graduate.267 Among the twenty or so ladies, the examiners placed Weibo first. She ascended to the terrace as music struck up and was presented with a wine cup. The various courtesans of the South Bend all looked disconsolate and gradually drifted away. The drinking did not stop until daybreak. On the following day, we each composed poems to record the event. My poem was the one with the lines “Goddess of the moon, queen of flowers, / supreme lunar beauty, supreme fragrance.” Weibo embroidered these lines on her handkerchief and never let go of it. Sun Lin became ever more enamored of her and wanted to set her up as his concubine. At that time Cai Ruheng (sobriquet Xiangjun) of Guiyang was powerful. Offering three thousand taels of silver to entice Wang’s father, he wrested her from Sun and brought her home. Sun Lin was quite despondent and thus married Ge Nen. Cai later became the military commander of Anlu and took Wang Yue with him to his post, and she monopolized his favor. In the fifth month of the fifteenth year of the Chongzhen reign (1642), the bandit Zhang Xianzhong overran Luzhou Prefecture. The magistrate Zheng Lüxiang died as a martyr, and

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Cai Ruheng was captured. Zhang ransacked his home and found Wang Yue. He kept her in his military camp and favored her above all others in the entire fort. She accidentally offended Zhang Xianzhong for some reason, and Zhang decapitated her, steamed her head, put it on a plate, and served it as food to the other bandits. Alas! The same ending in death, yet Wang Yue did not measure up to Ge Nen. Lamentable indeed! 555

[Translator’s note] According to History of the Ming (Ming shi), Cai Ruheng was avaricious and violent, and did not have the support of the populace; that was why the rebels could infiltrate Luzhou easily. After Luzhou fell, Zheng Lüxiang and Cai Ruheng both escaped.268 But one eyewitness account by Yu Ruizi mentions the capture and execution of Cai Ruheng and Wang Yue and casts Wang as a more heroic character. The Eighth Great King [Zhang Xianzhong] reprimanded him [Cai]: “I couldn’t care less. But you were the military commissioner and yet did not pay the least attention to defending the city. Since the city succumbed to my siege, you would have done well to wear red court robes and sit properly in the hall [to wait for me]. Why did you take your courtesan concubine and hide in a well?” Several bandits seized Cai in the field and executed him. Wang Yue loudly cursed Zhang Xianzhong and was thus killed with a spear by a ditch. Her corpse remained standing and fell only after quite a while.269

Zhang Dai also offers vivid memories of Wang Yue (called Wang Yuesheng in his account):270 Courtesans from the Bend did not deign to associate with courtesans in the Pearl Market in Nanjing.271 Wang Yuesheng came

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from the Pearl Market, but there was definitely no one from the Bend over a span of thirty years who could compare to her. Her complexion was like the first bloom of autumn orchids. Comely and delicate, her feet were exquisitely tiny, like red caltrops peeking from water. Proud and dignified, she was sparing with words and laughter. Her female companions and the hangers-on or jokesters of that world tried their wiles in countless ways, but even with all their teasing and tomfoolery they could not induce her to break into a broad smile. She was adept at calligraphy in standard script; painted orchids, bamboos, and narcissus; and also mastered Wu-style singing, though it was not easy to get her to perform. Even when distinguished men with imperial connections went all out to invite her, she could not sit through the entire banquet. Rich merchants and powerful officials who wanted to have Wang preside over their gatherings, even if only for a little while, would send the written invitation and gifts a day in advance, be it ten taels or five taels of silver, not daring to show any lack of respect when reserving the right to her company. As for those who wanted to share the conjugal cup with her, unless they sent the betrothal gifts a month or two in advance, it would take a whole year and they would still not have her. She loved tea and was good friends with Old Man Min. 272 Even when there was a grand gathering, and even if there was sweeping wind and rain, she always went to the old man’s house to drink a few pots of tea before going. For those she appreciated among the men she associated with, she also arranged to meet them at the old man’s house. One day, a rich merchant who was the old man’s neighbor gathered scores of courtesans from the Bend. Boisterously bantering and laughing, the crowd sat in a circle and drank with abandon. Yuesheng stood on the terrace and leaned against the beam of the balustrade: proud, shy, and restrained. The crowd of inferior women saw her and all felt defeated, and they moved to another room to avoid her. Yuesheng was lofty and distant like the plum tree under a cold moon. Bearing the disdainful dignity of ice and frost, she did not

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like to consort with vulgar men. Sometimes, even when she had to face them or live with them, it was as if they were not within her purview. There was a noble son who kept her, but after sleeping and eating with her for half a month, he did not get her to say anything. One day, her mouth moved and one hanger-on, surprised by joy, rushed to report to the noble son, “Yuesheng is about to speak!” There was great commotion as all regarded this as an auspicious omen. He hurried to her side and waited upon her. She blushed and, after a while, stopped again. The noble son tried his best to beg again and again, and she finally, with great effort and embarrassment, articulated two words: “Go home.”

Sporadic references to Wang Yue in Zhang Dai’s Dream Memories of Tao’an (Tao’an mengyi) suggest a real friendship between them. In his estimation, Wang Yue and the storyteller Liu Jingting were “the two most fashionable and welcome persons in Nanjing.”273 In his account of a hunting expedition to Bullhead Mountain in 1638, Zhang lists Wang Yue ahead of other famous courtesans (such as Gu Mei, Dong Bai, and Li Tenth) who took part.274 When he left Nanjing that year, it was Old Man Min and Wang Yue who saw him off at Swallow Peak.275 In a poem about Wang Yue, Zhang Dai compared her to the wonders of tea and to the tea master Old Man Min: ᴢѝ࿃⦻ᴸ⭏ WANG YUESHENG, COURTESAN OF THE BEND 276

䠁䲥֣哇օᱲ䎧 ։㾻‫ޙ‬һ䶎ᑨ⨶ ѳⅢਆѻ⴨∄ٛ ؇Ӫ㚎ѻㅁ㾻喂

The lovely wonders of Jinling: when did they come to be? I have seen two things that defy common rules, and thus want to take them for comparison. Hearing this, the vulgar laugh and bare their teeth.

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Ӻֶ㥇ᡠᗇ⮠Ӫ ṳ㩹⑑ਓ䯄㘱ᆀ 䪭⹄≤⚛гॱᒤ ೬⺾㲋オ䗘⑓┃ ⲭ⬼⋨䴚Ⲭ㱝俉 㢢լ哾‫ݹ‬䘿⢅㍉ 㠼䯃Ღ⊱ણ਼䃠 ⭈䞨䜭ⴑ⁴ⅆ儃 ৺։аᲔ⦻ᴸ⭏ ᙽ㾻↔㥦㜭䃎⸓ 䒤й㠤а↕੍〫 ⤧▄ᒭ䯂᜿ྲ≤ ‫׍‬ᐼ㊌㊹䀓ᯠㇱ а㧆⿻㱝ࡍ᭮㰲 㑐䵗⥦ჼᕡнऍ ቆᕃ䚙㠷⒈㼉င аᖰ␡ᛵਟླྀօ 䀓Ӫнᗇཊ⍱㿆

I came for a tea battle and found an extraordinary man 277— Old Man Min at Peach Leaf Crossing. Deep into the secrets of water and fire for seventy years, he has chewed through emptiness and divined the impurities. Boiling snow in the white bowl emits orchid fragrance, its color is like dawn light piercing through window paper. A pure depth on the tongue—what is the flavor like? Beyond the limits of sweet and sour—the olive’s marrow. Once I met Wang Yuesheng, I suddenly realized that this tea could speak. With three steps she makes one, wary of moving, proudly pure, quietly demure, her spirit is like water. Traces of powder linger as the shoots release new bamboos,278 a stem of autumn orchid first unfurls its pistil. She seems too delicate to bear the weight of even fine silk, her pointed shoes match her trailing goddess skirt perfectly. Feelings that run deep all the way—what is to be done?279 With no one who understands, her gaze wanders.

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։ୟሽѻᮜ⭿⭏ ੋ䅘啵㥦ᗇަᰘ նԕ֣㥇∄֣Ӫ 㠚ਔօӪ㾻৺↔ ⥦䀰ᴨ⌅൘⊏㚢 㚎㘵ತ伟┯ަࠐ

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I can only face her in awe and reverence, just like Junmo, who smelled the tea and got the meaning.280 They only compare lovely tea with a lovely beauty281— from ancient times who can see this far? “The secret of calligraphy lies in the river’s waves”:282 Choked by mirth, my audience sprays food all over the table.

Ever since Su Shi (1037–1101) compared “lovely tea” with a “lovely beauty,” the analogy has flourished, especially during the late Ming. Zhang Dai implies that such comparisons are inadequate: “From ancient times who can see this far?” The new insight has to do with spirituality and friendship. Wang Yue’s true soul mate is tea master Old Man Min, and perhaps Zhang Dai can also be admitted into this sanctum of communion through his knowledge of tea. In a memorable passage from Dream Memories of Tao’an, Zhang Dai describes how he won Min’s trust and respect through his tea connoisseurship. Min’s understanding is quasimystical—he has “chewed through emptiness and divined the impurities.” The exquisite tea Min brews echoes Zhang’s description of various teas in Dream Memories, but its essence is elusive, and Zhang understands it only when he meets Wang Yue, who seems to personify its mysterious perfection. Her reserve marks the burden of excessive emotions, and she inspires “awe and reverence” in the poet. Whereas the tea-beauty analogy often dwells on sensual qualities, Zhang emphasizes spiritual depth. He also delights in the unlikely juxtaposition of Old Man Min and Wang Yue. The vulgar may sneer and laugh, but Zhang inserts himself into their bond by making the inspired and unexpected connection. 555

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Kou Mei had the sobriquet Baimen [meaning White Gate; another name for Nanjing]. Qian Qianyi’s poem says:283 The Kou sisters were always like fragrant blooms, but for eighteen years there have been no news of the flowers. If we were to meet today at Qinhuai, my fear would be: how could I stop red tears from soaking their clothes?284

From this we know that the Kou family had many beauties, and Baimen was one of them. She had a delicate grace and quiet beauty, while being unrestrained in her romantic élan. She could make music, excelled at painting orchids, and had some basic knowledge of picking up rhymes and composing poems, although, being glibly competent, she could not master the art. When she was eighteen or nineteen, the lord protector of the state [Zhu Guobi] bought her and kept her in a “golden chamber,” just like Li Deyu did with Xie Qiuniang.285 In the third month of the jiashen year (1644), the capital fell. The lord protector surrendered and his household members were taken into official custody. Baimen offered a thousand taels of silver to the lord protector to redeem herself. Leaping on a horse and wearing a short coat, she returned south with a maid. Upon her return she became a woman knight-errant, built a garden, and cultivated ties with associates and friends. Day in and day out she spent time with men of letters. When she had her fill of wine, she sometimes sang and sometimes cried, mourning her fate as a beauty in her declining years, adrift and belonging nowhere. Subsequently, she married a provincial graduate from Yangzhou, but she was unfulfilled and returned again to Jinling. Even as she was growing old, she still spent her days in the company of young men. As she lay sick, she summoned her lover, scholar Han. Clinging to him sentimentally and weeping tears of anguish, she wanted him to stay and keep her company for the night. He declined on some pretext, and even then she held his hands and could not bear to let him go. Night came, and she heard

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Han laughing and talking in her maid’s room. She got up with a struggle, called for her maid, and lashed her scores of times.286 Cursing Han endlessly for being a faithless beast, she would fain set teeth on his flesh. Her illness took a turn for the worse— medicine was of no avail—and she died because of it. Qian Qianyi’s “Miscellaneous Topics on Jinling” includes this poem: As all fell apart, she remembered her lord’s favor. Who knew Kou Baimen as a woman knight-errant? Brown earth covers her coffin, but her longing does not die: the whiff from the incense pellet is her fragrant soul.287 555

[Translator’s note] Yu Huai inscribed a shorter version of this account (omitting Kou’s final years and death) with slightly different wording on a portrait of Kou Mei painted by Fan Qi and Wu Hong in Nanjing in 1651.288 Zhu Guobi (d. 1652) inherited his title as Lord Funing in 1618.289 He was a vociferous critic of Wei Zhongxian and onetime political ally of Qian Qianyi.290 Zhu became military commander of Nanjing in 1631 291 and probably married Kou Mei in the early 1630s. Yu Huai’s account of Zhu’s surrender in 1644 is inaccurate. When Beijing fell in 1644, Zhu was in Huai’an overseeing waterway transportation. In return for his support of Prince Fu (Zhu Yousong) as the new Ming ruler, he gained the title lord protector of the state. During the Hongguang reign, he sided with Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng. When Qing troops conquered Nanjing in 1645, Zhu surrendered and went north with his household. He served as an associate officer (adaha hafan) under the Qing until he died in 1652.292 Kou’s break with Zhu would have occurred around 1645. Chen Weisong describes Kou’s decision to leave Zhu as heroic and strategic:

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Kou Baimen was a courtesan in the Southern Court of the licensed quarters. When Zhu Lord Protector of the State married her, he ordered fifty armored soldiers to hold up red silk lanterns, which lit up the night as if it were daytime. In the early years of the present dynasty, various nobles had their property confiscated. Zhu took his entire household to Beijing, and was gradually selling his singers and entertainers as a way to support himself. Kou figured that she would be among those sold off, and one day said to Zhu: “If you, my lord, were to sell me, my estimation is that you would get no more than a few hundred taels of silver. And I would have fallen into the clutches of a barbaric military commander for nothing.293 Furthermore, I am not about to die quite yet, and may still be able to secretly help you in your affairs. Why don’t you just let me return south? Within a month, I should be able to send you ten thousand taels of silver as recompense.” The lord realized that there was not much he could do, so he released her and let her return. A month later, he actually did receive ten thousand taels. After Kou left, she again ended up in the pleasure quarters. Wu Weiye composed poems for her, and they contain the same kind of lamentation that Bai Juyi expressed as adjutant of Jiangzhou.294

Bai Juyi wrote “Song of Pipa” about his encounter with an erstwhile courtesan (now an aging merchant’s wife) when he was exiled to Jiangzhou. He empathizes with her degradation as he listens to her performance, the two being “both lost souls at the edge of the world.” The analogy with Bai Juyi recurs in early Qing literature, especially in works about encountering or listening to the performance by courtesans or entertainers who survived the dynastic transition. In the six quatrains Wu Weiye addressed to Kou Mei in the early 1650s (WMC 1:210–13), the pathos lies not only in their shared fate of disappointment and displacement but also in the ways individual destiny and historical trauma are intertwined.

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In the first quatrain of the series, Wu links the silenced music of the quarters to recent political turmoil: ই‫❑ޗ‬Ӫ੩⍎㉛ 㧛ᜱ⒆⮄俜䑴傅 ⇯ࡽՀⴑ䵸઼ḣ 䃠㠷㮝၈党㡎㞠

None is playing the flute in the Imperial Court. By Lake Mochou the horse hooves are proud. With the willows facing the palace all cut down, what can vie with the swaying of the fair lady’s dancing waist?

Comparing a woman’s slender waist to willow branches is a standard conceit, but here “the willows facing the palace” (literally, “the willows of Linghe Palace”) symbolize destruction on both the personal and the historical level. Shortly after Wu wrote these quatrains, he reluctantly went north to serve in the Qing government. He held office from 1654 to 1656 and later came to deeply regret his “loss of integrity.” Wu’s sense of his own irresolution and compromise might have led him to glorify Kou Mei’s decisive action in the second quatrain: ᵡ‫ޜ‬䕹ᗉ㠤ॳ䠁 а㡨㾯ᯭ䀸㠚␡ Ӻᰕ⽷ഐਕ䑀↫ 䴓ሷ㌵㊹㎀਼ᗳ

For all his roving, Lord Zhu got his thousand taels. Xi Shi, in a boat, had of course her deep design. And now, just because Goujian had died, it would be hard to tie the knot of one heart with her.

Legend has it that Xi Shi was a beautiful Yue maiden discovered by the Yue minister Fan Li, who offered her to the Wu king Fucha (r. 496–473 BCE) as part of a scheme to make Wu trust Yue,

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distract Fucha from his duties, and eventually bring down Wu and achieve vengeance for the Yue king Goujian. In some later retellings of the story, Xi Shi becomes Fan Li’s lover and a “patriotic agent” of Yue. The analogy here is imperfect. Kou Mei is cast as Xi Shi, Zhu Guobi as Fan Li (also called Lord Tao Zhu), and the Hongguang emperor as Goujian. The death of “Goujian” does indeed spell doom for the dream of national resurgence and romantic union, and the windfall for “Lord Zhu” echoes the fortune of the famously wealthy Fan Li. The main point, however, is the image of Xi Shi’s freedom on a boat after she fulfills her mission of bringing down Wu: Kou Mei’s resourcefulness allows her to determine her own fate in Wu’s imagination.295 Unlike Bai Juyi’s poem, Wu Weiye’s poetic sequence does not dwell on musical performance. In that sense, a better analogy with Bai’s “Song of Pipa” is “The Song of Listening to Kou Bai’s String Instruments in Stone City [Nanjing], with Preface” 㚭⸣෾ᇷⲭ ᕖ㍒ⅼᒦᒿ (ca. 1655) by Ding Peng (1622–1686). Ding’s preface offers supplementary details and also tells a slightly different story. According to him, Kou Mei was originally a musician’s daughter in the licensed quarter. He emphasizes her musical ability: at thirteen she mastered Qin tunes, and after she was taken to Beijing, she “excelled especially in the barbarian fife and the horizontal harp, instruments that she had not tried before.” But she was frustrated and unhappy in Beijing. Her former associates sought her out and urged Kou’s father to “collect several thousand taels from all available sources” in order to redeem her. Ding describes her music as being filled with “sounds of the frontier,” and his poem deploys images of the battlefield and barbarian lands and evokes exile and displacement to convey the affective power of her music.296 According to Yu Huai, Kou Mei associated with many men of letters after she returned to Nanjing. Among these were Ming loyalists such as Fang Wen (1612–1669), who implied their common purpose:

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ਚ⮦䄆䂙㢟৻ᆵ н៹ᾲ֌ྣ䛾ⴻ

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Just consider this a poetic discussion in a good friend’s house, she should not be regarded as a mere woman.

Fang Wen’s lines, Wu Weiye’s reference to Xi Shi’s “deep design,” and Qian Qianyi’s characterization of Kou Mei as “woman knight-errant” have led some to speculate on Kou’s possible role as a Ming loyalist. There is not enough evidence to support this claim, but the very desire to read political meanings into Kou’s choices takes its cue from contemporary writings about her, even as it follows the modern predilection to specifically focus on loyalism.

PA R T I I I : A N E C D O T E S

Jinling was the site of the capital and the South Bend the realm of intoxicating pleasures. Roués on silken mats and melancholy lyricists came and went, frolicking. Horses lined up to resemble a gliding dragon, while carriages touched each other.297 In that world were towers and terraces graced by the wind and the moon, with music from strings and pipes wafting by wine vessels. And then catamites and intimates, entertainers and actors all vied to please and outshine each other—it was an unending stream hurrying to and fro. Beyond the shadows of weeping willows, inside the pure heart of the jade flask,298 autumn flutes constantly plied their tunes and spring orioles trilled their first songs. Even the hard-hearted Song Guangping could not but compose a rhapsody for the plum blossoms.299 One melody of “He Man”—how could one bear it?300 Go back and face her dimples—who could dispel the emotions? And yet if one were to linger in this realm and forget to return, and indulge in inebriation and satiety at all hours, then even if

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endearments bred more endearments, one could not allow one mistake to lead to another! For to do so would be to lose the integrity of a lifetime and to face the censure of noble men who abide by ritual propriety and proper conduct. Is that not like drifting and falling in a black whirlwind and sinking in the ford of delusion in the blue sea? Although the reason I collected these fragments is to transmit memories of the fair ones, the real purpose is to hand down warnings. As Wang Xizhi said, “Readers in the ages to come will also be moved by this writing.”301 Xiao Boliang of Guazhou was grandiose and extravagant, and he engaged in knightly exploits. He poured all his wealth into cultivating friends and associates. He loved to tarry along the narrow lanes of the pleasure quarters and lived for a long time in the Bend. His idea of pleasure was to detain his guests for excessive bouts of drinking,302 turn day into night, 303 embrace many famous courtesans, pin flowers in his hair, and beat the drums.304 This is what Qian Qianyi’s poem is referring to: Heaven wants to cut off the line of one devoted to mist and flowers, and let Xiao Boliang of Guazhou sink in drunken oblivion.305 555

Yao Beiruo of Jiaxing used twelve storied boats for revelry at Qinhuai. He gathered about a hundred well-known men of letters who had come from all over the realm to take the examination. For each boat, he invited four famous courtesans to encourage the drinking with the company. With a troupe from the Pear Garden, the flames of lanterns, and the music and songs, it was a grand affair unmatched in its time. Some time earlier, Shen Yuruo of Jiaxing306 spent a thousand taels to settle the rankings of “flower cases,” and people in Jiangnan spoke about it with envy and admiration.

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555

[Translator’s note] In a letter to Mao Xiang dated 1636, Chen Liang waxed enthusiastic about Yao’s gathering: “Yao Beiruo used twelve storied boats for a grand gathering of the ‘Society of Broad Endeavor’ [a branch of the Revival Society]. Not only did all the famous men of the realm gather, of the twenty or so greatest beauties in the Bend, there was none who did not come. It was truly a marvelous event” (MPJ 2:940). According to Wu Yingji, Yao Han (sobriquet Beiruo) hosted a grand gathering of Revival Society scholars in Nanjing in 1636, which resulted in an anthology of examination essays printed shortly thereafter. 307 Wu begins by disparaging those immersed in drinking and cavorting with courtesans and praises Yao’s political courage in convening the meeting when the court viewed the Revival Society with suspicion. Wu quotes Yao’s avowal of political purpose, but it seems politics and pleasures were intertwined. Yao’s poem, “The Scene That Meets the Eye at Qinhuai” 〖␞ণһ, implicitly argues for this convergence: ḣየ㣡ⓚ␑⋡ཙ ᚓᭌ㌵㻆᭮⟸㡩 Ộൂᆀᕏ㿈Ӫ᜿ 䲺䲺‫ڌ‬ⅼ⠅ᆀㆻ

Banks with willows, flowers along streams, a sky calm and clear: freely we bring the fair ones and let the lantern boats go. Actors of the Pear Garden seem to divine our wishes and stop performing, troupe by troupe, The Swallow’s Letter.308

For these actors, to boycott The Swallow’s Letter by Ruan Dacheng is to indicate their alignment with Revival Society scholars, who reviled Ruan. The pleasure of the theater is also the vindication of a political position.

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555

As for intimates in the Bend, there were Zhang Mao playing the recorder; Zhang Kui the flute;309 Guan Wu the fife; Wu Zhangfu the string instruments; Qian Zhongwen the ten-variation ensemble; the operatic performance of Ding Jizhi, Zhang Yanzhu, Shen Yuanfu, Wang Gongyuan, and Zhu Weizhang; and the storytelling of Liu Jingting. The gatherings sometimes took place at the establishments of the two Lis [Li Daniang and Li Shiniang] or at Mei’s Tower, and each time the cost inevitably amounted to a hundred taels.310 This too was a “grotto for dissipating gold.”311 Zhang Mao was especially droll, gentle, and attentive. One day, he angered Li Daniang for some reason. Daniang tore the horsehair hat he was wearing and threw it on the floor. Mao picked it up slowly, put it on with a smile, and left. Zhang Kui’s sobriquet was Xiuwo, and he hailed from Wujun. As a youth, he was handsome and enjoyed “the intimacy of the cut sleeve” with the noble son Xu.312 When Xu was serving as vice governor of the southern capital, Kui came for a visit. The gatekeeper refused him entry. Zhang Kui uttered obscenities and also ranted and cursed. Xu heard this and hit him, but in the end he let him stay in the official residence, resuming their intimacy and affection as if there had been no break. On account of this Zhang moved to Peach Leaf Crossing, which was right next to the Old Quarters. He made his way in and out of the homes of various courtesans on familiar terms, and when the parrot in the cage saw him, it would cry out: “Zhang Kui has come! Amitabha Buddha!” Kui excelled at playing the flute and making music. In board games or pitch-pot,313 he often bested his companions. Every morning, he came to the courtesans’ houses, putting flowers in vases, heating incense in burners, rinsing jie tea, 314 wiping the zither and the low tables, setting the clothing racks straight— and he did all these without letting the mistresses know. On account of this, the servants and maids were all thankful to him, and even the dogs and the cats did not take exception to him. Later he suffered from

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vitiligo on his face. A patron at Mei’s Tower put a notification over her door in jest: “Evicted: one minion with painted face, Zhang Kui.315 Entry not allowed again.” Ashamed and angry, Kui searched everywhere for a miraculous cure that would cleanse and remove the blemishes. He found a lotus extract and was cured. A good while later, properly attired, he came again to Mei’s Tower and said, “What about the painted face? So what?” After the turmoil, he returned to Wu. A new crop of fashionable youths in Wu preened and paraded their charms, toying with the flute or pressing the recorder, seeking to please by their soft and pliant ways. They mocked and taunted Zhang Kui mercilessly whenever they saw him; their insults knew no bounds. Because of this he sank into poverty again. When Minister Gong Dingzi was on his way to serve as an official in Guangdong, he took pity on Zhang and extended his charity to him, gave him a fair amount of money, and sent him to the mountains to engage in the jie tea trade. The profit was considerable, and Zhang gradually became quite a bit better off. But his character was perverse. He once said, “I am born with the physiognomy of hopeless abasement. I cannot sip tea not brewed with Hui spring water, nor can I swallow rice that has not been refined four times and stored in winter. At night nothing but the oversized candles made by the Sun Chunyang family that burn till dawn can make me open my eyes.” Money that came into his hands often vanished in no time. For this reason he did not have a cent to his name. People at the time all ridiculed him, but he was oblivious. At the age of sixty plus, he was making a living by the tea trade and by selling lotus extract. Around the gengyin (1650) and xinmao (1651) years, I traveled in the Wu area and sojourned at the quayside house of the Zhou family. Zhang Kui still came in the early morning to put flowers in vases, heat incense in burners, wash jie tea, and wipe the zither and the low tables, just like earlier times. As we had our fill of wine and the candles were burning low, we spoke about the old days at the Blue Stream and could not help but shed tears. In the dingyou (1657) year, I passed through Jinling again. Terraces and pavilions for

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songs and dance had turned into a field of rubble. Even then, he was still playing the flute by the dilapidated Plank Bridge. An old courtesan inside a low-slung house opened the door and came out: “This is Zhang Kui’s flute music.” This made him sob for a long while.316 Several years passed, and Zhang finally died from poverty. In the bingzi (1636) year, Zhang Mingbi and Lü Zhaolong, both from Jinsha [Jiangsu], together with Chen Liang from Yanguan [Zhejiang], Liu Lüding from Zhangpu [Fujian], and Mao Xiang from Rugao [Jiangsu], swore a covenant of brotherhood at Mei’s Tower. What Chen Liang wrote about the covenant was quite extraordinary. It ended with these lines: “Swearing a covenant by a sacrificial animal is not as good as doing so by cutting one’s arm and mixing blood, and the latter is not as good as swearing a covenant by committing one’s spirit.”317 555

[Translator’s note] Zhang Mingbi was a scholar-official known for his poetry and prose. As mentioned in Plum Shadows, he wrote a biographical account of Dong Bai. Lü Zhaolong ( jinshi 1640) served as a Ming official and jumped into a well when Beijing fell in 1644 but was seized. Chen Liang became a lay Buddhist at eighteen and called himself Monk Geting after the fall of the Ming. We noted earlier his remarkable friendship with Gu Mei. Liu Lüding was a notable painter, calligrapher, and seal carver who died in anti-Qing resistance.318 His assistance facilitated the union of Mao Xiang and Dong Bai.319 In the covenant of brotherhood, the five pledged to uphold political engagement, oppose corruption, defend integrity, and come to each other’s assistance in moments of need. They swore the oath of brotherhood in Gu Mei’s house. In their eyes, Gu shared the reflected glory, and they commended her as a “woman knighterrant.” Zhang Mingbi praised her discernment (MPJ 2:1046):

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ѳާ䴉ⴞྲᱏᗙྲᴸ 㜲デ㊹Ύ㜭䪂Ӫ

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She is blessed with eyes like the stars and the moon and can judge people by rouged windows and powdered couches. 555

Xu Qingjun, son of the Lord of Zhongshan, was the younger brother of the Lord of Wei. His family wealth amounted to hundreds of thousands. By nature extravagant, he indulged his sumptuous taste and kept many concubines in his harem. He built his garden estate next to the Great Merit Avenue: its trees, rocks, pavilions, and terraces could be compared to grand estates like Level Spring or Golden Vale.320 Whenever the summer months came around, he hosted feasts at the river houses, choosing four or five famous courtesans every day to entice the guests and to encourage drinking. Quinces and Buddha’s hands were piled up in mounds; jasmines and aglaia were snow white and fragrant. Nights followed days in endless rounds of drinking and exhilarated singing. With his black silk scarf and white feather cape, he was truly like one of the immortals. During the Hongguang reign, he received the additional title of commander of the Central Army. Preceded by vanguards and flanked by ceremonial swords, he entered court in the wake of shouts clearing the way. His glory was more imposing than ever. With the dynastic change in the yiyou (1645) year, his lands and property were confiscated, and he became desperately poor. His concubines dispersed like raindrops, and he was left all alone. Keeping company with menial servants and beggars, he survived by taking the place of those to be punished by flogging. Xu’s former residence was repurposed as the yamen for military affairs. One day, he made an agreement with the person who should be flogged on the number of blows and the amount of compensation. But when the flogging took place, the blows were more than double the number agreed upon. Qingjun cried

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out loudly, “I am Xu Qingjun!” The military commissioner, Lord Lin, 321 was horrified and asked his aides about this. Among the aides was one who pitied the erstwhile prince, and he knelt down and responded: “This is the noble son Xu Qingjun of the house of the Lord of Wei. He bore the flogging for others because of his poverty. This hall was formerly his family suite; that is why he could not help but wail in grief.” Lord Lin felt sorry for him and released him, and tried his best to console him. He also said, “If you, sir, still have any property that was not bestowed by a Ming emperor and can be returned, 322 my office will for sure investigate the matter on your behalf, so that you can have something to live on for the rest of your days.” Qingjun knocked his forehead on the ground in gratitude: “The garden was what I built myself—it was not bestowed by a Ming emperor.” Lord Lin concurred and sent him away with a handsome amount. He looked into the situation and had Xu’s garden returned. Xu then supported himself by selling the flowers, rocks, and building materials from the garden. From what I read in the History of the Southern Dynasties, the former consorts of the Benighted Lord of Qi made a living by selling candles.323 Du Fu’s poem says, I asked him and he refused to give his name and just said that, suffering dire poverty, he begged to become a slave.324

Alas! How could those words have been vain? How could they have been vain? 555

[Translator’s note] Xu Qingjun was a descendant of Xu Da (1332–1385), one of Zhu Yuanzhang’s key helpers in founding the Ming dynasty. Xu Da

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became the Lord of Zhongshan. It was as commemoration of his achievement that the Great Merit Avenue was built next to his mansion.325 Xu’s lineage was a reminder of early Ming glory; perhaps that is why its degradation is so often considered symbolic in early Qing writings. Wu Weiye also refers to Xu Qingjun’s fate in “Encountering the Gardener at the Southern Wing, I Was Moved to Compose Eighty Rhymes” 䙷ইᓲൂਏᝏ䌖‫ॱޛ‬丫 (WMC 1:24–27, dated 1653) (lines 51–56):326 ਱ఏѝኡᆛ ᘇ≓㜑यᰲ ⭏ц㤏ྲ↔ нྲ↫䚃‫ڽ‬ ᜌૹ㼨億䗡 ӽ൘࣏㠓ൺ

I heave a long sigh for Zhongshan’s descendant: Why does his spirit not rear its head? To live degraded like this is worse than dying by the wayside. Pity indeed that the shame of his naked punishment still takes place at the avenue named after the worthy minister.

In Peach Blossom Fan, the noble son Xu, mentioned as banqueting in the beginning (scene 2), ends up as a lackey of the new regime in the last scene, hounding loyalists offstage in his zeal to recruit recluses to serve the new dynasty. 555

Our friends had a literary gathering at Pine Wind Pavilion.327 Li Shiniang and Gu Mei were both there. When we were done drinking, we rode into the city on horseback. The spectacle of the fair ladies with their green sleeves, prancing steeds, and brandishing whips attracted onlookers that filled the roads. The scene from an era of peace arose uncertainly in my mind’s eye. 555

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[Translator’s note] Yu Huai’s description recalls Zhang Dai’s account of a hunting expedition to Bullhead Mountain and Qian Chengzhi’s description of Sun Lin’s excursion, both mentioned above. Courtesans taking part in these short trips often rode on horses and must have invited attention. For the men involved, the pleasure seems to have partly derived from the complacent awareness of being party to an interesting spectacle. 555

Ding Jizhi playing Donkey Zhang’s mother, Zhang Yanzhu playing Pindola, Zhu Weizhang playing Wu Dalang—all these represent supreme artistry unrivaled in the era. Ding and Zhang both enjoyed longevity beyond ninety years. Qian Qianyi’s poem, “Inscription on the Picture of the Three Aged Ones,”328 has these final lines: The mist and moon of Qinhuai mark where they roamed: the white crane returning to the Huabiao Pillar knows it.329

One can hardly bear sighing over memories of Old Man Huang’s wine shop.330 555

[Translator’s note] The role of Donkey Zhang’s mother is from Ye Xianzu’s (1566– 1641) Golden Locket, a rewriting of Guan Hanqing’s (late thirteenth to early fourteenth c.) Injustice to Dou E. The role type for Donkey Zhang’s mother is the clown; her death by poison requires a histrionic performance. Ding is also famous for playing the Red-Haired Demon Liu Tang, one of the heroes in The Story of Water Margin. 331 After the fall of the Ming, Ding continued to teach singing in the river houses along Qinhuai. Qian Qianyi and

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Ding were good friends, and Qian stayed with him during his sojourn in Jinling.332 Wang Shizhen also befriended him and saw him as a symbol of connection to a bygone world. Pindola Bharadvaja (an arhat) is a character in Tu Long’s (1542–1605) The Story of the Kadupul Flower (Tanhua ji). Zhang Yanzhu was also a poet, and Qian Qianyi wrote poems matching his rhyme (QMZ 4:231–32). Both Ding Jizhi and Zhang Yanzhu become characters in Peach Blossom Fan: Ding is cast as the character leading Hou Fangyu to choose religious renunciation over romantic passion, while Zhang is played by the clown. Wu Dalang, also played by a clown, is the midget brother of the tiger-slaying hero Wu Song in Shen Jing’s (1553–1610) The Story of the Righteous Knight-Errant, a play based on Wu Song’s story in the novel Water Margin. Zhu Weizhang was very short, and this might have made his performance of Wu Dalang more convincing. Qian Qianyi wrote in a poem for Zhang’s sixtieth birthday (QMZ 4:223–26): ⭏ֶ䮧н┯‫ޝ‬ቪ 㜨ѝ㘱≓ₛҍᐎ

He was born less than six chi [five feet], but his old spirit sweeps nine continents. 555

Zou Gonglü of Wuxi roamed Pingkang Lane. He wore a red silk headscarf, paper clothes, and high-heeled clogs, and feigned madness as he wallowed in pleasures, waving off a thousand gold pieces without the least regard. When the first round of the examination was over, he beat the drums at the Great Military Ministry Gate 333 and sent in his examination essay. He arranged musical ensembles at the houses of courtesans, where he loudly recited his essays, and the courtesans all applauded him. Sometimes he barged into the Pear Garden and played “the adjutant” or “the falcon” on the mat of theatrical performance.334 Liu Jingting hailed from Taizhou. His original surname was Cao. Fleeing enemies, he drifted among rivers and lakes. He rested

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under a [willow] tree and thus took the surname Liu.335 He excelled at storytelling. When he sojourned in Jinling, Minister of War Fan from Wuqiao and Minister He from Tongcheng treated him like an honored guest.336 He frequently made his way in and out of the South Bend in the company of Zhang Yanzhu and Shen Gongxian. Zhang and Shen performed their songs and Liu his storytelling. When he had his fill of wine, he beat time to the rhythm and chanted with emotion, entrancing and captivating all in the audience, for he was of the same ilk as the ancient jesters Entertainer Meng and Dongfang Shuo. 337 Later he became Zuo Liangyu’s unofficial advisor, and he moved in and out among the troops.338 After Zuo’s defeat and death, Liu spent time in the army of Commander Ma of Songjiang. 339 He was frustrated and unfulfilled. When he was past eighty, he sometimes visited me at the Studio Fit for Sleep, where I was sojourning. Even then he was performing “Qin Shubao Met His Aunt.”340 555

[Translator’s note] Zhang Dai offers a vivid account of Liu Jingting’s (1587– ca. 1670s) storytelling in Dream Memories of Tao’an: Pockmarked Liu of Nanjing had a sallow and dark complexion, and his face was full of scars. Unrestrained and expansive, he treated his body as mere earth or wood.341 He excelled at storytelling. He performed once a day for the price of one tael. The invitation and gifts for making the reservation were sent ten days in advance, and he was often unavailable. For a while Nanjing had two most sought-after persons: they were Wang Yuesheng and Pockmarked Liu. I heard him perform “Wu Song Beating the Tiger at Jingyang Mound” unaccompanied by music or singing. It was quite

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different from the novel Water Margin. His description was precise, perceptive, and finely delineated down to the smallest detail, yet it was also clean cut, clearly segmented, and not at all verbose. His deep, soaring voice was like the music of a huge bronze bell. When he came to the key moments, he gave a loud roar whose power could bring down the house. When Wu Song came to the wine shop to buy wine, there was no one there. He emitted a loud cry in his rage, and the empty jars and barrels in the shop all audibly shook.342 Such was his way of adding an unexpected touch—it would come down to minutiae like this. The host had to bate his breath, sit quietly, and listen with full attention—only then would he start speaking. If he detected any trace of servants whispering or of listeners yawning and stretching as if fatigued, he would often stop speaking; hence he could not be pressured to perform. Ever so often, when it came to the bing time of night [11 p.m.–1 a.m.], he would wipe the tables, trim the candles, quietly pass around plain porcelain cups, and slowly start speaking. The rushed or unhurried tempo of his voice and its lightness or emphasis as he swallowed or spat out his words in rising or falling cadence plumbed the depths of emotions and reasoning, reaching one’s very core. If one were to collect the ears of the storytellers of this world and have them listen carefully to Liu, I would wager that they could not but die biting their tongues. Pockmarked Liu was extraordinarily ugly, but his skill with words was most impressive, his eyes were expressive, and his clothes were neat and tasteful. In that sense he was as appealing as Wang Yuesheng; that was why they were sought after with equal fervor.

In a poem about Liu Jingting, Zhang Dai praises him as surpassing other masters famous for their painting, bamboo carving, lantern making, and operatic performance. He concludes by

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comparing Liu’s storytelling to Sima Qian’s (ca. 145–ca. 87 BCE) history writing: like the literati, he is filled with “the essence of literature” (wenqing), and in re-creating a world through performance, he challenges Creation.343 Certain themes recur in the literati elevation of Liu Jingting: the continuum between craft ( ji) and the Way (dao),344 the bond between Liu and men of letters, Liu as a latter-day court jester with higher political purpose, and Liu as a repository of historical memory after the fall of the Ming. Numerous poems, song lyrics, and biographical sketches about Liu echo these ideas. Wu Weiye’s biography is a good example but also adds other dimensions.345 In this account, the very way Liu acquires a name exemplifies literati sensibility: “He rested under a big willow tree. He held on to its branches and tears filled his eyes. And then he stroked the tree, turned to his scores of companions, and said, ‘Alas! From now on my name is Liu!’ ” The gesture brings to mind Huan Wen (312– 373), who dominated Eastern Jin politics and undertook various expeditions against the regimes of nomadic origins that had conquered northern China. In one of his northern expeditions, he passed by willows in Jincheng he had planted in his youth that had now grown to a ten-arm span, and sighed, saying, “If even trees are like this, how can men bear it [i.e., the passage of time]!” He held on to the branches and tears filled his eyes. Yu Xin’s (513–581) “Rhapsody on the Withered Tree” ᷟ⁩䌖 and many other later writings bring up this image to imply heroic aspirations and lament mutability. According to Wu, Liu claims that his teacher is a Confucian scholar named Mo Houguang. The imagined or remembered exchange between Mo and Liu establishes that storytelling, though “a minor craft,” is “no different from the Way of Confucians.” Contemporary turmoil also endows storytelling with a new momentousness. One of the refugees escaping the devastation in the north said to Liu: “When all was peaceful in the realm, and what you told were stories about bold and cunning knights-errant or outlaws who took to the wilds, people like us heard them and laughed,

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saying such things could not be, and you, sir, were just good at fabrication. How could we have known that today we have unfortunately seen the same things with our own eyes!” The mood of Liu’s performance was woeful and disconsolate; “when the northerners who were drifting and sojourning in the south heard him, they were without exception moved to tears.” Yu Huai compared Liu Jingting to ancient jesters. Sima Qian praised jesters for “subtly hitting the mark with their words” and “being able to resolve conflicts.” Wu described how Liu “resolved conflicts” when he was Zuo Liangyu’s unofficial advisor. His tricks and mode of remonstrance are reminiscent of Sima Qian’s “Account of the Jesters” and “Biography of Lu Zhonglian” in Records of the Historian. Despite Liu’s illiteracy, “his oral articulation of solutions often sufficed for the occasion.” Oral intervention failed to ameliorate the discord between Zuo Liangyu and Ruan Dacheng, however, and Zuo’s eastward expedition precipitated the fall of the Southern Ming. After the Ming-Qing transition, Liu often talked about his experience in Zuo’s army with great pathos. Huang Zongxi offers us a somewhat less romantic version of Liu Jingting in which Liu changed his name because he was in trouble with the law. Liu’s teacher Mo Houguang exhorted Liu to achieve “mastery of the craft,” but there is no reference to the Way. Huang describes Liu’s elevation in Zuo Liangyu’s camp with slight disdain: Zuo’s secretaries failed to impress him, “while Jingting took freely from hearsay and was glib-tongued, and what he extracted creatively from stories of the alleys never failed to meet Zuo’s expectations.” Even so, Huang acknowledges the special pathos of Liu’s performance after the fall of the Ming: “He had been in the army for a long time, so all the stories about bold and cunning knights-errant, murderers and fugitives, wanderings and encounters, destruction of home and loss of state were without exception what he witnessed with his own eyes. Further, he was fully familiar with the dialects and customs of different regions. Whenever he emitted a sound, for those listening it was sometimes

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as if knives, swords, and iron cavalry suddenly floated in midair, as if wind howled and rain wept, birds lamented and animals ran in terror. The sorrow of a fallen state suddenly arose and the sounds of the sandalwood clappers faded in desolation. There was in this something beyond Scholar Mo’s words.” Huang Zongxi chides Wu Weiye for romanticizing Liu Jingting and making the trivial seem consequential. He might have been more suspicious of the Jiangnan literati’s immersion in the culture of entertainment and performance and might even have linked it to their political compromises, since Wu served under the Qing despite his professed misgivings. Unstable boundaries between the literatus and the performer may also imply that the trope of performance invades the province of moral certainties. Even so, Huang implies that historical trauma authenticates Liu’s performance, as storytelling carried the burden of historical witnessing in the aftermath of the Ming-Qing transition. Many early Qing poems about meeting Liu or listening to his performances are bound up with lamentations about the fall of the Ming. Kong Shangren incorporates such perspectives as he turns Liu Jingting into a liminal yet pivotal character in Peach Blossom Fan. Liu uses his art for political intervention, remonstrating with Zuo Liangyu. When the venue for heroic action is closed, his performance makes possible historical retrospection and the rites of mourning and commemoration. In scene 1, Liu Jingting performs with a wooden clapper a song, based on the Analects, about musicians who left the court of Lu upon realizing that they were serving a usurping minister. He is using the song as a transparent analogy for how he left Ruan Dacheng’s service.346 The quest for freedom and political integrity was a deeply resonant question at the time. Hou Fangyu is moved to declare that Liu “is one of us.” By the epilogue, Liu is providing in his aria, “Autumn in Moling [Nanjing],” an overview of the Ming decline and fall. Its elegiac tone notwithstanding, Liu’s song implies implacable historical judgment.

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555

Jiang Gai of Laiyang tarried at Li Shiniang’s house. Infatuated with her beauty, he hid there without ever coming out. Fang Yizhi and Sun Lin were both capable of acrobatic feats like walking on top of a screen.347 When the clepsydra showed the third watch [11 p.m.–1 a.m.], and the river of stars shone bright, they stealthily came out and passed by the houses of famous courtesans. With one leap they climbed up Li’s house and headed straight to her bedroom. They swung the doors open, throwing their broad swords in the air and catching them, creating a commotion as if they were bandits. Jiang Gai came down from the bed and knelt down, saying: “Great kings! Spare us! Don’t hurt Shiniang!” The two threw down their broad swords and laughed loudly: “Sanlang, bang with no fang [Sanlang langdang]! Bang with no fang!”348 They then called for wine and drank with abandon, parting ways only when they were totally inebriated. Jiang Gai was third in his family, hence “Sanlang” [Third Lad]. Langdang was an expression of fear. Jiang Gai’s great talent put him well above the rest of his generation. By chance he followed Du Mu’s model and seemed not that different from Xie An, investing feelings of frustration and displacement, like those of the round fan in the autumn wind, in ties with talented ladies.349 Those who wallowed in the sensual pleasures of mist and flowers cannot be compared to him.350 I incidentally wrote this down, so as to preserve the echoes of the romantic panache of those days. 555

[Translator’s note] Jiang Gai (1614–1653, jinshi 1640) was a famous poet and scholarofficial and a staunch Ming loyalist. As noted earlier, Sun Lin died in anti-Qing resistance. The other prankster, Sun’s brother-in-law Fang Yizhi, was an important thinker, scholar, and poet; he took the tonsure after the fall of the Ming and died a Ming martyr. Yu

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Huai seems to be choosing this trio to emphasize that dalliances in Qinhuai did not preclude engagement with political and military issues, hence the comparison with Du Mu and Xie An.351 555

Chen Liang’s character was extraordinary, and his writings were extraordinary—his whole being was extraordinary. He once sent Gu Mei a letter urging her to break free of the world of the pleasure quarters soon and to make haste in finding a true companion. His words were earnest and fervent. Gu Mei thus chose a master to serve in marriage. Indeed, she was like the bird startled by the twang of the bowstring that abruptly turned into the fish escaping the net. The talented lady and the man of letters with the karma of wisdom could not but come together like the mythical swords at the Yanping Ford because of timing, circumstances, and fated connection.352 A young lady of seventeen or eighteen singing “willowy banks, with the dawn wind and faint traces of the moon”:353 if one were in the Bend, this was something one could experience everywhere and all the time. I composed the lyric “Remembering Southland,” which contains these lines: “There aren’t many lovely scenes in Southland to begin with— / But they are all under the faint traces of the moon in the dawn wind.” Thinking of the scene only adds to the sorrow; seeing it makes looking back unbearable. 555

Shen Gongxian was adept in operatic performance. His contemporaries acclaimed him as unrivaled. The imperial secretary Wang Shizhi and Wang Huanzhi, who served in the ministry of water management, sang different tunes but were equally brilliant.354 The spirit of Buddhist play and expediency prevailed: in these gentlemen we saw again Jiang Zong and Liu Yong, poets and

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scholar-officials who celebrated pleasures and feelings.355 They were not like Lü Jingqian, a mere musician, or Li Xianhe, who gained office because of his musical accomplishments.356 555

Families in the Music Registry were set up with wives and concubines. They were extremely strict about forestalling indiscretions. The women carefully guarded their chastity and did not speak with the clients. If the client insisted on seeing them, they would merely bow and disappear behind the curtains. After the turmoil, Li Sanniang, wife of Gu San on the wide street in the Old Quarters, drifted among rivers and lakes and became a famous courtesan. She was unexpectedly threatened by unsavory types, subjected to violence, and put in a prison in Wujun. I, together with Liu Yusheng and his brother Mengxi, Yao Wenyan, and Zhang Xinbiao, tried our best to save her. We sent letters to the magistrate Li Zhuang, and she narrowly gained reprieve. Even then, like Yan Rui and Liu Poxi, she had suffered many blows from the cane of law.357 Sanniang was tall and had a fair complexion like white jade, and her tumbling chignon was cloudlike. She had a remarkable capacity for liquor and could drink a hundred cups without becoming inebriated. At that time, around Mid-Autumn Festival in the xinchou year (1661), when the cassia in the courtyard was in full bloom, wine was set forth for a grand gathering. Huang Xuantai and Fang Hengxian came with Feng Jingrong, a lady from Jade Peak [Kunshan]. Our host at our place of sojourn, Jin Shukan, poured forth all the wine stored in his house. Paired up, we competed in wine games. The drinking was boisterous as thunder. Just like Xiang Yu and Zhang Han at the Battle of Julu, the lords all looked at the fighting atop the ramparts.358 We drank until dawn, and all the gentlemen were throwing up. Jingrong also vomited, and her hair was strewn on the floor. Some were lying on the ground, their clothes in disarray. Only Sanniang was sober, but she was not sleeping and was still leaning against the cassia tree. Huang

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Xuantai, summoning his surplus valor,359 was still shouting in his drinking fist game with Yao Wenyan, and both drained another three or four big goblets before parting. Alas! Bowing and raising my head, I contemplate the passage of time: the bones of these gentlemen are now buried in the blue hills, and the bodies of the beauties also found rest in the brown earth. Rivers and mountains are fading in the distance. How can I not lament this! 555

[Translator’s note] This account stands out from the rest of the book because of its dating (1661). Most of the men Yu Huai socialized with on this occasion were Qing officials, including Liu Yusheng, Yao Wenyan, Zhang Xinbiao, Huang Xuantai, and Fang Hengxian (son of Fang Gongqian; see Plum Shadows 52). 555

Wu Qi, the governor of Wuxing, wrote in the preface to his “Elegy for Dong Shaojun [Dong Bai]”: “Talented scholars of the time vied to wear the knight-errant’s yellow clothes, and famous men of principle drew the red thread of romantic union for them.360 The jade mirror was again given as betrothal gift; Wen Qiao was indeed endearing.361 To the golden chamber they returned together; Li Wa thus became an excellent wife.”362 At that time Qian Qianyi played the part of Military Governor Yu, while Liu Lüding acted as Officer of the Guards Gu—that was why Wu Qi wrote that.363 Mao Xiang is growing old. Waking up from the memories of Yangzhou: was it indeed a dream? 555

Li Zhenli was Li Xiang’s adoptive mother. She had the spirit of a knight-errant. Once she gambled through the night and lost a

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thousand taels that vanished in no time. She was on good terms with Chen Zhenhui of Yangxian. Xiang was thirteen, and she too was knightly and intelligent.364 She took singing lessons with Zhou Rusong from Wu, could fully master the musical niceties of the four plays by Tang Xianzu, and was especially skillful with the pipa. She was on good terms with Hou Fangyu from the Snowy Court. A certain adopted son of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian 365 wanted to seek Hou’s friendship, and Li Xiang forcefully remonstrated, stopping him from forming any connection with that person. After Hou left, Tian Yang, a former commissioner, offered a large sum to invite Li Xiang to come to him. Xiang declined: “I do not dare to betray the noble son Hou.” She ultimately did not go. For earlier the eunuch’s adopted son resented Hou so much that he had tried to round him up and have him killed, but Hou escaped and was spared. They also wanted to kill Chen Zhenhui, who suffered great abuse at the hands of the imperial guard Feng Kezong.366 Xia Wanchun, the talented scholar from Yunjian, composed “Blue Tower” and sent it to Qian Xi. Its last section says: Over twenty years, everything has become different. The painted pavilion is not open; fragrant grass is locked up. How can one bear that no one comes to the two quarters,367 that one faces alone the flying swallows of three springs?368 New song fans do not move the windblown strings, old dance clothes drift across the bedewed well.369 Flowers and grass by the crimson gate, a deserted rear pavilion: pipa and a green grave become the Bright Consort’s lament.370 What remains is only a former companion from the Blue Tower, her beauty fading, her hair newly white. What year did the dream of passing rain break off? With one tune of deep feelings, traces of clouds endure.371 In the opera is the heartbreaking song of the Zhengde era, soul-wrenching ballads find their place in the Music Registry.

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For us they sing “Crows Cry at Night”372 of olden times, as tears soak the coats of the sojourners of Southland.373

Contemplating this, one can fully fathom changes in the Bend. Lamentable indeed! 555

[Translator’s note] Xia Wanchun (1631–1647), son of the aforementioned Xia Yunyi, was sixteen when he died in anti-Qing resistance in 1647; whatever memory he had of the Qinhuai courtesan world before the fall could hardly have been based on personal experience. He sent the poem to Qian Xi (1620–1646), another Ming loyalist fighter and martyr. Yet like Yu Huai and so many other poets from that period, he mixes romantic nostalgia with political lamentation and heroic aspirations in writing about the world of courtesans.374 These pervasive cultural associations may also be rooted in Xia’s literary predilections. Following the tradition of The Songs of Chu, he charges the image of the quest for the beauty or the goddess with political purpose. In concluding his memoir with such an icon of Ming loyalism, Yu Huai implicitly claims Xia as a kindred spirit and confirms his defense of pleasures and passions.

SUP P LEMENT I

Song Huixiang was a Qinhuai woman.375 Caught in the conflagration of war, she was abducted and taken into the ranks of the army. When she reached Weihui County in Henan, she inscribed four quatrains on the walls: Urged on by barbarian drums, wind sweeps the empty river. Banners of defeat flutter as the Phoenix City opens.376

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The generals have died in battle, the ruler is held captive— the ill-fated beauty on horseback has come. Yellow dust on the broad path dims my crow-black tresses. North wind blows the powder and blush off my face. Pity the “Song of the Harp”377 on a moonlit night— how many times, under the yurt, did it accompany the evening fife? Spring flowers like embroidery, willows like mist: a lovely evening with the beloved asleep in a painted pavilion. And for now, the longing is almost dreamlike, only I figure what invites rancor is the blue yonder. I am all of fifteen, in the first flowering of youth— already the Bright Consort, bidding farewell to my old home. Who will equal Cao Cao and give away a thousand gold pieces to ransom this Cai Yan under the embroidered yellow banner?378

A postscript follows: “Calamities drove me here. Living in the wilds, sleeping in open air, even if I want to follow the example of the Zhangjia relay station 379 and somehow leave behind writings to tell noble men about my plight, it cannot be done. By chance I am staying in a house. I asked for a brush and, without too much deliberation, inscribed these poems, hoping for a chance encounter in a million.380 With a sad fate like mine, I do not believe that will happen. Song Huixiang, a Qinhuai woman enduring her plight, inscribed with ink and blood at the ancient Ji County, on the east side of Prince Lu City.” Prince Lu City was the estate of the Frontier Commander of Lu. 555

Yan Shun was a courtesan from Huai’an. At sixteen, she understood moral duty and principles of integrity. She was often weary

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with life in the pleasure quarters and did not want to live there for another day. In the third month of the jiashen year (1644), the soldiers under the control of the Fengyang commander Ma Shiying dispersed after clamorous unrest and unexpectedly ended up outside the west gate of Huai city. The five or six hundred cavalry and infantry soldiers wrought great havoc with pillage and abductions. All the courtesans were captured. Shun alone persevered in refusing to submit. A soldier used a strip of cloth to tie her to a horse. Shun raised herself and tried to jump down without stopping her crying and cursing, and the soldier finally killed her with his sword. 555

Also, at the Li family estate in Shancheng County in Shandong, there were three quatrains on the wall at Banner Pavilion: Ask the green gauze window: she does not paint her eyebrows— who is it that strums the pipa on horseback?381 At the relay station, vain is my dream of returning home, and the thing that pierces my cries is the night fife. Day after day on the oxcart, the road is long. Covered all over in dust, I face the edge of the earth. It’s not because of ill fate that I am born with so much sorrow: at the green grave, the crying cuckoo blames the House of Han. Alarming news came: the officers are going through the rosters. Every word is unmistakable—they are speaking Chinese. There is none greater than men in this world: look how, pate shaven and half bald, they proudly lord it over us. 382

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She wrote at the end: “Inscribed by Zhao Xuehua, an abducted woman from Wuzhong.” All these were fair ones cast off by the wayside.

S U P P L E M E N T I I : H A M P E R PA R T Y

Shen Zhou composed the “Poem of the Hamper Party.” Its preface says: “In the Old Quarters in Nanjing, beautiful and accomplished courtesans, with up to twenty or thirty different surnames among them, bond as ‘handkerchief sisters.’ When it comes to the lantern festival, they bring spring delicacies, clever implements, and various dishes to compete with each other—it is called a ‘hamper party.’ Those who can boast of extraordinary offerings are the winners, and the losers provide the wine to toast the winners. Some of them have lovers who also come, bringing cash to contribute to the gathering. They drink through the night, and the party lasts for a full month before ending. At the feasts they arrange the lights and play music, each displaying her skills and talents. I composed this to mark the pleasures of the capital.” The poem says: At Pingkang Lane, on the night of the lanterns, the commotion boils over. Burning lamps warm up spring in the midst of laughter. Hampers go back and forth as each competes with her lovely neighbors; with handkerchiefs as tokens, feelings deepen and they become sisters. House on the east, house on the west, a hundred silken-mesh flourishes; they fill in the dishes and the fruit; spring delicacies overflow. Leopard placentas are mixed with crispy sturgeon cartilage on ice, 383

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black olives are combined with raw coconut, white as jade. Pay no heed to the abundance; give credit only to rarities. For items falling short in ranking, the rule is to compensate with wine. Parading instruments of string and wind, they delight in the meeting of hearts. Collecting cash and gold, friends of shared sentiments come and go. From the time of spring wind, excitement in the hall lasts for a month, among the flowers are the scent of wine and snatches of conversations. The same peach and pear blossoms in three thousand households, yet there are forlorn ones on the other side of the walls. 555

[Translator’s note] Shen Zhou (1427–1509) is a famous painter and poet often associated with reclusion, but he seems to have been familiar with the culture of the pleasure quarters. According to Zhu Yizun, Shen Zhou’s poem was originally inscribed on his painting of a “hamper party.”384 The “hamper parties” of courtesans are mentioned in The Plum in the Golden Vase (chapter 45), The Scholars (Rulin waishi chs. 53–54), and Peach Blossom Fan (scene 13). In Peach Blossom Fan, it is said to be a sorority excluding male presence, but Shen Zhou suggests otherwise. The handkerchiefs for swearing sisterhood may be connected to the God with White Eyebrows, the patron deity of courtesans. According to Shen Zhou, on the first and fifteenth days of the month, courtesans would pin their handkerchiefs to the face of the God with White Eyebrows. The handkerchiefs then attained magical power. A courtesan would throw the handkerchief at the face of a difficult or faithless client. When the

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handkerchief fell, she would ask him to pick it up, and this was how the man would be conquered.385 The lore of the God of White Eyebrows is repeated in many late Ming sources. The sisterhood here also recalls similar descriptions in the Tang text Accounts of the Bureau of Music Instruction by Cui Lingqin (ninth c.). According to Cui, courtesans numbering eight or nine (and up to fourteen or fifteen) celebrated their affinities by becoming “incense-burning sworn brothers” (xianghuo xiongdi). They called each other’s lovers and clients “sisters-in-law.” A man who formed a relationship with one of these courtesans would find himself welcoming the attention of her “incense-burning sworn brothers.” This was said to be a custom of Turkic origin.386

POSTSCRIP T

Noble men warn against tarrying in the narrow lanes of pleasure quarters. However, Xie An took courtesans with him to the Eastern Mountain, and Bai Juyi was given to tender passions.387 One is praised for “romantic élan east of the river,” the other for “broadly spreading teachings and moral transformation.”388 By chance they followed their feelings, but did this impair their standing as noble men? There was a Tang recluse, Li Kan, who really hated the poetry of Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi, claiming that their frivolous and ornately phrased discontent as well as lewd and licentious words bore into one’s very being and could not be removed.389 IronFaced Xiu also berated Huang Tingjian for writing romantic and sensual poetry, saying that for such an offense he deserved to descend to Joyless Hell. For compiling this book, would I not be censured by Li the recluse or condemned by Iron-Faced Xiu?390 However, when Guan Zhong was Lord Huan’s minister, he established seven hundred women’s wards, using the tax revenue from their nocturnal transactions to enrich the state.391 In that sense, the person who started it all was none other than Guan

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Zhong! Mencius had his reason for denigrating Guan Zhong and Yan Ying! He had his reason! I burned all my prose and poetry written before the jiashen year (1644). There were in that corpus many poetic exchanges with famous courtesans: they are also like the dust and dreams of a former life that can no longer be recalled. However, as I pick up the writing brush with comments and explanations, “my heart overflows.”392 This was also why the Hermit of the Si River recorded Bygone Events in Wulin.393 As for whether I will be understood or castigated, 394 how can I have the wherewithal to know that?

YO U TONG, “ON T HE MISCELL ANEOUS RECORDS OF THE PL ANK BRIDGE”

Yu Huai showed me The Miscellaneous Records of the Plank Bridge, which he authored, so that I could write a preface for it. I took the time to read it and find it to be of the same ilk as Accounts of the Northern Ward and Records of Pingkang Lane.395 The mist and flowers of Southland are palpably within purview—those who saw them were without exception filled with envy and longing. But before a hundred years passed, beauties had turned into dust. Looking back at the splendor of dreams, how can one not be overcome with melancholy? Someone said, “When Yu Huai was young, he was close to being a heartless lover in the pleasure quarters. As he grows older he delights in writing—his interest in that has not abated at all. But you, sir, have at this point cleansed your heart in order to learn the Way. Why would you keep such a thing on your desk?”396 I smiled and said, “In the old days Cheng Hao had courtesans in front of his eyes but had no courtesans in his heart, and Cheng Yi had no courtesans in front of his eyes but had courtesans in his heart: on this basis we determine the merits and flaws of the Cheng brothers. Now Yu Huai has courtesans on

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paper, but You Tong has in any case no courtesans under his brush.397 What harm is it to write a preface?” (YH 2:439). 555

[Translator’s note] Yu Huai’s friend You Tong (1618–1704) was a famous man of letters who, after repeated failures to achieve distinction in the examination system, gained recognition in a special examination for “Eminent Scholars of Vast Learning” in 1679. The Kangxi emperor (r. 1661–1722) favored him with attention during his southern tours in 1699 and 1703. You Tong seems to have written as one conscious of his importance: he proleptically raises the question of whether it would be unseemly frivolity to write about courtesans. By way of self-justification, he quotes the famous story of the Cheng brothers. Both were preeminent Confucian thinkers, but while Cheng Yi (1033–1107) was sternly abstemious, his older brother, Cheng Hao (1032–1085), made a distinction between external sensual stimuli and inner distance. You Tong claims the same balance in his attitude. Despite general references to mutability, he is careful to avoid any mention of loyalist sentiments in Yu Huai’s writings. This preface is included as an appendix in the Shuoling edition of Plank Bridge.

P R E FAC E B Y L Ü K U N

When Yu Huai was living through the Ming-Qing dynastic transition, his eyes brimmed with tears amid what remained of a broken country.398 Taking his cue from the tradition of “fragrant flora and beauties,” he recorded various famous courtesans from the South Bend and Pearl Market, narrating their glory and decline, lamenting their meeting and dispersal, investing in them his heartfelt

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longing for the fallen state, so much so that one note of a song is accompanied by three sighs. Virtues and vices become manifest as he conveys praise and blame in ways that are subtle yet pointed. That is why in his preface he talks about “those who understand me and those who castigate me”—he is not lying. It is only that he borrows the magnificence of the romantic stories of singing girls and their clients and lets it go down with wine, so that one is dazzled and seduced, and everybody has been fooled even after a century and several decades. What he calls “Xueyi,” “Mei’s Tower,” “Dong Wan,” or “Ma Jiao” is no different from “that millet,” “that sorghum” for the toiling official on the road. They might be seeing different things, but the way their feelings are aroused is the same. You Tong was the supreme talent of his generation, and yet he compared Yu Huai’s work to Records of Pingkang Lane and Accounts of the Northern Ward. How shallow and misguided he was! (YH 2:439). 555

[Translator’s note] Lü Kun (nineteenth century) takes Yu Huai’s preface seriously and faults You Tong for missing or ignoring the political meanings of Plank Bridge. The tradition of “fragrant flora and beauties” refers to the allegorical scheme brought to bear on The Songs of Chu, whereby sweet-smelling and beautiful plants symbolize virtue and the tenacious quest for the goddess is understood as the pursuit of political ideals. Confucius, who according to tradition created or edited the Spring and Autumn Annals, says that those who understand him will do so through the Annals, and those who castigate him will do so through the Annals (Mengzi 3B.9). Lü Kun believes that Yu Huai, like Confucius, sees his work as both historical and deeply invested with personal and political ideals. The phrase “subtle yet pointed” is how the Annals is characterized in Zuo Tradition and is another covert reference to the Annals. “That millet”

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and “that sorghum” refer to the scenes unfolding before the eyes of a Zhou official as he laments Zhou decline in a poem from the Classic of Poetry.399 Lü Kun’s preface is collected in Yang Zongxi’s (1865–1940) Sequel to Poetic Conversations of Xueqiao (Xueqiao shihua xubian).400 Yang was a bannerman and a Qing official who remained a Qing loyalist during the Republican period. Ming loyalism inspired both modern nationalists and Qing loyalists, forces opposed to each other and united only in appreciation of those who lamented the fallen Ming dynasty.

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g

Liu Ruishi

GU LI NG (1609–AF T ER 1682), “BIO GRAP HY OF LADY H ED ONG”1

Lady Hedong was a woman from the Liu lineage. Her original name was Yinwen; then it was changed to Shi. Her sobriquet was Rushi. Of small stature, she dressed and carried herself with grace and poise. By nature quick and perceptive, she had great courage and keen judgment. She became the concubine of a provincial graduate from Yunjian.2 The provincial graduate was a man of letters and excelled in calligraphy. He taught her how to compose poems and practice calligraphy, and her poetry and calligraphy became incomparably lovely and appealing. However, she was an unconventional free spirit given to extremes, and in particular she defied constraints. The provincial graduate had to send her away. Roaming in the Wu and Yue areas, she had a superior style and an inimitable aura, and her literary accomplishments captivated an entire generation. Zhu Yexian from Jiaxing praised her talent to Minister Qian of Yushan [Qian Qianyi]. The minister’s heart was filled with admiration, but he did not get to see her. In the winter of the gengchen year (1640) during the Chongzhen reign, she took a boat to visit the minister. She wore a scholar’s headscarf and tiny bow shoes, and was clad in male clothing. Eloquent and commanding the air of a free and open spirit, she had

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the manner and style of the worthies in the bamboo grove.3 The minister was overjoyed and said, “Of all the great beauties with romantic élan in this world, only Wang Wei, Yang Wan, and you can reign as the supreme three.4 How can we let Xu Yuqing and Mao Yuanyi monopolize the label of ‘notable men of the realm with their famous ladies?’ ” She tarried in his Half Wilds Hall, and their literary gatherings and feasting lasted a full month. Yue dancing and Wu songs were alternately performed, and poems in the style of the Scented Boudoir Case and Jade Terrace were chanted and matched in ceaseless rounds.5 Having passed the New Year, she traveled with him to West Lake. Their Literary Exchanges at East Mountain was published and printed.6 In the collection, she was called Lady Hedong.7 She did come to West Lake, but then she took her leave. She missed the appointed time of reunion and did not return, and only emerged when the minister sent friends to urge her to join him. The evening when they confirmed their union was the seventh day of the sixth month in the xinsi year (1641). She was then already twenty-four. The minister composed “Poems Before Double Seventh” and invited his friends and associates to write verses with matching rhymes. For her he built the Vermilion Clouds Tower behind the Half Wilds Hall.8 Its rooms were secluded and elegant, adorned by ornate carvings and sumptuous decorations. Inside the side cabinets were rubbings of bronzes and stone steles, and tens of thousands of fascicles of books in Song printings. Arrayed there and filling up the place were things like bronze vessels, jade rings, and jade discs from the Three Dynasties, Qin, and Han; famous calligraphy and paintings from the Jin, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties; Song porcelain from the Guan, Ge, Ding, and Ru kilns; Ming porcelain from the Xuande and Chenghua reigns; rocks from Duanxi, Lingbi, and Dali; bronze censers from the Xuande reign; lacquer vessels from the Orchard Workshop. This was the place where she carefully adorned herself with tasteful restraint. Between

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Xiang River bamboo blinds and elegant low tables, she burned agarwood incense, competed in chess games, painted the blue mountains, copied from marvelous calligraphic models, pondered textual variants and corrected errors, while sprinkling in jest and banter intermittently, just as Li Qingzhao did when she was married to Zhao Mingcheng.9 However, she was quite capable of controlling and swaying the minister, who was deeply enamored of her but also regarded her with awe. With the catastrophe of the fifth month in the year yiyou (1645), she urged the minister to die as a martyr, but he apologized and balked at the prospect. She sprang forth and wanted to drown herself in the pond, but she was held back and could not do it. That she sprang forth on the pond was witnessed by Shen Minglun, a candidate for the Classicist Degree who was residing at the minister’s residence. That she urged the minister to die was what the minister himself told Wang Zhijin of Baofeng, Official of Remonstrance at the Ministry of Military Affairs, and Zhijin told me. That autumn, the minister went north while she stayed in Nanjing.10 Later, he used sickness as the excuse to resign and return home. In the third month of the dinghai year (1647), the minister was arrested and the situation was dire.11 She took a bag and threaded her way through the glare of knives and swords, taking care of everything during his perilous journey in the most careful and responsible way. When the case was dismissed, the minister composed poems to praise her, matching the rhyme that Su Shi used in “To My Wife, from the Censorate Prison.”12 It even had this line: “Following me to meet calamity was my worthy wife.”13 At that time the minister’s wife, the titled Lady Chen, was still alive and well. The minister made selections for Poems from Arrayed Reigns, and for that she finalized the section on women poets. In the winter of the gengyin year (1650), a fire broke out at the Vermilion Clouds Tower and spread to Half Wilds Hall. Most of their

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books, paintings, and fine and pleasing things were gone. The minister felt he had lost his place and was filled with longing for bygone days, as if he were blocked from all things worthwhile by mountains and rivers. As for her, she was like the poet in “It’s Cockcrow”:14 ⸕ᆀѻֶѻ 䴌֙ԕ䌸ѻ ⸕ᆀ⸕丶ѻ 䴌֙ԕ୿ѻ

I know your caring concern, and offer you the gift of the girdle with jade ornaments. I know your tender respect, and convey my message with the girdle with jade ornaments.

As time passed, she was not happy. She gave birth to a daughter. After the latter got married, in the autumn of the guimao year (1663), she cut her hair and entered the Way. The minister composed these poems: а࢚䠁࠰㒑֋ࡽ 㼩ሷ㌵␊⚁䄨ཙ йọ㻱㼭㬞㣡ᴽ ᮨ⮍䂵䤔搭〿⭠ ᵍᰕ㼍䢋ⴹ↓ᄥ 儈⁃唎唋乽⥦凞 ₛ䲣೬㹏ੋ㜭᳹ ᐢ䙾йߜᷟᵘ⿚

One cut with the golden scissors before the embroidered Buddha: she wraps red tears to be scattered in the heavens.15 Three strips of cloth are cut and made into the lotus costume, several acres have been cleared: now they are fields with swaying grains. Under the morning sun she puts on makeup, just when her eyebrows are most lovely. On the high tower she applied power, now still fresh on her forehead.16 You know indifference to a seductive body— as bland as chewing wax:17 already past are three winters of Zen meditation, as calm as wood withered.

Two Famous Courtesans

告厑⮿デ᲍䃎䮧 ৸ᮉ䴉⠅䂡䴅ằ 䴘Ӕ◗⎖օᴮ★ 付䂽ᐛኡࡕᴹ俉 ࡍ㪇ḃ㺓䓛億▰ ѽ᣻ぐ儞串䮰⏬ 㐸➉伋㎞йⵐḣ 仪ⴑ᱕ֶᵚᯧ㞨

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The parrot at the sparsely latticed windows talks all day long, and also lets the paired swallows twitter at the carved pillars. Rain crosses at the shores of the Li River— do they get wet? The wind recognizes Mount Wu—there is yet another fragrance.18 Donning dyed cloth for the first time, her body feels its roughness. Suddenly discarding her silken hair, her pate is cold. Entwining mist and flying catkins of the thrice-sleeping willows:19 blown to utter distraction is the heart not yet broken since spring.

The following year, on the twenty-fourth day of the fifth month, the minister died. His younger clansmen Qian Zeng and those of his ilk demanded money from her, and threats mounted like swarming wasps. She hanged herself on the twenty-eighth day of the sixth month. The minister’s son, Sun’ai, together with his sonin-law, Zhao Guan, submitted the case of her unjust death, and scholars in the area decided on how to make arrangements for her funeral. The minister’s disciple Gu Ling said: “Alas! From now on, what the minister told Wang Zhijin can be confirmed and borne out. The minister’s given name was Qianyi. His sobriquet was Shouzhi, and scholars called him the esteemed Muzhai. In his old age, he called himself the Remnant Subject of the Eastern Stream.” On the seventh day of the seventh month in the jiachen year (1664), I wrote this under the grave of Zhenniang.20 555

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[Translator’s note] Gu Ling was Qian Qianyi’s disciple and a famous calligrapher and seal carver. A Ming loyalist who lived as a recluse after the fall of the Ming (LRS 40–41), he left behind several works of historical interest that deal with the lives of Ming martyrs and court debates as well as the unofficial accounts of the 1645 debacle. His portrait of Liu Rushi when she visited Half Wilds Hall in 1640 survived as a copy by Yu Ji ( jinshi 1766). Gu Ling was eager to authenticate the account of Liu’s conviction as a Ming loyalist and seems to have seen the remembrance of her attempted suicide (repeated toward the end) as the main point of his account. Various seventeenth- and eighteenth-century readers commented on Gu Ling’s impartiality, since he presented Liu Rushi as being much more courageous than Qian Qianyi despite his own ties to Qian.

N I U X I U ( 1 6 4 1 ? – 1 7 0 4 ) , “ L A D Y H E D O N G ” 21

Lady Hedong or Liu Rushi was named Shi, and she also had the sobriquet Miwu. Her original name was Ai, and Liu was a surname she took up. Beautiful and graceful in her bearing, “she flitted by lightly like a startled swan.”22 She was impetuous and intelligent. The poems she composed were often brilliant, and she excelled especially in septasyllabic regulated verse. In her calligraphy, she mastered the models of Yu Shinan and Chu Suiliang.23 When she was about twenty, she married Mengsou, Minister Qian of Yushan, and it was only then that the name of Lady Hedong became known. Formerly, there had been in our district, Shengze, at the Returning Home Court, a famous courtesan, Xu Fo.24 She could play the zither and excelled in painting orchids. Although she lived in a remote lakeside town, footsteps of talented scholars from all over filled her abode. In the spring of the bingzi year (1636), Zhang Pu of Loudong was taking leave from his position as Hanlin

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Academician and passed by Wujiang. He moored his boat to the Rainbow Pavilion and switched to a small boat to visit Xu Fo. Xu Fo happened to have gone out. Her protégée Yang Ai was more beautiful than Xu, and her witty conversation and literary writings also surpassed Xu’s. Once he saw her, Zhang Pu was smitten and took her to the Rainbow Pavilion; they parted with tender affection. As a result, Yang Ai was pleased with herself and confident of her powers. She said, “I was born at the wrong hour and fell into this realm of dust and grime. But unless I find a good mate, I am not going to entrust my fate to anyone. Now in this Three Wu area, there is no lack of men from noble and official families, but many of these silk-clad and well-fed ones are like puppets. As for those who hum and chant lines from examination essays and manage through sheer luck to gain undeserved success, they are all vulgarians. I will follow only the one who has broad learning and loves the wisdom of the ancients, and whose superb talent is peerless in his generation. As it is said, so long as one has a true friend in the whole wide world, one can die without regret. Even so, Shengze is but the gathering place for traders and middlemen.25 How can I pine away forever in this place?” She thus changed her surname from Yang to Liu and used Shi as her name. She heard that Chen Zilong was the great literary talent in Yunjian and moved to his area to become his neighbor, hoping thereby for an encounter. At that time disorder was roiling the realm. Half of the imposing passes and major military outposts had crumbled into ruins, and the defeat and collapse of supposedly valiant armies and intrepid troops had become daily news. Yellow Turbans crisscrossed the Yi and Luo rivers, while Red Feathers pressed close to the Huai and Xu region.26 And yet scholars and officials east of the river did not seem to fear that the calamity would spread and overtake them 27 and became ever more concerned with feasting and carousing. As for seeking beauties and choosing music, they poured heart and soul into the endeavor. As a result, the fair ladies

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in the narrow lanes of the pleasure quarters all vied to excel in loveliness and accomplishments. When it came to gaining a soaring reputation at that time, none compared to Liu.28 She lived for quite a while in Songjiang and repeatedly sent calling cards to seek a meeting with Chen Zilong.29 Chen was stern and not easy to get close to, and observing how Liu referred to herself as “younger kin” or “younger brother,” he was even more displeased.30 The minister of Yushan [Qian Qianyi] had a reputation rivaling that of Chen. He had extraordinary success in the examination and was profoundly learned, and was more advanced than Chen both in years and in position.31 Liu said frankly to others, “In the whole wide world, only Academician Qian of Yushan can be deemed talented. I will not marry anyone who is not as talented as the academician.” It so happened that the minister had just lost his wife,32 and he was overjoyed when he heard about this: “In the whole wide world, is there anyone who cherishes talent like this lady? I too will not marry anyone who is not as talented as Liu.” Qian had many associates versed in the ways of courtesans, and they went back and forth to transmit messages. Finally, in a winter month in the gengchen year (1640), Liu met the minister for the first time. He built for her the “I Have Heard Chamber,”33 and it was completed in ten days. Sitting next to each other by the brazier, they toasted farewell to the passing year. Liu composed “Spring Day in the I Have Heard Chamber:”34 㻱㌵Ჸ⻗␊╛╛ ই഻᱕ֶᐢ㮴ሂ ↔৫ḣ㣡ྲདྷ㼑 ੁֶ✏ᴸᱟᜱㄟ ⮛า⎸᚟օӪ᳹

Trimming and arranging flowers, red and green blur as tears well up. Spring has come to Southland, but light chill still prevails. Henceforth willow catkins seem to belong to dreams; evermore, the misty moon is where sorrow begins. The news in these painted halls—who knows about it?

Two Famous Courtesans

㘐ᒉᇩ乿⦘㠚ⴻ ⧽䟽ੋᇦ㱝Ṳᇔ ᶡ付ਆ⅑аេ䯼

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Behind the kingfisher curtains, she looks at her face alone. I treasure this chamber of orchid and cassia in your home, and ask for the east wind’s verdict as I lean against the balustrade.

For as she came to a new life and left the old one behind, her joy in its extreme turned to sadness. Just as the sorrows for past disappointments became so intense, the desire to seek a true union grew even more urgent. 35 In the early summer of the xinsi year (1641), they got married on the Lotus Boat. The music of flutes and drums reached the clouds, and the fragrance of orchids and incense pervaded the shores. They shared the feast of union and the conjugal cup; “the ceremonies numbered so many.” 36 At that time, furor and loud censure brewed among the official and gentry families in the Sanmao area, so much so that there were flighty meddlers who threw pots at their painted boat and aimed rocks at their scented carriage.37 The minister held the brush in his mouth, soaked it in ink, and smiled as he faced the mirror stand, as he calmly and complacently composed the epithalamium.38 After Liu married the minister, he regarded her as the Goddess of Vermilion Clouds who had descended to the human realm. Since “immortals love living in towers,”39 he built a tower spanning five front pillars behind the Half Wilds Hall, situating it by the mountains and next to the city walls. He exhausted all possibilities in decorating it resplendently; its horizontal panel said “Vermilion Clouds.” South of the Yangzi River, no other family had a collection of books as rich as Qian’s. From that point on, he was even more assiduous in buying rare books, which, along with the fine volumes printed by the House of Imbibing from the Ancients,40 were moved by the cartloads to the Vermilion Clouds Tower. Books with ivory markers and precious scrolls lay here and there, filling up the entire place. Beneath these were embroidered curtains and sumptuous couches, and Qian and Liu spent days and

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nights there with each other. What he wrote in his poem was a truthful record: ⡝‫⸣ݸ‬唾ᩌ㚟ਕ 㮴ᙂ䢰⟸㇇ࣛ⺱

As with “Stone Cauldron,” we fight to be first in finding lines for linked verses, snuffing the silver lamp in mock anger is one way to count lost chess pieces.41

The minister’s interest in chanting poems and reading books became even more intense in his old age. When it came to collating and editing texts, he turned only to Liu. At her moments of leisure,42 when topics of discussion arose from things he was about to write, Liu often went up the tower to check and peruse books. Even though the shelves were filled with books,43 she could always pick up the slender bookmarks and indicate which fascicle and which book, not missing the mark even once in a hundred times. Sometimes he made slight errors in the way he used allusions, and she would correct him right away. The minister delighted in her intelligence and powers of understanding, and cherished and treasured her even more. At the beginning of our dynasty, the court recruited experienced officials who had served in the former dynasty, and the minister answered the summons. Soon afterward, he was sent back because of malicious attacks from other officials. From then on he focused on writing. Liu attended to him right and left. She loved to study, and knowledge was for her a resource for defying constraints. Distinguished guests frequently came to their imposing doors. Sometimes she emerged, dressed in sable hat and brocade boots or feathered coat and rainbow cape, to converse with the guests. Or else she would take a sedan chair and visit guests who were on the road. Her lucid eloquence flowed like a spring and her valiant arguments rose like a blade— even eminent worthies and learned scholars could not bend her to their will. The minister did not feel the slightest resentment or discomfort. He said, “This is my esteemed disciple and also my excellent secretary.”

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He often called her in jest “Scholar Liu” [homophonous with “Liu Rushi”]. Ten years passed, and the Vermilion Clouds Tower was burned down in the gengyin year (1650). They then moved their abode to the Red Seed Village. On fine mornings and joyous festivals, they always let their boat drift along scenic places on the lakes by the mountains, lingering and chanting poems in matching rhymes. Beholders almost wondered whether they were immortals. Qian wrote in his poem “Taking My Wife on a Journey on the Day of Mid-Autumn Festival”: ㏐⎚㌵㱝н⇒ᜱ ৳ᐞ儈ḣ㭭෾⁃ 叟㣡❑ᚉй᱕‫צ‬

㶖㨌ት❦㩜䟼㡏 ➗≤㵫㵃‫׍‬儙ᖡ リ㉮㴪㶦к䠥九 ⴨ⴻਟլᄖၕྭ ⲭᴸ࠶᰾⎨⻗⍱

Sorrow cannot linger among green waves and red orchids, tall willows conceal the city wall and towers, unevenly. Orioles and flowers, unscathed, have been our companions through spring, delicacies of the sea unexpectedly keep us on a never-ending boat journey. The dragonfly looking at the water clings to her hair’s reflection, a butterfly peeking through the blinds climbs onto her hairpin. We look at each other: Is she as fair as the Moon Goddess? The white moon is drenched, so brightly, in the blue stream.

Liu followed the same rhyme and wrote:44 ⿻≤᱕㺛◩᳞ᜱ 㡩デㅁ䃎䘁㌵⁃

Autumn stream, spring clothes, the faint melancholy of dusk: laughter and words by the boat’s window draw close to the red tower.

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ཊᛵ㩭ᰕ‫׍‬㱝⃲ ❑㯹䕅䴢‫ڽ‬ᖙ㡏 ᴸᑼⅼ䯼ሻ咸ቮ 付ᒺᴨҲ㿃ᩄ九 ӄ⒆➉≤䮧ྲ↔ 予䙀协ཧ⌋ᙕ⍱

Two Famous Courtesans

The setting sun, love laden, lingers on the orchid oars; light clouds, untethered, are next to the painted boat. By the moon-illumined curtain, I look for the chowry as songs subside, on the windswept bed, my quest for hairpins ends with jumbled books.45 May the mist and water on the Five Lakes be always like this: my wish is to follow Zhiyi as he drifts away on swift currents.46

Her other writings are mostly appended to Qian’s writings in his Collection of Learning (Youxue ji),47 and I will not include all of them here. She gave birth to a daughter, who married the son of Zhao Yusen, a scholar of the Hanlin Academy from Biling.48 The minister’s son, the provincial graduate, invited him to move back to the city to live with him.49 But Liu, together with her daughter and son-in-law, still stayed at the Red Seed Village. Two years later, the minister became sick. When Liu heard about it, she rushed there from the village to look after him. Not long after, he died. Liu stayed in the city to observe the rituals of mourning and did not return to the village. Some time earlier, discord had been brewing between the minister and his clansmen. Using the excuse that the minister had owed them money, unruly and truculent characters gathered about a hundred persons to argue their case in the main hall. Liu said tearfully, “There is an eldest son in this family; it offends against all principles for us to sit here and endure such humiliation and abuse. This soon-to-perish widow has some meager savings in her boudoir case. It would be useless to keep it: it is proper that I should give it up to buy off the aggressors and relieve our difficulties.” She immediately took out a thousand taels, which she offered to them. The next morning, the crowd

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gathered clamorously as before. Liu sent someone to ask: “What do you want now?” The clansmen said, “What my lady gave out yesterday were but her superfluous things: they do not suffice to adequately provide for the clan. The heir has grand houses that stretch to the clouds and fertile fields crisscrossing like splendid brocade. Why can’t he cut off half of them to provide for the poor and the needy?” The heir was fearful and did not dare to come out. Liu thought: If we were to satisfy their demands, it would be like the Song dynasty giving up territories to sue for peace—the invading army would not desist until all the territories were gone. That would not be the way to go. She thus secretly summoned the minister’s closest kinsmen and the disciples to whom he had been especially generous and also gathered a number of stewards and servants capable of upholding order and discipline. Having made all the plans, she swore an oath with them: “If you have any regard for his former beneficence, do not go against these words.” They all responded: “We give our word.” Liu came out to the main hall and made her case gently: “I have exhausted all my resources, which, it is true, would not suffice as gifts for you. Let us arrange to meet tomorrow. We will set forth wine and feast. Whatever your need is, be it major or minor, we will abide by none but your command. The property of the late minister is all here. I will not begrudge sharing it.” Only then did the crowd disperse. That night they slaughtered pigs and roasted lamb and prepared for a sumptuous feast. The following morning, the crowd of clansmen gathered. Liu gave instructions that they should sit and be arrayed according to the order of mourning and secretly ordered burly servants to close the front gates. Then she entered her chamber and went up the Tower of Luxuriant Woods, as if she were preparing to bring things out. A long while passed, and she seemed to hesitate to come back out. The servants were surprised and went in to check, only to find that she had already hanged herself and died. She had written on the walls in big characters: “Tie up the ones at the feast and then report to the authorities.” When the heir saw

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this, he wailed along with all the servants. The day before, various ropes had been gathered in advance in a room, and these were taken out to tie up all the malefactors. Since the gates were closed, none could escape. Shortly thereafter, the magistrate arrived and, after having arrived at the truth by thoroughly inquiring into the circumstances, put the malefactors in prison. The case was submitted to authorities above, and they were all brought to justice. Lady Hedong was like the powerless willow catkins mired in mud, yet she knew the place wherein she could find purpose. All of a sudden “disaster was visited on the family,”50 and she calmly died for principles of duty. Thus did she resist insulting encroachment, thus did she protect her clan. How can this be not considered impressive? When the minister first met Liu, his complexion was swarthy, “the folds on his back were like lines on a mackerel,”51 and his hair, hanging down, showed many white streaks. But Liu’s hair was thick and piled high in a chignon, and her whole body was fair and supple.52 The night when they confirmed their passion, Qian said, “I really love how your hair is as black as clouds and your skin as fair as jade.”53 Liu said, “I too really love you— how your hair is like my skin and your skin like my hair.” And they laughed heartily together. That is why in their poetic exchange, there were these lines: 付ࡽḣⅢリ䶂⵬ 䴚㻿ኡ៹ᜣⲭ九

I want to see your dark eyes in the windblown willows; snow-clad mountains should make us think of white hair.54

These lines were widely and eagerly circulated. One could not have known that once she married him, she gave her whole life. Even those who go through all the proper conjugal rituals may not measure up to this. 555

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[Translator’s note] Niu Xiu (1672 bagong sheng [Graduate of Pre-eminence], d. 1704) was a Qing official who showed an abiding interest in the MingQing dynastic transition in his writings. This account of Liu Rushi is from The Leftover Accounts (Gu sheng) (1700).55 Parts of Niu Xiu’s account overlaps with Shen Qiu’s (seventeenth c.) “Account of Lady Hedong” (“Hedong jun zhuan”).56 Shen Qiu hailed from Shengze and claimed to be privy to Liu’s early history as Xu Fo’s protégée. He positions himself as a witness: when Zhang Pu took her to the Rainbow Pavilion in 1636, “I saw her from my boat. Judging from her accent, she was from Hezhong [Jiaxing in Zhejiang]. As she grew older, she disdained constraints and was confident of her powers. Some regarded her as a woman who had the spirit of a heroic man.” Shen is somewhat more disparaging than Niu when it comes to Qian’s devotion to Liu, describing the comparison of Liu to the Goddess of Vermilion Clouds as “extremely blasphemous.” Niu refers to Liu’s fanciful “sable hat” and “feather coat” when she met Qian’s friends, but Shen offers a more plausible image: “She often wore the robes of a Confucian scholar with a fluttering headscarf and broad sleeves. Sometimes she came out and conversed with guests from all over the realm. She had a free spirit and was lightfooted like an immortal. That was why Yushan [Qian Qianyi] also called her Scholar Liu.” Both Niu and Shen focus on Liu’s strategic suicide as the ultimate vindication of her existence.

Q I A N Z H AO ’ AO , “A N E C D O T E S A B O U T L I U R U S H I ” 57

Rushi was from a young age kept as a favored concubine at the household of Zhou from Wujiang.58 She was the youngest among his concubines and was incomparably bright and intelligent. The master often put her on his knees and taught her the literary and

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other arts. That was why the other concubines were jealous of her. Zhou’s mother was the only one in the family (besides Zhou) who loved her and cherished her because she knew well how to please. However, she was by nature intemperate and defied constraints, and she had adulterous relations with a servant in the Zhou household. The other concubines found out about it and slandered her to the master, who wanted to kill her. On account of Zhou’s mother, she got to be sold [instead of being killed] and became a courtesan. Her family name was Yang, and she changed it to Liu and called herself Rushi. From one day to the next, she called the madam “the procuress” and the “father” “the pimp.”59 She took a leaflike small boat and roamed among lakes and mountains, spending time with scholars of fame and talent. When she was in Yunjian [Songjiang], she had the closest relationships with Song Zhengyu, Li Daiwen, and Chen Zilong.60 At that time there was a certain Xu, who, knowing that Rushi was in Sheshan,61 offered thirty taels to the madam to seek a meeting with Liu. Xu was a fool, and right when he saw her, he ventured: “Long have I admired your beauty and grace: it is my good fortune to have a glimpse of you.” 62 Rushi could not help laughing. Xu then said, “One smile topples the city.” Rushi thus laughed out loud. He said again, “Another smile topples the kingdom.” 63 Rushi went back inside in anger and called out to the madam: “How much money did you receive? How could you send such an unbelievable vulgarian to meet me!” When she found out that the money had been all spent, she cut off strands of her hair to be given to him and said, “Use this as recompense for his money.” The noble son Xu, third in his family, was Xu Jie’s descendant.64 Hoping to spend time with her, he was unstinting in lavishing money on Rushi. Rushi got the money and used it to cover the expenses of travels and entertainment for the three gentlemen. Things went on like this for months. The three gentlemen were uneasy and urged Rushi to relent and be kinder to Xu and let him fulfill his longtime wish. Rushi smiled and said, “There should be

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a time for that too.” A long time passed, and only then did she suggest a date for receiving him: “You should come on the thirtieth day of the twelfth month.” He indeed arrived at the appointed time. Rushi set forth a feast to entertain him, and they drank in joyous conviviality. She said, “I suggested meeting you on New Year’s Eve, and it was my expectation that you would not come. But you have indeed come: you are indeed a man of feelings. However, on the eve of a major festival, the family and its closest kin gather for union, and you act against all that and spend the night at a courtesan’s house. Is that not a rejection of proper feelings?” She abruptly sent someone to carry the lanterns and see Xu home. Xu had no choice but to leave. It was only on the night of the first full moon of the year that they confirmed their union. She took the opportunity to encourage Xu: “You have not read many books and lack a literary tenor. I associate with various men of distinction, and for you to place yourself among them is to show your distinct lack of refinement. Why don’t you apply yourself to military endeavors and seek distinction in another way? Only then can I receive you.” Xu nodded in assent. He became a skilled archer and cavalryman and thus pursued a military career. During the turmoil, he was killed by cannon fire. His love was obsessive, and in the end Rushi sent him on a path that led to his death. He also deserved sympathy. Formerly, before Song Zhengyu had ever met Liu Rushi, Rushi arranged for a meeting when they stopped their boats at White Dragon Pond. Song arrived early and Rushi had not risen. She sent someone to him with this message: “Master Song should not board the boat yet. If he is indeed one of deep feelings, he should jump into the water and wait for me there.” Song immediately made the plunge. The weather was cold at that time. Rushi urgently asked the boatman to bring him up, took him to bed, and embraced him to keep him warm. That was how their love began and deepened. Song Zhengyu was totally bewitched by Liu Rushi. His mother, the senior lady, was angry over this, and she made him kneel while reprimanding him. He said, “She does not cost me any money.”

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The senior lady said, “Money is the least of my worries. She does not want your money because she wants your life!” As a result, Song began to distance himself somewhat. Not long after, she was expelled by the prefect.65 Rushi consulted Song for advice. She had put an ancient zither and a Japanese broad sword on a low table. She asked Song, “As for our plans now, what is to be done?” Song answered slowly, “Just try for the time being to dodge the danger.” Rushi said in great fury, “If others talk like this, there is no reason to be surprised. But you, sir, should not be like this. From now on, I break off all connection with you!” She hewed the zither with the broad sword and all seven strings broke. Song left in shock and dismay. 555

[Translator’s note] Qian Zhao’ao (b. 1729) lived more than a century after the events he described. His Straight Talk (Zhi zhi tan er, completed ca. 1785), from which this account is taken, is filled with stories about the supernatural. His account is probably a mixture of rumors and facts. Chen Yinke doubts, for example, whether Li Daiwen, Chen Zilong, and Song Zhengyu would actually rely on Liu Rushi to fleece Xu to entertain them (LRS 1:70). There is also some discrepancy in dates: Song Zhengyu met Chen Zilong in 1634, when Song was about seventeen and Chen and Liu were deeply in love. The kind of dalliance involving Liu’s simultaneous attention to Xu, Chen, Li, and Song does not sound too plausible. It is possible, however, that Song and Liu had an abortive romance (which Chen Yinke dates to 1632 or 1633) and the references to “broken strings” and a “Japanese broad sword” in Song’s corpus may be the textual traces of his youthful passion for Liu Rushi. The dramatic tests of love echo literary precedents. Song’s ordeal in water is reminiscent of Weisheng, the stubborn lover in Zhuangzi, who clings to a pillar of a bridge waiting for his beloved and ends up being swept

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away by floodwater.66 “Broken strings” is a common metaphor for cutting off a romantic bond or the death of a wife. 555

Chen Yinke’s (1890–1969) monumental account of Liu Rushi and her era (completed 1964, published 1980), The Other Biography of Liu Rushi (Liu Ruishi biezhuan), testifies to Liu’s hold on the modern imagination. Chen begins by taking stock of Liu’s numerous names (LRS 1:17– 37). She used first Yang and then Liu as her surname. (Both yang and liu mean willow.) Besides the names mentioned in the above accounts—Yinwen (hidden patterns of clouds), Miwu (a kind of late spring herb), Ai (love), Shi (this), Rushi (thus), Lady Hedong—Liu also used such names as Yin (hidden), Yinglian (cherish the reflection), Zhao (morning), Zhaoyun (morning clouds), Yun (clouds), Yunjuan (beautiful clouds), Meiren (beauty). Liu spent her early years in the household of the minister Zhou Daodeng as a maidservant cum concubine and was sent away when she was about fourteen (LRS 1:50–52). In Qing accounts (including the above three), Chen Zilong is often cast as a casual lover or one who rejects the advances of Liu Rushi. The stirring love story between Chen and Liu and their deep ties came to light because of Chen Yinke’s painstaking exegesis of their poems. Most of the poetic exchanges between Liu and Chen dated from 1633 to about 1638 (LRS 1:52– 340).67 They lived together for a few months in Songjiang in 1635 but had to part under pressure from Chen’s principal wife, stepmother, and grandmother. In 1633, Liu Rushi met Chen Zilong and Song Zhengbi (ca. 1602–1672) on a boat at White Dragon Pond.68 Song Zhengbi wrote in his preface to “The Song of the Autumn Pond” ⿻ຈᴢ, his poem about that meeting: “Present was a lady collator who had just descended to the human world from the household of a former minister from Wujiang. All her conversations were passionate and forceful, not the least like the words of the boudoir. She also

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showed us her poem congratulating Chen Jiru on his birthday.69 . . . Chen Zilong had his fill with wine and asked me to compose a poem at the feast” (LRS 1:48–49).70 “Autumn Pond” captures the fervor of that encounter. Their conversation seems to have been both personal and political: ᵚሷሦࢽ䞜⸕ᐡ ⛪㿃᰾⨐ហᇲሕ ... ṑᴨᄻ၏ᒤॱ‫ޝ‬ 䴘䴘付付㜭Ⰻଝ 㠚❦䯘䯓㲏䥊䥊 䉸ᯉ付ລ਼⺼⺼

The precious sword has not yet been used to requite a true friend, for her I seek the bright pearl to console her for her loneliness. The beautiful collator, all of sixteen, is capable of lamentation in the wind and the rain. It is only natural that fame in the boudoir should come with ardor; how could we have expected to share fruitless toil in the dusty realm?

Reversing Bai Juyi’s trope of the poet empathizing with the singing girl in the “Song of Pipa,” Song Zhengbi concludes the poem by imagining Liu Rushi’s empathy with the men on the boat: ႖Ӫ᜿≓Ⅲօㅹ 㠷ੋ␚㩭਼⊏⋣ ᡁ݅㚎ѻ૨ཚ᚟ ᱕㣡⿻㩹ཙ‫࣋ޜ‬ ཊযᝏశཊⴋᒤ 付䴘⿻ຈ⎙䴓ᾥ

A woman’s spirit, where to find its equal? “Like you I am mired in loss; we share the same river.” We heard this and all heaved sighs. Spring blossoms, autumn leaves: heaven decides all. Grateful for your laments, grateful for glorious years— the autumn pond in wind and rain: an expanse hard to fathom.

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The poems Liu Rushi addressed to Song Zhengbi (Liu Rushi ji 39–40) likewise affirm a friendship based on common political purpose: 㠷䄆ཙлһ ↧↧⛪ᡁۧ ... ⸕ᐡⵏ䴓䞜 ѝཌᙶᘿᘿ

With you I discourse on the affairs of the realm— all too clearly, you grieve for me. It is hard to repay a true friend; through the night, I am overcome by melancholy.

The vocabulary of friendship allows Liu Rushi to assert herself as the intellectual and spiritual equal of the men she associated with. Many of the poems she wrote about her love for Chen Zilong resort to traditional imagery of longing. In her rhapsody on “The Male Spirit of the Luo River” (ca. 1634), however, she addressed Chen as “my friend” (youren).71 She wrote in the preface: “It thus occurred to me that the ancients who sought the beginnings [of their writings] in what is nonexistent and illusory, might yet not create something as genuine as this.” By “ancients” she meant the legion of male poets who mythologize desire and their own ambivalence about it by depicting unpredictable or inaccessible divine women, a tradition that dates back to The Songs of Chu and early rhapsodies on goddesses. Herself often described as the “Goddess of the Luo River” (LRS 1:135), Liu now writes as a woman addressing a male spirit. However, instead of transferring to the male spirit the skepticism and fears attending the mystique of the feminine in rhapsodies on goddesses, Liu writes in fervent praise of the male spirit of the Luo River, undertakes a determined quest of the beloved on her boat, and gives a frank and trusting avowal of her love. The rhapsody concludes with her longing for their union:

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঄⦴丯ᯬ⒈ၕ ⮻ि⬌ᯬ㒄ྣ ... 䶎ᖧᖯ㘵ѻᡰⴑ 䉸═䙊㘵ѻਟ⑜

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Harmonize with the mysterious music of the Xiang River goddess, and let the Gourd Asterism match the Weaver Maid Constellation.72 This bond is not exhausted by those seeking mere resemblance; how can it be fathomed by the ones reaching across indifference?

Liu and Chen parted ways in 1635, but Chen continued to support Liu’s literary endeavors. He wrote the preface for her first poetry collection, Drafts from the Wuyin Year (Wuyin cao, 1638): And now Master Liu’s poetry: how did it come to be so inspired, pure, penetrating, expansive, subtle, and free?. . . For what she sees is no more than the glory of grass and trees, and her gaze does not extend beyond a hundred li . . . But when I read her various poems . . . most of them possess a profound, heroic spirit and advance her to the ranks of the very finest authors. . . . Master Liu thus emerged from the blue chamber, and without her conferring with us, her poetry yet displays a deep affinity with ours. Is this not hard to come by? Is this not hard to come by? (Liu Rushi ji 3–5)

“Master Liu” (Liu zi) turns the usual male honorific into a genderneutral one. Women’s poetry was often praised for its subtle and nuanced observations and emotions; here Chen praised Liu’s poems for their boldness of vision and execution despite the confines of her world. He also used the term “blue chamber” (qingsuo), drawing on its early and medieval associations with courtly decorations and ornate inner chambers73 to skillfully avoid the term “blue tower” (qinglou), the standard euphemism for the pleasure quarters. In the poems Chen addresses to Liu, he often used the phrase

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“stand alone” (duli), summoning associations with loneliness, purity, defiance, and independence: ᘥ⡮߼ሂ䴓⦘・ 㧛䗝ߠ䴚ᴤ䘭ᬰ

Thinking of how difficult it is for you to brave the cold and stand alone, I cannot be held back by ice and snow and must follow you. (“Early Plum” ᰙẵ, 1634) (LRS 1:130, 563)

㣡⇈ྣդ਴ᮓ৫ ᴹᱲ⦘・⿻付ࡽ

The flowers fade and her female companions all disperse; ’tis the time to stand alone and face the autumn wind.

(“On the Painting of Picking Lotus” 乼᧑㬞െ) (LRS 1:300)

ሂḣ❑Ӫ㠘ਔ⑑ ၏၏⦘・ሂຈ䐟

The weeping willow, with no one there, faces the ancient crossing, gracefully it stands alone on the Cold Pond Road.

(“Song of the Double Third” кᐣ㹼) (ca. 1638, LRS 1:334)

Some of Liu Rushi’s finest poems were written to mourn the end of her relationship with Chen Zilong. These include a sequence of twenty song lyrics written to the tune “Dreaming of Southland” དྷ⊏ই.74 Here is the ninth one (Liu Rushi ji 49): Ӫ৫ҏ Ӫ৫དྷ‫ٿ‬ཊ ៦᱄㾻ᱲཊн䃎 㘼Ӻ‫ڧ‬ᛄᴤ⭏⮿ དྷ㼑㠚↑။

He is gone. Gone, but perversely, dreams come evermore. Remembering past meetings when my words were few, I now secretly regret having kept you at bay. But there is still joy in dreams.

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Another song lyric in Drafts from the Wuyin Year, “On the Kite” (to the tune “Note After Note” 㚢㚢Ԕ), seems to have distinct autobiographical echoes (Liu Rushi ji 50). ὺ㣡䚴དྷ ᱕‫ݹ‬䃠ѫ Ფオ㿃ㆷ事⣲㲅 ቔ䴢⇒䴘 ᴹᱲ‫ى‬ 䋬ཙ伋 ਚ ᙅ ᥹Ԇнտ ㎢䮧付㍠ ⮛⁃ࡽ 㢧䲭㼑 ཙ⏟Ӗᴹᖡ䴉䴉 㑭ᱟ㒿㏯ 䴓ᗇ৫ ⑮⢭㒛 ᱲᱲᜱሽ䘧䴒⁩

The willow catkins still dream: who is the master of spring light? In the bright sky it looks for the place to defy all constraints. For all the weight of love and longing in clouds and rain, it sometimes flies as if touching the sky. I only fear it cannot be caught. The willow strands are long, the wind gentle. In front of the painted tower, under the blazing sun, at the edge of the world are pairs of shadows. It cannot help being entangled: hard to leave, truly tied: it will always face the blurry trees.

One of Liu Rushi’s most famous works is “On Cold Willows” 䂐ሂḣ (to the tune “Gold Brightness Pond” 䠁᰾⊐, ca. 1639– 1640) (LRS 336–41; Liu Rushi ji 176– 77), which conveys a mood of desolation: ᴹᛥሂ▞ ❑ᛵ⇈➗

The cold tides are laden with melancholy, lingering rays are void of love,

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↓ᱟ㮝㮝ই⎖ ᴤ੩䎧 䵌ọᆔᖡ 䚴䁈ᗇ 㠺ᱲ伋㎞ ⋱ᲊֶ ➉⎚ᯌ䲭 ⢩ൠⱖ㞠ྲ㡎 㑭аぞ␂⏬ ॱ࠶ោᛤ ቊᴹ⠅㠪֣ਕ ᱕ᰕ䟰ᡀ⿻ᰕ䴘 ᘥ⮷᱄付⍱ ᳇ۧྲ䁡 㑡侂ᴹ 㒎๔⮛㡨 ߧ㩭ⴑ ≤䴢⥦᭵ ៦ᗎࡽ а唎ᶡ付 ᒮ䳄㪇䟽㉮ ⴹ‫ނ‬ᜱ㤖 ᖵ㌴ㆷẵ兲 哳᰿ᴸ␑ 㠷Ժ␡ៀվ䃎

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just when autumnal rustle comes to southern shores.75 Still lifted by the wind is the lone shadow of a frosty branch. I still remember the flying catkins of yore,76 the more so when darkness comes with waves of mist by the setting sun, and the slender waists seem to be pointedly dancing.77 The same brand of sorrow of one relentlessly wasting away: what remains are the lovely lines of Yantai.78 A spring day turns inexorably into an autumn one with rain. Remembering the romantic élan of bygone days, I furtively mourn how things come to be. Even if there still are painted boats going around the bank, they are utterly in the cold, for all the tenacity of water and clouds. Memory comes: a whiff of east wind blocked by layers of curtains, eyebrows knit in sadness. Just wait for the tryst with the plum’s soul:79 under the faint moon at dusk you should share whispers and deep sympathy.

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Alluding to this song lyric and implying his immense admiration for and empathetic identification with Liu, Chen Yinke chose the names Gold Brightness Studio (Jinming guan) and Cold Willow Hall (Hanliu tang) to entitle collections of his writings. Liu Rushi’s de facto literary patron was Wang Ruqian (1577– 1655), a wealthy and well-connected literatus from a merchant family who financed the publication of her Poetic Drafts on the Lake (Hu shang cao, 1639) and Liu Rushi’s Letters (Liu Rushi chidu, ca. 1640).80 In addition to visiting Wang on his storied boat, Unmoored Garden (Buxi yuan), Liu sojourned in Wang’s Hengshan Estate and borrowed one of his small boats for travels. Wang’s attempts to help Liu find a worthy mate became the basis of their friendship. Liu’s letters to Wang, written in lapidary prose, offer insights into her mentality and circumstances. Below are two examples:

Liu Rushi’s Letters, fifth letter Ji Kang said, “In the mutual understanding of friends, there is nothing more precious than helping each other reach the fulfillment of nature.” Whenever I read these words, I never fail to sigh again and again. Now, observing in that light how you, sir, treat me, do these words not ring true? The traces of shallow talk and slanderous rumors are precisely the burden of existence, not the cause for pride or crowing self-satisfaction. As for the so-called distant wanderers drifting aloft, when the six feathers are not fully fledged, there is special urgency in discerning the crucial turn of circumstances. Now what I seek most ardently is a way to hide from attention—that and nothing more. I hope you, sir, will find a quiet place where I can tarry [literally, advance or retreat]. I am most anxious and most thankful. We can talk about the rest in detail when we meet.

In these letters, Liu also calls herself by the gender-neutral term “younger kin.” She begins by quoting Ji Kang’s (223–263) famous

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letter severing his friendship with Shan Tao (205–283). The cited lines announce an ideal from which Shan Tao is said to have fallen. Liu Rushi changes shi (understand) in Ji Kang’s original81 to ji (to bring to fulfillment, to help), perhaps emphasizing her need for Wang to come to her assistance. The “shallow talk and slanderous rumors” must have something to do with unwanted suitors: the amorous attention that might have flattered some other women only earns Liu’s disdain. By the late 1630s, Liu Rushi was famous, and there must have been many who sought her out.82 She imagines the freedom of “distant wandering,” but lacking the means to do so (“the six feathers are not fully fledged”), must act with extra care and keen judgment. Her request for a place to “hide from attention” (literally, “hide her traces”) is actually a plea for reprieve—the chance to weigh alternatives within the limited freedom afforded by Wang’s protection.

Liu Rushi’s Letters, seventh letter In the midst of the cuckoo’s cries and the dreamlike rain, it is as if my travels with you, sir, belonged to another life.83 All I know is that my return journey was dark and desolate—there was nothing but lemna on clear ripples and heartbreaking willows. Thinking back on your deep feelings, the fitting comparison would be the Bronze Terrace soaring high or the River of Heaven flowing west; how can one stop at the analogy with the thousand feet of the Peach Blossom Lake? But parting and separation bring new uncertainties—if one could not be like the immortals Magu and Fangping, then Liu and Ruan would come back to find no trace of the goddesses. As for our autumn agreement, I still harbor vague expectations—my hope is that you, sir, will offer your support and assistance. If at all convenient, please send a reply. For the ancients, the words of longing are written into the cries of the lone wild goose.84 That is the way I feel about you, sir. My letter is completed in melancholy.

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The Tang poet Li Bai wrote: ṳ㣡▝≤␡ॳቪ н৺⊚ٛ䘱ᡁᛵ

The water of Peach Blossom Lake may be a thousand feet deep, but it is no match for Wang Lun’s friendship in seeing me off.

The surname of Wang Lun summons the link with Wang Ruqian, but Liu brings it up only to reject it as inadequate. Instead, Liu eulogizes Wang’s friendship (“deep feelings”) with grand, cosmic metaphors. The Bronze Terrace (or Bronze Bird Terrace) built by Cao Cao may seem an odd allusion, as the singing girls kept there would bring demeaning associations.85 It is possible that “Bronze Terrace” here refers instead to the Bronze Immortal built by Emperor Wu of Han to collect dewdrops for mixing immortality elixirs—the statue was moved from the former Han capital (Chang’an) to Xu by the order of Emperor Ming of Wei (r. 226–239) in 233. Irrespective of the referent, the allusion is mediated through the Tang tale “Red Thread” (Hongxian) by Yuan Jiao (ninth c.).86 In that story, the woman knight-errant Red Thread undertakes a mission to intimidate her master’s rival by stealing the latter’s golden box. On her way back, she sees by the gate of the former Cao Wei capital “the Bronze Terrace soaring high, the Zhang River flowing east.” In other words, even if the referent is the Bronze Terrace (rather than the Bronze Immortal), the image evokes the heroic endeavor of the knight-errant rather than sensual indulgence. Liu replaces “the Zhang River” (by the Cao Wei capital Ye) in Yuan Jiao’s story with the River of Heaven, alluding to Du Fu’s line, “The sound of the River of Heaven flowing west” ⋣╒㚢㾯⍱, in “Climbing the Tower at the Temple of Compassion with Various Gentlemen” ਼䄨‫ⲫޜ‬᝸ᚙሪຄ (QTS 216.2258).87 By elevating a metaphor of dizzying height over that of gentle depth (“the Peach Blossom Lake”), Liu seems to be suggesting that Wang’s friendship for her is the expression of his knightly spirit

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(xiaqi), evoking a sense of “heroic endeavor that rises to the clouds and the heavens” (yi bo yuntian). In The Accounts of Immortals (Shenxian zhuan), Ge Hong (283– 343) tells how the woman immortal Magu is summoned by her male counterpart Wang Fangping to visit the commoner Cai Jing, who is destined to leave his mortal remains behind and become an immortal. Liu and Ruan refer to the famous story of Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao, who encounter goddesses and sojourn with them, only to return to the human world to find that generations have passed. Liu Rushi seems to be implying that if she and Wang Ruqian cannot be like Magu and Fangming, immortals on a mission to look for “the right man,” then she plans to become the unattainable goddess for all aspiring admirers. Wang’s role in this friendship is to act as the matchmaker. Liu’s letters contain evaluations of various suitors Wang introduced to her—we see her hopes, dismissal, mockery, disappointments, and frustrations. Through Wang Ruqian’s mediation, Liu Rushi visited Qian Qianyi in 1640. As told in the accounts above, Liu and Qian married in 1641. Some of the poems she exchanged with Qian have been preserved as “response poems” in Qian’s collection. Upon the reconstitution of the Ming court in Nanjing under the Hongguang emperor in the aftermath of the fall of Beijing to the rebels in 1644, Qian served as minister of rites. When the Nanjing government collapsed in the fifth month of 1645, Qian surrendered and went to Beijing without Liu, and served in the Qing court in 1646 as the vice supervisor of the Ming history project for about five months before resigning. Unlike Wu Weiye, Qian rarely showed remorse about his surrender and service in the Qing court. Instead, he articulated his Ming loyalist sentiments quite boldly. Chen Yinke and others argued that his peregrinations in the Lower Yangzi area in the 1650s were related to his sympathy with or involvement in anti-Qing resistance. The late Qing poet Shen Zengzhi (1850–1922) was the first to claim that Liu was also

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involved in resistance and played a role in inspiring Qian. Chen Yinke’s biography of Liu Rushi develops this narrative of Ming loyalism. Very few of Liu’s works written after the Ming collapse have been preserved. This might simply have been the failure to collect her writings on the part of her stepson, daughter, and son-in-law, who come across as rather helpless characters in all accounts. The factions hostile to her in the Qian clan could also have blocked the circulation and publication of her works. Chen Yinke surmises that Liu “deliberately embraced obscurity” to avoid attention because of her commitment to the loyalist cause (LRS 3:1012). Owing to the loss of almost all Liu’s post-conquest poems, her image as a Ming loyalist is entirely constructed through Qian’s poems about her or addressed to her.88 From the mid-1640s on, these poems change in tone: romantic passion is fused with the sense of common political purpose. Even as he pays tribute to her, she becomes the venue through which he tries to undo the shame of compromise and defines his own image as the hidden and misunderstood loyalist. As Gu Ling noted, Qian Qianyi was implicated in the case of Huang Yuqi’s anti-Qing resistance in 1647. One source claimed that Liu was directly involved in Huang’s cause and “went to the seas to raise the morale of the army” (LRS 3:888–89), but there is no corroborative evidence. Qian described Liu’s courage when he was arrested: “Lady Hedong, who was then gravely ill and lying in bed, abruptly got up. Braving death to follow me, she vowed to submit a letter requesting to die in my place, or else she was to follow me in death. Heroic and spirited, she led the way: there were no clinging, pathetic words. Relying on this, I also fortified myself ” (QMZ 4:9–13). Some sources claimed that Liu secured Qian’s release through hefty bribes; Chen Yinke believed she did so through skillful maneuverings of intercessors, evidence, and witnesses (LRS 3:899–900).

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A fair number of Qian’s post-conquest poems implicitly celebrate their shared political goal of loyalist resistance. A sequence of eight poems from 1659, “Written in Regret of Parting, Upon a Night Journey on a Small Boat on the Tenth Day of the Eighth Month” ‫ޛ‬ᴸࡍॱᰕሿ㡏ཌ⑑ᜌࡕ㘼֌,89 defined an especially important poetic tribute to Liu Rushi. Qian wrote these poems when he parted from Liu to join the rear guard of Zheng Chenggong’s naval force near Changshou, the night before Zheng ordered the attack on Chongming. His goal was probably to persuade Zheng not to retreat further, despite the setback Zheng had suffered at Nanjing two weeks before. The journey, however, came to naught because Zheng failed to seize Chongming and led the remnants of his troops to Zhoushan and then to Fujian and Taiwan (QMZ 8:946– 48; LRS 1168–69). The series looks back on Qian’s relationship with Liu over two decades (1640–1659). The third poem chronicling Liu’s role in antiQing resistance between 1653 and 1655 is notable for Qian’s ample annotations, as if he is eager to explain the circumstantial details and also indicate his close contact with forces of resistance (QMZ 7:11–12). For example, for the third line, “She gave up fine clothes and jewelry to deck out the Defenders” ⹤䲔ᴽ⨕㼍㖵╒, Qian added: “Yao Shenwu (Yao Zhizhuo) had the proposal to first ‘deck out five hundred Defenders of the Faith.’ My wife gave all she had to finance it. Only then could Yao raise an army.”90 The fifth line, “Embroidered banners of the women’s army fell with the ramparts” ၈ᆀ㒑ᰇ⠏༈‫ق‬, is explained thus: “Zhang Dingxi (Zhang Mingzhen) said to Miss Ruan:91 ‘I should send you, bearing a sword, to attend on Lady Liu (Liu Rushi).’ Ruan accepted the order gladly. During the Zhoushan campaign, she was hit by a stray arrow and perished. What a pity!” This would mean that Liu took part in the actual battle. It is not surprising that Qing retellings of Liu Rushi’s story should suppress all such references. Niu Xiu’s account is typical in

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seeing Liu’s “martyrdom for the Qian family” as the most praiseworthy act of her life. (Even accounts critical of Liu present her suicide as redemptive.) In reconstructing her role in anti-Qing resistance, Chen Yinke is taking his cue from Shen Zengzhi and following the modern nationalist tendency to glorify Ming loyalism. More importantly, Chen establishes Liu as a cultural ideal in new ways. He famously describes Liu Rushi as the representative of “the independence of spirit and freedom of thought of our people.” As a Ming loyalist, she embodies the right of disaffection and the need to claim a cultural-intellectual space not governed by political authority. For Chen, Liu represents the balance or tension between center and periphery, between cultural mastery and the spirit of rebellion. Learned and accomplished, she was nevertheless only a “defiant and free-spirited” courtesan, both courting and defying the establishment. She comes to symbolize the capacity of Chinese culture for regeneration through crossing boundaries and encompassing opposites.92

Chen Yuanyuan

W U W E I Y E , “ Y UA N Y UA N ’ S S O N G ” ൃൃᴢ (ca. 1652) (WMC 1:78–80)

唾⒆⮦ᰕỴӪ䯃 ⹤ᮥ᭦Ӝл⦹䰌 តଝ‫ޝ‬䓽Ⲷ㑎㍐ 㺍ߐаᙂ⛪㌵乿 ㌵乿⍱㩭䶎੮ᠰ 䘶䋺ཙӑ㠚㦂䆼 䴫ᦳ哳ᐮᇊ唁ኡ ଝ㖧ੋ㿚޽⴨㾻 ⴨㾻ࡍ㏃⭠ヷᇦ ‫ן‬䮰ⅼ㡎ࠪྲ㣡

Back then when the emperor abandoned the human realm,1 he crushed the enemy and took the capital, bearing down from Jade Pass.2 Wailing in grief were the six armies, all clad in the white of mourning. Raising his headgear was one rush of fury, all for the sake of the fair one.3 The fair one, drifting and fallen, was not what I cherished. Heaven smote the offending bandits wallowing in wanton pleasures. Lightning swept the Yellow Turbans, quelled the Black Mountain troops;4 having wailed for ruler and kin, I saw her again.5 We met first at the abode of imperial relative by marriage— 6 with songs and dance she emerged, flowerlike, at the noble house.

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䁡ሷᡊ䟼㇌ㇼԾ ㅹਆሷ䓽⋩໱䓺 ᇦᵜခ㰷⎓㣡䟼 ൃൃሿᆀᄼ㖵㏪ དྷੁཛᐞ㤁㻿䙺 ᇞၕ᫱‫⦻ੋޕ‬䎧 ࡽ䓛ਸᱟ᧑㬞Ӫ 䮰ࡽа⡷ₛຈ≤ ₛຈ䴉‣৫ྲ伋 օ㲅䊚ᇦᕧ䔹↨ ↔䳋䉸⸕䶎㮴ભ ↔ᱲਚᴹ␊⋮㺓 㯠ཙ᜿≓䙓ᇞᧆ ᰾⵨ⳃ喂❑Ӫᜌ ྚ↨≨ᐧ䮹㢟ᇦ ᮉቡᯠ㚢‫ۮ‬඀ᇒ ඀ᇒ伋䀤㌵ᰕ᳞ аᴢ૰㍳ੁ䃠䁤

Two Famous Courtesans

The promise was that the musical entertainer of the exalted lane would wait for the general’s shiny painted carriage. My family was from Washing Flowers Lane of Gusu.7 Lovely in fine silks, I am called Yuanyuan. In my dreams I wandered to the gardens of King Fucha. Palace women ushered me in: the ruler rose.8 In my former life I must have been a lotus gatherer; in front of my house was an expanse of the Hengtang stream. On Hengtang a pair of oars moved away, as if in flight— whence the powerful family that by force carried her away? At that moment, how could she know it was not ill fate? That was the time when she could only let tears freely flow. Overreaching sway extended to the palaces, but none cherished her shining eyes and bright smile.9 Snatched from the palace and confined to a respectable home, she was taught new songs to entrance the guests. The guests let cups fly in toast till the glowing sun set; to whom could this song of sorrow be sung?

Two Famous Courtesans

ⲭⳉ䙊‫ן‬ᴰቁᒤ ᧰ਆ㣡᷍ኒഎ亗 ᰙᭌᄼ匕ࠪ›㊐ ᖵᗇ䢰⋣ᒮᱲ⑑ ᚘ⇪䓽ᴨᓅ↫ۜ 㤖⮉ᖼ㌴ሷӪ䃔 ⴨㌴ᚙ␡⴨㾻䴓 аᵍ㸫䋺┯䮧ᆹ ਟៀᙍ႖⁃九ḣ 䂽֌ཙ䚺㊹㎞ⴻ ᗗ㍒㏐⨐ഽ‫ޗ‬ㅜ ᕧબ㎣⁩ࠪ䴅ℴ 㤕䶎༟༛‫ޘ‬ᑛऍ ⡝ᗇ㴮ⴹ३俜䚴 㴮ⴹ俜кۣબ䙢 䴢兏нᮤ傊兲ᇊ 㹏⛜䗾ֶ൘ᡠ๤ ஬࿍┯䶒⇈㌵ঠ ሸᖱ㉛啃ੁ〖ᐍ

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Fair was that young man with a noble title: he picked a flowering branch and repeatedly looked back.10 Make haste to take the lovely bird out of her cage; till when could we wait to cross the River of Heaven?11 Most hateful was the relentless haste urged by military missives. Painstakingly we planned the later meeting that almost eluded us. Planned with such love, that meeting became hopeless as the capital was, overnight, crawling with bandits. Pity the pining wife gazing at willows on her tower—12 she was but taken for willow catkins by the edge of the sky. They besieged the inner court, looking for her everywhere. Shouting for her, they forced her to emerge from carved balustrades.13 Had it not been for the brave man who achieved total victory, how could the lady have returned on a lone horse? For the lady on horseback came summons to proceed. Her coiffure askew, she was still in shock. Candles welcomed her on the battlefield; on her tear-streaked face were traces of rouge. With flutes and drums, the supreme commander headed to Qinchuan—14

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䠁⢋䚃к䓺ॳ҈ ᯌ䉧䴢␡䎧⮛⁃ ᮓ䰌ᴸ㩭䮻࿍䨑 ֶۣ⎸᚟┯⊏䜹 ⛿ẅ㌵㏃ॱᓖ䵌 ᮉᴢԾᑛៀቊ൘ ⎓㍇ྣդ៦਼㹼 㠺ᐒ‫ޡ‬ᱟ䣌⌕⠅ 伋к᷍九䆺匣ࠠ 䮧ੁሺࡽᛢ㘱བྷ ᴹӪཛႯ᫵‫⦻ן‬ ⮦ᱲਚਇ㚢᰾㍟ 䋤ᡊ਽䊚ㄦᔦ㠤 аᯋ᰾⨐㩜ᯋᜱ 䰌ኡ┲⋺㞠᭟㍠ 䥟ᙘ⣲付仪㩭㣡 ❑䚺᱕㢢ֶཙൠ ే㚎‫ۮ‬഻㠷‫ۮ‬෾

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on the Golden Bull Road were thousands of carriages.15 At Slanting Valley, deep in the clouds, a painted tower rose. The moon set over Sanguan, as she opened her makeup case.16 Her news came, filling all corners of her homeland— the tallow trees have already turned red with frost ten times. Music teachers of the pleasure quarters were moved by her survival, female companions in washing silk remembered her among their ranks.17 In the old nest they were together as swallows, mud in beaks; now she has flown to the branch’s tip, transformed into a phoenix. Some turn to the wine flask, mourning the passing of years, Some have husbands who prevail as lords. Then she was burdened by her fame, noble and powerful houses vied to be her patron. “One peck of pearls” was sung with ten thousand pecks of sorrow;18 she wasted away as she drifted through the land. But she was wrong to blame the ruthless wind for scattering fallen blossoms,19 for boundless spring has returned to heaven and earth. I have heard of beauties who toppled kingdoms and cities,

Two Famous Courtesans

㘫֯ઘ䛾ਇ䟽਽ ࿫ᆀ䉸៹䰌བྷ䀸 㤡䳴❑ླྀᱟཊᛵ ‫ޘ‬ᇦⲭ僘ᡀ⚠൏ аԓ㌵࿍➗⊇䶂 ੋн㾻 佘ဳࡍ䎧卋卖ᇯ 䎺ྣྲ㣡ⴻн䏣 俉䙅ລ⭏匕㠚஬ ኗᓺӪ৫㤄オ㏐ ᨋ㗭〫ᇞ㩜䟼ᜱ ⨐ⅼ㘐㡎ਔằᐎ ⛪ੋࡕୡ੣ᇞᴢ ╒≤ᶡইᰕཌ⍱

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yet against all odds she gave Master Zhou a great name.20 Why should wives be tied to affairs of state? But then a hero cannot help his deep feelings. His entire family’s white bones have turned into dust,21 a lady most famed in her era illumines the records of history. Do you not see? They have just risen from conjugal bliss in the Guanwa Palace.22 The flowerlike Yue maiden— one cannot see enough of her. Dust gathers on the Fragrant Stream, birds cry in unconcern. She is gone from the Corridor of Footsteps; the moss turns green in vain. There is infinite sorrow in the changes of tunes and scales; bejeweled singers and dancers performed the ancient “Song of Liangzhou.” In parting I sing for you the song of Wu palace, as the Han River flows southeast, day and night.23 555

[Translator’s note] Wu Weiye knew Mao Xiang, whose brief dalliance with Chen Yuanyuan is described in Plum Shadows. Wu might also have known Chen Yuanyuan personally. His own lover, Bian Sai, apparently lived in the same lane as Chen (Lindun li). Wu’s famous

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poem plays a decisive role in shaping the narrative that the military commander Wu Sangui (1612–1678) shifted his allegiance to the Qing because Chen Yuanyuan was held by the rebels when Beijing fell and he needed the help of Qing troops to recover his concubine. Some Qing historians and most modern historians dismiss or dispute Chen’s supposedly pivotal role in Wu Sangui’s calculations. In this poem, Wu sidesteps all indictment of Chen Yuanyuan, who seems to be more a victim than a femme fatale (or at the most she is an inadvertent and involuntary one) and focuses his caustic wit on Wu Sangui. Wu Sangui’s claim of avenging “ruler and father” is tied to the official version of the dynastic transition: namely, the Qing waged a war of vengeance against the rebels on behalf of the martyred Chongzhen emperor. By focusing on Yuanyuan’s role, Wu Weiye is implicitly claiming that the concatenation of circumstances that led to the Qing conquest was fortuitous and avoidable, tied to willful passions and accidental obsessions.24 The final lines of the poem led some Qing readers to marvel at Wu Weiye’s prescience: Wu Sangui eventually rebelled against the Qing and joined other army commanders who had defected to the Manchus and facilitated the conquest in the 1640s and the 1650s in the so-called Rebellion of the Three Border Principalities (1673–1681). The crushing of the rebellion marked the consolidation of Qing rule. At issue, however, is not so much the specific prediction of Wu Sangui’s downfall as a sense of mutability that mocks the illusion of glory and power.

S H E N Q I U, “ I N C I D E N TA L AC C O U N T S A B O U T Y UA N Y UA N ” 2 5 ( 1 6 8 0 s )

Chen Yuanyuan was a famous courtesan from Suzhou. In the xinsi year of the Chongzhen reign (1641), she was eighteen, excelled in singing and dancing, and belonged to the Pear Garden. With her serene beauty and fair complexion, she looked like a well-born lady of the inner chamber and had absolutely none of the manners of

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the pleasure quarters; that was why all sighed in admiration when she went on stage. At that time Consort Tian monopolized imperial favor, and the two wings of the palace were not in harmony.26 The rebels were becoming increasingly threatening and the army time and again suffered defeat. The emperor was unhappy. The imperial relative Zhou, Lord of Jiading, 27 who had returned to Suzhou to manage a funeral, wanted to obtain a woman unrivaled in beauty and accomplishments and present her to the emperor through the good office of the empress, so as to relieve the emperor’s anxious and unremitting labor and also to diminish the favor enjoyed by the Western Palace. He thus spent a great deal to acquire Yuanyuan, took her north, and had her placed in the palace. One day, the emperor saw Yuanyuan and asked whence she came. He also gave the order that she should be sent back. Consequently Yuanyuan remained in the Zhou residence. At that time Wu Sangui received the command to guard Shanhai pass.28 Zhou arranged a farewell feast for him and had Yuanyuan come out to entertain the guests.29 Wu looked at Yuanyuan again and again and seemed to be really interested in her. The following morning, Wu asked Zhou to give her to him, and Zhou refused. One of Zhou’s confidants said to him, “The court is right now entrusting the northern defense to Wu. Why should you, sir, begrudge a woman when you can gain his favor?” Zhou was moved by the argument and came around. At that time the court bestowed three thousand taels on Wu, and Wu immediately sent a thousand taels as betrothal gift. The deadline was drawing close, and he had to leave before he had time to marry Yuanyuan. Zhou prepared a dowry and sent it with her to the house of Wu’s father. Not long after, the rebels brought down the capital. They confiscated the property of various noble families and took control over their people, and Wu’s father was among them. The rebels, leading their troops, took Wu’s father east in order to use him to summon his son. They promised to reward Wu Sangui with a noble title, and Wu had already agreed to surrender when he wanted to know the whereabouts of Yuanyuan. The messenger did not dare

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conceal the truth and told Wu that she had been taken by the rebels.30 Wu then pressed on his sword and exclaimed, “If a man cannot protect his wife and family, what good is his life for?” He thus tightened the reins and left the pass, and reentered in the wake of our ruler’s army.31 Soon afterward, Wu’s father was killed. That is why “Yuanyuan’s Song” by Wu Weiye says, តଝ‫ޝ‬䓽Ⲷ㑎㍐ 㺍ߐаᙂ⛪㌵乿

Wailing in grief were the six armies, all clad in the white of mourning. Raising his headgear was one rush of fury, all for the sake of the fair one.

And also: 䴫ᦳ㌵ᐮᇊ唁ኡ ଝ㖧ੋ㿚޽⴨㾻

Lightning swept the Red Turbans, quelled the Black Mountain troops; 32 having wailed for ruler and kin, I saw her again.

Wu Weiye’s “Miscellaneous Feelings” says, ᘛ俜‫❑ނڕ‬䲀ᚘ ཙᮉ㌵㊹ᇊ⠅ኡ

The strongman on his swift steed has boundless regret, but Heaven has let the fair lady pacify Mount Yan.

This is the subtle critique of the poet-historian.33 Wu then quickly drove the bandits out along the Shanxi route, taking no rest day and night. 34 He still did not know whether Yuanyuan was alive or dead. At that point someone had already found Yuanyuan in the capital and sent her to Wu’s army. When he arrived at Jiangzhou35 and was about to cross the river, Yuanyuan caught up with him. They then got married, and Yuanyuan’s position was equal to that of a second wife. She was addressed with an honorific and rode in a carriage next to Wu. From Qin to Shu,

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Wu quelled the bandits and pacified the rebels, and he established his fiefdom in Yunnan. Wu’s elevated and powerful position had no parallel in recent history. Yuanyuan, as a courtesan, gained the admiring attention of all in the capital and was matched with a noble lord: Suzhou people spoke about this with envy. Here we already have the broad outline of Yuanyuan’s story. Later, Wu ruled over Yunnan and eventually rebelled. For twenty years or so, I have long lost track of Yuanyuan’s news. In the winter of the guihai year (1683), I met his honor Gui’an.36 His honor was formerly a prefect in the Yunnan area. I inquired about stories from that area and the conversation turned to Chen Yuanyuan. His honor said, “I did hear about her. Over there she was called Lady Xing, not Chen.” He told the story of the WuChen union in greater detail. One may surmise that Chen was the surname of Yuanyuan’s madam, and Xing was her original name. When Xing came to Wu’s feudatory estate, she was most famous and honored. However, she lived in a separate courtyard, washed off rouge and powder, abjured songs and dance, took up the yellow headdress and feathered coat of the Daoist, and kept to a vegetarian diet. She lived by herself in the residence and did not take part in any of the feasts and gatherings. Wu Sangui and his wife came now and then to her place, and they would talk and eat for the whole day. By evening they would return home, and Yuanyuan did not ask them to stay overnight. When difficult problems requiring special mediation or deliberation arose in the household, so long as one asked Lady Xing to speak on one’s behalf, no case was left unsolved. Her attention was focused on dispelling worries and resolving conflicts. She said, “I am a person of religious cultivation—I do good.” That was why all those inside and outside the household held her in high regard. Wu’s wife was vicious and jealous, but even she bent her will to Xing. For Xing knew full well the brutality of Wu’s wife, that was why she retreated and lived in ascetic withdrawal and did not compete for favor or gain. Her principle of using prudence and wisdom to protect herself raised her above others.37

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Wu had two concubines who were beautiful and excelled in singing and dancing. They were his favorites in the harem. When Wu led a military expedition to Shuixi, 38 he instructed his son to take good care of them. His son had to go on a trip for some reason, and the journey back and forth took two months. By the time he returned and checked on them, both had died. He was shocked and dismayed; upon asking, he found out that they had been killed by his stepmother. Only thus does one understand that others could not measure up to Xing’s self-effacement, whereby she kept out of harm’s way. After Wu Sangui was crushed and perished, his entire family was executed. The pleasure of song and dance at the terraces of Lingxiao and Congtai did not come to a good end.39 As for this white-haired Daoist priestess, how do we know that she did not jump from a building like Green Pearl or meet her end in Swallow Tower like Panpan?40 There is no way to find out. Those given to tale mongering in Suzhou only know how wondrously Yuanyuan met and became united with Wu in the midst of turmoil and devastation, or how honored and favored she was after Wu achieved success. They even go so far as to sigh over how the fate of one woman is tied to the rise and fall of dynasties. But they do not know that she gave up riches and position to enter the Way, and courageously withdrew from swift currents despite all the lure of splendor and glory. Wu Sangui knew only how to advance, not how to retreat, and consequently ended up in defeat and destruction. He was totally put to shame by a woman. That is why I recorded this. 555

[Translator’s note] Shen Qiu, who also wrote on Liu Rushi (see above), seems to have based his account of Yuanyuan in part on stories he heard as a fellow Suzhou native and on the information from a friend who served in Yunnan. Niu Xiu’s more famous and more sympathetic

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account of Yuanyuan might have been based on Shen Qiu’s version.41 According to Niu Xiu, Yuanyuan embraced religion because she could discern “the incipient signs” that Wu Sangui was “harboring subversive plans”— she represents the unheeded voice of reason and religious detachment. Niu’s account concludes with Wu’s rebellion (1673) and death (1678) and Yuanyuan’s mysterious disappearance: “Xing’s [Yuanyuan’s] name did not appear in the list of property confiscated and people arrested. Did she, like Yu Xuanji, undergo Zen transformation in death?42 Did she, like Red Thread, become an immortal recluse?43 Did she, like Panpan, end her days in Swallow Tower? This can no longer be known. But she preserved herself in times of upheaval, rejected glory and did not covet its mantle, returned her heart to the realm of purity, and to the end guarded her principles in her final years. If Yanling [Wu Sangui] were to meet her under the Nine Springs, how ashamed he would be!” Yuanyuan’s transformation and self-redemption seem to symbolically undo her supposed role in the fall of the Ming dynasty. In various nineteenth-century accounts, Yuanyuan is said to have drowned herself in the lotus pond on Wu’s estate. Other anecdotes tell of her spectral return. Her suicide came to be celebrated as expiatory martyrdom in Ding Chuangjing’s (1870–1930) Beauty in the Turmoil of History (Cangsang yan, 1908). In that play, her spirit also returns in a planchette session (a séance during which a medium possessed by the dead wields the brush) to write poems reflecting on her life, mourning her victimhood as the pawn of powerful men and affirming her love for Wu Sangui. In contrast to such rehabilitation, Lu Ciyun’s account, translated below, presents her as an ambitious and manipulative femme fatale.

LU CIYUN (1635?–1690), “ Y UA N Y UA N ’ S S T O R Y ” ( 1 6 8 0 s ) 4 4

Yuanyuan’s surname was Chen. She was a courtesan from Jade Peak.45 Her singing was the most superb in the whole world, and

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her beauty also had no rival in the whole world. In the guiwei year during the Chongzhen reign (1643), the commander Wu Sangui, drawn by her reputation, came with a thousand taels as betrothal gift, but she had already been taken by Tian Hongyu.46 At that time, Yuanyuan was chagrined by having missed the opportunity to serve Wu, and Wu was even more disappointed. Tian was the father of Emperor Huaizong’s consort.47 He was already quite old. When Yuanyuan composed the music for “Flowing Streams and Soaring Mountains” and sang it, Tian often beat time to its rhythm. Little did he know that Yuanyuan was lamenting the scarcity of true soul mates who understood her music.48 In the spring of the jiashen year (1644), the threat posed by the roving bandits became ever more urgent. Emperor Huaizong worried about it day and night and almost gave up on eating and sleeping. Consort Tian conferred with her father on how to relieve the emperor’s anxieties, and Tian presented Yuanyuan.49 Yuanyuan painted her eyebrows and entered the palace, hoping to invite the emperor’s attention, but the emperor was unmoved and soon gave orders to have her returned to Tian’s household. At that time the rebel army was about to press close to the capital. The emperor urgently summoned Wu Sangui to have an audience at Level Terrace and bestowed on him a python robe, a jade belt, and the sword of power and privilege. 50 Wu was entrusted with weighty responsibilities and the country’s fate—he was to guard Shanhai Pass. Wu received the command in the spirit of heroic determination, for he took pride in his loyalty and integrity. But the marauders were deep in our territory! The rich families in the capital were all terrified. Tian was extremely worried and talked to Yuanyuan about his concerns. Yuanyuan said, “When the world is in turmoil and you, sir, have nothing you can rely on, disaster will certainly overtake you. What don’t you forge a friendship with General Wu so that you can fall back on his support in case of a crisis?” Tian said, “What sort of times are we in? Even if I wanted to cultivate his goodwill, he would not have time for it.”

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Yuanyuan said, “Wu has been envious of the singing and dancing in your household for some time. You, sir, should heed Shi Chong’s example: if you do not let others see your treasures, when the conflagration destroys everything, be they jades or stones, will you still be able to keep the gates of Golden Valley firmly closed?51 Why not invite him with the prospect of entertainment? He will surely come and not refuse.” Tian agreed, and thus personally invited Wu to see his family entertainers. Wu wanted to go but deliberately refused, and went only after being urged to do so. When he arrived, it turned out that he came to the feast in martial garb, looking as if he could not be prevailed upon in any way. Tian set forth an even grander banquet and became even more deferential. Shortly after the wine started making its rounds, Wu wanted to leave. Tian changed the locale for different stages of feasting, and they reached a secluded chamber. Tian brought forth his concubines and entertainers who played string and wind instruments. They were all extraordinarily lovely. One who was simply attired in muted colors and wearing little makeup commanded a beauty greater than the rest and also had a singing voice that was far superior. She was alluring and charming. Sangui could not help feeling enthralled, and his heart was swayed. He abruptly asked to be relieved of his martial garb and changed into a light cloak. He looked at Tian and said, “Is this not the one called Yuanyuan? Indeed she could make a city fall! Do you, sir, have no fear embracing such a beauty?”52 Tian did not know how to answer, and ordered Yuanyuan to pour wine. Yuanyuan came to the table, and Wu said, “You must be very happy?” Yuanyuan whispered, “Hongfu is unhappy even with the Lord of Yue, let alone one who does not measure up to the Lord of Yue!”53 Wu nodded. As they were drinking heartily, alarms came, one on the heels of another. Wu did not seem to want to go, although he had no choice. Tian drew closer and said, “When the marauders arrive, what is to be done?” Wu said abruptly, “If you can give me Yuanyuan, I will protect your family before I

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protect the country.” Tian reluctantly agreed to it. Wu immediately had Yuanyuan bow to Tian to take her leave and bore her away on a light horse. Tian was at a loss, but there was nothing he could do. The emperor urged Sangui to leave for the pass. Sangui’s father, who oversaw the imperial camps and was named Xiang, feared that the emperor would hear about Sangui taking Yuanyuan with him and kept her in the Wu residence without letting her go. After Sangui left, the rebel bandits breached the city walls of the capital, and Emperor Huaizong died for the altars of the state. Li Zicheng took over the palace, and half of the palace ladies died, while the rest fled. Zicheng asked a eunuch: “There are supposed to be three thousand lovely ladies in the imperial palace; how come there isn’t even one superb beauty?” The eunuch said, “The former emperor abjured sensual indulgence and had very few beautiful women. There was one Yuanyuan, who was the most beautiful woman in the world. The imperial relative Tian presented her to the emperor, but the emperor rejected her. I heard that Tian gave her to Wu Sangui, and Wu Sangui has kept her in the residence of his father Wu Xiang.” At that time Wu Xiang had just surrendered to Li Zicheng, and Li then turned to Xiang and demanded to have Yuanyuan. He also confiscated Wu Xiang’s property and ordered him to write a letter to summon his son. Xiang followed all his commands and presented Yuanyuan. Zicheng was surprised and delighted. He immediately asked her to sing, and she struck up some Wu tunes. Zicheng frowned and said, “How can someone so beautiful sound so unbearable?” He then ordered his women to sing in the western style and play the Ruan lute, the horizontal lute, and the hupo pipa. He himself clapped to its rhythm: the music was fast and stirring and brought a rush of emotions. He turned to Yuanyuan: “What about this music?” Yuanyuan replied, “This music is fitting only for heaven—it is not what we from the southern borders can aspire to!” Zicheng was quite enamored of her. He then sent

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someone to take forty thousand taels to honor the exertion of Sangui’s army. When Sangui received his father’s letter, he was about to gladly accept Li’s offer, when one messenger arrived. 54 Wu asked him: “Did my family suffer?” “Everything has been confiscated by the rebels!” “When I got back, he will of course return the things.” Another messenger arrived. Wu asked, “Did my father suffer?” “He has been detained by the rebels!” “When I arrived, he will of course release him.” Another messenger arrived. Wu asked, “Did Lady Chen suffer?” “She has been taken by the rebels!” Sangui pulled out his sword and hacked the table, saying, “If that is indeed the case, how can I still follow you?” He thus wrote a letter to answer his father; its broad outline said, “Relying on my father’s merit, I got to serve in the ranks of the military. I had thought that although the bandit Li persisted in his aggression and brutality, he would soon be crushed. How could I have known that we have no able men in our land and all have bent like grass in the wind? I have also heard that our sainted emperor has died, and my eyes could not help bursting with indignation! Still I thought my father would make his desperate blow with the mallet 55 and vow to die attacking the marauders, or else he would cut his own throat to die as a martyr for the fallen state. How could you have borne with the shame, stealing undeserved survival and instructing me to act against principles of duty? Not only did you lack Xiaokuan’s talents in resisting the invaders, you were put to shame by the courage of the Pingyuan defender who cursed the traitors!56 Since my father cannot be a loyal subject, how can his son be a filial son? I bid you farewell, Father. Unless you strive for the demise of the bandits right away, I will not be swayed—not even if they put my father next to the cauldron and chopping block to lure me to their side!” He then followed the example of the Chu minister crying at the Qin court to plead for assistance from our ruler’s army to eradicate the all-powerful bandit rebels.57 Right away he defeated them at Yipianshi.58

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Li Zicheng was furious and slaughtered Wu Xiang and his family—about thirty people in all. He wanted to kill Yuanyuan. Yuanyuan said, “I have heard that General Wu has packed up his weapons and is on his way back. It is only because of me that he is rousing his troops for the campaign. To have me killed is no cause for pity or concern—but I fear that he would become your sworn enemy to your grave disadvantage!” Zicheng wanted to take Yuanyuan with him as he was leaving the capital. Yuanyuan said, “Since I have already served you, great king, how can I not want to follow you? But I am afraid that General Wu will relentlessly pursue you because of me. Your majesty should consider: if you have the power to fight him, I will right away scoop up my skirt and ride the battle horse.” Zicheng thus sank into deep deliberation. Yuanyuan said, “Let me plan on behalf of your majesty: you should leave me behind to mitigate the situation and delay the enemy. I will persuade him not to pursue you to repay your favor and beneficence.” Zicheng assented and thus abandoned Yuanyuan, bore the supplies and gear for his troops, and went westward with his army in distress and disarray. At that moment, the bandit rebels were already desperately shaken and could have been eradicated with one final push.59 Sangui recovered control of the capital and urgently looked for Yuanyuan. He found her, and they embraced each other, mixing tears of joy. Without waiting for Yuanyuan to intercede on behalf of the rebels, he himself made the decision that the rules of battle caution against pursuing a desperate enemy, so he let them escape without raising the issue again. Soon afterward, Wu Sangui received a fiefdom from our ruler. He built Sutai and Meiwu in south Yunnan.60 Ever so often he asked Yuanyuan to sing, and she frequently sang stanzas from the “Great Wind” to flatter him.61 Intoxicated with wine, he would usually pull out his sword and rise to dance, displaying the mien of great aspirations and defiant endeavor. Yuanyuan would then raise the wine cup to drink to his long life; she considered his martial valor peerless in his era. That was why she enjoyed his undivided favor that remained constant for decades. That he harbored

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subversive intent, affected humility, and secretly formed alliances was, according to some sources, the result of plots hatched with the one who shared his dreams. Yet there are those in the world who do not understand this: they consider Sangui a man of loyalty and filial piety because he was able to follow the example of Shen Baoxu and avenge the great calamity visited on his ruler and his father.62 How could they have known that the reason he pleaded for troops lay in this and not in that? Eventually he enjoyed the highest honors and faced south for more than thirty years.63 But then the waves roiled again in his waters,64 for which the emperor was put to the trouble of a punitive expedition. The defiant strongman and his beautiful wife were crushed and met their end together. Even so, how could this atone for his crime for not having been a proper son or a proper subject? Lu Ciyun said, “As the saying goes, ‘That which is not attested cannot be believed.’65 Can the story about Yuanyuan be attested? I replied: Yes. It can be attested by Wu Weiye’s poem. Wu Weiye, following the style and model of the “Song of Pipa” and the “Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” 66 wrote “Yuanyuan’s Song” to criticize Wu Sangui. When it says, ‘Raising his headgear was one rush of fury, all for the sake of the fair one,’ it is the truthful record. Sangui offered a significant amount to request the removal of this poem from Wu’s collection, but Wu did not agree. When Sangui was at the height of his power, the poet was able to forthrightly denounce his misdeeds and refuse his bribe without paying any attention to him.67 As for the rebellion in the jiayin year (1674), he seems to have seen its minute beginnings.68 Alas! Is not Wu Weiye the Dong Hu among poet-historians!” 69 555

[Translator’s note] Lu Ciyun hailed from Hangzhou and served as a prefect in Jiangyin (1685–1688). His account of Yuanyuan overlaps significantly with Sha Zhangbai’s (1626–1691) “Yuanyuan’s Story,” included in

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Sha’s prose collection as well as Yu Chu’s Expanded Records (Yu Chu guangzhi, 1915) compiled by Jiang Qiqun.70 Sha’s version contains Wu Xiang’s letter to Wu Sangui, in which he argues that only by surrendering to Li Zicheng would Wu Sangui fulfill the imperatives of filial piety and loyalty. It also includes some more circumstantial details on the military decisions and troop movements of Wu Sangui and the rebels. Possibly somewhat less complimentary references to the Qing were erased and appear as blank squares in extant versions. Since Sha’s account makes no reference to Wu Sangui’s rebellion, it was likely written before 1674. It concludes with a curious juxtaposition of Wu’s despicable motivation in shifting allegiance to the Qing and Yuanyuan’s prescience in choosing a worthy mate: “Yuanyuan can be said to be a good judge of character.” By paring down details, keeping a more sustained focus on Yuanyuan, and averring her role in Wu’s rebellion, Lu Ciyun constructs the image of Yuanyuan as a femme fatale who controls her own fate and affects the course of history. Its inclusion in Zhang Chao’s popular anthology, Yu Chu’s New Records (Yu Chu xinzhi), ensured its circulation.71

“ S T O R I E S A B O U T C H E N Y UA N Y UA N ” ( 1 9 1 5 ) , YU LANXIAN (A LADY FROM QUXIAN)

East of the Silver Yonder Gorge and the Jade River, north of the Golden Horse and Emerald Rooster Ranges, a mountain rises abruptly. It is called Wuhua. On the mountain is a pavilion that soars to the clouds. It is called the Imperial Pavilion. Hugging the pavilion is a winding wall and thousands of ancient trees—they have all been around for several hundred years. Legend has it that it was the former palace of the Zhu Youlang, the last scion of the Ming house.72 It was also the ruins of Wu Sangui’s palace. The palace gate faces south. A flight of several hundred stone steps is overgrown with weeds. Although the palace is unbearably

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dilapidated, its grandly imposing dimensions still inspire awe, and one cannot help being overcome with emotions about the cataclysmic changes that come with the decline and fall of dynasties. Turning west from the steps, there are scores of courtyards to the south. Thousands of doors and portals adorn interwoven towers and terraces. Sunlit gold and emerald, like a colorful mirror hanging in the sky, dazzle the viewer. This is the spot of spiritual cultivation for Chen Yuanyuan, favored consort of the Wu king73 and the beauty from the end of the Ming dynasty. Chen was originally from Suzhou. She also had the name Yuan and the sobriquet Wanfen. Originally from the Xing family, she took the name of her adoptive mother when she became a courtesan at Jade Peak, and thus became known as Chen. Before the Wu king rose to prominence, he had been drawn by Chen’s reputation and had offered a thousand taels as betrothal gift. Before his emissary arrived, however, Chen had been taken by Tian, distaff relative of the imperial family. Subsequently, the latter’s daughter Consort Tian adorned Chen and presented her to the emperor. The emperor did not find her suitable and had her sent back to the Tian. Chen took great pride in her talents and beauty and, not having met with imperial favor, was often cast in gloom. She heard that Sangui had tried to offer a thousand taels as betrothal gift and was secretly moved. Right then the rebels were pressing closer by the day, and Tian, worried about the dangerous situation, felt helpless. Chen then used the opportunity to ask Tian to invite Sangui for a feast and try to win his favor by bringing out his family entertainers to pour wine and attend to him, with a view to securing Sangui as an ally who would defend Tian. Tian followed her advice. When Sangui arrived and saw that Chen was personally attending to the drinking, he was pleased but still had no wherewithal to press his case. Halfway through the drinking, alarms came. Tian was shocked and fearful. Holding up the wine cup, Sangui said, “If you can give me Chen Yuanyuan, I will protect your entire family and see to your safety.” Tian had no choice but

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to comply. Chen thus became Sangui’s concubine. When Li Zicheng brought down the capital, Chen fell into the hands of the rebels. It was only when the Qing army drove away Zicheng that Chen reunited with Sangui. Subsequently Sangui accepted Qing enfeoffment and headed to Yunnan to pacify the unrest there. That was how Chen Yuanyuan’s name became well known at the shores of Kunming Lake. When Chen Yuanyuan first came to Yunnan, Sangui favored her above all other consorts. Observing her moods and catering to her wishes, he tried to win her favor in every possible way: lovebird porcelain tiles, jadeite balustrades, precious clothes made with Sichuan brocade, curtains and mattresses fashioned from Yunnan silk— even if he were to collect all the precious things under heaven to please her, he would still be fearful that the beauty would not be satisfied. Who could have known that old age would come so soon and that beauty would not last? The beauty of yesteryear was battered by the passage of time, and before ten years passed her freshness began to fade. Her lotuslike face could no longer be as lovely as it was at the moment of their first encounter. By then Sangui had newly obtained several beauties and had set them up in an array of rooms where music from pipes and strings held sway. Sangui thus “found pleasure there and no longer thought of Shu.” 74 Chen Yuanyuan’s chambers no longer saw any trace of Sangui. After Sangui transferred his love to other women, Chen was at first jealous, but she then reasoned her way to equanimity, and finally thoughts of renunciation took hold. She thus requested of Sangui that a separate compound be built outside the royal palace and be made into an abode for her solitary spiritual cultivation. For she wanted to turn to the austere lamplight and ancient Buddha to end her remaining days, and no longer wished to use her allure to vie with others to win love. Although Sangui was not too pleased when he heard the request, he finally acceded to it after initial resistance. That is why a separate palace was built outside the

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palace gates to the right of the stone steps. Although it was not as grand as the royal palace, its pavilions, terraces, and ponds were winding and secluded, and compared to the homes of ordinary people, it was like heaven and earth. After the completion of the separate palace, Chen moved there, became a vegetarian, honored the Buddha, and paid no heed to the outside world. Aside from four female attendants, it was rare that anybody could catch a glimpse of her real form. From one day to the next, she did nothing but burn incense, honor the sutras, play the zither, and learn to paint to pass the time. Now and then she might summon nuns from certain temples to the palace to discuss sutras, or she might play chess with them all day. But even that did not happen too often. In the separate palace was a tower called Sea View. There was no sea but only lakes in Yunnan. The tower got that name because one could see Kunming Lake by climbing it, and the locals called the lake, which measures five hundred li, the Kunming Sea. On the right of the tower was a moon gate entwined with wisterias—it had all the evocativeness of a painting. Going through the gate, one would pass by a pavilion surrounded by water. In the water, pellucid as a mirror, one could count the fish. The pavilion was linked to a bridge whose balustrades were wrought with extreme intricacy. Carved in marble, they could have been the work of gods and spirits. The bridge turned into a winding corridor— only then would one see the gates of the Draping Blossoms Tower. Inside the gates, the space was suffused with a warm fragrance so overpowering as to be intoxicating. The lowest level of the tower was where Chen spent her leisure hours. One level above was where she read and painted. On the third level, a Buddhist shrine with a statue of the Water Moon Bodhisattva Guanyin was set up for worship.75 On four sides were balustrades where one could lean and look afar. Further, the building directly faced the waterside pavilion of the royal palace, and calls from one place could reach the other. Time and again, on beautiful spring and autumn days, when all was quiet deep into the night, at the moment when the music

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of pipes and strings was playing in the Wu palace, Chen embraced her zither alone and plucked it as she burned incense and faced the moon. When Sangui heard it, he too was moved and often braved frost and dew to come to Chen’s quarters in the middle of the night to console her in her solitude. Even then Chen would only warm wine and sit with him. After a brief discussion on philosophical and religious topics, she would urge him to return to his palace. They did not ever, in that pure and calm courtyard of Buddhist devotion, follow the example of lovebirds in roosting together. In the winter of the guichou year during the Kangxi reign (1673), Sangui raised troops for a military expedition against the barbarians.76 When Chen found out, she sighed: “There will be no place to die a natural death!” She shook her sleeves and rose, and went to see Sangui. She remonstrated with him to the point of weeping, but he did not heed her. Subsequently she sent Sangui a letter, whose broad outline said, “Those who have no intention to kill but invite suspicions are in danger; those who intend to kill and let it be known are in even greater peril. Before Your Majesty undertook your great enterprise, you first aroused the court’s suspicions. When you were about to undertake your great enterprise, you let the court know about it. Suspicions mean that preparations are under way; prior knowledge means that any offensive would be difficult. Whether you will succeed or not cannot be foretold. But if you fail, there’s no greater peril. Moreover, from ancient times those who established great enterprises or achieved great merit all took advantage of strategic openings. Without opportunities afforded by heaven-sanctioned timing, the advantage of geography, and human cohesion,77 one would ultimately not succeed. Now at the moment when the Manchus entered the pass, Your Majesty could have made use of heaven-sanctioned timing. I urged you to drive away the barbarians and establish yourself as ruler, and you abandoned the idea. Before you entered Yunnan, you could have banked on the advantage of geography. My request was that you support the Ming heir in order to revive the former

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dynasty and station your troops in Wuhan so as to connect with all the forces of resistance under heaven, but you put aside the idea. Dorgon and Oboi trampled on the people and massacred the Han Chinese.78 Rancor festered among the people and their hearts were filled with rage and resentment; you could have relied on the power of human cohesion to rally them. Again I tried to convince you to release the Ming scion79 and plan for the great enterprise, yet you ignored me. To have dragged on until now, when the Qing foundation is already secure, and to want to face the multitudes of tigers and jackals from the north in your waning years,80 embracing a cause whose success or failure cannot be known and that will leave a great blight on your progeny—this is not the right course. Such is but a woman’s opinion, may Your Majesty consider it.” When Sangui received the letter, he did not respond. Chen then moved from the Sea View Tower to the Golden Horse Mountain, relying on Buddhist cultivation for self-protection. White-haired palace ladies still talk about the Tianbao era.81 How deep the sigh is for the millet that has overtaken the former palace!82 The Wu king was defeated, and Yuanyuan is long gone. To the left and right of the palace, Buddhist temples have successively sprung up. The separate palace for Yuanyuan was made into an academy with the name Wuhua. As a result, the vermilion curtains and painted pavilions were transformed into the arena of study for scholars. As for the Sea View Tower, the gates locked its emptiness, leaving all to the light from the sun and the moon. Only various scholars, in their moments of leisure from studying, would now and then discuss literature there with a flask of wine. What remained, when all became quiet at night and the moon shone bright, were two or three men of sensibility inspired by the ruins of the beauty’s former home to compose poems of lamentation and remembrance. Who could have known that creations from the beauty’s hands and the object owned by the hero would be unearthed after two hundred years? Alas! This is enough to arouse wonder and melancholy reflections.

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In the bingwu year of the Guangxu reign (1906), each province established its new-style schools. In Yunnan, the Wuhua Academy was transformed into Superior Normal College. At that time, all vied to imitate European architecture. The realm of ornate splendor and quiet seclusion was inevitably destroyed to make room for expansion. When construction workers were filling up a pond, they suddenly discovered two things at its muddy bottom. One was a jade royal signet with a long handle and a square seal. The seal, measuring about five inches on each side, had characters carved in archaic script: “Receiving the Mandate from Heaven.” It was made from green jade, and under the graph for “Heaven,” a corner was slightly chipped off.83 Having found it, the workers presented it to the academic supervisor, his honor Ye. (His honor Ye, named Erkai, has the sobriquet Bogao. A Hanlin academician of the Qing dynasty who hailed from Zhejiang, he was at that time the superintendent of education at Yunnan.84) The signet was subsequently kept in the treasury. There was also a case made of nan wood—it was about three feet in length, three inches in width, and two inches in height. It felt quite heavy. The workers thought it contained gold and gems and hid it. When they returned home and opened the case, they could not help feeling disappointed, for there were neither gold nor gems in the case. Instead they found a stone statue85 and a beauty painted on silk as well as a piece of paper—it was Yuanyuan’s handwritten letter to Sangui. The workers did not know what to make of these and tried to sell them to the antique dealer Li Shaoquan while concealing their origins. Li also could not identify them and asked the district instructor, his honor Yang. (Yang was named Jianqing and had the sobriquet Jingquan. A provincial graduate who hailed from Dali in Yunnan, he had retired from office and was leading a leisurely existence at home.) Yang told Li that these were fakes and bought them for a cheap price. Afterward he often showed them off to his relatives and friends. As a result, a true portrait of the beauty and a manuscript from her hand became widely known all over Yunnan after two hundred years of oblivion.86

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The painting is about six feet in length and two feet and five or six inches in width. It was painted on the heaviest kind of southern silk. In the upper part is the moon; at the bottom are patches of grass. Painted on the left are tall willows, and on the right, big rocks. Inside the chamber stands a beauty in palace costume embracing a zither with her right arm and holding an incense burner in her left hand. Fragrant smoke rises, twirling, from the incense burner, as if about to fly to the sky. The beauty wears a long, trailing dress with wide sleeves. Her chignon is piled high and adorned with pearls and jade ornaments. With a wide forehead and curved eyebrows, enchanting eyes and cherry lips, she has an aura of loveliness and an appealing charm. Beholding this Zhenzhen in a painting,87 one can only feel ashamed of one’s inferiority. On the left corner is an inscription in seven characters: “Embracing the zither, playing in the moonlight.” Under the characters is a seal stamp of a little less than a square inch. It says in archaic script: “My home is at the foot of Raging Bull Mountain.” The figure in the painting and the stone statue bear a distinct resemblance; the only difference is that the painting shows youth and the statue, old age. The stone statue is carved with extreme artistry. The figure’s unbound hair flows behind her back, and she is dressed in religious costume. Those who encounter it without paying special attention all take it to be a stone image of Bodhisattva Guanyin; they would not know it is Yuanyuan. A lotus seat is carved under the figure. At the bottom of the seat, a heptasyllabic regulated verse in standard script is inscribed. Each character is as small as a fly’s head, undecipherable without the utmost exertion of one’s eyes. The poem says: 䅛㩭㌵ລഋॱᒤ ⴞ㏃⓴⎧ᴤẁ⭠ 䓛❑ਟᠰ⭈⛪公

Banished to the realm of Red Dust for forty years, I have seen with my eyes vast seas turning into mulberry fields.88 Void of all attachments, I would gladly become a ghost,

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഻ࡠ䴓㠸予ॆ➉ аረ⴨ᙍаረᆭ ᒮ㘫⎙ࣛᒮ㘫㐓 傊兲н৫ஓ乁⸣ ᡻䙐䴉䓰㼌ᚘཙ

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losing hope for the country, my wish is to turn into smoke. An inch of longing makes for an inch of evil karma. How many rounds of kalpic destruction, how many rounds of love? My numinous spirit is not going to carry insentient rocks: my hands will make paired bodies to repair the heaven of regret.89

The Woman Lanxian says, “The reason Chinese women have not had any concern for their country is because their parents stubbornly hold on to the notion that ‘for a woman lack of talent is virtue.’ As a result, those who have daughters do not pass on to them any inkling of common knowledge that all citizens should have, and two hundred million female compatriots are thus sunken, day after day, in the realm of darkness. Chen Yuanyuan was a girl born into poverty and caught in the world of the pleasure quarters. Taken into the palace and then ensnared among bandit rebels, she eventually gave herself to Sangui after many twists and turns of fate. The ones not in the know may suspect that Yuanyuan became famous only because of her beauty and that she had no talent or virtue to speak of. It was only with the discovery of her self-portrait and handwritten letter that those who read her poem and contemplate her calligraphy and painting know that the Yuanyuan’s story is passed on not only because of her surpassing beauty: with her talent and vision, she also far exceeded others.” 555

[Translator’s note] Little is known about the woman writer Yu Lanxian. She published the above story in the journal Women’s World (Nüzi shijie) in

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1915,90 four years after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Reflecting the anti-Manchu sentiments of her time, Yu imagines a nationalist Chen Yuanyuan plotting for Han resurgence at every possible juncture, be it under the leadership of Wu Sangui or of a Ming prince. In Wu Weiye’s poem, Chen Yuanyuan is an inadvertent femme fatale who brought about the fall of the Ming and had little control over her fate. In successive stories she becomes the schemer (Lu Ciyun’s story), the voice of political prescience and religious transcendence (stories by Shen Qiu and Niu Xiu), and the witness and mourner (Ding Chuanjing’s play). Here she becomes the hero and would-be avenger. The fictional archaeological discovery confirms her agency as the one who tells her own story.

Notes

INTRODUCTION 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

For the editions used in this volume, see MPJ 1:575– 610; BJ 203– 341; YH 2:403–40; BQ. Many of the annotations in this book are based on the research of Li Jintang and Æki. For the textual history of Plum Shadows, see BJ 205–8; MPJ 1:5; Wei Ran, “Yingmei’an yiyu banben yuanliu kao.” The term ji can be used for both courtesans and common prostitutes, while chang is more often used for prostitutes, and the derogatory term biaozi refers only to prostitutes. “Marriage” in such cases often means becoming a concubine. For example, one Tang official encountered a courtesan who was the daughter of a fellow official (Fan Shu, Yunxi youyi, 1274– 75). See Plank Bridge 77. Zhanguo ce 1.14–15; Zhou Lianggong (1612–1672), Yinshu wu Shuying, 4.101. Guan Zhong was the minister who helped Lord Huan of Qi (r. 685– 643 BCE) achieve the status of overlord. Yuejue shu jiaoshi 8.202. On “powder money” during the Ming, see Xie Zhaozhi (1567–1624), Wu zazu, 8.157. See Plank Bridge 67, 69–70. Liu Wei, “Bei Wei yueji zhidu kao.” See Wu Zhou, Zhongguo jinü wenhua shi, 79–128. In 1728, the bureau changed its name to Music Office (Heyue shu). The Harmonious Sounds Office (Hesheng shu) of 1742 and the Sacred Music Office (Shenyue shu) of 1747 were related institutions (Qing shi gao 114.3285). Suishu 15.380–81. On courtesans during the Song, see Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity. See Zhou Mi (1232–1308), Qi dong yeyu, 374– 76; Ling Mengchu (1580–1644), comp., Erke pai’an jingqi, story no. 12. For Zhu Xi’s accusations against Tang and Yan, see Zhuzi wenji 19.638–40, 651, 659.

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15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

Introduction

Luo Dajin (thirteenth c.), Helin yulu, 2.266; Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 206. On this issue, see Wu Cuncun, Xi wai zhi xi; Homoerotic Sensibilities; Cheng Yu’ang, Ming Qing shiren yu nandan. Tiantai yesou, Da Qing jianwen lu, 326. On sources on Ma Xianglan, including Wang Zhideng’s biography of Ma, the letters he sent to her, and the elegiac poems he wrote to mourn her, see Miao Quansun, Qinhuai guangji, 376–83; Wai-yee Li, “The Late Ming Courtesan.” The Shanghai Museum has the manuscript of Ma Xianglan’s eight letters addressed to Wang Zhideng. Ma was famous for her orchid paintings. Qian Qianyi, Liechao shiji, 12.6626. See Plank Bridge 101–03. See Liu Rushi (212–15) in “Two Famous Courtesans.” See McMahon, Polygamy and Sublime Passion; Yeh, Shanghai Love; Zamperini, Lost Bodies; Des Forges, Mediasphere Shanghai; Yue Lisong, Wan Qing xiaxie wenhua; Liu Shiyi, Mingdai qinglou wenhua yu wenxue; Gong Bin and Fan Shaolin, Qinhuai wenxue zhi. See Feng Menglong, comp., Gujin xiaoshuo, story no. 12, “All the Courtesans Mourned Liu Yong in the Spring Wind,” and the anecdotal sources for this story from Song to Ming (Tan Zhengbi, Sanyan lianpai ziliao, 61– 68). For studies of this work, see Rouzer, Articulated Ladies, 248–83; Feng, City of Marvel and Transformation, 112– 34. See Cui Ya’s poems mocking a courtesan (QTS 870.9858; TPGJ 256.1994). Yuan Zhen, “Another Poem (to Letian [Bai Juyi])” 䟽䌸[′ཙ] (QTS 417.4598). In one story, Zhou Bangyan was hiding under the bed when Emperor Huizong visited Li Shishi and brought her an orange. Zhou later composed a song lyric depicting the amorous gift-giving scene and incurred the emperor’s wrath (Zhang Duanyi [thirteenth c.], Gui’er ji, 4305). These paintings, no longer extant, bore titles corresponding to the subheadings: “Depicting Record of First Encounters,” “Depicting Record of Her Quietness,” “Depicting Record of Her Interest in Poetry, History, Calligraphy, and Painting,” and “Depicting Record of Her Interest in Tea, Incense, Flowers, and the Moon.” See Plank Bridge 105; Liu Rushi, in Two Famous Courtesans 189, 195. Tanhua refers to the third place in the palace examination. Plank Bridge 76. See Plum Shadows 88–89. See Luo Ye, Xin bian Zuiweng tanlu, 1.34– 37. See Ko, “The Written Word”; GĎyama, trans. Xiao Yanwan, Ming Qing shidai de nüxing yu wenxue, 103–36; Æki, trans. Xin Ruyi, Fengyue Qinhuai, 207–23; Wu Zhou, Zhongguo jinü wenhua shi, 137–44; Gong Bin and Fan Shaolin, Qinhuai wenxue zhi, 1654– 61; Mao Wenfang, Wu, xingbie, guankan, 375–461. Zhu Yizun (Jingzhi ju shihua, 2:761) identifies “Bingha Meishi” as Shen, an official in charge of water management. The forty Beijing courtesans he wrote about are made into images for a card game (yezi pai).

Introduction

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

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Zhou Zhibiao also published an anthology of women’s writings and several other collections of vernacular songs. Li Yunxiang published an anthology of northern tunes and also played a key role in revising and commenting on the novel Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi). On the identification of Weilinzi as Li Yunxiang, see Zhou Mingchu, “Li Yunxiang.” See GĎyama, Ming Qing shidai, 112–19; Æki, Fengyue Qinhuai, 217– 23. On Li Boyuan’s tabloids and their relationship with courtesans and opera actors, see Yeh, Shanghai Love, 208–12. See, for example, Wu Qi’s (1619–1694) play The Moon at the House of Pleasure (Qinlou yue). See Wai-yee Li, “The Late Ming Courtesan”; Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers. Courtesans who won in the “martial” category in the examination lists devised by literati were often compared to Mulan and praised for their skills in archery or horse riding. Feng Menglong, comp., Xingshi hengyan, story no. 3, “The Oil Peddler Wins the Queen of Flowers.” On Wang Yuesheng (also called Wang Yue), see Plank Bridge 141–47. Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 4.74. Qinglou yunyu incorporates an earlier work, Piao jing (The Classic for Consorting with Prostitutes); Zhu and Zhang added their commentary and about 500 poems by 180 courtesans. On Piao jing, see Pan Minde, “Piao jing dianjiao bing xu.” Versions of Piao jing are included in “encyclopedias for daily use” in the late Ming. (The word piao is deliberately vulgar and can be rendered as “whoring.”) Pin hua jian includes nine short works. See Mao Wenfang, Wu, xingbie, guankan, 382–84. See Plum Shadows 21–22. Huang Zongxi, Sijiu lu, 362. Fu she took over the mantle of the Donglin faction, which was violently opposed to the eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627) and his clique. See Wang Limin et al., Mao Pijiang yu Dong Xiaowan, 144–50; Tang Yuxing, Cong Taoye du dao Shuihui yuan, 212–20. See Li Xiaoti, Zuori dao chengshi, 81–135; Tang Yuxing, Cong Taoye du, 199– 283. See Æki, “Mao Xiang and Yu Huai.” Meng Yuanlao wrote Record of Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital in memory of the Song capital Kaifeng after the city fell to the invading Jurchens in 1127 and the Song court moved south of the Yangzi River. Wu Zimu wrote Record of a Millet Dream about the Southern Song capital Lin’an (Hangzhou) shortly before the Mongol conquest. (The preface is dated 1274 and Lin’an fell in 1279, but Wu also seems to imply that he wrote the book after the fall of Lin’an.) “Millet dream” refers to “The World Within a Pillow” (alternative title in TPGJ, “Old Man Lü”) by Shen Jiji (late eighth– early ninth c.). In that story, the protagonist lives through dramatic vicissitudes of a lifetime in a dream while the innkeeper is cooking yellow millet (TPGJ 82.526– 28).

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56. 57.

58. 59.

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See LRS 3:1082; Yan Dichang, Qing ci shi, 81; YH 1:2– 3, 32– 34. It was included in two popular compendia: Zhang Chao’s (1650– after 1707) Zhaodai congshu (printed 1697–1703) and Wu Zhenfang’s Shuoling (1705); see YH 1:18– 20, BQ 10–13. For Zhang Chao, see Son, Writing for Print. Zhu Jing also invokes Du Mu as model in his 1364 preface to Xia Tingzhi’s Houses of Pleasure (Qinglou ji), which includes accounts of actresses and singers (who were probably also courtesans). For further discussion of Yu Huai, Mao Xiang, and their works, see YH 1:1– 37; BQ 1–13; Æki, Fengyue Qinhuai; BJ; Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 296– 314. See Æki, Fengyue Qinhuai, 18– 25. On this genre of memoirs (yiyu ti), see Wai-yee Li, “Romantic Recollections”; Æki, trans. Xin Ruyi, Mao Xiang he Yingmei’an yiyu, 325– 98; Kang Zhengguo, “Daowang yu huiyi.” Memoirs in this strain continued to be written in the 1920s and 1930s. Tang Yuxing mentions some Republican examples in Cong Taoye du, 171. Ye Yanlan’s (1823–1897, jinshi 1856) Eight Beauties of Qinhuai in Prose, Poetry, and Images (Qinhuai bayan tuyong) includes both Liu Rushi and Chen Yuanyuan. Besides a specific geographic reference to Nanjing, “Qinhuai” seems to have become a cipher for courtesan culture in the Lower Yangzi area.

REMINISCENCES OF THE PLUM SHADOWS CONVENT 1. 2.

3. 4.

5.

This and all subsequent subtitles appear only in the version of the text preserved in the Kangxi edition of Puchao wenxuan (MPJ 1:601–10). Magu is an immortal that looks like a beautiful young woman (Ge Hong [283– 343], Shenxian zhuan, TPGJ 7.45–48). In “Rhapsody on Gaotang” (ca. second c. BCE) the divine woman of Mount Wu offers herself to the Chu king in his dream and leaves declaring: “I am on the sunlit side of Mount Wu, where the high hills are precipitous— at dawn as morning clouds, in the evening as passing rain, mornings and evenings, beneath the sunlit terrace” (Wenxuan 19.876). She becomes the emblem of desire in the tradition. Cf. Wai-yee Li, Enchantment and Disenchantment, 3–46. Mao Xiang may be referring to the prevalence of romantic themes in song lyrics and in southern drama (chuanqi) in his time. Xi Shi is a legendary ancient beauty. She is credited with a major role in the Wu-Yue conflict (fifth c. BCE): Yue presented her to the Wu king Fucha to distract him from his duties (Wu Yue chunqiu 147–48; Yue jue shu 12.283). According to Wang Jia’s (d. 390) Shiyi ji, Yiguang is a goddess who assumes human form as a Yue woman to seduce Fucha (TPGJ 272.2138– 39). Some identify Yiguang as another name for Xi Shi. Zhuo Wenjun was a beautiful young widow who eloped with the poet Sima Xiangru (d. 117 BCE) (Shiji 117.300– 01). For Xue Tao, see the introduction xvi. That is, men claimed to know such remarkable women to enhance their own fame.

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

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The Tang poet Li Bai (701– 762) also had “Bai” (meaning white) as given name and “Qinglian Recluse” as cognomen. “Qinglian” (blue lotus) is a symbol of enlightenment in Buddhism. Virtuous courtesans are sometimes compared to the pure lotus that emerges from mud (introduction xxiii). “Wan” means “gentle.” Mao implies that Dong was born into a Music Registry family. Literally, “tilted carriage tops,” from the proverb that describes an encounter of two persons in different carriages. Their carriage tops tilt as they converse for the first time, but it is as if they were old friends (qing gai ru gu, Shiji 83.2471). Mao Xiang wrote the elegy (2,400 words, 960 lines, 240 rhymes) sixty-five days after Dong Bai’s death (MPJ 1:615– 20). Luo Han (292– 372) dreams of a colorful bird flying into his mouth, and this is taken as an omen of his mastery of learning and literature ( Jinshu 62.2403). The Han scholar Ma Rong (79–166) dreams of picking and eating flowers that look like embroidered brocade and wakes up possessed of learning and literary talent (Li Rong [ninth c.], Du yi zhi, 924). The Tang poet Li Bai in his youth dreams of flowers growing on top of the brush he is using, a sign of his future genius (Wang Renyu [880– 956], Kaiyuan Tianbao yishi, 1730). Chen Jiru (1558–1639) was a famous late Ming man of letters. He never took office but gained great recognition for his writings and other cultural activities. According to an eleventh-century anecdote, the Song minister Song Qi (998–1061), a well-known scholar-official and poet, braves the cold instead of choosing one among the ten vests brought by his ten concubines for fear of causing offense (Wei Tai [eleventh–twelfth c.], Dongxuan bilu, 171). As an impoverished youth, Wang Bo (759–830) inscribed a poem on a temple’s wall. After he becomes prime minister, the monks protect his poem with green gauze (Wang Dingbao [870– 941?], Tang zhiyan, 7.1635). “The brocade vest” and “green gauze-clad poems” symbolize sensual indulgence and the dignity of office respectively. Chen Jiru was marveling at the twenty-five-year-old Mao Xiang’s apparent indifference to both. This comment (1635) appears in Chen’s preface to one of Mao’s early poetry collections (MPJ 2:758). The precocious Mao Xiang earned the approbation of famous men of letters and artists like Chen Jiru and Dong Qichang when he was only fourteen. In the Kangxi edition, we have this final line: “Chaomin of Puchao, Mao Xiang, wrote this by the side of the grave of my concubine Dong at Plum Shadows Convent” (MPJ 1:601). Mao Xiang’s final appeal reminds the reader of the social nature of Plum Shadows, even as it purports to be deeply personal. Mao is implicitly inviting his friends to write about Dong Bai after they read his memoir. For the poems mourning Dong Bai by his friends, see MPJ 1:599– 600, 620–51, 2:883–86, 895, 919– 20, 1110– 28, 1205– 6, 1287. Courtesans are often compared to goddesses, and Dong Bai is compared to Dong Shuangcheng because of her surname. The Queen Mother of the West has a fairy attendant named Dong Shuangcheng who plays reed pipes (Han Wudi neizhuan 142).

252

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15.

16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

When Mao Xiang was preparing for the examination in 1639, he was staying with (and probably enamored of) the courtesan Li Shiniang; for Li Shiniang, see Plank Bridge 85–89. Bantang was situated to the northwest of Suzhou, between Suzhou and Tiger Mound. As Æki pointed out, this was a major center of pleasure quarters (BJ 216), although Mao Xiang implies Dong’s intent to leave a life of “extravagance and commotion.” The east and west Dongting Mountains flanked Lake Tai near Suzhou. Sha Jiuwan was probably Sha Cai or Sha Nen, whom Yu Huai mentioned as living at Bantang (Plank Bridge 128–29). The sobriquet “Jiuwan” (“nine tracts [of orchids],” an allusion to The Songs of Chu, suggests that she was known for her orchid paintings. Mao Xiang mentioned Yang Yizhao later in his diary (see below); he also wrote “Watching Yizhao Painting Orchids Under the Lamp” ⟸лⴻ╚⛔⮛㱝 (MPJ 1:27). See Yu Yingshi, Fang Yizhi wanjie kao; Peterson, Bitter Gourd. See Plank Bridge 142. On Double Seventh, see n. 215. For Zhang’s biography of Dong Bai, see MPJ 2:874– 77; Wu Dingzhong, Dong Xiaowan huikao, 159– 63. All three were active Revival Society members. For Hou, see the introduction xxv; Plank Bridge 135–41. Wu Yingji died in anti-Qing resistance. The text has “Pingzi’s eyes”: Pingzi was the sobriquet of Wang Cheng (269– 312), who astutely summed up the character of his brother Wang Yan (256– 311) (Shishuo xinyu 8.27). On the Garden of Reflections built by Zheng Yuanxun (1604–1645, jinshi 1643), see Wai-yee Li, “Gardens and Illusions.” Mao Xiang organized the “Poetry Gathering of the Yellow Peony” hosted by Zheng in 1640 (MPJ 1:329, 2:787– 88; BJ 45–67). Zheng was a well-known poet, artist, and philanthropist; he died a gruesome death when Yangzhou residents killed him as he tried to broker a peace agreement with Gao Jie’s army, which was besieging Yangzhou (Xu Zi, Xiao tian jinian, 185). Both White Peak and Yellow Mountain (Anhui) are famous for their scenery and Daoist pilgrimage sites. In a postscript to a poem composed in 1689, Mao said Dong Bai “left Qinhuai at thirteen and lived at Bantang for six years. [During that period], she traveled in Yellow Mountain in the company of the esteemed Qian Qianyi and stayed at Xin’an (Anhui) for three years. She married me when she was nineteen” (MPJ 2:1515). For Qian’s travels in Yellow Mountain in 1641, see QMZ 2:1147–60; McDowall, Qian Qianyi’s Reflections on Yellow Mountain. Mao Xiang’s father, Mao Qizong (1590–1654), was serving as military advisor in Hengzhou or Hengyang (Hunan) but was expecting to be moved to Xiangyang, which was under greater threat. The purpose of Mao Xiang’s trip was to bring his mother back to their hometown, Rugao. Mao Xiang could have traveled westward on the Yangzi River but chose the more arduous route through Zhejiang and Jiangxi, possibly to avoid areas under the control of rebels led by Zhang Xianzhong (1606–1647).

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26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

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Xu Zhi (1570s–1644) was married to Mao’s paternal aunt and also hailed from Rugao. According to Diary of My Journey to the Southern Peaks to See My Father (Nanyue xingqin riji), Mao Xiang’s diary chronicling this trip, Mao and Xu met in Yangzhou (Jiangsu) and parted at Quzhou (Zhejiang) (MPJ 1:324, 333). Xu Zhi committed suicide when Beijing fell to the rebels (Mingshi 266.6869– 70). In the original, Mao refers to Xu by his posthumous honorific Zhongjie. The Pear Garden was where the Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. 712– 756) trained his musicians (Xin Tangshu 22.476). The term came to refer to the arena of musical and theatrical arts. The Qin princess Nongyu is said to ride a phoenix and fly off to become an immortal (Ge Hong, Shenxian zhuan, TPGJ 4.25– 26). See also Jiang Yan (444– 505), “Ban Jieyu’s Poem on a Fan” ⨝ႅ࿔䂐ᡷ: “Painted on it is the daughter of the Qin king, / Riding on a phoenix and heading for the mist and clouds” ⮛֌〖⦻ྣˈ҈呎ੁ➉䵗 (Lu 1570). The Story of the Red Plum Tree (Hongmei ji) by Zhou Chaojun (late sixteenth– early seventeenth c.) tells the story of forbidden love between the scholar Pei and the miscreant minister Jia Sidao’s concubine Li Huiniang (and later her ghost). “Clouds emerge from the peaks unwittingly” 䴢❑ᗳ㘼ࠪዛ is a line from Tao Yuanming’s (365–427) “Return” ↨৫ֶ‫ޞ‬䗝 (Tao Yuanming ji 159–63); it implies subtle, unforced movement. Bai Juyi describes pipa music as “pearls, big and small, dropping on a jade basin” བྷ⨐ሿ⨐㩭⦹ⴔ in “Song of Pipa” ⩥⩦ᕅ (QTS 435.4822). 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. The Dengwei Mountain at Guangfu (west of Suzhou) was famous for its plum blossoms, which are often compared to “cold clouds” and “fragrant snow” in poetry. The eighth month is when the cassia trees bloom. Mao may be thinking of the lively mid-autumn celebrations at Tiger Mound (BJ 223). Shen Defu, Wanli yehuo bian, 2:611. Zou Shu (seventeenth c.), Shi mei ci ji, 29a. The tides at the Qiantang River are most impressive at Mid-Autumn Festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. Zhang Xianzhong’s forces breached the city walls of Xiangyang on the sixth day of the second month in 1641 (Ji Liuqi, Ming ji beilue, 300– 01). The Xu Lock (Xuguan) to the northwest of Suzhou was one of the locks on the Grand Canal. A line from Li Yannian’s song about his sister, Lady Li (second c. BCE), consort of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BCE): “There is a beauty in the north, / Cut off from the world and standing alone. / One look topples a city, / Another look topples a kingdom. / Don’t you know that cities and kingdoms may topple, / But such a fair one is hard to come by again?” ेᯩᴹ֣Ӫˈ㎅ц 㘼 ⦘ ・ DŽа 亗 ‫ ۮ‬Ӫ ෾ ˈ޽ 亗 ‫ ۮ‬Ӫ ഻ DŽሗ н ⸕ ‫ ۮ‬෾ 㠷 ‫ ۮ‬഻ ˈ֣ Ӫ 䴓 ޽ ᗇDŽ(Hanshu 97A.3951; Lu 102).

254

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42. 43.

44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52.

53.

54. 55.

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That Mao Xiang found it necessary to hire a hundred guards gives a glimpse into the volatility of the political situation. The “obstacles” refer to the rebel armies of Li Zicheng (1606–1645) and Zhang Xianzhong, but what ended up causing troubles was eunuchs abusing their power. Although the ascension of the Chongzhen emperor in 1627 marked the downfall of the notorious eunuch Wei Zhongxian and his faction, his suspicion of his ministers led to the rising power of eunuchs by the early 1630s. “Senior honored lady” (tai gongren) was a title conferred by the court on wives and mothers of officials. Mao Xiang’s mother, Lady Ma, came from a distinguished family. “Incidentally Composed: Eight Quatrains” ‫ڦ‬ᡀ‫ޛ‬㎅ਕ, MPJ 1:271– 72. According to Chen Weisong’s (1616–1682) funereal inscription for Mao Xiang’s father, Mao submitted many petitions to powerful people in the government to have his father transferred from Xiangyang, all the while making sure that his father did not know about his effort. His father was eventually transferred to Baoqing (present-day Shaoyang in Hunan), the only relatively peaceful spot in the Huguang area. Xiangyang fell again to the rebels two months after Mao Qizong’s departure (Chen Weisong ji, 1:130). See also Han Tan’s funereal inscription for Mao Xiang, MPJ 2:755. One tael equals 1.32275 ounces. One cannot but wonder what would have happened had Chen Yuanyuan not been sent back to the “powerful family.” Would the person who “got her back by force” have had any claim to her? Would Mao still have been able to press his suit? On the fairy maiden Dong Shuangcheng, see n. 13. Zhang Mingbi in his biography of Dong located her house at Paulownia Bridge (Tongqiao) at Shantang. See n. 8. The original has zu, “to offer sacrifices to the god of the road.” Mount Jin is near Zhenjiang in Jiangsu. According to Zhang Mingbi, Dong Bai’s father was a spendthrift with “many obsessions.” He took advantage of Dong’s fame to incur debts that amounted to several thousand taels (MPJ 2:875). This was the local examination at Hailing (Taizhou in Jiangsu). Provincial examinations started with assembling in the examination compound on the eighth day of the eighth month (cassia month), included a first round of essay writing on the ninth, and ended with a third round on the fifteenth day. Mao’s friends from the Revival Society and the related Incipience Society (Ji she) who hailed from these places and who took the examination in Nanjing in 1642 included Wei Xuelian (Weitang), Li Wen (1608–1647) (Yunjian), and Yu Huai (Fujian). Hou Fangyu (Henan) did not take the examination in 1642 (MPJ 2:1353). Present-day Yizheng County in Jiangsu. The supplementary list included candidates whose merit was considered inadequate for the status of provincial graduate ( juren) but deserved honorable mention.

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

56.

57.

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60. 61.

62. 63.

64. 65.

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This is Mao Xiang’s property outside the city of Rugao. In “The Account of the Hackleberry Nest” (Pu chao ji), Mao Xiang explained how the gnarled and sloping branches of the pu (Chinese hackleberry) tree formed part of the design of this abode built in 1634 (MPJ 1:315–16). On poems about it, see MPJ 2:1031–44. Pu can also mean “rustic.” One of Mao’s sobriquets, “Chaomin” (Inhabitant of the Nest), is derived from this place. Zheng Tengyun (1621 juren), famous for his calligraphy, was magistrate of Rugao from 1635 to 1638. He would have been Mao Xiang’s examiner when Mao was listed for superior achievement in the local examination in 1636 (Mao Chaomin xiansheng nianpu 15a) six years earlier. Chen Yinke identifies Liu Daxing as Liu Lüding (LRS 2:700– 02), with whom Mao had sworn brotherhood, and many modern commentators follow the identification. But it is more likely that “sworn brother Prefect Liu” refers to Liu Lüding (Plank Bridge 158). “The man in yellow clothes” is a knightly figure who brings the faithless Li Yi to the bedside of the dying courtesan Huo Xiaoyu in the eponymous ninthcentury tale by Jiang Fang (TPGJ 481.4006–11). The Officer of the Guards Gu helps Wushuang, who has been taken into the palace as a palace maid, escape and restores her to her lover Wang Xianke (Xue Tiao, “Wushuang zhuan,” TPGJ 486.4001–5). Mao sees himself as being akin to the hapless lovers Li Yi and Wang Xianke, who need the intervention of heroic types like “the man in yellow clothes” and “Officer of the Guards Gu.” On the high price of ginseng from Liaoyang and Korea and its use as a kind of currency, see LRS 2:702–4. Although Qian credited Liu Lüding with the heroic efforts of “the Officer of the Guards” in his letter to Mao Xiang (MPJ 2:930– 31), it appears from Mao’s account that Liu might have settled some of Dong’s debts but was ultimately unable to successfully negotiate settlements for all, and Qian’s intervention was crucial. Chen Yinke suggested that Qian was in Suzhou in 1642 to try to revive his political fortunes, not just to help Dong Bai (LRS 2:701). Qian knew Dong Bai; they traveled together in Yellow Mountain. See n. 24. For Qian Qianyi’s reply to Mao Xiang’s letter thanking him, see MPJ 2:930– 31. Chen Yinke tentatively identifies this as Zhou Shizhang (LRS 2:700), who hinted at his role as “matchmaker” in his elegiac poems on Dong Bai (MPJ 2:1119– 20). Æki identifies this Censorate official as Li Banghua (BJ 244; LRS 2:706– 7). Du Jun (1611–1687) lived as a Ming loyalist after the fall of the Ming. He was Mao Xiang’s good friend and also edited and commented on his collections of poetry and prose. “Encountering the Immortal” ᴳⵏ䁈, better known as “Yingying’s Story” 叟叟ۣ by Yuan Zhen (779– 831) (TPGJ 488.4012–17), can also refer to Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber (Xixiang ji), the fourteenth-century play based on the Tang tale. Bai Juyi’s “Song of Everlasting Sorrow” 䮧ᚘⅼ (QTS 435.4820) tells

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68.

69. 70. 71. 72.

73. 74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81.

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the love story between the Tang emperor Xuanzong and his favorite consort, Yang Yuhuan. Francesco Sambiasi (1582–1649) (Chinese name Bi Fangji, sobriquet Jinliang) was a Jesuit missionary from Naples. He undertook to make a Chineselanguage map of the world. Six copies of the map survive (Heirman et al., “Francesco Sambiasi”). Mao Xiang’s friend Fang Yizhi addressed a poem to him, expressing interest in his astronomical knowledge. After the fall of Beijing in 1644, Sambiasi served in the Hongguang court and then in that of the Prince of Lu, being entrusted with the mission of seeking foreign assistance to fight the Manchus. On various references to this type of “Western cloth,” see BJ 197– 98. According to Nanbu yanhua lu (Plank Bridge n. 6), the last Chen ruler (r. 583– 89) builds the Cassia Palace for his favorite consort Zhang Lihua: it has a moon gate, crystal screens, and a cassia tree. Zhang dons a white dress and is called Chang’e (the Moon Goddess). The “Rainbow Skirt” is the dance tune that the Tang emperor Xuanzong learns during a dream journey to the moon (Liu Zongyuan [773–819], Longcheng lu, 143). On the dragon boat race at Mount Jin in 1642, see Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 5.99 (BJ 248). By the late Ming, porcelain from the Xuande reign (1425–1435) was highly prized by connoisseurs. Women’s lips are often compared to cherries. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang receives from the kingdom of Kutsi an ambercolored pillow. Sleeping on it allows one to enter the realm of immortals in dreams (Wang Renyu, Kaiyuan Tianbao yishi, 1718). See Plank Bridge 100. On Wei Dazhong and his persecution by the eunuch Wei Zhongxian and his faction, see Mingshi 244.6333– 37. Wei’s oldest son (and Xuelian’s older brother) died from grief after the martyrdom of his father in 1625. Mao Xiang had hosted a grand gathering for the sons of Donglin martyrs at Peach Leaf Crossing in 1636. When Beijing fell to rebel forces in 1644, Wei Xuelian surrendered but hanged himself shortly thereafter. Courtesans brought their own bedding to the client’s abode. On Mao’s sworn brotherhood with Chen Liang, Liu Lüding, Zhang Mingbi, and Lü Zhaolong at Gu Mei’s house, see Plank Bridge 158. One catty equals 1.32277 pounds. Mao Qizong was the examiner in Nanjing in 1632 and 1633. On how Ruan Dacheng’s plays should be recognized for their merits despite Ruan’s immorality, see also Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 8.153. Zhang watched Ruan’s plays in Ruan’s house and was probably on more friendly terms with Ruan. On this view, see, e.g., Xia Wanchun, Xu xingcun lu, in Xia Wanchun ji jianjiao, 429– 30; Gu Cai’s preface to Taohua shan; LRS 3:843–44. Mao Xiang joined a poetry gathering hosted by Kong Shangren in Yangzhou in 1686 and sojourned with Kong for thirty days during the latter’s birthday celebration (Kong Shangren ji 249). We can imagine how Kong might have

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

82.

83.

84. 85. 86.

87. 88.

89.

90. 91.

92. 93.

94.

257

drawn inspiration from Mao’s memories of Qinhuai courtesans and the MingQing transition. Accounts by Han Tan, Wu Weiye, and Chen Weisong about how Mao and his friends praised Ruan’s play while denouncing his character differ slightly in details and dating (MPJ 2:754, 795, 797). Cf. BJ 141–47. The chrysanthemum month is the ninth month. On the design of a pentagonal pavilion with a base shaped like a plum blossom, see Ji Cheng (1582–1642), Yuan ye, 94– 95. In the Prætimokʽa Sutra, the hare, the horse, and the elephant crossing the river signify three levels of enlightenment. While the hare merely floats and the horse touches the river’s bottom intermittently, the elephant tramples on the bottom all the way through. “The scented elephant crossing the river” thus symbolizes the deepest understanding of the truth. Yan Yu (thirteenth c.) uses the image as a metaphor for the excellence of the Tang poets Li Bai and Du Fu in his Canglang shihua (177). Haiyan in Zhejiang. Note that the family was at this point fleeing from fighting and chaos in their hometown, Rugao. On whether Xiaosheng should be identified as Dong Nian, see Plank Bridge 134. For Sha Jiuwan, see n. 17. In the Buddhist tradition, the “pearl of wish-fulfillment” (Cintæmaͺi in Sanskrit) is obtained from the dragon king, the head of a mythical fish, or the relics of the Buddha. It grants wishes, banishes afflictions, and symbolizes truth and enlightenment. The mixture of water and milk is a common metaphor for seamless mergence and harmony. From the heights of Tiger Mound, they would have been able to see Bantang. Lovebirds Lake (Yuanyang hu, Yuan hu), also called South Lake (Nan hu), was south of the county capital of Jiaxing (Zhejiang). The Tower of Mist and Rain, first built on the bank of the lake in the tenth century, was rebuilt on an artificial island in the lake in 1548. The Bamboo Pavilion Garden (Zhuting yuan), also called Ladle Garden (Shao yuan), was the garden estate built by the late-Ming minister Wang Changshi (d. 1643). On how the site evokes memories of political turmoil, see WMC 1:71– 72, 147. In other words, the beauty of Lovebirds Lake should be experienced by roaming the sites on its shore and along the streams flowing into the lake. As Æki pointed out, Mao Xiang on his way to Hunan and Dong Bai traveling to Yellow Mountain in Anhui both would have passed through these famous sites in Zhejiang (BJ 254). The Xin’an River flows through Anhui and Zhejiang. Xie Tiao (464–499), “Climbing Three Hills in the Evening and Turning Back to Look at the Capital” ᲊⲫйኡ䚴ᵋӜ䛁: “The clear river is pure [or ‘quiet’ in another version] like white silk” ▴⊏␘˄䶌˅ྲ㐤 (Wenxuan 27.1263; Lu 1430– 31). Tiandu is one of the three main peaks of Yellow Mountain in Anhui (not in Zhejiang [Liang Yue], as Du wrote).

258

95.

96. 97.

98.

99.

100.

101. 102.

103.

104.

105.

106. 107.

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Wang Wei (699– 761), “In the Mountain” ኡѝ: “There is no rain on the mountain road, / but the translucent green wets one’s clothes.” ኡ䐟‫❑ݳ‬䴘ˈオ㘐⓬Ӫ㺓 (QTS 128.1305). While Wang’s lines convey a mood of meditative elation, Du Jun suggests that the scenes Mao Xiang describes are even more transcendent. 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. In various Buddhist sutras (e.g., the Flower Garland Sutra [Avatamsaka Sutra], the Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom [Mahæprajñæpæramitæ Sutra]), heat is associated with ignorance and pain and coolness with joy and transcendence. “Reversible verse” (huiwen) is a kind of palindrome that can be read forward and backward. Su Hui (fourth c.) wove poems in 840 characters that can be read in various directions on a piece of brocade (huiwen xuantu shi) and sent it to her exiled husband, Dou Tao ( Jinshu 96.2523). These verses become a symbol of feminine talent and skill. On the mythical skills of the Xue Lingyun, the goddess of needlework, and Zhao Da’s sister, who has supreme talent with the needle, see Shiyi ji (TPGJ 225.1732– 33, 272.2139–40). An embroidered painting of flowers, butterflies, and rocks in the Nanjing Museum has been attributed to Dong Bai. See Yang Haitao, “Yue ming sheng xue.” Mao’s sons were born in 1634 (Mao Gun), 1635 (Mao Heshu), and 1639 (Mao Danshu). His firstborn died in 1638. His surviving two sons (Heshu and Dashu) were seven and three when Dong Bai came to Rugao. In doing so, she helped them avoid punishment. The goddess Weaving Maid rewards the filial son Dong Yong by becoming his wife for a few years (Gan Bao, Sous shen ji, 286). The analogy thus also conveys praise for Mao Xiang’s filial piety. Red Thread (Hongxian) is a maidservant in Xue Song’s household, but she turns out to be a knight-errant who undertakes a heroic mission on Xue’s behalf (TPGJ 195.1460– 62). This refers to the periodization of Tang poetry: early Tang, high Tang, midTang, and late Tang. The “early,” “high,” and “late” division became explicit by the thirteenth century, and Gao Bing (1350–1423) created the category of “mid-Tang.” Gao Bing’s Graded Compendium of Tang Poetry (Tang shi pinhui), completed in 1393, included ninety scrolls with 5,802 poems from 620 poets. It was amended in 1398, with ten scrolls adding 954 poems (61 poets) appended to its end as Rectifying Omissions in the Sounds of Tang (Tang yin shiyi). Record of Events Related to Tang Poems (Tang shi jishi) by Ji Yougong (twelfth c.) encompasses biographical details and anecdotes about 1,150 poets. It includes many poems but does not purport to be comprehensive. 324 Tang poets are discussed in Remarks on Poems from the Entire Tang (Quan Tang shihua), whose attribution to You Mao (twelfth c.) is disputed. Zhu Zhifan (zhuangyuan 1595; d. 1624), whom Mao Xiang refers to by his sobriquet Lanyu, compiled Twelve Mid- and Late Tang Poets (Zhong Wan Tang shi’er jia shi), now in Naikaku Bunko in Japan. The preface does not contain the remark that Mao cited (BJ 261).

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108.

109.

110. 111. 112. 113.

114. 115.

116. 117. 118.

119. 120. 121.

122.

123. 124.

259

Wang Duo (1592–1652, jinshi 1622) was a Ming official who reached high office under the Qing. He was famous for his calligraphy. Mao Xiang refers to him as shi (teacher, master) probably because he served at one point as imperial tutor and lecturer to the emperor. Both Mengjin and Lingbao are in Henan. Hu Zhenheng (1560–1645, juren 1597) collected all extant Tang poems he could find in Comprehensive Classification of Tang Poetry (Tangyin tong qian). The most complete version of this massive project seems to be the manuscript in 1,033 scrolls found in the Palace Museum. Of its ten sections, two were published in 1658 and 1685. The text was never published in its entirety. Wai-yee Li, “Textual Transmission.” Red ink was used for comments and yellow ink for correction. This refers to the New History of the Tang (Xin Tangshu) compiled by Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) and several other Song officials (completed 1060). The phrase shudu (reading again and again) also implies that she commits these works to memory. The collector and publisher Mao Jin (1599–1659) compiled Three Masters of Palace Poetry (1625 preface), which includes 100 quatrains each by Wang Jian (768–835), Lady Pistil (late eighth– early ninth c.), and Wang Gui (1019–1085). For the biographies of Chen Fan, Fan Pang, and Guo Tai, see Hou Hanshu 66.2159– 71, 67.2185–88, 68.2225– 27. On Gu Mei and Gong Dingzi, see Plank Bridge 96–108. According to Chen Weisong, Wang Shilu’s (1626–1673) Lost History of the Vermilion Bird (Zhuniao yishi) drew inspiration from Dong Bai’s book. Neither Dong’s compilation nor Wang’s work is extant. History by the Boudoir Case (Lian shi) by Wang Chutong (1729–1821) corresponds to Mao Xiang’s description, but it’s not clear whether Wang knew Dong’s compilation. There is no record of Mao Xiang publishing this work by Dong Bai. Xie Zhuang (421–466) wrote the “Rhapsody on the Moon” ᴸ䌖 (Wenxuan 13.598– 602). The Tang prime minister Zhang Yue (663– 730) has a vermilion pearl that allows him to recall everything when he has lapses of memory (Wang Renyu, Kaiyuan Tianbao yishi, 1718). On Dong Bai’s and Mao Xiang’s faith in Guan Yu as a deity, see 55–56. Wu Weiye inscribed poems on two fans painted by Dong Bai (WMC 2:527– 28). The description of the loss here recalls Li Qingzhao’s (1081–ca. 1141) “Postscript to the Record of Inscriptions on Bronze and Stone” 䠁⸣䤴ᖼᒿ (Li Qingzhao, Li Qingzhao ji jiaozhu, 176–89). The term for “well-born ladies” (guixiu) means “ladies from inner chambers” and jiaoshu (“collators”) is a polite way to refer to courtesans (Introduction xxii). Here Li Qingzhao represents the former and Xue Tao the latter. After the death of her first husband, Zhao Mingcheng, Li Qingzhao remarried and was unhappy. Mao Xiang wrote a short treatise on jie tea in 1683 (MPJ 1:545–51), incorporating earlier treatises on the subject by Xu Cishu, Xiong Mingyu, and Feng

260

125.

126.

127. 128.

129.

130.

131.

132.

133.

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Kebin (Zhongguo gudai chaxue quanshu 270– 85, 373– 74, 582– 86). On the high esteem for this tea, see also YH 2:702– 3; Wen Zhenheng, Zhangwu zhi, 487; Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 3.52. Gu Zijian was likely a tea merchant. Mao Xiang said that he also supplied tea to Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi (MPJ 1:550). Mao wrote about the producers and traders of tea with keen appreciation, apparently regarding them as fellow connoisseurs. In his Treatise on Tea (Cha pu 40), Mao Wenxi (early tenth c.) lists varieties of excellent tea in Shuzhou (Sichuan), including “armor plates” (pianjia) (“an early spring tributary tea; its new leaves hug each other like armor plates”) and “cicada wings” (chanyi) (“its leaves are as thin as cicada wings”), and praises them as “the most superior among loose tea leaves.” This is Gu Kuang’s disquisition on tea, cited in Wang Xiangjin’s Qunfang pu, “Cha pu,” 6a. According to Mao Xiang, the pot has to be washed with high-quality spring water, and the jie tea leaves have to be rinsed in hot (not boiling) water before brewing (MPJ 1:549). Zuo Si’s (250– 305) poem describes how one of his young daughters, eager to drink tea, blows air at the pot over the flame to hasten the boiling of water (Lu 735– 36). Lu Yu quotes these lines in his Classic on Tea (Cha jing 15). “Crab eyes” (xieyan) and “fish scales” (yulin) refer to the size of bubbles when water boils. Lu Yu describes “fish eyes” as the first stage of water boiling (Cha jing 12). See also Su Shi (1037–1101), “Making Tea at the Examination Hall” 䂖䲒❾㥦: “The crab eyes are gone; the fish eyes emerge” 㸩⵬ᐢ䙾冊⵬⭏ (Su Shi shiji hezhu, 8.346). Tea connoisseurs debate the state of optimal boiling for the water used to make tea. See also Pi Rixiu’s (834–883) “Boiling Tea” ➞㥦: “I watch the ‘crab eyes’ spilling, / and suddenly see the ‘fish scale’ rising” ᱲ ⴻ㸩ⴞ☪ˈѽⴻ冊劇䎧; Pi’s “Tea cups” 㥦⬼: “Round like the moon’s soul falling, / Light as the cloud’s spirit rising” ൃլᴸ兲ໞˈ䕅ྲ䴢兴䎧 (QTS 611.7055). These lines allude to Liu Yuxi’s “Song of Trying Tea in a Temple at the Western Mountain” 㾯ኡ㱝㤕䂖㥦ⅼ: “The fragrance vaguely recalls magnolias touched by dew, / the color of jadeite grass facing the waves cannot compare to this” ᵘ㱝䵁䵢俉ᗞլˈ⪔㥹㠘⌒㢢нྲ (QTS 356.4000). Liu’s line in turn alludes to “Encountering Sorrow” 䴒偧: “In the morning I drink the dew dripping from magnolias” ᵍ伢ᵘ㱝ѻ໌䵢‫ޞ‬. Jadeite grass grows in the realm of immortals. Lu Tong (ca. 795–835) wrote “A Quick Composition to Thank Censor Meng for the New Tea He Sent Me” 䎠ㅶ䅍ᆏ䄛䆠ᇴᯠ㥦: he describes how, after drinking seven cups, he feels that a pure breeze arises under his arms, as if he were flying off to become an immortal (QTS 388.4739). Lu Yu (733– 804) is the author of the Classic of Tea. Su Shi, “Making Tea at the Examination Hall”: Su Shi laments that he is not fated to have a lovely lady bring him tea, but he still manages to enjoy tea in his poverty and sickness. Mao Xiang considers himself more fortunate.

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134. 135. 136.

137.

138.

139.

140. 141.

142.

143. 144. 145.

146.

147.

261

The text has “agarwood incense is vulgar,” but Mao Xiang obviously meant to disparage only vulgar misuse, not the incense itself. This description of “horizontal partition agarwood” (hengge chen) also appears in Xiang sheng (1641) (1.309). According to Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu (34.1938), these four kinds are: “horn agarwood, which is black and glossy; yellow agarwood, which is yellow and glossy; wax agarwood, which is soft and flexible; leathery agarwood, which has a horizontal pattern.” This is cited in Xiang sheng 1.309. See also Hong Chu ( jinshi 1094), Xiang pu, 288. Penglai is the island where immortals live (Shiji 6.247). This description of Penglai incense also appears in Xiang sheng 1.311 (citing Fan Chengda [1126– 93]); see also Bencao gangmu 34.1938. The Buddha mentions the fragrance of tagara trees (transliterated as qienan, qieluo, or duoqieluo) in Beihua Sutra 4.194. Li Shizhen identifies it as a kind of superior fragrance (Bencao gangmu 34.1954); see also Qu Dajun, Guangdong xinyu, 2:673. Rose dew or rose water, a fragrance distilled from roses, came from Dashi [Arabia] (Cai Tao, Tiewei shan congtan, 97– 98). Dew is thought to have magical potency (Zhuangzi jishi 1.28; Shiji 12.459; Bencao gangmu 5.391). This incense from the imperial palace presumably became available because of the fall of Beijing in 1644 and the collapse of the Hongguang court in 1645, but Mao does not allude to the circumstances of its acquisition. Suzhou people were often regarded as trendsetters and leading connoisseurs in this period. Jin Pingshu also supplied incense to Qian Qianyi and Liu Ruhsi (MPJ 1:434, 1:550). As with the tea vendors mentioned above, Mao wrote about Jin with keen appreciation for his connoisseurship. Mao’s description of ripe yellow echoes Xiang sheng (1.312) and Bencao gangmu (34.1938). Ripe Yellow is classified as a kind of agarwood resin in writings on incense. Literally, candles of about two chi in height (i.e., about 15 inches). Mao Xiang wrote a treatise on censers from the Xuande reign (MPJ 1:557– 62). See BJ 69– 98; Wai-yee Li, “Shibian yu wanwu.” To describe this “pure and supreme” incense, Mao uses the technical term “maltose knot” (tangjie), so called because it has a greasy maltose like film when dissected. It is considered one of the most precious kinds of incense (Gao Lian, Zunsheng bajian, 627; Wen Zhenheng, Zhangwu zhi, 476; Xu Shupi, Shixiao lu, 404–5). “Plum blossoms” (meiying), “pears” (eli), and “honeycombs” (mibi) are names of varieties of agarwood incense; see Bencao gangmu 34:1936; Xiang sheng 1.310; Qu Dajun, Guangdong xinyu, 669– 72. Bai Juyi, “Song of the Rear Palace” ᖼᇞ䂎: “Leaning aslant against the censer cover till daybreak” ᯌ‫ي‬㯠㊐඀ࡠ᰾ (QTS 441.4930); Lü Mengzheng: “Poking the whole night through ashes in the cold censer to the bitter end” ᫕ⴑሂ⡀аཌ⚠; Lü’s line is quoted in various Yuan plays and Ming

262

148. 149.

150. 151. 152.

153.

154. 155. 156.

157.

158.

159. 160.

161.

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miscellanies (Yinyong yu da cidian, 33). Mao Xiang and Dong Bai are contemplating the beauty of these lines or such images as aesthetic spectacle rather than sharing any of their emotions. This is the palace of Daoist immortals. The roots of the mythical “tree for the soul’s return” (fanhun shu) can be boiled, distilled, and made into the incense pellet for bringing the dead back to life (Shizhou ji, TPGJ 414.3368; Xiang sheng 3.853). According to Zhang Hua’s Bowu zhi, this magical incense was a tributary gift from the Yuezhi kingdom to Emperor Wu of Han (cited in Bencao gangmu 34.1973– 74). This refers to southern Jiangsu. Baixia is another name for Nanjing. The term qingke refers originally to Buddhist devotional practice, but the meaning is extended to other activities for mental and spiritual cultivation. Li Suiqiu (1602–1646) was crowned “top graduate” in the poetry competition inspired by the yellow peony in the Garden of Reflections (see n. 23, BJ 45– 67). The incense came from Guangdong, and Mao Xiang was proud that he knew more about it than his Cantonese friend. Fan Ye (398–445) wrote Recipe for Mixing Incense (He xiang fang) (with preface); see Xiang pu 257; Xiang sheng 28.479. The unripe yellow incense is not discussed in writings on incense before Mao. On Dongguan incense and maiden’s incense, see Qu Dajun, Guangdong xinyu, 2:674– 78. We can imagine chrysanthemums with a reddish or pinkish tint (like peach blossoms) and long petals with uneven edges (as if they have been snipped). The original has “the spirit of the three Xiang rivers and seven marshes [of Chu].” Nine-sectioned orchids, also called huilan, bloom in late spring and early summer. Orchids symbolize virtue and the quest for the divine in The Songs of Chu. Mao Xiang relates in his treatise on orchids (“Lan yan”) the belief that the fragrance of orchids cannot become distinctive unless a woman waters them (MPJ 1:570). The orchid is said to have a yin nature and therefore becomes fragrant only when planted by women (Wang Xiangjun, Qun fang pu, 17). Qu Dajun also claims orchids flourish when watered by beautiful women (Guangdong xinyu 2:692). Cf. the belief that when a man plants an orchid, it will not become fragrant (Huainanzi 10.327, Wenxin diaolong 31.538). Wang Xiangjun wrote twelve heptasyllabic mnemonic rhymes for growing orchids (yang lan koujue) (Qun fang pu 17). Feng Jingdi (d. 1654) followed the model of commentary for the Classic of Changes and compiled the “twelve wings of commentary” (which are no more than twelve brief instructions) for growing orchids (Lan Yi). The text has “half couch” (banta); I take this to mean a kind of rattan easy chair. A line from the “Rhapsody on the Moon.” Recall that this rhapsody written in Dong Qichang’s calligraphy in the style of Zhong Yao was Dong Bai’s first calligraphic model after she married Mao Xiang (31). Phrases from the “Rhapsody on the Moon.”

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162. 163.

164. 165. 166. 167. 168.

169.

170.

171.

172.

173. 174. 175. 176.

177.

263

The original has “cassia blooms,” the mythical tree on the moon, and “reflections of the dew,” sometimes associated with goddesses and immortality. Li He (790–816), “Drenched in Moonlight” ᴸ┹┹ㇷ (QTS 393.4434; Sanjia pingzhu Li Changji geshi, 165). Wang Qi glossed the second line as follows: the moon “emerges from the misty waves like a jade mirror.” The text has “shadow,” but it may be a mistake for “pine.” Li Qingzhao, to the tune “Drunk in the Shade of Flowers” 䞹㣡䲠 (Li Qingzhao ji jiaozhu, 34– 35). Sikong Tu (attr.), Twenty-four Rankings for Poetry (Ershi si shipin). In describing the following recipes, Mao Xiang used the usual word ji (my concubine) as subject only twice. They are presented like actual recipes. According to many sources, heartbreak grass is poisonous (e.g., Lunheng jiaoshi 23.954; Hong Mai, Yijian zhi, 10.75; Bencao gangmu 17.1227). It is identified with “the grass of longing” and not considered poisonous in Shuyi ji (TPGJ 408.3303). Wang Xiangjun lists heartbreak grass as an alternative name for autumn begonias (Qunfang pu, 3), said to grow where a woman sheds tears for an absent lover (Yu ding Peiwen zhai, 36.27b). What is translated here as “heartbreak” is literally “break the intestines,” and different species must have been identified with its literal meaning (i.e., “break the intestines”) and metaphorical meaning (i.e., grief and heartbreak). Buddha’s hand is a variety of citron also called yuan ℎ (homophonous with yuan 㐓, karmic connection) and is a common motif in paintings (including erotic paintings) of interior décor. Emperor Wu of Han built a bronze pillar on which stood a statue of an immortal holding up with his palm a basin for collecting dew, which was used for mixing the elixir of immortality (Shiji 12.459). As Æki pointed out (BJ 286), the above two sections also appear, with very small variations, in Feiyi zhai jigao, which has been (controversially) attributed to Cao Xueqin. Jianning (in Fujian) was presumably famous for fermented bean curd that required three years of storage to reach perfection. See Gujin Miyuan, Jianning furu fa, cited in Wu Renshu, Pinwei shehua, 278. On early methods of pickling vegetables, see Jia Sixie (sixth c.), Qimin yaoshu jiaoshi, 9.531; Wang Xiangjin, Qun fang pu, “Shu pu” 2, 3b–4a. These items are presumably cooked or preserved in alcohol. The original has “Xun kitchen” and alludes to the lavish table of the Tang minister Wei Zhi (697– 761), Lord of Xun (Xin Tangshu 122.4353). The Han official Lou Hu (ca. first c. BCE) mixes dishes sent by five noble houses and concocted new delicacies (Xijing zaji, TPGJ 234.1792). The eight ultimate delicacies include dragon liver and the bone marrow of phoenixes. Beijing fell under the siege of the rebels led by Li Zicheng. The Chongzhen emperor hanged himself on the nineteenth day of the third month. The news took about a month to reach Rugao in Jiangsu.

264

178. 179.

180. 181. 182. 183.

184. 185. 186.

187. 188. 189.

190. 191. 192.

193.

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Li Danzhong, the district magistrate in Rugao, left his post when the rebels mounted their attack (BJ 292). Xingping refers to Gao Jie (d. 1645), a rebel commander under Li Zicheng. He surrendered to the Ming in 1635, but his troops had a reputation for being undisciplined and ruthless. The Hongguang emperor (r. 1644–1645) conferred the title of Lord of Xingping on him and made him one of the key commanders of the regime (Mingshi 273.7003– 6). His troops besieged Yangzhou in 1644, and Mao’s friend Zheng Yuanxun died trying to mediate between Gao Jie and Yangzhou residents in 1644; see n. 23. There were rumors that Gao Jie’s unruly troops were heading toward Rugao. Mao Xiang is implying that since his family had not abused its power, the “ jackals and tigers” (i.e., local malcontents) would not target them. Present-day Jiangyin in Jiangsu. Sixty li is the equivalent of about twenty miles. Jingjiang (in Jiangsu) faced Jiangyin across the river. Mao Xiang was not wearing a scholar’s robe; he probably dressed as a peasant or a laborer. In the first month of 1644, Mao Xiang’s father, Mao Qizong, was appointed assistant to the surveillance commissioner to oversee the storage and transportation of grains. Was this journey an attempt to fulfill the duties of his position as the newly established Hongguang court tried to counter the rebels and the Qing army? Or did he just go first to Haiyan to prepare for the rest of the family to join him? Mao Xiang claimed that his father did not want to serve in the Hongguang court (Postscript to “Song of the Past,” MPJ 2:1353), but he might just have wanted to disavow connections with the Hongguang regime, which the Qing government denounced as illegitimate. One tael equals ten qian, one qian equals ten fen. This section of the Yangzi River is close enough to the sea to be within tidal reach. The text has “Shi You”: Legend has it that a woman, Shi, married You, a merchant. Shi became sick with longing when You was on the road. As she lay dying, she vowed to turn into a storm that would stop merchants and travelers. The term “Shi You storm” (Shi You feng) first appears in a ballad attributed to Emperor Xiaowu of Song (r. 453–464) (Lu 1219). 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. There must have been prayers and invocations before the feast. Mao Xiang’s two sons were nine and five at the time. Jifu (Mao Bao) was Mao Xiang’s half-brother, the son of Madame Liu, the concubine of Mao Xiang’s father (Mao Chaomin xiansheng nianpu 36a). 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. Fifth day of the fifth month. There were rumors in the eighth month of 1644 that Gao Jie’s unruly troops were heading toward Rugao, so Mao Xiang crossed the river, conferred with his father, and went to Nanjing (postscript to “Song of the Past,” MPJ 2:1353). Mao Xiang and a number of scholars on supplementary lists of provincial examinations were granted a special palace examination in fall 1644. Mao came

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

194. 195.

196.

197.

198. 199. 200.

201.

202.

265

first and was appointed police magistrate of Taizhou. Ruan Dacheng tried to lure Mao Xiang with the promise of a position in the Hanlin Academy if he aligned himself with Ruan, but Mao rebuffed his overtures. Ruan then persecuted Revival Society members, including Mao’s friends Chen Zhenhui and Hou Fangyu (postscript to “Song of the Past,” MPJ 2:1353–54). See n. 183. The fall of Yangzhou on the fifteenth day of the fourth month in 1645 was followed by the Qing troops’ massacre and pillage. The Hongguang regime ended when Nanjing officials surrendered on the ninth day of the fifth month. Dabai is the cognomen of the scholar Zhang Qiling (1582–1638, juren 1603), whose son Zhang Weichi (1615–1676) was Mao Xiang’s good friend. Dabai House was the Zhang family home. Zhang Weichi described the Zhang and Mao families traveling together as they fled the chaos in Yanguan (MPJ 2:1556; Wu Dingzhong, Dong Xiaowan huikao, 28; BJ 301). The conquering Qing troops are often euphemistically referred to as the Great Army in Qing writings. Zhuili is the ancient name of Jiaxing (Zhejiang). The forced adoption of the Qing hairstyle (shaving the front of the forehead and braiding the hair in a queue) for men was a traumatic event that led to antiQing resistance and bloody reprisal. Meng Sen suggests that this friend was Mao’s sworn brother Chen Liang (BJ 302). For Chen, see Plank Bridge 158, 170. Literally, “to give up on her— and her alone” (since the rest of the family would be staying together). Wang Qiang, also called Wang Zhaojun (first c. BCE) or the Bright Consort, was a Han palace lady sent off to marry the ruler of the Xiongnu in 33 as part of a policy of appeasement. Through the ages she has become the cipher for a range of oft-poeticized experiences and emotions, including exile, longing for home, and unrecognized worth. She is often depicted as playing the pipa on horseback. Legend has it that Zhaojun’s grave stays green despite the arid landscape. She is a recurrent figure in writings by and about victimized women during this period—they are often depicted as abducted and “taken north.” See Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 18– 37, 391–429. Wenji (Cai Yan, second c.) was abducted and detained by the Xiongnu and was forced to leave her half-Xiongnu sons behind when she was ransomed. The Jin minister Shi Chong’s (249– 300) favorite concubine, Lüzhu (Green Pearl), jumped from a tower to her death when Shi Chong was implicated in treason on account of Sun Xiu, a rival who coveted Lüzhu ( Jinshu 33.1008). Fang Gongqian (referred to in the text by his sobriquet Fang Tan’an) and Mao Xiang’s father, Mao Qizhong, both became jinshi in 1628, and scholars who attained success simultaneously were dubbed “same year” (tongnian). They called each other “brother,” hence Mao refers to Fang as “uncle.” On Mao’s recollections of these events and his friendship with Fang Gongqian, see MPJ 1:63– 64, 132, 174, 229– 30. In the twelfth month of 1645, anti-Qing resistance was violently suppressed in Rugao.

266

203.

204. 205.

206. 207.

208.

209.

210.

211. 212.

213.

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

Double Ninth is the ninth day of the ninth month. Winter Solstice (literally, Arrival of Winter), one of the twenty-four seasonal markers, falls in the eleventh month in the lunar calendar. This is a standard trope in accounts of filial conduct toward one’s parents and (in the case of women) parents-in-law. What is translated as “expendable” is literally “worn sandals,” alluding to Mencius 7A.35: “Shun regards abandoning rulership over all under heaven as being no different from abandoning old sandals.” “Roam in freedom” (xiaoyao) and “beyond the realm of things” (wuwai) are recurrent phrases in Zhuangzi. Literally, “slander was melting metal.” For the ancient proverb, “Many hearts can make a city wall, many mouths (voicing slander or denigration) can melt metal,” see Guoyu, “Zhouyu,” B.131; Shiji 70.2287, 83.2473. In 1647, the former Ming official Li Zhichun ( jinshi 1622) led anti-Qing resistance in Rugao. This was one of the nine cases of the so-called “collusion with maritime forces [led by Zheng Chenggong].” Qing reprisal was swift and ruthless. Mao Xiang was likely implicated because he was related to Li Zhichun and the two were close friends, and there might also have been accusations against him because he was offering protection to loyalists and resistance fighters such as Huang Yuqi and Fang Yizhi. Mao Xiang’s language here is deliberately allusive and evasive. The unpredictable changes in human attitudes recall the twists and turns of mountain paths. The image alludes to these lines by Li Bai: “Mountains rise from the human face, / clouds emerge next to the horse’s head” ኡᗎӪ䶒䎧ˈ 䴢‫ڽ‬俜九⭏ (QTS 177.1805; BJ 309). Li Bai’s lines describe the scene and have no metaphorical reference to human fickleness and deviousness. “Mountains,” being the opposite of “level” (ping), a word that also means “peace” and “ justice,” suggest one’s sense of grievance as victim of injustice because of the double meaning of buping as “not level” and “feeling the injustice,” as in Li Bai’s lines: “The Five Peaks rise in my heart: / Hidden perhaps—but how can they be leveled?” ӄᏭ䎧ᯩረˈ䳡❦䁾ਟᒣ (QTS 181.1848; BJ 309). The general Guan Yu came to be honored as Lord Guan (or King Guan), a symbol of loyalty and justice, in late imperial China. Mao Xiang’s grandfather Mao Mengling contributed to the construction of a Lord Guan Temple in Rugao in the 1620s (BJ 311). In late spring 1644, following the fall of Beijing, Mao Xiang wrote “Submission to Lord Guan’s Temple” (Gao Guan miao wen) on behalf of Rugao gentry. It was a collective pledge to defend the city and its families and a prayer imploring Lord Guan to inspire loyalty and courage in everybody (MPJ 1:342–43). Mao implies that his sickness was psychosomatic. Guan Longfeng was a loyal minister killed by the tyrant Jie (Shiji 82.2560). Zeng Shen and Min Ziqian were disciples of Confucius famous for their filial piety (Analects 11.5, Kongzi jiayu 37). The city gate of Nanjing.

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

214.

215.

216.

217.

218.

219.

220.

221.

222.

223.

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Alternatively, it is possible to read dan ◩ (being indifferent to riches and finery) as shan 䌽 (sufficient, rich): “She thought all was sufficient.” For the phrase shanzu 䌽䏣, see Shiji 130.3289. The Double Seventh (seventh day of the seventh month) is the night when the celestial lovers, the Cowherd Star and the Weaving Maid Star, meet by crossing the Heavenly River (the Milky Way). On that evening, girls threaded needles and appealed to the Weaving Maid for the gift of deftness, hence the term “begging for cleverness.” In “Notes on the Song of Xuande Censer” (Xuanlu ge zhu), Mao Xiang explains that the cloud pattern that appears at the lower half of the censer is called “Rising Auspicious Clouds” (yong xiangyun) and that which appears on the top half is called “Covering with Auspicious Clouds” (fu xiangyun) (MPJ 1:558–59; BJ 71– 97). The four characters, qi qiao and fu xiang, are carved on the bracelet. Fu means both “cover” and “overturn.” Mao Xiang thus recalls this as an inauspicious omen. In Bai Juyi’s “Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” Emperor Xuanzong seeks the help of a Daoist (“the guest at the gods’ city”) to look for the spirit of Consort Yang after her death. When he finds her spirit, she tells him about the secret vow she made with the emperor on Double Seventh in the Palace of Lasting Life (so that the Daoist can prove to the emperor that he indeed found her): they are to be husband and wife for all lives to come. “In the sky, we wished to be birds with paired wings, / on earth, we wished to be twined branches” ൘ཙ予 ֌∄㘬匕ˈ൘ൠ予⛪䙓⨶᷍ (QTS 435.4820). While “paired wings” and “twined branches” are common metaphors for eternal love, the fact that they appear in Bai’s poem about “everlasting sorrow” also makes those phrases inauspicious. On Dong Bai’s choice of calligraphy models, see above, 32–33. Mao Xiang claimed that although she took Zhong Yao as model, her style was more delicate (literally, “thinner”). Complete Tang Poems (QTS 799.8983) lists the author of this quatrain as “A seven-year-old girl” and adds this note: “Empress Wu summoned her and ordered her to compose a poem to see her brother off. She dashed it off right away.” The image of wild geese is commonly associated with parting and longing in classical poetry. The three song lyrics by Dong Bai are anthologized in Zhong xiang ci (1690 preface), edited by Xu Shumin and Qian E, and included in Quan Qing ci 7:3754. Wanyan Yunzhu, Guochao guixiu zhengshi ji, fulu 18a–18b. In the 1950s, a fan with Dong’s signature and eleven quatrains entitled “Lyrics of the Inner Chamber in Autumn” supposedly by her turned up in an exhibition (Wang Limin et al., Mao Pijiang yu Dong Xiaowan, 71– 72). Hanshang (in Jiangsu) refers to the upper reaches of the Han waterway (Han Jiang) near Yangzhou; it was part of the Grand Canal. As noted above, the Revival Society combined literature and scholarship with political engagement

268

224.

225.

226.

227.

228.

229.

230.

231.

Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent

during the late Ming. After the fall of the Ming, its gatherings often included Ming loyalists and sustained a nostalgic tone about the fallen dynasty. As this gathering shows, however, these meetings could bring together loyalists and Qing officials. On early Qing literary societies, see Xie Guozhen, Ming Qing zhiji dangshe yundong kao; He Zongmei, Ming mo Qing chu wenren jieshe yanjiu; Wai-yee Li, “Early Qing.” Mao Xiang was born on the fifteenth day of the third month in 1611. The gathering took place on the eve of his birthday in 1650. For poems composed on that occasion, see MPJ 2:1550– 61. The minister was Gong Dingzi. Gong’s poem focuses on the love story of Mao and Dong but also includes a passing reference to Mao’s affair with Chen Yuanyuan. He praises Dong Bai’s determination to follow Mao as “knightly spirit” (xiagu) and eulogizes her indomitable spirit during their peregrinations as well as her scholarly and literary interests. He also expresses admiration for Mao Xiang’s integrity as a Ming loyalist (MPJ 2:1554–55). “Poem of the Capital” ᑍӜ䂙 (676) by Luo Binwang (ca. 638– 684) and the “Song of Lianchang Palace” 䙓᰼ᇞ䂎 (818) by Yuan Zhen are both famous long poems that use elaborate description and narrative sweep to depict scenes or events with historical significance (QTS 1.3, 419.4613). Mao Xiang implied that Gong’s poem merges the personal history of Mao and Dong with its momentous historical context. Wu Qi, famous for his plays and song lyrics, served as a Qing official, although he had a wide circle of loyalist friends. The version of Wu Qi’s poems included in Tongren ji has slightly different wording: “It is natural that talented scholars should also be filial sons, / true indeed that the distinguished gentleman did encounter the supreme beauty.” 㠚ᱟ᡽Ӫެᆍᆀˈ᷌❦਽༛䙷‫ۮ‬෾ (MPJ 2:1588). This is the only line about Dong Bai in Du Jun’s poem (MPJ 2:1552), which is written to celebrate the birthdays of Mao Xiang and his wife, who both turned forty. Deng Hanyi (1617–1689) was well-known for his poetry and poetry anthologies. Like Wu Qi, he served the Qing but had many loyalist friends. For Deng’s five poems written for this occasion, see MPJ 2:1559– 60. As in the case of Du Jun, Deng’s poems contain only a passing reference to Dong Bai. The image of being “among the trees” evokes the sages of the bamboo grove and the intent of the recluse ( Jinshu 49.1370; TPGJ 235.1700). Deng’s poems praise Mao’s integrity as a Ming loyalist, and in that context the literary Dong Bai becomes the ornament of that existence. For Huang Chuanzu’s poem, see MPJ 2:1544. The “famous mountain” is where Sima Qian (ca. 147– ca. 87 BCE) claims to hide his great work (Shiji 130.3320). The “golden chamber” is where Emperor Wu of Han says he will keep his cousin A-jiao (the future Empress Chen) (Han Wu gushi 16). Huang’s poem praises the convergence of moral integrity, scholarly achievement, and romantic bliss in Mao Xiang’s life. Yao Quan’s five poems (MPJ 2:1557–58), in addition to praising Mao’s heroic aspirations and integrity as a loyalist, imagine his attainment of Daoist

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

232.

233.

234. 235.

236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242.

269

transcendence, in part by referring to Dong Bai as the goddess Dong Shuangcheng. Peng Sunyi’s (1615–1673) poem (MPJ 2:1556–57) implies that Mao Xiang would have engaged in anti-Qing resistance more actively but was held back by filial considerations. Peng was a staunch loyalist. “Virtuous wife” is literally “Hong’s wife,” referring to Liang Hong’s wife, who confirms his resolve to be a recluse (Hou Hanshu 83.2765– 68). Here it refers to Mao Xiang’s principal wife, Su. For “Hackleberry Nest,” see n. 56. Li Zhichun’s poem, like many others on that occasion, juxtaposes political aspirations with romantic love. Li Zhichun was arrested for anti-Qing resistance in 1647 (see n. 207) but was pardoned in 1649. Thereafter he and his son Li Dan continued to be involved in Ming loyalist resistance through association with the court of the Prince of Lu. Denounced by a family servant, they were executed in 1651, along with forty-eight family members and associates. The poems by Li Zhichun and Li Dan are excluded from the poems composed on this occasion in Tongren ji, probably for political reasons. However, Li Zhichun’s earlier poem on Hackleberry Nest is included in that anthology (MPJ 2:1043–44). Either Mao Xiang did not write those annotations or they were written but not preserved. Zhao Erbian (ca. 1622–1661) was briefly involved in the Longwu court of the Prince of Lu but ended up serving as drafter of documents in the secretariat under the Qing. He was not present at the Studio, his former abode, when Mao came to visit. Zhao wrote a series of song lyrics mourning Dong Bai in 1651 (cited in Wu Dingzhong, Dong Xiaowan huikao, 60– 61). For the poems composed on that occasion, as well as Zhao Erbian’s poetic response, see MPJ 2:1082–85. 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. LRS 1:266– 77, 2:493. Xu Zhiyan, “Dong Xiaowan biezhuan,” in Yuchu guangzhi (1915), included in Shuohai 7:2290– 2301. See Wang Mengruan and Shen Ping’an, Honglou meng suoyin (1916). See Meng Sen, “Dong Xiaowan kao” (1918), in Ming Qing shi, 227– 63. BJ 343– 63. Chen Weisong, best known for his song lyrics, was the son of Mao Xiang’s friend Chen Zhenhui. He lived for almost eight years at Mao’s estate. Mao Xiang also took Cai Han (d. 1686), Jin Yue, and a woman née Zhang as concubines in 1665, 1667, and 1668. Cai and Jin were both painters, and numerous pieces in Tongren ji are devoted to them (BJ 365– 93). Mao describes his wife as the obliging facilitator of these unions.

MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS OF THE PLANK BRIDGE 1.

Xie Tiao (464–499), “The Song of Entering Court” ‫ޕ‬ᵍᴢ: “The charmed land of Jiangnan, / The royal domain of Jinling” ⊏ই֣哇ൠˈ䠁䲥ᑍ⦻ᐎ (Lu 1414). Jinling is one of the names of Nanjing.

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3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

Jiangnan or South of the River, sometimes translated as “Southland” in poetry, refers to the Lower Yangzi area. It also designated an administrative district that overlapped with present-day Jiangsu and Anhui during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Baixia is one of the old names of Nanjing. Blue Stream was a major waterway east of Nanjing. With its source in Mount Zhong, it wound its way to the Qinhuai River. Excursions and convivial gatherings along its banks seem to have stopped by the tenth century, when it dried up. Wang Xianzhi (344–386, son of the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi) composed the “Song of Peach Leaf” ṳ㩹ⅼ (Lu 13.903) for Peach Leaf, his favorite concubine. Peach Leaf Crossing, where Blue Stream merged with the Qinhuai River, is said to have been the spot where she crossed the river. The Jin official Wang Min (351–388) was in love with his sister’s maid, who sang the “Song of the Round Fan” ൈᡷⅼ (Lu 14.923). Hongwu was the reign title of the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398). The Old Quarters could be traced back to the House of Prosperity and Joy (Fule yuan) established in the early Ming. Record of the Mist and Flowers of Southland (Nanbu yanhua lu) (ca. twelfth c.), also called Account of Forgotten Stories from the Daye Era (Daye shiyi ji) or Remnant Records of the Sui (Sui Yilu), chronicles the Sui Emperor Yang’s (r. 604– 618) journey to Yangzhou in 616 (the twelfth year of the Daye reign). The Tang court housed official courtesans in the Courtyard Fit for Spring (Yichun yuan). For Sun Qi and his Account of the Northern Ward, see the introduction xviii, xxviii. In the original, Yu Huai uses the names of the Tang courtesans Chu (Chuniang), Run (Runniang), Tai (Zhang Tai), and Juan (Li Juan) to refer to the courtesans he knew. Du Mu served as the secretary of the Tang minister Niu Sengru (779–848). He is said to have frequented the pleasure quarters in Huainan when he was serving as Niu’s secretary. Messages stating that “Secretary Du is safe and sound,” sent by officers to Niu as they made their rounds, “filled a whole basket” (Xin Wenfang, Tang caizi zhuan, 85). See also Wang Dang, Tang yulin jiaozheng, 7.622. Yu is alluding to these famous lines from Du Mu’s “Relieving My Feelings” 䚓ᠧ: “Ten years in Yangzhou were but a dream / that only won me the name of heartless lover in the houses of pleasure” ॱᒤа㿪ᨊᐎདྷˈ䌿ᗇ䶂⁃㮴‫ن‬਽ (QTS 524.5998). SJ 2:643 (197), “Small Joy” ሿᔱ: “The broad roads of Zhou / are now completely overgrown with weeds” 䑗䑗ઘ䚃ˈ䷐⛪㤲㥹. The speaker of the poem laments his homelessness in the devastation following Zhou decline. (The bracketed numbers for citations to Shijing [SJ], the earliest anthology of Chinese poetry, indicate their numbering in the Mao Tradition.) “Brocade zither” 䥖⪏ is the title of a poem on lost love by Li Shangyin (813– 858) (QTS 539.6144). Xipi is a kind of expensive belt hook (probably made from rhinoceros horn or hide); here it refers to intricate decorations on musical instruments.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

27 1

See the introduction xxvii, n. 52. Literally, “making note of special terms, such as the ‘war of clams’ or ‘Lord Cliff.’ ” Cui Lingqin in his account of Tang official courtesans describes how musicians called the emperor “Lord Cliff” and his happy mood “war of clams” ( Jiaofang ji, 124). Ming shilu 234.3417–18. On the names of the sixteen towers, see Æki, Fengyue Qinhuai, 53– 60. Literally, “young men from the Dark Clothes Lane.” The Dark Clothes Military Camp in Jiankang (another name of Nanjing) in the kingdom of Wu gave the name to the Dark Clothes Lane during the Eastern Jin. It was where aristocratic families like Wang and Xie lived. The hunting bow was a status symbol. The poet Pan Yue (247– 300), famous for his good looks, is said to have been a sensation among women when as a youth he appeared on the streets of Luoyang with his bow. This and the previous line allude to “The Account of Jesters” in Sima Qian’s Records of the Historian (Shiji). The Qi jester Chunyu Kun describes to the Qi king the most enjoyable kind of drinking: men and women sit together, “in front were fallen earrings, in the rear hairpins left behind,” with the dishes of the feast in disarray; candles are snuffed, and the host “asked Kun to tarry but sent the other guests off ” (Shiji 126.3199). Chunyu Kun’s speech is supposed to be an admonition about the dangers of drinking, but it is delivered with great relish. Literally, “Inside the Bend”: Sun Qi’s Accounts of the Northern Ward describes “the eastward bend” of Pingkang Lane as the place where courtesans lived. Literally, “Paper Money Storehouse Street.” In 1374, the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, issued decrees on the use of paper money, which lasted until 1522, when inflation prompted the Ming government to revert to the use of copper coins. Treasury Street was the place where paper money was printed and stored. Description of courtesan quarters often emphasizes their garden aesthetics and their incorporation of the ornaments of literati culture. See, e.g., Qian Qianyi’s account of Ma Xianglan’s abode (Liaochao shiji xiaozhuan, 765) and the description of Zheng Aiyue’er’s rooms in the sixteenth century novel The Plum in the Golden Vase ( Jin Ping Mei,chapter 77). Cf. Wang Hongtai, “Qinglou mingji yu qing yi shenghuo.” “Madame” is literally “adoptive mother” in the original. This would be the salutation between equals. Yu Huai will refer to or elaborate on these courtesans later on in his work. The Returning Light Temple was built in the early fifteenth century on the site of a temple built by Emperor Wu of Liang in 514. The lord of Zhongshan refers to Xu Da (1332–1385), a comrade-in-arms of the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang. He became an important Ming minister. The East Garden was east of the Old Quarters, while the Vermilion Bird Bridge lay west of it. An allusion to Du Mu’s poem, “Bidding Farewell” 䌸ࡕ: “In the spring wind, for ten li on the Yangzhou road, / the pearly curtains are rolled up, but none

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29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

34.

35. 36.

37.

38. 39.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

can compare to you” ᱕付ॱ䟼ᨊᐎ䐟ˈᦢк⨐㉮㑭нྲ (QTS 523.5988). According to Zhang Dai, these houses along the Qinhuai River were “suitable for residence, suitable for socializing, and suitable for sensual pleasures— the price was very expensive, but not a day passed without them being filled to capacity” (Tao’an mengyi, 4.66). SJ 3:867 (247), “Having Become Inebriated” ᰒ䞹: “Having become inebriated with wine, / having become satiated with virtue” ᰒ䞹ԕ䞂ˈᰒ伭ԕᗧ; SJ 1:293 (100), “It’s Not Yet Light in the East” ᶡᯩᵚ᰾: “Dawn has not broken in the east, / I put on my clothes upside down” ᶡᯩᵚ᲎ˈ事‫ق‬㼣㺓. Another possible reference is SJ 1:254 (82), “The Woman Says, ‘It’s Cockcrow’ ” ྣᴠ䴎匤: “The woman says, ‘It’s cockcrow.’ / The man says, ‘It’s hardly dawn’ ” ྣᴠ䴎匤, ༛ᴠ᱗ᰖ. The poem is no longer extant. On Ming-Qing poems about the lantern boats of Qinhuai, see Gong Bin and Fan Shaolin, Qinhuai wenxue zhi, 3:1621–41. Jie, the legendary last ruler of Xia, is said to have built Agate Terrace. The original has “Hainan incense,” highly esteemed since the Song dynasty because of its pure fragrance. See, e.g., Xiang sheng 1.310 (citing Fan Chengda). For the Pear Garden, see Plum Shadows n. 27. The term fabu means “the department of religious music.” The Tang emperor Xuanzong loved the music merging Han and central Asian traditions used in Buddhist and Daoist rituals, and “religious music” came to refer to court music. “The southern tour” refers to the Zhengde emperor’s (r. 1505–1521) military expedition against the rebel prince Zhu Chenhao (d. 1521) in 1519–1520. The Ming court celebrated imperial victory with sacrifices to heaven and earth in Jinling, hence the transmission of court music to Jinling. The term for such payment is chantou (head ornaments), referring to the Tang custom of wrapping gifts in brocade and putting them in the hair of entertainers and courtesans (Taiping yulan 815.3754). Du Fu (712– 770), “A Poem Given as Gift to Huaqing” 䌸㣡য: “This song should exist only in heaven. / How many times can we get to hear it in the human realm?” ↔ᴢਚ៹ཙкᴹˈӪ䯃㜭ᗇᒮഎ㚎˛(QTS 226.2447) (BQ 12). Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 7.144. Mei Dingzuo wrote about a courtesan named Dun who told stories about her ancestor Dun Ren and the Zhengde emperor (Xiu Qiu, Xu benshi shi, 198; BQ 12). Pan Zhiheng’s Gen shi includes the poems and letters Zheng Tuoniang exchanged with her lover Qilian Sheng; see Miao Quansun, Qinhuai guangji, 388– 95. Mao Yuchang, Mao Xiang’s great-granduncle and onetime tutor, included Zheng in his anthology, Selected Poems by the Four Beauties of Qinhuai (Qinhuai si meiren xuangao). (The other three included in that anthology are Ma Xianglan, Zhao Jinyan, and Zhu Taiyu.) Literally, “grass for driving away sweat.” The scent of Buddha’s hands and quinces is gentle rather than overpowering. Both are linked to love and courtship. A quince is exchanged for jade

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

40.

41. 42.

43. 44.

45. 46.

47.

48.

49.

273

ornaments in a love poem,“Quince” ᵘ⬌; see SJ 1:205–8 (64). For Buddha’s hand, see Plum Shadows n. 169. The phrase “gentle harmony” comes from an early poem on conjugal bliss in SJ 1:255 (82). “The orchid is the most fragrant flower of the domain” (Zuo Xuan 3.6, 2:604– 7). In one early story, Confucius passed by a secluded vale and saw luxuriant orchids, and he praised them as “the fragrance of princes” (Yiwen leiju 81.1390). In The Songs of Chu, the orchid is a recurrent image associated with goddesses and their high-minded seekers. Jade pendant (pei ⨞), homophonous with “match” (pei 䝽), symbolizes union in the poet’s quest of the goddess in The Songs of Chu and poems inspired by them. There is evidence of this phenomenon in The Plum in the Golden Vase (chs. 42, 52). “Coiffed hair” (shulong) is also used as a verb, referring to the patron’s act of buying the “first night” of a virgin courtesan. For “sixteen” the text has “the year of splitting the melon.” The graph for melon has “two” and “eight” as constituent components, hence the term “splitting the melon” (pogua) refers to a sixteen-year-old girl. The Tang poet Bai Juyi uses this term to refer to arbitrary Tang court fashion (QTS 426.4692, 427.4705). The Examination Quarters was on the north shore of the Qinhuai River, east of the Confucius Temple. The Ming dynasty began with its capital in Nanjing, which became the site of the Jiangnan prefectural examination and the capital examination. Even after the capital moved to Beijing (1421), the Nanjing Examination Quarters remained the site for the “prefectural examination in the southern capital.” During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Nanjing Examination Quarters were the largest in the country. The examination took place in autumn, and the successful candidate was said to “break the cassia branch.” The original refers to Chezi, a gifted singer (early third c.) famous for his affecting and heroic style, and Yang’e, a famous ancient dancer mentioned in Huainanzi (second c. BCE). According to Wang Renyu, bored palace ladies played games by tossing gold coins (Kaiyuan Tianbao yishi, 1728). Here the phrase alludes to patrons who spend money in a cavalier fashion. In a story from Strange Stories Under the North Window (Beichuang zhiyi, ca. eleventh–twelfth c.), the scholar Huang Sun’s jade horse pendant brings about his miraculous reunion with his beloved. Ming plays and vernacular fiction based on this story include Wang Yuanshou’s (early–mid-seventeenth c.) Jade Horse Pendant (Yuma zhui), Liu Fang’s (seventeenth c.) Heavenly Horse as Matchmaker (Tianma mei), Lu Yanchun’s (late seventeenth– early eighteenth c.) Jade Horse Pendant (Yuma pei), and story no. 32 in Stories to Awaken the World (Xingshi hengyan) compiled by Feng Menglong. Tao Yuanming, “Rhapsody on Stilling the Passions” 䯁ᛵ䌖 (Tao Yuanming ji, 152–59): “She mourns that morning glow easily turns into dusk, / and grieves that human existence is incessant toil. / All would come to an end in a

274

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55. 56.

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Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

hundred years; / how is it, then, that joys are few and sorrows abundant?” ᛢ Იᴖѻ᱃ཅˈᝏӪ⭏ѻ䮧औDŽ਼аⴑҾⲮᒤˈօ↑ሑ㘼ᜱ⇧˛ “Blue tower” is a standard euphemism for the pleasure quarters. Yu Huai may be alluding to “Millet Drooping” 哽䴒 (SJ 1:209–12 [65]): “High heavens above, / who is this person?” ᛐᛐ㫬ཙˈ↔օӪૹ; or “Who Is That Person?” օӪᯟ (SJ 1:654– 60 [199]): “Who is that person? / His heart is hard to know” ᖬօ Ӫᯟˈަᗳᆄ㢡. A scholar of broad learning, Li Tai (sobriquet Xianyuan, jinshi 1397) oversaw the Bureau of Astronomy. The quoted quatrain was on “The Tower of the North Market” ेᐲ⁃ After Zhu Di (the Yongle emperor) deposed his nephew, the Jianwen emperor, and usurped the throne in 1402, he unleashed his fury against the Jianwen emperor’s supporters and their lineages by mass executions. (The most famous case was Fang Xiaoru [1357–1402], who was executed along with 847 members of his clan and associates.) The female family members of these Jianwen loyalists were married to slaves training elephants. In one account, the minister Hu Run’s wife and daughters were married to slaves training elephants. In another, his wife was assigned to the Bureau of Music Instruction. Yu Huai seems to believe that the Yongle emperor’s vindictive policies filled the licensed quarters with well-born women during the early Ming. Yu Huai is alluding to lines from a poem by the Jianwen loyalist Mao Dafang (addressed to the imperial son-in-law Mei Yin): “Even if the fiery dragon topples the axis of earth, / don’t let the iron cavalry cross the heavenly river” 㑡ᴹ⚛喽㘫ൠ䔨ˈ㧛ᮉ䩥倾䙾ཙ⋣ (cited in Li Zhi, Xu cang shu, 119). Here Mao is stating his determination to resist Zhu Di, and he along with his entire family died as martyrs. Yu Huai implies his sympathy with the Jianwen loyalists. (For some Ming loyalists, the 1402 usurpation was another story of “north versus south” that has contemporary resonance.) For another interpretation, see Li Jintang’s suggestion that “the fiery dragon” refers to the glorious founding of the Ming (BQ 16)—the first Ming emperor believed that the Ming dynasty rose because of “the virtue of fire” (one of the five elements or phases in traditional cosmology) and thus adopted the color red for military uniforms and banners. For this poetic sequence of twenty-five quatrains, see QMZ 4:415– 22. On the comparison of Nanjing with the Song capital Bianjing, and of Plank Bridge with Record of Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital, see the introduction n. 52, Yu Huai’s preface. The quatrain, first in the series, conflates several historical moments: the names Faint Powder and Light Mist refer to the early Ming establishment of courtesan quarters (see Yu’s preface); “a splendid age” is “Kaiyuan and Tianbao reigns” in the original (i.e., the Tang dynasty in the decades before the An Lushan Rebellion); “mist and flowers” suggest records of sensual pleasures; memories of the Song capital Bianjing in the last line implies heedless

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58. 59.

60. 61.

62.

63.

64. 65. 66.

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indulgence during the Southern Song (and perhaps by implication, the Southern Ming). Qian Qianyi’s note. This is the second quatrain in the series. This is the fourth quatrain in the series. Qian added in a note: “Wang Yi of Xin’an [Anhui], sobriquet Yimin.” “Yi” 䙨 (recluse) and “Yimin” 䚪≁ (remnant subject) suggest that Wang Third was a Ming loyalist. Wang seems to have both encouraged the poet in his romantic liaisons and urged restraint. The wording here differs slightly from the version of the quatrain included in Qian’s collection: “Forlorn over parting, detaining her lover, she was no match against the horses’ hooves. / The moon shone bright over the quarters as crows roosted at night. / I do not know why it mattered to Wang Third / that he should urge me to seek pleasures and cry with me” ᜌࡕ⮉↑䲀俜䑴ˈमℴᴸ ⲭཌ⛿ἢDŽн⸕օ㠷⊚йһˈ䏓ᡁ↑။դᡁ஬ (QMZ 4:416). This is the fifth quatrain in the series. For Xiao Boliang, see part III 154. This is the seventh quatrain in the series. Qian Qianyi adds in his notes: “Zhou Xigui of Shaoxing, sobriquet Yuxi, likes to listen to Old Dun of South Court play the pipa. He often says to others: this is the religious music left behind by the Zhengde emperor after his Southern Tour” (QMZ 4:417). See n. 32. The “Zhou lad” refers to Zhou Yu (175– 210), a general famous for, among other things, his knowledge of music. He was attuned to the finesse of musical performance even after three cups of wine: “When there was a mistake in the music, the Zhou lad turned to look” (Sanguo zhi 54.2165). Old Dun’s pipa music embodies a glorious moment in Ming history. It also represents a link with the past that has become increasingly tenuous. The aging connoisseur, Zhou Xigui, identifies with the old unappreciated musician, even as Qian identifies with Zhou. “Lakes and rivers” refer to Lake Dongting and the Xiang River. The line recalls the Song scholar Liu Zihui’s (1101–1147) poem about the courtesan Li Shishi, the paramour of the Huizong emperor, “Chronicling Events in Bianjing” ⊤ Ӝ䁈һ: “The splendor of the capital—the object of mourning. / The aging Shishi drifts through lakes and rivers. / Her silken garments and sandalwood clapper have faded, / but her song once moved the emperor” 䕖䕲㑱㨟һਟ ۧˈᑛᑛ඲㘱䙾⒆⒈DŽ㑧㺓₰ᶯ❑乿㢢ˈаᴢ⮦ᱲअᑍ⦻ (cited in Deng Zhicheng’s annotations in Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing menghua lu zhu, 5.137). The last section (Run ji) of the anthology, Poems from Various Reigns (Liechao shiji), compiled by Qian Qianyi, is devoted to imperial relatives, women poets, monks, Daoists, and foreigners. Some scholars suggest that Liu Rushi was the main compiler of this section. Zheng Tuoniang would have found her own poems included there. This is the twelfth quatrain in the poetic sequence. According to Qian’s note, Zheng was seventy-two at the time (QMZ 4:418). Yang may refer to Yang Bin, another famous pipa player in the Old Quarters. Palace ladies remembering Tang glory in the Kaiyuan (713– 741) and Tianbao era (742– 756) before the An Lushan Rebellion is a common trope in mid- and

276

67.

68. 69.

70.

71.

72.

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late Tang poetry. See, for example, Yuan Zhen’s “Sojourning Palace” 㹼ᇞ: “Desolate is the former palace for sojourns, / where palace flowers bloom in solitude. / White-haired palace ladies are there, / leisurely sitting, and speaking of Emperor Xuanzong” ሕ㩭ਔ㹼ᇞˈᇞ㣡ᇲሎ㌵DŽⲭ九ᇞྣ൘ˈ䯁඀䃚⦴ ᇇ (QTS 410.4552). This poem is also attributed to Wang Jian (QTS 301.3423). Wang Shizhen notes in Casual Conversations North of the Pond (Chi bei outan): “In the Old Quarters in Jinling, some had surnames like Dun and Tuo—they were all descendants of Mongols taken into the Bureau of Music Instruction. Toward the end of the Shunzhi reign (1644–1661), I was in Jiangning and heard that Tuo Shiniang, supreme among courtesans during the Wanli era, was still alive at eighty. I was moved and composed a poem about it” (BQ 18). Xue Yongruo, Ji yi ji, 293– 94. For the term “safe and sound secretary,” see n. 9. Fan Jingwen served as the minister of war of the Southern Capital from 1634 to 1638. By 1640, Fan had already lost his position because of his memorial to the throne in 1638 trying to defend Huang Daozhou (1585–1646) and to criticize Yang Sichang (1588–1641), whom Huang attacked for unauthorized peace negotiations with Manchu forces. When Beijing fell to the rebels in 1644, Fan committed suicide by jumping into a well. The “lotus tent” alludes to Yu Gaozhi’s (441–491) service under Wang Jian (452–489), whose establishment is compared to a lotus pond, presumably because of its aura of elegance and integrity (Nanshi 49.1210). All three were famous Jinling courtesans. Zhu Dou’er was a painter and a poet; see Qian Qianyi, Liechao shiji, 6624– 25; Chu Renhuo, Jianhu ji, 223– 24; Miao Quansun, Qinhuai guangji, 347. Xu Pianpian appears as Xu Pian in Pan Zhiheng’s Gen shi. When Pan became her lover, he arranged to find well-known literati to become her tutors in calligraphy, poetry, zither playing, and singing. Betrayal and disappointments marked her life despite a chorus of appreciation from famous admirers (Qinhuai guangji, 367– 73). For Ma Xianglan, see the introduction n. 18. Qinhuai courtesan culture in the Ming first reached its high point in the mid-sixteenth century (Qian Qianyi, Liaochao shiji xiaozhuan, 462; Feng Menglong, Qing shi, 184). “The romantic élan east of the river” evokes stories about the romantic sensibility of the Eastern Jin. Xie An, for example, was famous for consorting with courtesans and traveling in the mountains, even as he rose to political prominence as prime minister and claimed major military victories. The Qi minister Wang Jian (452–489) implicitly compared himself to Xie An when described the latter as “the romantic prime minister east of the river” (Nan Qi shu 23.436). Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of Song, was an artist and a poet whose extravagance and political ineptitude were in part responsible for the Jurchen conquest of north China. In 1128, Huizong, along with his son Emperor Qinzong and the rest of their family, was taken captive and brought back to the Jin (Jurchen) capital. Huizong spent the last nine years of his life in captivity in the City of the Five Domains (in present-day Heilongjiang). He is said to

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73.

74. 75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

80.

27 7

have written a biographical account of the courtesan Li Shishi, his onetime paramour, while in captivity. For the anecdote and the comments of Lu You and Li Qingzhao, see Ma Ling, Ma shi Nan Tang shu, 21.4; Lu You, Nan Tang shu, 11.3b; Li Qingzhao, “Ci lun,” in Li Qingzhao ji jiaozhu, 194. SJ 1:114 (38), “Grand” ㉑‫ޞ‬. This is a song of praise describing a ritual dance. SJ 1:178 (57), “Grand Lady” ⻙Ӫ. The song praises the beauty of the bride of a ruler or a nobleman, traditionally identified as Zhuang Jiang, wife of Lord Zhuang of Wei (r. 757– 735 BCE). Pan ⴬ (translated here as “clear and bright”) is sometimes glossed as “eyes with the black and white well defined.” SJ 1:321– 24 (112), “Cutting Sandalwood” Հ₰. In the original, the appellation of “noble men” is ironic, meant as a critique of nobles who neither plow nor hunt but enjoy the fruits of other people’s labor. Here Yu Huai uses the term positively to refer to the men of honor and sensibility who consorted with courtesans. SJ Mao 2:776 (228), “Lowland Mulberry” 䳠ẁ. This is a song describing a woman’s elation at meeting the man she loves. In the original, the object (zhi) of the verbs “keep” and “forget” can be either the man or unarticulated love: “In my heart I love him; / why then do I not tell him? / In my heart of hearts I keep it, / never will I forget it” ᗳѾᝋ⸓ˈ䚀н䄲⸓DŽѝᗳ㯿ѻˈօᰕᘈѻ. Yu Huai uses zhi (them) to refer to the courtesans and fine men he knew as well as his memories of that lost world. The plot of The Thorn Hairpin ( Jingchai ji, fourteenth c.) develops around the eponymous object, with which the protagonist Wang Shipeng pledges troth with Qian Yulian. (The historical Wang Shipeng [1112–1171] was a Song scholar-official.) After their marriage, Wang leaves to take the metropolitan examination and is forced to marry the prime minister’s daughter. After overcoming many obstacles and misunderstandings, Wang and Qian are reunited at the end. Upon receiving false news that Wang is divorcing Qian in order to marry the prime minister’s daughter, Qian’s stepmother forces her to remarry (scene 24). Qian drowns herself in protest (scene 26). Unaware that Qian has been saved, Wang Shipeng’s mother offers sacrifices to Qian Yulian by the river (scene 30, “Sacrifice by the River”). Here Yin Chun might be playing Wang’s mother. When Wang meets his mother (scene 31, “Meeting the Mother”), she tries at first to hide the sad news of Qian’s suicide from him but has to confess the truth in the end. Xu Hezi, a girl from a Music Registry family, was chosen to serve as a singer in the palace toward the end of the Kaiyuan era. She was called Yongxin (after her hometown) and gained favor with Emperor Xuanzong. After the An Lushan Rebellion, she ended up marrying a scholar. Wei Qing was a general noted for his singing. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Wei happened upon the sound of music drifting from a boat in Guangling (Yangzhou). He exclaimed, “This is the song of Yongxin” (Duan Anjie, Yuefu zalu shuzheng, 35– 36). In alluding to this anecdote, Yu Huai is comparing himself to

27 8

81.

82.

83. 84.

85. 86.

87. 88.

89.

90.

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Wei Qing, who can discern the true worth of music despite changing circumstances. Zhang Honghong and her father sang as beggars. Wei Qing spotted her talent and beauty and took her as his concubine. She could mark beats with beans and was unerring in her estimation of musical intervals. She eventually entered the palace and was known as “the lady marking beats.” She died of grief when she heard the news of Wei Qing’s death (Duan Anjie, Yuefu zalu shuzheng, 36). Yuan Zhen praised Liu Caichun for her choice of songs, which according to Fan Shu were composed by the literati (Yunxi youyi, 1308– 9). Liu is listed as the author (although she was likely only the singer) of six poems in Complete Tang Poems (QTS 802.9024). Shishuo xinyu 23.42: “Whenever Huan Ziye heard unaccompanied singing, he would cry out: ‘What is to be done?’ Xie An heard about this and said, ‘Ziye can be said to have feelings that run deep all the way.’” Huan exemplifies the man of sensibility being overwhelmed by the power of music. For “heartbreaking lines of Southland,” see part I 81–82. “Blue coat” alludes to the poet being moved to tears by a singing girl in Bai Juyi’s “Song of Pipa.” “Xiangzhen” can mean “the goddess of the Xiang River.” “Xueyi” means, literally, “snowy clothes.” “Girl in Snowy Clothes” (Xueyi nü) was also what Emperor Xuanzong and his palace ladies called a clever white parrot that could speak and became a favored pet in the Tang palace (Zheng Chuhui, Minghuang zalu, 58). “Mountain Spirit” ኡ公, The Songs of Chu. The Yuan painter Ni Zan (1301–1374) was obsessed with cleanliness. He once relentlessly washed a paulownia tree where an offending guest had spat (Wang Qi [1433–1499], Yupu zaji, 6.116). The anecdote comes to symbolize his lofty abhorrence of pollution. Here the acts of washing or brushing may not be literal; they simply evoke the mood of purity and ethereal self-containment. The rebel armies of Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng overran Henan and Anhui (1635–1636), Shaanxi (1642), and Hubei (1642–1643). Xia Ji’s (seventh c. BCE) sexual relations with various powerful men caused great upheavals in Chen and Chu during the Spring and Autumn Period; see Zuo, Xuan 9.6, 10.4; Cheng 2.6, 7.5; Zhao 28.2b, 1:626– 31, 2:726– 29, 764– 67, 3:1686–87. One character sums it up thus: “She killed three husbands, one ruler, and one son and brought one domain and two high ministers to their destruction” (Zuo Zhao 28.2b, 3:1686–87). In Lienü zhuan (7.155–56), Xia Ji is said to rejuvenate herself through mastering the art of sexual intercourse. Liu Zongyuan’s (773–819) “Biography of Hejian” describes a woman driven by insatiable lust (Liu Zongyuan ji, 4:1341–45). Zhao Feiyan, consort of Emperor Cheng of Han (r. 33– 7 BCE), was so light that she could supposedly dance on a palm (Taiping yulan 574.2721; Hong Mai, Rongzhai suibi, 129). Yu Huai uses the analogy to refer to Mei’s delicate frame. Literally, “I entered the thorny gate.” The outer walls of the examination compound had brambles.

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91. 92.

93.

94.

95. 96. 97.

98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

104.

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In other words, Mei turns a game of chance (i.e., on which side the coins land) into potential omens. Chen Su (sobriquet Danxian, jinshi 1634) got into legal troubles after 1645. According to Wang Zhuo (Xin shishuo), the loyalist poet Huang Yun, whom Chen promoted during the Taizhou county examination, devoted himself to helping Chen when the latter was in trouble (Qingshi jishi 1096– 97). Xueyi is also the name of a bird (n. 84), hence the image of flying. Xiange is the name of a Tang courtesan famous for her wit and singing (Sun Qi, Beili zhi, 1405); here it refers to Mei. In Bai Juyi’s “Song of Pipa,” a pipa player comes to his boat after much coaxing and then tells her life story as an aging courtesan who married a merchant “keen about profit and indifferent to separation.” In a Yuan play based on the poem (Tears on a Blue Coat [Qingshan lei], fourteenth c.), Bai knows Xingnu (the pipa player) before she is swindled into a marriage with the merchant. The play ends with Xingnu leaving the merchant and escaping with Bai. “Carrying the pipa to another boat” came to mean a woman’s remarriage. Here Yu Huai may be advising Mei to remain loyal to her current patron. It was common for courtesans to add the graph sheng to their name. Gu Mei was sometimes called Gu Meisheng, and Wang Yue, Wang Yuesheng. Mao Xiang’s postscript to a poem dated 1689 (MPJ 2:1514–15). This alludes to an anecdote from Shishuo xinyu 4.96: Yuan Hong offended Huan Wen during the latter’s northern expedition (369) and was relieved of his duty. But Huan needed a proclamation, so he “called for Yuan and ordered him to compose it leaning against the front of the horse. Yuan did not stop for a moment with his brush and soon enough filled seven sheets of paper. The composition was very impressive.” According to Qian Chengzhi’s biography, excerpted below, Sun Lin left behind voluminous writings, but none of them survived. Approximately 150 kilograms. The Han general Li Guang (d. 119 BCE) inspired so much fear among the Xiongnu that they called him “the Flying General of Han” (Shiji 70.2871). Ban Chao (first c.) threw down the brush and aspired to military glory (Hou Hanshu 47.1571). See entry on Wang Yue below.. Zhuo Wenjun (second c. BCE) is said to have had eyebrows the hue of distant mountains (Xijing zaji 88). Emperor Cheng of Han describes the soft body of his consort, Hede, as “the realm of sensuous delight.” He declares: ‘I will just grow old here! I cannot follow the example of Emperor Wu in seeking the Realm of White Clouds [i.e., literal immortality]!’ ” (Zhao Feiyan waizhuan 32.21b). Yunjian is the ancient name of Songjiang (present-day Shanghai). According to Qian Chengzhi’s biography of Sun Lin, it was around 1644 and 1645 that Sun Lin plotted with Chen Zilong (1608–1647) and Xu Fuyuan (1600–1665), who both hailed from Huating in Songjiang, to continue Ming loyalist resistance.

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106. 107.

108.

109.

110.

111.

112. 113.

114. 115. 116.

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Sun Lin’s great-grandson, Sun Yan ( jinshi 1761), possibly motivated by political caution, claimed that his family records tell a different story: when Sun Lin was involved in loyalist resistance in Yunjian, he left Ge Nen in a boat while he went ashore to seek supplies for his troops. “Just then brigands came on the boat and tried to violate Ge Nen, who therefore jumped into the river and drowned” (BQ 27). For Fang Yizhi, see Plum Shadows 6–7. The Fang clan was famous for its tradition of learning and literary talent. It included many women poets. On Fang Ziyao’s treatise on educating her sons (Hanxiang ge xunzi chao), see Liu Yongcong (Clara Ho), Caide xianghui, 98, 112 n. 188. Fang Ziyao brought up her two sons to become accomplished men of letters, but they did not serve in the Qing government. Qian Chengzhi, “Sun Wugong zhuan,” in Tianjian wenji, 406–11. According to Qian, Ming martyrs from the provinces south of the Yangzi River were much more numerous than elsewhere, and Sun was the only one from his province (Anhui) who embraced martyrdom resolutely and heroically. Qian is critical of Yang Wencong, decrying his interest in women and money. When Yang’s army suffered defeat, he retreated with his retinue, including numerous concubines and trunks of valuables. Qian suggests that Sun Lin recognized Yang’s weakness but needed to rely on his resources to persist with the resistance. For all that, Sun believed it his duty to die with Yang to vindicate their common purpose. Also called “ten-variation brocade” (shiyang jin) and “ten-variation scene” (shiyang jing), this included a number of wind and percussion instruments and is said to have originated from the Zhengde emperor’s “southern tour” in 1519 (Shen Defu, Wanli yehuo bian, 25.650). According to Ye Mengzhu (seventeenth c.), this started out with mainly percussion instruments and had the vigor of military music, and it was only in the 1630s and 1640s that young men in the Suzhou area created the “new ten-variation” (xin shifan) that included wind and string instruments (Yueshi bian, 10.620– 21). The context here suggests something improvisatory. “Mochou” (Have no sorrow) is the name of a singing girl in yuefu ballads (Lu 1346, 1520– 21, 2462– 63). Lake Mochou was outside the city gate of Jinling. Many merchants in Ming-Qing literature hailed from Xin’an in Anhui. The phrase “rushing about to fulfill commands (or missions)” (benming) comes from Zuozhuan (Zuo Cheng 7.5, Xiang 26.10, 2:766– 67, 2:1180–81). The original context is military; here it refers to Wu’s attempt to satisfy the sexual and emotional demands of his concubines. Li Daniang had presumably bribed this guest. Yu Huai might have met her at Gu Mei’s birthday celebration in 1654 (see 100). Xu Zhaopei, consort of Emperor Yuan of Liang (r. 552– 555), had lovers even in her later years. One of her lovers said, “Lady Xu, though old, is still passionate” (Nanshi 12.342).

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117. 118.

119.

120. 121. 122. 123.

124. 125. 126.

127.

128.

129.

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See n. 66. Huaqing Palace was where Emperor Xuanzong’s favorite, Consort Yang, took baths. Du Mu met the singing girl Zhang Haohao in 829; she was thirteen and he was serving as Commissioner Shen Chuanshi’s secretary. Three years later, she became the concubine of Shen Shushi, Chuanshi’s younger brother. But when Du Mu reencountered her in 835, she had left the Shen household and was selling wine at a wine shop (QTS 520.5941). This is Haohao’s question to Du Mu, following the preceding two lines: “You’re surprised: for what reason / does the young man sport a white beard?” ᙚᡁ㤖օһˈቁᒤ඲ⲭ兊 (QTS 520.5941). Du Mu was thirty-two at the time. Shen Chuanshi had just died, and Du Mu mourned his patron and friend. Although most of the poem is devoted to Haohao’s beauty and singing, these final lines describe Du Mu’s own desolation. The Studio of Wintry (literally, Cold) Grace was probably thus named because of the presence of plum trees. See MPJ 2:1514–15. For Chen Zhenhui, see Plum Shadows 6. Chen was also one of the key members of the Revival Society. The unnamed tower here is probably Gu Mei’s house (see below). Mao Xiang presumably felt the need to avoid mentioning it because Gu Mei married his friend Gong Dingzi. Later in the preface he indicated that the lady of the unnamed tower excelled in orchid paintings. Chen Yinke believes that “Jinghua” may be Bian Yujing (LRS 2:498– 99). See Miao Quansun, Qinhuai guangji, 474. Miao claims to be citing Xu Qiu’s Xu benshi shi, but the editions I consulted do not have the passage he cited. In thus remarking on the smallness of a woman’s bound feet as a mark of beauty (here and elsewhere in Plank Bridge), Yu Huai is of course typical of Ming-Qing taste. In “Shoes and Stockings of Women” ႖Ӫ䶻㾚㘳, however, he points out that footbinding, common only since the thirteenth century, was extremely “artificial and unnatural” (YH 1:347–48). In “The Account of Milou” 䘧⁃䁈 (ca. eleventh–twelfth c.), Emperor Yang of Sui exhausts his treasury to build a tower. It is so dazzling and labyrinthine that Emperor Yang exclaims: “Even if real immortals wander into it, they too will be enchanted and lose their way. We can name this Milou.” This account appears frequently in Ming collections and is incorporated into The Romantic History of Emperor Yang of Sui (Sui Yang di yanshi, 1631 preface). The notion of enchantment was prevalent in late Ming gardens and architecture. Zhang Dai praises the clever conception of Bao Hansuo’s “Blue Lotus Mountain Abode” by comparing it to Milou (Xihu mengxun, 30). On the extravagant palate of Wei Zhi (Lord of Xun) and Li Deyu (787– 850) (who served as minister of war), see Plum Shadows n. 175; Xin Tangshu 122.4353; “Duyi zhi” (TPGJ 237.1824). Cang or cangfu, meaning someone lowly and uncouth (translated here as “vulgarian”), is the disparaging epithet southerners used for northerners (e.g., in Shishuo xinyu). The original geographical implication does not apply here.

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130.

131.

132.

133.

134.

135.

136.

137.

138.

139. 140. 141. 142.

143.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

“Romantic roué” (langzi) refers to Li Bangyan (d. 1130), famed for his looks and wit. Prince Duan was the title of Zhao Ji before he became Emperor Huizong of Song. See the introduction n. 27, Plank Bridge n. 72. After Wu defeated Chu (506 BCE), Shen Baoxu went to the Qin court to ask for help, describing Wu as “a huge boar or a long serpent that will swallow the domains above it” (Zuo Ding 4.3, 3:1760– 61). Zhang Yi (d. 309 BCE) lured King Huai of Chu to break off with Qi and draw close to Qin, to the ultimate detriment of Chu (Shiji 70.2287–88). Yu Huai is accusing “the vulgarian” of deceiving Gu Mei and trying to destroy her. Fang Yingqian (sobriquet Qu’an) and Fang Yizhi, mentioned above, belonged to the same clan. Yingqian’s father and Yizhi’s grandfather were second cousins. Sidelong Ripples is one of the names Gu Mei used after her marriage. It recalls these lines by Wang Guan (1035–1100): “The water is the ripples of her eyes drawn sidelong, / the mountains the peaks of her eyebrows gathering. / If you ask where the traveler is going, / it’s where eyebrows and eyes are brimming” ≤ᱟ⵬⌒ₛˈኡᱟⴹጠ㚊DŽⅢ୿㹼Ӫ৫䛓䚺ˈⴹ⵬⳸⳸㲅 (Wu Ceng, Neng gai zhai manlu, 16.412). Wang Kangju (fourth–fifth c.): “The lesser recluse hides among hills and swamps, / the great recluse hides in court and the marketplace” ሿ䳡䳡䲥㰚, བྷ䳡䳡ᵍᐲ (Lu 953). The jester Dongfang Shuo describes himself as “escaping the world by being at court” (Shiji 126.3205). For more on Ding and Zhang, see part III 156, 162–64. Wang Shizhi (Wang Min) was a Ming official who became a recluse after the fall of the Ming. References to the literati and scholar-officials joining in operatic performance started to appear in the early seventeenth century. Yan Zhengzhu ( jinshi 1643), like Gong, was a Ming official who served under the Qing. He hailed from Hubei, the land of the ancient Chu kingdom. Gong was his examiner for the provincial examination in Hubei in 1636. Yan wrote a laudatory biography of Gong Dingzi (Qingdai beizhuan quanji 1522). The wording here recalls the account of the knight-errant Lou Hu (late first c. BCE– early first c. CE): “Wang Yi raised the goblet over his head and said, ‘Your lowly son honors your birthday!’ The hundreds of people sitting there left their seats, knelt, and bowed with their foreheads touching the ground. Lou alone sat facing east and said loud and clear: ‘You are a noble son—how can this be!’” (Hanshu 62.3708). For Wu Qi and Deng Hanyi, see Plum Shadows 61–62. This is supposed to indicate that Gu Mei had a karmic connection with Buddhist enlightenment. Gu Mei died in 1663. Gong’s play did not survive. Fan Wenguang served as vice minister of taxation during the Chongzhen reign. He was active in Ming loyalist resistance, serving as commissioner in the Yongli court (1646–1662). When Qing troops overran Jiading, he took poison and committed suicide (Ming shi 279.7149). See MPJ 2:939, 940, 941, 947.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

144.

145.

146. 147. 148. 149. 150.

151. 152.

153. 154. 155.

156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161.

162. 163. 164.

283

“Immortals love living in towers”; see Han Wu gushi 171. Gu Mei’s predilection for living in an elevated structure must have inspired many poems comparing her to a goddess. Mei lou ji (now no longer extant) presumably included her poems as well as poems by her admirers. Fan’s postscript was probably written in 1643, despite a slight discrepancy in Gu Mei’s age. Xiaoqing is a poet and a scholar’s concubine who dies young because of the scholar’s neglect and his principal wife’s persecution. The woman poet Wang Duan (1793–1839) twice mentioned this portrait in notes to her own poems. (The portrait is no longer extant.) Wang Duan’s father-in-law, Chen Wenshu (1771–1843), built a grave for Xiaoqing at West Lake. Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 7.144. Meng Sen, Ming Qing shi, 437. At that point, however, Fan Jingwen had lost his position as vice minister of war. Liu Xie glosses xi ₴ as jiao ಝ (bright and clear): its goal is “to reveal and to expose, so that everything can be bright and clear” (Wenxin diaolong 20.377). The meaning of this is not clear: was there a word on the fan that gave Chen an opening to speak to Gu Mei? Did she ask him for an inscription and he used the opportunity to urge her to find a better solution? MPJ 2:947. Qian Qianyi, Wu Weiye, and Gong Dingzi are anthologized together in Poems by the Three Great Masters of the Lower Yangzi ( Jiang zuo san dajia shichao, 1667 preface) compiled by Gu Youxiao (1619–1689) and Zhao Yun. Lu Yitian ( jinshi 1836), Lenglu zashi, 386. Gong Dingzi, Gong Dingzi shi, 1025. Yuan Mei, Sui yuan shihua, 7.170. By the time Yan Ermei came to Beijing as a fugitive and Gong helped him in 1665, Gu Mei had died. The story is apocryphal and probably arose because of Gong’s note to his poem mentioned above. Dai Yannian, Qiu deng cong hua, cited in Gong Bin and Fan Shaolin, Qinhuai wenxue zhi, 2:1611. Wanyan Yunzhu, Guo chao guixiu zhengshi xuji, fulu, 20b. Despite the friendship between Gong Dingzi and Yu Huai, Yu registered his criticism of Gong (BQ 34). Ruan Kuisheng, Chayu kehua; cited in Meng Sen, Ming Qing shi, 458–59. See Meng Sen, Ming Qing shi, 458. Yan Ermei, “Five Poems in Response to Gong Xiaosheng, Who Was at the Time in the Capital and Sent Me Poems” ㆄ嗄ᆍॷӄ俆ᱲ൘䜭䮰ԕ䂙ᣅᡁ, Baita shanren shiji biannian zhu, 113–14. Ji Liuqi, Mingji beilue, 631. Ji Liuqi, Mingji beilue, 611. “On a Boat in Danyang, I Met Gu Chifang. That Night We Parted Again, I Sent Him Four Poems as Record” ѩ䲭㡏ѝ٬亗䎔ᯩᱟཌᗙࡕ৫㌰䌸ഋ俆, Gong Dingzi shi, 605. Gong adds a note to the cited line: “In Chifang’s (Chifang was Gu Jingxing’s sobriquet) collection, there are poems mourning my martyrdom and that of Shanchi jun (Gu Mei).”

284

165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174.

175.

176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182.

183. 184. 185. 186. 187.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

“Chanting My Feelings” 䂐ᠧ, no. 10, in Gong Dingzi shi, 17. “Chanting My Feelings,” no. 31, in Gong Dingzi shi, 24. Yubian jilue, cited in Miao Quansun, Qinhuai guangji, 453. Quan Qing ci: Shun Kang juan, 1117. Shi Dazu (sobriquet Banqing) was a Song lyricist (late twelfth c. to early thirteenth c.). Both Yellow Mountain (Huang shan) and White Peak (Bai yue) are in Anhui. All these are landmarks in Jiangsu. According to the traditional Chinese way of calculating age, Dong was twentyeight when she died. Yu Huai apparently confused Mao Xiang’s elegy in 2,400 words with Plum Shadows. WMC 2:525– 28. Wu Weiye added a note: “I once sent her a poem with this line: ‘This year the bright moon shines white in Changzhou Ӻᒤ᰾ᴸᑨᐎⲭ. White Embankment was where her home was.” White Embankment (northwest of Changzhou County) was at Hill Pond by Tiger Mound (near Suzhou). See Wu Weiye, Wu shi jilan, 18B.10a. This poem describes the meeting of Dong and Mao in 1642; see Plum Shadows 13–14. Note that this and the following two quatrains have Dong as the speaker. Both are tune titles. The court of Li Yu (r. 961– 975), the last ruler of the Southern Tang, had a musical tune titled “Thinking of the Breakup of Home and Realm” ᘥᇦኡ⹤, and it is said to portend the fall of the Southern Tang (Chen Yang, Yue shu, cited in Ma Duanlin, Wenxian tongkao, 142.1257). This refers to Ruan Dacheng, the minister of war in the Southern Ming court. Gao refers to Gao Jie; see Plum Shadows 45, n. 179, n. 192. For the image of the cuckoo, see part II 107–8, Liu Rushi n. 83. The Tang courtesan-poet Xue Tao here refers to Dong Bai. QTS 505.5744; TPGJ 177.1317. Upon learning of their relationship, the general offers the maid to Cui. See Plum Shadows 45, n. 179, n. 192. What I translate as “ancient zither” is lüqi ㏐㏪, “green-patterned zither.” Lüqi is the name of a zither said to belong to the Han poet Sima Xiangru. It may also evoke Lüqitai ㏐㏪ਠ, a zither from the Tang court owned by the Zhengde emperor of Ming (r. 1505–1521). It ended up as the treasured possession of the loyalist poet Kuang Lu (1604–1650), who met his martyrdom by its side in 1650. Lüqitai became a symbol of loyalty and dynastic upheavals in many early Qing poems. The lord is identified as Zheng Yinggao ( jinshi 1647). This refers to Zheng Yinggao’s clansman Zheng Qinyu. On Wu Weiye’s writings about Bian Sai, see Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 331–56. “An old friend from Haiyu” and “a certain minster” both refer to Qian Qianyi. Lord Zhongshan was a descendant of Xu Da; for Xu Da, see Plank Bridge n. 26.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

188. 189. 190.

191.

192.

193.

194.

195.

196. 197. 198. 199.

200. 201. 202.

285

Rourou married Yuan Dashou, who was accused of supporting Zheng Chenggong and executed in 1659; see Wu Meicun shiji jianzhu, 190. Li Shangyin, “Writing a Letter to be Sent North on a Rainy Night” ཌ䴘ᇴे (QTS 539.6151). The dominant reading remains focused on friendship, although an alternative title (“Yeyu jinei”) in Hong Mai’s Tangren wenshou jueju xuan suggests that the poem was addressed to his wife. Yahuang or ehuang was a dab of yellow that women applied decoratively to their foreheads, a style fashionable in the Six Dynasties and in the Tang dynasty. Pingkang, the lane in Chang’an where courtesans lived in the Tang dynasty, has since the late Tang become a standard way to refer to the pleasure quarters. See n. 20. The daughters of Ruan Dacheng and Qi Biaojia (1602–1645), famous for their beauty, were also chosen. Qi, a Revival Society member, and Ruan were political enemies. These are titles of songs from the Chen (557–589) court. The associations with the last Chen ruler (r. 582–589) continue with references to his consorts, Ladies Zhang and Kong, in the following three lines. Wu argues that they cannot blame the conquering Sui general Han Qinhu, because they had “enjoyed royal favor for ten years.” Yu’er was the original name of Consort Pan, for whom the Qi ruler, the Benighted Lord (Donghun) (r. 498–501), made lotuses inlaid with gold on the floor. “Sha” refers to Sha Cai, “Dong” to Dong Bai and Dong Nian. Weijiu was the sobriquet of Shen Hongzuo (1621–1656, jinshi 1655). He was appointed police magistrate of Guiyang but died before he took office. Weijiu’s grandfather was Shen Shixing (1535–1614), who was grand councilor during the Wanli reign from the 1580s till his death. The original has “a high official of the Yingchuan lineage.” The famous Eastern Han scholar-official Chen Shi (104–186) hailed from Yingchuan (present-day Henan), and many with the surname Chen claimed to be Chen Shi’s descendants. The “turmoil in Fujian” referred to Geng Jingzhong’s (1644–1682) rebellion. The rebellion of the three powerful feudatories in south and west China, headed by the strongmen Geng Jingzhong, Wu Sangui (1612–1678), and Shang Zhixin (1636–1680), lasted seven years (1674–1681). Li Jintang suggests that the official here could be the Fujian bannerman Chen Qitai, who killed himself along with his wife and about twenty concubines and servants (BQ 39). Wu Weiye, Wu shi jilan, 5A.8b–10a. Cf. Fan Wenguang’s writings about Gu Mei cited above (100–2). Shi Zhong (fifteenth c.) was also called Shi the Fool because he could not speak until he was seventeen. Gu Yuan (mid-sixteenth c.) was also deeply religious and eccentric. Both artists were famous for not following traditional models.

286

203.

204.

205. 206. 207.

208. 209. 210.

211. 212. 213.

214.

215. 216.

217.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

Fan Kuan (late tenth– early eleventh c.) was a preeminent Song painter famous for his landscapes. Fan Jue had another name, Fan Yun. Wang Shizhen commends her poems, singling out “Red Parrot” for praise. While Yu Huai described an austere artist, the poems addressed to Fan by her admirers are quite sensual (Xu Qiu, Xu benshi shi, 243). Fan Jue and Gu Mei were present at a literary gathering (1636) that included Mao Xiang (MPJ 2:1030). “Three Repetitions” is the name of a tune in zither music. Also called “Three Repetitions of Yang Pass” (Yangguan sandie), it is based on a poem by Wang Wei. This description of a humble abode is from Zuo Xiang 10.12, 2:980–81. Apang is the name of a prison guard in hell—he has a bull’s head and hind hoofs and human hands ( Jinglü yixiang 50.268; Fayuan zhulin 83.901). In the Tang tale “Liu Yi’s Story” ḣ⇵ۣ by Li Chaowei (ninth c.), the dragon king’s daughter, maltreated by her husband and his family, is described as having “windblown and rain-shrouded hair” (TPGJ 419.3412). The cries of gibbons along the Three Gorges are said to be so affecting as to make the listener cry. On the cuckoo’s cries, see part II 107–8. This refers to Xu Chen, who hailed from Neixiang (Henan). He was a Ming official who served under the Qing. He became the commissioner of Jiangnan in 1656. Zhang Yanzhu was a famous actor and singer; see part III 156, 162–63. Qichang is the sobriquet of Wang Fa, who according to Du Dengchun (1629–1705) was caught up in a case of “treasonous writings” (Sheshi shimo) (BQ 39). He Liangjun, Siyou zhai congshuo, 341–42. Zhao Feiyan waizhuan 32.21b. The locus classicus of the term youwu (bewitching creature) is found in Zuo Zhao 28.2, 3:1686–87: “For there are bewitching creatures who are enough to sway a man. Unless a person has virtue and principles, he will certainly be overtaken by disaster.” The description of her clothes comes from Zhao Feiyan waizhuan (32.22a, 23a): “Trailing skirt” is literally “the skirt for detaining the immortal.” Zhao Feiyan seems to be floating away while dancing, and the emperor asks an official to hold on to her skirt. Feiyan’s spit on Hede’s sleeve looks like “stone flowers” (i.e., mineral patterns on stones), hence “wide sleeves with stone flowers” (here translated as “wide sleeves”). Sha Nen called herself the “Peach Leaf Girl” and was famous for her poetry and calligraphy (Miao Quansun, Qinhuai guangji, 417). For Zhao Feiyan and Zhao Hede, see Hanshu 97B.3988– 89; Zhao Feiyan waizhuan. The two Qiao sisters married Sun Ce (175– 200) and Zhou Yu (see Taiping Yulan 380.1885; Three Kingdoms [Sanguo yanyi], chapter 44). In the Tang tale “Liu shi’s Story”ḣ∿ۣ, the Turkish general Shazhali took the courtesan Liu shi by force into his harem (TPGJ 485.3995–97). Here Yu Huai may be using the name to refer to an uncouth military commander or perhaps even a Manchu general. According to a song lyric that Cao Rong (1613–1685, jinshi 1637) addressed to Sha Nen, she seemed to have left this “Shazhali” and returned to being a courtesan (Miao Quanxun, Qinhuai guangji, 417).

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

218. 219.

220.

221. 222.

223.

224.

225. 226.

227. 228.

229. 230. 231. 232.

287

One Jin aristocrat is praised as being “cleansed like willows in spring moonlight” (Shishuo xinyu 14.39, Jinshu 84.2186). Guo Tianzhong (cognomen Shengpu) was a famous late Ming painter and calligrapher. Li Tuona and Zhu Yuye were both known for their landscape paintings. Zhenzhou is present-day Yizheng in Jiangsu. Chen from Liyang (in Jiangsu) refers to Chen Mingxia (d. 1654), a top candidate in the 1643 palace examination. He surrendered to Li Zicheng in 1644 and to the Qing authorities in 1645. He rose to high office under the Qing but was censured in 1654, and the emperor decreed his suicide. Chen Yunheng (d. 1672), a notable poet, hailed from Nanchang in Jiangxi (ancient name Yuzhang). In an early sixth-century ballad, Taogen is the name of a courtesan. Wang Xianzhi’s concubine is named Taoye (Peach Leaf), but in Tang poetry Taoye and Taogen become sisters and Wang marries both. Yu Huai may mean that Little Ma Nen married Chen Yunheng as a result of fortuitous circumstances, just as Taogen becomes Wang Xianzhi’s concubine by accident and by mere association. When Yang Wencong leaves the stage, a comment notes: “He is heading to Suzhou and Songjiang to take up office there and would later become an official who dies for his principles” (Kong Shangren, Taohua shan, B.99b). Kong Shangren was probably responsible for the comments on the play. Consort Yang’s brother, Yang Guozhong, is said to have chosen plump maids to line up in front of him in winter months to block the wind. They are called “flesh formation” or “flesh screen” (Wang Renyu, Kaiyuan Tianbo yishi, 1736). The phrase “something languishing between fence and wall” is from Shishuo xinyu 25.65. The Han general Li Ling suffered defeat at Dihan Mountain and Narrow Valley (Hanshu 54.2454). Vastly outnumbered by Xiongnu troops, Li was defeated despite his valor and strategic prowess. Here Yu Huai is comparing Li Ling’s surrender to how men succumb to Gu Xi’s charms. Hanshu 97A.3954. It’s interesting that Yu Huai compares a courtesan with the famous poet Li Qingzhao. He used the word “ilk” (zhi liu), implicitly associating female talent with sensuality. For a fictional example of how the overseer enforces the rules of drinking, see Yuanyang in The Story of the Stone, chapter 40. The “soup of harmony” is made up of various herbs and vegetables and is supposed to regulate one’s qi (breath or energy). Gu Zhaoji (Lord of Zhenyuan) was appointed the commander defending the Yangzi River in 1641. He died in action when Beijing fell in 1644. Chen Zun (first c. BCE, Hanshu 92.3709–14) and Gao Jishi (516–553, Bei Qi shu 21.296– 98) were both famous for detaining their guests for more convivial drinking. They were also known for their valor and military accomplishments.

288

233. 234.

235. 236.

237.

238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244.

245.

246. 247.

248.

249.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

Literally, Gu was a “bowing guest” and not one who performs obeisance— that is, host and guest bow to each other as equals. Literally, “he came in and out of the gates of military camps, among spears.” I take this as a reference to how the general Lü Bu (d. 199) staved off a military conflict by winning a self-declared wager: he hit a difficult target—the tip of a spear set up in front of the gates of the military camp (yuanmen sheji). The episode is told in Three Kingdoms, chapter 16. Knights-errant are often credited with “resolving conflicts for others” or coming to their succor. On Zheng Yuanxun, see Plum Shadows n. 23. Zhang Wenzhi (sobriquet Ziding) was a poet from Nanjing (Mount Zhong is near Nanjing). Yu Huai’s patron Fan Jingwen treated him as an honored guest. Zhang was Mao Xiang’s friend and wrote this to mourn Dong Bai (MPJ 2:1111). The original has “two Shuangchengs.” On the goddess Dong Shuangcheng, see Plum Shadows n. 13. The Dong sisters are compared with her because of their surname. See the introduction xx–xxi. See GĎyama, Ming Qing shidai, 113–14; Æki, Fengyue Qinhuai, 218– 23. An allusion to Li Yannian’s song; see Plum Shadows n. 39. Yu Huai is comparing Li Xiang to the alluring but elusive goddess of Mount Wu; for this figure, see Plum Shadows n. 2. On Wei Xuelian, see Plum Shadows 21–23, n. 74. A perfect combination of poetry, calligraphy, and painting in one work is called “the three brilliance.” Zhang was the founder of the Revival Society and Xia was one of its leaders. Both were famously committed to combating corruption and opposing the eunuch Wei Zhongxian and his faction. Zhang died before the fall of the Ming and Xia embraced martyrdom in 1645. Yan Ji, a lowly concubine of the Zheng ruler, dreamed that a heavenly messenger gave her an orchid with these words: “I am Bochou, your ancestor. Let this be your child. As the orchid is the most fragrant flower of the domain, people will take him to themselves and love him, just as they do this flower.” Yan Ji’s son became Lord Mu of Zheng (Zuo Xuan 3.6, 1:604–5). Hou Fangyu, “Li ji zhuan,” in Hou Fangyu quanji jiaojian, 292. Zhou Rusong is better known as Su Kunsheng, a performer and music teacher who appears in many early Qing literary works, most famously Peach Blossom Fan. Li Xiangjun is learning to sing arias from Tang Xianzu’s (1550–1616) Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting) when she is introduced in scene 2 of Peach Blossom Fan. Su Kunsheng joined Mao Xiang’s family troupe after the fall of the Ming. Tang Xianzu’s “four plays” refers to Peony Pavilion, Purple Hairpin (Zichai ji), Dream of Handan (Handan ji), and Dream of Nanke (Nanke ji). Lyrics of Pipa refers to Gao Ming’s (1305–1370) Story of the Pipa. Hou Fangyu hailed from Shangqiu in Henan, the location of the Han Prince Liang’s (second c. BCE) estate. Prince Liang was a famous literary patron, and his estate is remembered as a site of literary activities. Xie Huilian’s (407–433)

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

250.

251.

252.

253. 254. 255.

256.

257.

258. 259. 260. 261.

262. 263.

264. 265.

289

“Rhapsody on Snow” (Xue fu) imaginatively re-creates Prince Liang’s salon, hence its alternative name, “Snowy Court.” In 1640, Hou established the Snowy Court Society (Xueyuan she) (also called Response Society [Yingshe]) in Henan, a literary and political community serving as a northern counterpart of the Revival Society. Chen Zhenhui and Wu Yingji (1594–1645) were both prominent Revival Society leaders. Wu drafted the “Public Proclamation on Preventing Disorder at the Auxiliary Capital (Nanjing)” ⮉䜭䱢Ҳ‫ޜ‬᨝ in 1638 to attack Ruan Dacheng. Wu later died fighting the Qing and Chen lived in retirement after the fall of the Ming. In other words, he pretended to be drunk and did not get up to meet General Wang. The trick reminds us of the poet Ruan Ji (210– 263), who got drunk to avoid treacherous political dilemmas ( Jinshu 49.1360). In Gao Ming’s play, Cai Yong reluctantly betrays the wife of his impoverished youth and marries a prime minister’s daughter. As Li Xiang points out, this story has no historical basis. From 189 to 192, Cai Yong served the usurper and warlord Dong Zhuo and publicly lamented his death in 192 (Hou Hanshu 60B.1979– 2008). She will not sing again because her true friend, the one who understands the music, will be gone. The text has “three hundred huan.” Huan is a unit of measurement for money mentioned in the Book of Documents, but here it probably just means “taels.” Hou Fangyu, “Letter to Ruan Guanglu (Dacheng) on the Day I Left Jingling in the Guiwei Year (1643)” Ⲩᵚ৫䠁䲥ᰕ㠷䱞‫⾯ݹ‬ᴨ (Hou Fangyu quanji jiaojian, 124). In Peach Blossom Fan, Ruan Dacheng, acting through Yang Wencong, pays for the union of Hou and Li, but Li rejects her trousseau once she finds out about Ruan’s role (scene 7). Hou Fangyu, “Letter to Provincial Governor Tian” 㠷⭠ѝюᴨ (Hou Fangyu quanji jiaojian, 212). Li’s refusal to meet Tian in 1640 is dramatized as her refusal to become Tian’s concubine in the tenth month of 1644 in Peach Blossom Fan (scene 22). See Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 526–54. Hou did not succeed in the examination. Some believed that he took it under duress. In 1652, he wrote a letter to Wu Weiye urging him not to take the examination. His letters to his loyalist friends show deep admiration for their political courage. Chen Weisong, Furen ji, 29b. The original refers to “the Cave of Enchanting Incense” and “the Pillow of the Divine Rooster,” some of the items the Tang courtesan Shi Feng offered to her most valued guests; see Feng Zhi, Yunxian zaji (BQ 49). For Honghong, see n. 81. Juju was the name of a famous Tang courtesan, see Sun Qi, Beili zhi, 1406– 7. Literally, “lovely bones and fragrant soul.”

290

266. 267. 268. 269. 270. 271. 272. 273. 274. 275. 276. 277.

278.

279. 280. 281.

282.

283.

284.

285.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

See the entry on Ge Nen above. On “flower examination lists,” see the introduction xx–xxi. Ming shi 293.7522– 23. Yu Ruizi, “The Account of Zhang Xianzhong Overrunning Luzhou” ᕥ⦫ᘐ 䲧ᔜᐎ䁈, in He Rui, ed., Zhang Xianzhong jiao Sichuan shilu, 11. Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 8.150–51. Although Zhang Dai uses the homophonous name “Vermilion Market,” I am keeping the term “Pearl Market” for the sake of clarity. On Old Man Min’s eccentricities and masterful knowledge of tea, see Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 3.52–53. Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 5.91– 92. Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 4.68. Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 2.27. Zhang Dai, Langhuan wenji (Shen Fucan chaoben), 51. Wang Yue must have moved to the Bend from the Pearl Market. In a “tea battle” (first mentioned in the Song dynasty), connoisseurs compete with each other over the quality of their respective tea as well as their knowledge and judgment about tea. Allusion to Su Shi’s line, “Released by the shoot, the new bamboo can hardly hold itself up” 䀓㊌ᯠㇱн㠚ᤱ (“Frosty Bamboo Pavilion” 䵌㆐ӝ, Su Shi shiji hezhu, 14.640). Young bamboo has a film of white powder. See n. 82. Cai Xiang (sobriquet Junmo, eleventh c.) wrote Records of Tea (Cha lu). Su Shi compares “lovely tea” with a “lovely beauty” in a poem sent to a friend to thank him for the gift of tea (“Matching the Rhyme of Cao Fu, Who Sent New Tea from Huoyuan” ⅑丫ᴩ䕄ᇴ༁Ⓚ䂖❉ᯠ㥦, Su Shi shiji hezhu, 32.1617). The Song calligrapher Lei Jianfu (1001–1067) is said to have reached a new understanding of how to wield his brush upon hearing the sounds of the river (Lei Jianfu, “On the Sound of the River’s Waves” ⊏㚢ᑆ, in Mochi bian 230). This is the last of thirty quatrains that Qian wrote in 1656 on the eve of leaving Qinhuai, after sojourning at Ding Jizhi’s quayside house (QMZ 4:291). Qian met Kou Mei in 1626 when she was a very young courtesan (QMZ 1:110). When the Wei palace lady Xue Lingyun parts from her parents, she weeps tears that turn red and congeal like blood (Wang Jia, Shiyi ji, TPGJ 272.2139–40). Emperor Wu of Han, when promised his cousin Ajiao in marriage, claims to want to put her in a “golden chamber” (Han Wu gushi 166). The Tang prime minister and poet Li Deyu was enamored of the courtesan Xie Qiuniang and composed musical tunes to mourn her after she died (Duan Anjie, Yuefu zalu shuzheng, 107–8). Here Zhu Guobi’s exalted position invited the comparison with Li.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

286. 287. 288. 289.

290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295.

296. 297.

298.

299.

300.

301.

291

Kou Mei’s jealous rage recalls the Tang courtesan poet Yu Xuanji’s similar (but more deadly) outburst against her maid (TPGJ 130.922– 23). Qian Qianyi, QMZ 4:418. On the Incense for the Soul’s Return, see Plum Shadows n. 149. The painting is now in the Nanjing Museum. For Yu Huai’s inscription, see YH 1:321. Ming shilu 569.10706; 308.7936. Zhu was listed with other Donglin scholars as Wei Zhongxian’s foes. Later, the common political enemy of Zhu Guobi and Qian Qianyi was Wen Tiren (1573–1638). Ming shi 305.7818. Ming shilu 43.2577. Qing shilu 40.317; 70.549. The original has “Shazhali,” the name of a Turkish general who took a Tang courtesan into his harem. See n. 217. Chen Weisong, Furen ji, 16a–16b. Although in later versions of her story Xi Shi becomes a patriotic Yue agent, in Han accounts she is a silent pawn (Wu Yue chunqiu 147–48; Yue jue shu 12.283). Wu’s quatrain uses the image of Xi Shi to emphasize agency. Wu implies that for Kou, the alternative is to be sold to a new Manchu master. In his third quatrain, Kou’s erstwhile “sisters” face alcohol made from mare’s milk (tongjiu) and Mongolian goats (huangyang), ciphers for foreign customs. Ding Peng’s poem is found in Gong Bin and Fan Shaolin, Qinhuai wenxue zhi, 3:1160– 61. On the phrase “carriages like a flowing stream, horses like a gliding dragon,” see Hou Hanshu 10A.441. See also Su Ting, “Night Feast at the New Residence of Princess Anle” ཌᇤᆹ′‫ޜ‬ѫᯠᆵ (QTS 74.815) and more famously the song lyric to the tune “Gazing at Southland” ᵋ⊏ই by Li Yu (r. 961– 976), the last Southern Tang ruler (Li Jing, Li Yu, Nan Tang erzhu, 100). The original has “a piece in the jade flask” and alludes to Wang Changling’s famous quatrain, “Seeing Xin Jian Off at Lotus Tower” 㣉㫹⁃䘱䗋╨: “If friends and family in Luoyang ask about me, / ‘A whole piece of my pure [literally, icy] heart is in a jade flask’ ” ⍋䲭㿚৻ྲ⴨୿ˈа⡷ߠᗳ൘⦹༪ (QTS 143.1448). Ice and jade symbolize purity. Song Jing (sobriquet Guangping, 663– 737) was a Tang minister known for his unbending integrity. Given his reputation, the Tang poet Pi Rixiu (834–883) is surprised by the sensual and ornate diction of Song’s “Rhapsody on Plum Blossoms.” Song’s rhapsody is no longer extant. The piece bearing that title and attributed to Song in Complete Tang Prose is of doubtful provenance. He Man was a musician facing execution, and his mournful song is said to have gained imperial pardon (according to Yuan Zhen, “He Manzi’s Song” օ ┯ᆀⅼ, QTS 421.4632) or left his sentence unchanged (according to Bai Juyi, “He Manzi’s Song,” QTS 27.391). The calligrapher Wang Xizhi imagines the continuity between past, present, and future in his “Preface to the Collection of Orchid Pavilion” 㱝ӝ䳶ᒿ:

292

302. 303. 304.

305. 306. 307.

308.

309. 310.

311. 312.

313.

314. 315. 316.

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posterity will look upon him in the same way he reflects on the past ( Jinshu 80.2099). The original has “throw away the axles,” alluding to Chen Zun’s treatment of his guests’ carriages in order to detain them for more drinking; see n. 232. SJ 3:908 (255), “August” 㮙. To “turn day into night” is a line from King Wen’s harangue on the crimes of the profligate last Shang ruler. When the poet and scholar-official Yang Shen (1488–1559) was exiled to Yunnan, he pinned flowers in his hair and paraded through the city with courtesans in attendance. The act is seen as an expression of his frustration and defiance. See Wang Shizhen (1526–1590), Yiyuan zhiyan, (quoted in Chen Tian, Mingshi jishi, 1398); Jiao Hong (1540–1620), Yutang congyu, 7.246; Shen Zizheng’s (1591–1641) short play, Yang Sheng’an, Drunk with Poetry and Wine, Pins Flowers in His Topknot ὺॷᓥ䂙䞂㉚㣡儫). These lines are quoted in part I 78. Shen Chunze (sobriquet Yuruo), a painter and a poet, actually hailed from Changshu and later moved to Nanjing. Wu Yingji, “Preface to the Works of the Society of Broad Endeavor” ഻䮰ᔓ ᾝᒿ, in Loushan tang ji, 17.195. The name of the society is derived from the Hall of Broad Endeavor in the Nanjing Academy. See Zhu Yizun, Jingzhi ju shihua, 2:661; Gong Bin and Fan Shaolin, Qinhuai wenxue zhi, 3:1506. This poem was not written during the 1636 gathering. Ruan published his plays in 1642. Citing Wu Yifeng (1742–1819), Xie Guozhen dates this poem to 1644 (Ming Qing zhi ji dangshe yundong kao, 138). Mao Xiang also mentioned Zhang Kui in the postscript to a poem (1689) remembering the world of Qinhuai (MPJ 2:1514–15). In a letter (1636) to Mao Xiang, Chen Liang described a Qinhuai gathering with ten performers: the expected cost was a hundred taels, and each participant was contributing five taels, while the hosts would presumably pay more (MPJ 2:940). In Wulin jiushi (ca. 1290), Zhou Mi uses this phrase to describe conspicuous consumption in the Southern Song capital Lin’an (Hangzhou, BQ 55). This refers to Xu Shen ( jinshi 1577), who served as governor of Yingtian (Nanjing) and rose to the position of minister of governance (BQ 56). “Cut sleeve” is a common euphemism for male homosexual love. For fear of waking his male favorite Dong Xian, who fell asleep on his sleeve, Emperor Ai of Han (r. 7–1 BCE) cut his sleeve so that he could get up (Hanshu 93.3733). In pitch-pot, the players took turns tossing arrows into a narrow-necked vase or pot. The rules are given in the “Touhu” chapter of Liji (Liji zhushu 40.965– 70). Cf. Zuo Zhao 12.4, 3:1172– 75. According to Mao Xiang, jie tea has to be rinsed before brewing (MPJ 1:549). See Plum Shadows 34–35. Vitiligo causes depigmentation. The patron is comparing Zhang’s blotched face to the painted face of clowns and villains in operas. Alternatively, the subject can be the old courtesan: “This made her sob for a long while.”

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

317.

318. 319. 320.

321. 322. 323. 324. 325. 326. 327.

328. 329. 330.

331. 332.

333.

334.

293

For Chen Liang’s postscript on the covenant, see MPJ 2:893– 94. The poems written for the occasion are included in MPJ 2:1044–50. Yu Huai praises Chen’s uncompromising spirit and resolve as a Ming loyalist in “Three Gentlemen from Wuyuan” ↖৏йੋ䂐 (YH 1:149). See MPJ 1:439–40; QMZ 2:1345–47; Qu Dajun, Huang Ming si chao chengren lu, 7:850. See Plum Shadows 17–18. The Jin noble Shi Chong built the Golden Vale Estate, and the Tang prime minister Li Deyu built the Level Spring Estate. Both are famous for their extravagance and impressive scale. Lin Tiancheng was magistrate of Jiangning in 1647 and became military commissioner of the area in 1648. Property bestowed by Ming emperors reverted to Qing control. On the Benighted Lord (Donghun hou) of Qi (r. 499– 500), see n. 195, Nan shi 5.146–58. Du Fu, “Lament for the Prince” ૰⦻ᆛ (QTS 216.2269). Recall that Lord of Zhongshan was Bian Sai’s neighbor. See part II 118. See Wai-yee Li, “History and Memory in Wu Weiye’s Poetry.” There were two sites named Pine Wind Pavilion outside the city precincts. One was in Bullhead Mountain; the other, built by the Ming official Zhang Wei, was on Rain Flower Terrace. (In Peach Blossom Fan, Zhang Wei is a Ming imperial officer turned Daoist priest who leads the protagonist to religious enlightenment at the end of the play. The play also mentions Pine Wind Pavilion in scenes 28 and 30.) See QMZ 4:36. This is a portrait of three Ming officials painted in 1642. Qian’s inscription was written in 1648. Ding Lingwei becomes an immortal and returns as a crane after a thousand years to the Huabiao Pillar at the city gate (Soushen hou ji 442). Wang Rong (234– 305) mourns the deaths of Ruan Ji and Ji Kang (223– 262) when he passes by Old Man Huang’s wine shop, where he drank with them (Shishuo xinyu 17.2). Jiao Xun, Ju shuo, in Zhu Yixian, ed., Shuihu zhuan ziliiao huibian, 564. Chen Yinke suggests that Ding Jizhi’s quayside house might have been a meeting place for Ming loyalists plotting to assist Zheng Chenggong’s maritime expedition against the Qing in the late 1650s (LRS 3:1098). This is the name of the south gate of the palace during the southern dynasties (fourth– sixth c.). Here it refers to the dragon gate of the examination compound in Nanjing. “The adjutant” and “gray falcon” are comical role types in a kind of mime or skit. One of the earliest references is Li Shangyin’s poem about his four-yearold son: “Suddenly he imitates the part of the adjutant, / and modulates his voice to call like the gray falcon” ᘭᗙᆨ৳䓽ˈ᤹㚢ொ㫬叫 (QTS 541.6245). “The falcon” mocks “the adjutant” for his follies in a farcical (and sometimes politically charged) exchange. On the various theories about the origins of this kind of mime or skit, see Duan Anjie, Yuefu zalu shuzheng, 51–53.

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335. 336.

337. 338.

339.

340.

341. 342. 343. 344. 345. 346.

347. 348.

349.

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Liu means willows. See Wu Weiye’s biography of Liu Jingting discussed below. Many details in Yu Huai’s account echo Wu’s biography. This refers to Yu Huai’s patron Fan Jingwen (n. 69) and He Ruchong (1569–1641), a Ming minister who lived in Nanjing after his retirement in 1631. Sima Qian includes Entertainer Meng in his account of jesters (Shiji 126.3197– 3203). For Dongfang Shuo, see Hanshu 65.2841– 74. The Ming military commander Zuo Liangyu played a pivotal role in the fall of the Southern Ming. Stationed in Wuchang, he moved his army east in spring 1645, claiming to rid the court of corrupt elements like Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng (Mingshi 273.6987– 98). Ma Jinbao was a rebel leader before he surrendered to the Qing and changed his name to Ma Fengzhi. He was stationed in Songjiang from 1655 to 1661. Ma sided with Zheng Chenggong when the latter was threatening Nanjing in 1659 and was executed in 1660 after Zheng’s defeat. Qin Qiong (sobriquet Shubao, d. 638) was a general during the Sui-Tang transition. In various fictional versions of the Sui-Tang saga, he encounters his paternal aunt when he is taken prisoner. Liu performs this episode in Peach Blossom Fan, scene 13. These words describe Liu Ling (d. after 265) in Shishuo xinyu 14.13. He was short and homely, but carefree and self-possessed. One can imagine Liu Jingting mimicking the sounds of these empty vessels shaking. Zhang Dai, “Pock-marked Liu’s Storytelling” ḣ哫ᆀ䃚ᴨ, Langhuan wenji, 55. This is also a recurrent idea in Zhuangzi. Volpp discusses the portrayal of Liu Jingting by Wu Weiye, Huang Zongxi, and Kong Shangren (Worldly Stage, 214–48). According to Wu Weiye, Liu Jingting was on good terms with Ruan Dacheng and tried to ameliorate tension between Ruan and Zuo Liangyu. In Peach Blossom Fan, Liu sides with Revival Society scholars and reviles Ruan. A Tang minister is said to be capable of the same feat in his youth (Yehou jiazhuan, in Shuofu, 7.9b). “When the Tang emperor Xuanzong was returning to the capital Chang’an . . . he said to Huang Fanchuo, ‘The ringing of the bells on camels and horses sounds like human words.’ Fanchuo responded, “They seem to be saying, ‘Sanlang langdang [literally, “Sanlang is pathetic”], sanlang langdang.’ ” The Tang emperor was a third child, and the music of the bells seems to be mocking his missteps that led to the An Lushan Rebellion and the Tang dynastic crisis. See Luo Dajing, Helin yulu, 27. In the Han palace lady Ban Jieyu’s (first c. BCE) “Song of Resentment” ᙘ䂙 (Lu 117), the fan discarded in autumn symbolizes abandonment. Though typically associated with the abandoned woman, here it is linked to the male literati’s discontent. “Talented ladies” is literally “talented scholars with painted eyebrows.”

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

350. 351. 352.

353.

354.

355. 356.

357.

358.

359. 360.

361.

362.

363.

364. 365.

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For Yu Huai’s high regard for Jiang Gai and their friendship, see also YH 1:67– 69, 95– 96, 203–4. See the introduction xxviii; nn. 9, 71. For the union of Gu Mei and Gong Dingzi, see part II 96–108. A magical sword leaps into the Yanping Ford to seek its companion sword, and both turn into dragons ( Jinshu 36.1076). The lines are from a famous song lyric (to the tune “Bells in Endless Rain” 䴘䵆䡤) by Liu Yong: “Where will I wake up from wine tonight? / By willowy banks, / with the dawn wind and faint traces of the moon” Ӻᇥ䞂䟂օ㲅, ὺḣየˈ᳹付⇈ᴸ (Quan Song ci 1:22). For Wang Shizhi and Wang Huanzhi, see part II 99. It’s not clear whether Shen Gongxian was a professional actor. If he was, then the juxtaposition of him with scholar-officials who performed in operas is interesting. Jiang Zong (519– 595) wrote palace poetry with ornate diction and sensual imagery. Liu Yong is famous for his song lyrics on love and dalliances. For Lü Jingqian and Li Xianhe, see Duan Anjie, Yuefu zalu shuzheng, 51–53. Yu Huai is making a distinction between literati who sang and acted in the spirit of playfulness and musicians inappropriately rewarded with office. For Yan Rui, see the introduction xv. Liu Poxi was a Yuan courtesan caned for adultery (Xia Tingzhi, Qinglou ji, 29). Both managed to find reprieve through a demonstration of their literary talent. Their stories were told with obvious sympathy for their plight. Shiji 7.307. For this gathering, see also Fang Xiaobiao, “Jin Shukan Invited Me for Drinks Under the Cassia, Matching Danxin (Yu Huai), Following the Same Rhyme” 䠁਄ֳᤋ伢Ṳ㣡‫׍‬丫઼◩ᗳ (Chunzhai shi xuan, 391). Fang wrote his poems to match rhymes with Yu Huai, but Yu’s poems are no longer extant. According to Fang, this bout of carousing attracted a lot of spectators. During the Battle of An (589 BCE), one strongman in Qi declares: “Those who want valor can buy my surplus!” (Zuo Cheng 2.3, 2:714–15). For “the knight-errant’s yellow clothes,” see Plum Shadows n. 59. In another Tang tale, an old man under the moon ties a red string around the ankles of the man and the woman fated to marry (TPGJ 159.1142–43). Wen Qiao (288– 329) promised his aunt to find a suitable mate for her daughter and sent a jade mirror stand as betrothal gift. He later presented himself as the prospective groom (Shishuo xinyu 27.9). Li Wa in the eponymous Tang tale is a courtesan who after many vicissitudes marries her noble lover and becomes the Lady of Qianguo (TPGJ 484.3985– 91). See the introduction xix. Yu Di (Military Governor Yu) facilitates the union of the scholar Cui Jiao and his lover, who was his aunt’s maid and has been sold to a general (Fan Shu, “Yu Di,” TPGJ 117.1316–17). For “the Officer of the Guards Gu,” see Plum Shadows n. 59. On how Liu and Qian facilitated the union of Dong Bai and Mao Xiang, see Plum Shadows 17–19. See the earlier entry on Li Xiang. This refers to Ruan Dacheng.

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366. 367. 368. 369. 370. 371. 372. 373. 374. 375.

376. 377. 378.

379.

380. 381. 382. 383. 384. 385. 386. 387. 388.

389. 390. 391.

Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge

Yu Huai’s account is based on Hou’s account of Li Xiang (136–38). Luoyang and Chang’an each have two quarters for entertainers during the Tang dynasty (Cui Lingqin, Jiaofang ji, 123). The first to third lunar months are called early spring, mid-spring, and late spring. Lujing should be “uncovered well.” Xia Wanchun may imply the meaning of “bedewed” because of the parallelism with “windblown.” For Wang Zhaojun, see Plum Shadows n. 200. On the manifestations of the amorous goddess of Mount Wu as clouds and rain, see Plum Shadows n. 2. The title of a yuefu ballad composed by Liu Yikang (409–451). Ballads bearing this title often describe longing and separation. The tear-soaked coat alludes to Bai Juyi’s “Song of Pipa”; see n. 83. In Xia’s “Song of Southland” ⊏ইᴢ, for example, courtesans and their literati lovers speak of heroic exploits (Xia Wanchun, Xia Wanchun ji jianjiao, 204–5). Song Huixiang’s poems were widely circulated and anthologized, and it elicited numerous poetic responses. In some accounts she is said to be a palace lady from the Hongguang court. See Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 429–50. The “Phoenix City” is one way to refer to Nanjing. The “Song of the Harp” is a Han ballad, also called “Lord, Please Do Not Cross the River” (Lu 1:255–56). For the Bright Consort and Cai Yan, see Plum Shadows n. 200. The “embroidered yellow banner” was part of the “Eight Banner” system in Manchu military and administrative organization. A woman from Kuaiji wrote about her misfortunes on the wall at the Xinjia relay station (Xu Qiu, Xu benshi shi, 225– 26). Zhangjia may be a mistake for Xinjia. She is hoping to have her news conveyed to her family or to be ransomed like Cai Yan. Strumming pipa on horseback and the “green grave in the next poem” evoke the image of Wang Zhaojun, the emblem of exile. The Qing soldiers who abducted her were ethnically Han Chinese, but they have adopted the shaven pate of the Manchu hairstyle. Leopard placenta is named as a delicacy in Han Feizi 21.400. Zhu Yizun, Jingzhi ju shihua, 2:761. Shen Zhou, Shen Zhou ji, 2:1042, 3:1378. Cui Lingqin, Jiaofang ji, 125. On Xie An and Bai Juyi, see n. 71, 83. Zhang Wei (ca. ninth c.) honored Bai Juyi as “the master broadly spreading teachings and moral transformation” (Guangda jiaohua zhu); see his Shiren zhuke tu xu, in Chen Bohai et al., eds., Tang shi wenxian zacui, 165– 66. See Du Mu, “Funereal Inscription for Li Kan” (Fanchuan wenji, 136– 38). Cited in Huang Tingjian, Huang Tingjian ciji, 160. See the introduction xiii.

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392. 393. 394.

395.

396.

397. 398. 399. 400.

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SJ 2:724 (214). Zhou Mi (1232– 98) wrote Bygone Events in Wulin (Wulin jiushi) after the fall of the Song dynasty. Confucius said that those who understand him or blame him in posterity would do so through their reading of his Spring and Autumn Annals (Mencius 3B.1). For Accounts of the Northern Ward, see the introduction xviii, xxiii. Records of Pingkang Lane in the Capital Bianjing (Bian du Pingkang ji) by Zhang Bangji (twelfth c.) is no longer extant; a few entries are preserved in anthologies. Judging from the title, it describes the pleasure quarters of Bianjing. “Such a thing” is how Wang Yan (256– 311) refers to money, which he abhors mentioning (Shishuo xinyu 10.9). Here it implies that Plank Bridge may be too provocative to be mentioned. He uses sobriquets in referring to Yu Huai (Manweng) and himself (Genweng). Literally, “broken mountains and remnant waters.” SJ 1:209–12 (65). Li Jintang cites Deng Zhicheng’s Gudong suoji as the source, but Deng is quoting Yang Zongxi’s Sequel to Poetic Conversations of Xueqiao.

LIU RUSHI 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

Gu Ling’s account survives in four versions; the one found in Fan Kai’s Hua xiao qing zabi, which includes comments by seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury readers, is the most complete (LRS 1:42); Liu Rushi shiji, 3–11. “The provincial graduate from Yunjian [Songjiang]” refers to Chen Zilong (1608–1647), a poet and scholar-official who died in anti-Qing resistance. Chen and Liu lived together for a few months in 1635, but she did not become his concubine (see below). This refers to a group of third century poets and scholars famous for their free spirit and philosophical insights ( Jinshu 49.1370; TPGJ 235.1700). Literally, “[only you three] can be the three feet of the tripod.” Xu Yuqing ( jinshi 1616) was a Ming official famous for his fearless remonstrance. He became a monk after the fall of the Ming. The courtesan poet Wang Wei was his concubine for a few years. Mao Yuanyi (1594–1640) was respected for his scholarly accomplishments and military stratagems. Yang Wan, another famous courtesan poet, was his concubine, but that union also ended in separation. Scented Boudoir Case (Xianglian ji), the collection by the late Tang poet Han Wo (ca. 840s– ca. 923), and New Songs from the Jade Terrace (Yutai xinyong), a sixth-century anthology, are both dominated by romantic poems with sensual imagery. Collection of Literary Exchanges at East Mountain (Dongshan chouhe ji) has a preface by Shen Huang (dated 1642) (Liu Rushi ji 121– 61). It partly overlaps with

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8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

Two Famous Courtesans

Collection of Poetry at East Mountain (Dongshan shiji) in Chuxue ji (QMZ 1:616– 744) and includes eighteen poems by Liu Rushi. In “There Is a Beauty, One Hundred Rhymes, Composed on a Boat on Lovebird Lake on the Last Day of the Month” ᴹ㖾аⲮ丫Ზᰕ卋⒆㡏ѝ֌ (QMZ 1:624– 31), Qian Qianyi establishes a distinguished lineage for Liu Rushi. Although Liu may be an assumed name, Qian enlarges on her connection to poets such as Liu Yun (early sixth c.), Liu Zongyuan (773–819, jinshi 793), and Liu Yong. “Hedong” is meant to emphasize Liu Rushi’s connection with the Tang poet Liu Zongyuan, who hailed from Hedong (Shanxi) and is sometimes called Liu Hedong. According to Chen Yinke, Qian sold his treasured Song printings of Hanshu to Xie Sanbin in order to raise funds for building Vermilion Clouds Tower (LRS 2:396– 99). In her postscript to the Record of Bronze and Stone Inscriptions, Li Qingzhao reminisced about her marriage with Zhao Mingcheng: they played memory games, competing with each other on the ability to locate lines on exact pages (Li Qingzhao ji jiaozhu, 178). After the fall of the Southern Ming in the fifth month of 1645, Qian Qianyi surrendered and went to Beijing to await an official appointment, while Liu Rushi stayed in Nanjing. In a poem addressed to Liu in 1659, Qian praised her decision to stay in Nanjing as deliberate nonparticipation in the new regime, which put to shame other officials’ wives who sported new finery and insignia (QMZ 7:12–13). In 1647, Qian Qianyi was arrested as an accomplice of the Ming loyalist Huang Yuqi, who tried unsuccessfully to recover Changzhou with a naval force from Zhoushan (on the northeastern coast of Zhejiang). When Su Shi was in the Censorate Prison and expecting death, he sent poems to his brother Su Che (1039–1112) (not his wife, as Qian claimed) (Su Shi shiji hezhu, 19.975– 76). Qian composed six poems matching Su Shi’s rhyme while in prison, which he wrote down after he was released (QMZ 4:9–13); cf. Waiyee Li, Women and National Trauma, 362– 65. This is a line from the first of the six poems (QMZ 4:9). Gu Ling implied the impropriety of calling a concubine a wife. SJ 1:256 (82), “The Woman Says, ‘It’s Cockcrow’” ྣᴠ䴎匤. On “red tears” or tears of blood, see Plank Bridge n. 284. When the Buddha was in the kingdom of Qiebiluo, he entered the city to beg for food and reached his brother Ananda’s house. At that very moment Ananda was helping his wife put on makeup and rubbing scent between her eyebrows. When Ananda heard the Buddha at the door, he wanted to go outside and see. His wife made him promise to come back before the makeup on her brows was thoroughly dry. These two lines thus suggest the attachment to sensuous pleasures that becomes an obstacle to enlightenment (TaishĎ shinshĝ DaizĎkyĎ 53:451a). In the Surangama Sutra (Lengyan jing), the sight of a horizontally displayed female body arouses only indifference: to the enlightened one beholding that

Two Famous Courtesans

18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

29. 30.

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spectacle, it is as tasteless and insipid as chewing wax (Shinsan Dai Nihon zoku ZĎkyĎ 13.762a). In the songs about the goddesses of the Xiang River in the The Songs of Chu, the goddess leaves a pendant for the shaman-poet at “the shores of the Li River.” For Mount Wu, see Plum Shadows n. 2. Wind, rain, the Li River, and Mount Wu are all clichés marking romantic encounter and sexual union with divine women. Legend has it that “the Han palace has a human-shaped willow, which each day rises and drops three times” (Chen Yuanjing, Shilin guangji, 12.402). Liu’s name means “willow,” and elsewhere in his corpus Qian uses the image of the willow’s fluid transformations to describe Liu’s seductive charms (QMZ 1:622, 4:347). Zhenniang was a famous ninth-century courtesan. Her grave is a frequent poetic topic. See Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 16–17. Niu Xiu, Gu sheng, 47–50; Liu Rushi shiji, 13–17. A line from Cao Zhi (192– 232), “Goddess of the Luo River” (Wenxuan 19.895– 901). Yu Shinan (558– 638) and Chu Suiliang (597– 658) were famous Tang ministers and calligraphers. Shengze (Jiangsu) is south of Suzhou and north of Jiaxing. On Xu Fo, see LRS 1:328. The term zangkuai refers to the middlemen in horse trading. Here it just means profit-minded and unrefined types. “Yellow Turbans” were rebels who rose up in the waning days of the Han dynasty (184–185). “Red Feathers” may mean “Red Eyebrows,” insurgents who rebelled against Wang Mang’s (r. 9–23) rule. Alternatively, “Red Feathers” can just be a kenning for arrows and means warfare. The Yi River flows into the Luo River, one of the major tributaries of the Yellow River. The Luo River has its source in Shanxi and flows through Henan, areas ravaged by the rebel army of Li Zicheng. The insurgents also pressed close to the Huai River and the Xuzhou area. The original has yanlin zhi kong (“the fear that [the disaster] would spread to the woods”), which alludes to Huainanzi: “The Chu king lost his monkey, and the woods were destroyed as a result” (i.e., he burns down the woods to look for his monkey). The text has “Zhangtai” (Zhang Terrace) instead of “Liu,” alluding to the line “willow by the Zhang Terrace” in a Tang tale on a courtesan named Liu (“Liu shi’s Story” ḣ∿ۣ) by Xu Yaozuo (ninth c.) (TPGJ 485.3995– 97). Chen came from a distinguished family of scholar-officials in Huating (Songjiang). Niu Xiu implies that Chen Zilong was offended by Liu’s gender-neutral selfdesignation as di (brother or kin) or nüdi, which also suggests a claim to friendship or equal footing. In fact, this aspect of Liu’s character must have particularly appealed to Chen. He also played with gender boundaries in his preface to Liu’s poetry collection (1638) by referring to her as “Master Liu” (Liu zi).

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32. 33.

34. 35.

36. 37.

38.

39. 40.

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Qian Qianyi came third in the palace examination in 1610 and was appointed academician in the Hanlin Academy. He held high office under the Ming and was deeply involved in late Ming factional struggles. By 1637, he was relieved of his office. Qian was thirty-six years older than Liu. Qian’s wife, née Chen, was alive at that time. The name of the chamber, Wowen (I Have Heard), complements Liu Rushi’s name: Rushi wowen (“Thus have I heard”) is the beginning line in many Buddhist sutras—“thus” refers to Buddhist truth, and “I” is the supposed voice of Ananda. One of Liu’s ostensible reasons for visiting Qian was to deliberate the fine points of Buddhist teachings. Their courtship and marriage were often couched in the language of Buddhism, with Qian comparing Liu to the “ jade maiden” or the “heavenly maiden scattering flowers” to test the level of enlightenment among Buddha’s disciples (QMZ 1:616; 1:623; 4:96– 97). QMZ 1:621. Literally, “ just as sorrows when examining the skirt became so intense, emotions when untying the pendant grew even more urgent.” The former alludes to “Ruyi niang” ྲ᜿၈, a poem attributed to the Tang empress Wu Zetian (r. 690– 705): “If you do not believe that I have been crying all this time, / open the trunk and examine the pomegranate skirt” нؑ∄ֶ䮧л␊ˈ䮻㇡傇ਆ⸣ ῤ㼉 (QTS 5.59). (That is, the tearstains on the skirt will tell the story of my sadness.) The latter refers to Zheng Jiaofu, who encounters two goddesses offering him a pendant and promising love by the Han River (Liexian zhuan [ca. first c.], TPGJ 59.364– 64). SJ 2:454 (156), “East Mountain” ᶡኡ. The soldier in the poem recalls his wedding ceremonies at the end of a poem about the sufferings of war. By marrying a concubine with ceremonies meant for a wedding with a principal wife, Qian was flouting norms and decorum, hence the outrage. Sanmao (Jiangsu) covers present-day Wujiang and Songjiang. What I translate as “epithalamium” is literally “the poem urging the bride to apply makeup” (cuizhuang shi), conventionally written by the groom and his friends on the eve of a wedding. Han Wu gushi 171. Cf. Plank Bridge 102, n. 144. The House of Imbibing from the Ancients (Jigu ge) is the seal used on books printed by Mao Jin (1599–1659), a famous collector, bibliophile, and publisher. Like Qian Qianyi, Mao Jin hailed from Changshu. He honored Qian as a teacher, and the two were good friends. Qian wrote a funereal inscription for Mao (QMZ 6:1140–42). These lines are from the fourth (QMZ 1:740) of eight poems Qian wrote to celebrate the completion of Vermilion Clouds Tower. Han Yu (768–824) wrote “Linked Verses on the Stone Cauldron” ⸣唾㚟ਕ䂙; here Qian describes how they compete to be the first in coming up with the lines when composing linked verses. The second line describes how the loser in the chess game snuffs the light to bring the game to an inconclusive end, because the lost chess pieces cannot be counted in darkness. The couplet depicts their blissful and playful absorption in poetry and chess games.

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42. 43. 44. 45.

46.

47.

48. 49.

50. 51. 52.

53. 54.

55.

56.

301

The text has “leisure from painting her eyebrows.” Literally, “the pale green and pale yellow silken covers of books floated among the pillars.” Both poems appear in QMZ 1:667. These poems are dated to 1641, not the 1650s, as Niu Xiu seems to suggest. Chowry was what Wei-Jin (third–fifth century) gentlemen held as they engaged in “pure conversation” that dealt with abstruse philosophical topics or contemplative aesthetic judgment. Lines 5 and 6 juxtapose images of intellectual interests (chowry, books) with hints of sensuality and beauty (songs, hairpin). Zhiyi is one of the names of Fan Li (sixth c. BCE), a Yue advisor who found freedom on the Five Lakes after achieving his political goal of avenging Yue defeat and bringing down its nemesis Wu (Shiji 129.3257). In some later versions of the story, Fan Li leaves for the Five Lakes with Xi Shi, the beauty who entranced the Wu king and helped to bring down Wu. In another poem addressed to Liu Rushi, Qian also deployed the image of floating away on the Five Lakes, implicitly comparing himself and Liu Rushi to Fan Li and Xi Shi (QMZ 1:617). This is not true. Most of Liu Rushi’s extant writings were published before she married Qian. A few of her poems were included as “response poems” in Qian’s Chuxue ji. Only two of her poems are found in Youxue ji. Biling is present-day Changzhou in Jiangsu. Qian’s only surviving son, Qian Ruyi (also called Qian Sun’ai), was born of a concubine née Zhu in 1629. After Qian’s death, he served in the Qing government as a case reviewer in the court of judicial review. A line from SJ 3:1038 (286), “Have Pity on Me, the Young One” 䯄Ҹሿᆀ. This expression (taibei) first appears in SJ 3:865 (246), “Wayside Rushes” 㹼㪖. Literally, “her whole body was like congealed ointment (or fat).” The comparison of fair and smooth skin to “congealed ointment” is conventional; see, e.g., SJ 1:178 (57), “The Grand Beauty” ⻙Ӫ. Literally, “I really love how you are black like clouds and white like jade.” This couplet is from Liu’s matching poem written in response to Qian’s “Drifting on a Boat on a Winter Day, Given as Gift” ߜᰕ⌋㡏ᴹ䌸 (QMZ 1:617–18). Instead of “windblown willows,” the version in Qian’s collection has “springfacing willows.” “Dark eyes” also means “the dark part of the eyes” and implies special favor. Ruan Ji is said to show the black and the white of his eyes to indicate his favor or disfavor (Shishuo xinyu 24.4). White hair in love poetry often just means the wish to grow old together. Gu is a ritual vessel deemed important for understanding proper political order (Analects 6.25). Zhu Xi suggested that it might be a kind of wooden tablet (Lunyu jizhu, 90), which some commentators link to historical writings. Gu sheng thus means “what cannot be accommodated in the gu”—that is, “unofficial accounts of history and politics.” Shen Qiu’s account is included in Huang Cengzeng, Guang Yuchu xinzhi (Shuo hai 4:1368– 70); Liu Rushi shiji 18– 20. Shen Qiu was a regular tribute student

302

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58. 59.

60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71.

72.

73. 74.

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and served as district magistrate of Jiashan. He was a painter known for mastering the style of Wen Zhenming and Dong Qichang. The original mistakes Liu Rushi’s name as “Liu Ruzhi.” I have changed all references to “Rushi” to avoid confusion. The account is included in Liu Rushi shiji 21– 22, LRS 1:68– 69. Chen Yinke identifies this as the minister Zhou Daodeng (LRS 1:50–52). The Chinese term for procuress is baomu, bao being a bird identified as heavy and licentious. The male head of a prostitute’s household is often referred to disparagingly as “turtle” (gui), thought to be a symbol of a cuckold or a coward because the turtle can hide its head in its shell. Here Liu is said to refer disdainfully to the madam as “bao” and the man in the household as “gui.” Song Zhengyu (1618–1667, jinshi 1647) served as a Qing official (LRS 1:75–88). He was the same age as Liu Rushi or a year older. Li Daiwen (d. 1645) was a Ming scholar-official who died fighting Qing forces in 1645 (LRS 1:73– 75). Chen Zilong, Li Wen (1608–1647), and Song Zhengyu had strong social and literary ties and were honored as the “Three Masters of Yunjian.” Shexian is a district in the Songjiang area. Xu is mincing his words to try to sound refined. See Plum Shadows n. 39. Xu tries to flatter Liu, who, however, takes offense at his clichés. Xu Jie (1503–1583) was a famous Ming minister. The text refers to him by his posthumous honorific, Wenzhen. The implication is that Liu was expelled as a “wandering prostitute” (liuji), one who did not properly belong to the Music Registry. Zhuangzi jishi 29.998. Cf. Kang-i Sun Chang, The Late Ming Poet Chen Tz’u-lung. Song Zhengbi was Song Zhengyu’s cousin. For Chen Jiru, see Plum Shadows n. 11. He celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday in the eleventh month of 1632. Liu Rushi and a number of other famous courtesans were present. For the poems Chen Zilong wrote about this meeting, see LRS 1:90. See LRS 1:133–41; Liu Rushi ji 60– 62. For a translation of this rhapsody, see Chang, The Late Ming Poet. Chen Yinke believes that Liu wrote this piece in response to Chen Zilong’s “Rhapsody on the Xiang River Maiden” ⒈ၕ䌖 (LRS 1:139, 141). Ruan Yu (d. 212), “Rhapsody on Stopping Desire” →Ⅲ䌖: “I lament that the Gourd Asterism has no match, / and grieve that Weaving Maid toils alone” ۧि⬌ѻ❑‫ˈڦ‬ᛢ㒄ྣѻ⦘औ, cited in LRS 1:134. See Hanshu 98.4025; Shishuo xinyu 35.5. These are found in Wuyin cao. See Liu Rushi ji 48–50; LRS 1:255–66. For Chang’s translation of the whole series, see Chang and Saussy, Women Poets of Traditional China, 350–57. “Southern shore” (nanpu) is associated with parting in classical poetry.

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76.

77. 78.

79.

80. 81. 82.

83.

84. 85.

86. 87.

88.

303

This may allude to the association of catkins with longing (and Liu’s name) in the poems Liu and Chen exchanged earlier. See, e.g., Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 43–44; the “Song of Double Third” by Chen Zilong mentioned above (209). The willow branch is often compared to a woman’s slender waist. Li Shangyin wrote poems of longing and lost love entitled “Yantai: Four Poems” ⠅㠪ഋ俆 and “Willow Branch: Five Poems ḣ᷍ӄ俆 (QTS 541.6232– 33). The male protagonist of Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting) is named Liu Mengmei (Willow Dreaming of Plum). Its heroine, Du Liniang, who dies for love and comes back to life because of it, is buried under a plum tree. In scene 12, Du sings when she is looking for her lost dream: “Just wait: let my soul go— / On rainy days, in the season of plums, / I will keep guard till we meet at the roots of the plum tree.” ᖵᢃᒦ俉兲а⡷ˈ䲠䴘ẵཙˈᆸⲴ‫ػ‬ẵṩ⴨㾻DŽChen Yinke also traces verbal echoes of Purple Hairpin (Zichai ji), another play by Tang Xianzu. The willow’s projected “tryst” with the plum here thus symbolizes the almost hopeless longing for a bond that transcends life and death. He might also have financed the publication of Liu Rushi’s Wuyin cao in 1638. Ji Kang’s letter to Shan Tao: “In the mutual understanding of friends, there is nothing more precious than truly knowing each other.” One of these unwelcome suitors might have been the talented but unprincipled Xie Sanbin (LRS 2:384), whom Wang Ruqian introduced to Liu Rushi in 1638. By 1640, Liu had cut off relations with Xie. The beginning line evokes Li Shangyin’s poems about loss and longing: “The Shu king entrusts the heart of spring to the cuckoo” ᵋᑍ᱕ᗳᢈᶌ厁 (QTS 539.6144); “A spring of dreamlike rain drifts constantly by the tiles” а᱕དྷ䴘 ᑨ仴⬖ (QTS 539.6145). In those lines, the Shu king (Wangdi) dies and turns into a cuckoo whose wrenching cries mourn his lost kingdom and spring’s passing, and the “dreamlike rain” enshrouds a temple devoted to a Daoist goddess. The image of the lone wild goose is associated with loneliness and desolation in poetry. This explains why Chen Yinke rejects the association: with the Bronze Terrace allusion, Liu would be comparing Wang Ruqian to Cao Cao and herself to the Bronze Terrace singing girls (LRS 2:392– 93). See Plum Shadows n. 102. LRS 2:393– 94. Terrestrial rivers flow east and heavenly rivers flow west because when the pillar supporting heaven and earth broke, “heaven tilted to the northwest, . . . the earth slumped in the southeast” (Huainanzi 3.80). Besides Du Fu’s line, see also Cao Pi, “The Heavenly River flows west in reverse” ཙ╒എ 㾯⍱ (second of his “Miscellaneous Poems” 䴌䂙, Lu 401); “The Heavenly River flows west in the endless night” ᱏ╒㾯⍱ཌᵚཞ (“Yan Song” ⠅ⅼ㹼, Lu 394). See Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 356– 90.

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90.

91.

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This is the third of thirteen series (1659–1663), which has the collective title “Later Autumn Meditations” ᖼ⿻㠸. Cf. Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 371–81; Yim, The Poet-Historian Qian Qianyi. Yao Zhizhuo was active in anti-Qing resistance. He supported the the Ming Prince of Tang, Zhu Yujian, but later joined forces with Zhang Huangyan (1620–1664) and Zhang Mingzhen (d. 1656), who supported Zhu Yujian’s rival Zhu Yihai (1618–1662), the Prince of Lu. We do not know anything about this martial Miss Ruan beyond Qian Qianyi’s annotation to his own poem. Zhang Mingzhen eventually joined Zheng Chenggong’s forces. On the significance of Chen Yinke’s interest in Liu Rushi, see Yu Yingshi, Chen Yinke wannian shiwen shizheng; Wai-yee Li, “Huaijiu yu kangzheng.”

CHEN YUANYUAN 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

The first line refers to the Chongzhen emperor’s death as, euphemistically, “abandoning the human realm at Dinghu [Cauldron Lake].” Dinghu is the place where the Yellow Emperor ascended to heaven as an immortal (Shiji 12.459). Jade Pass is in Gansu. Here it refers to Shanhai Pass. Wu’s troops are wearing mourning clothes for the Chongzhen emperor. To have one’s hair raising one’s headgear is usually associated with righteous anger over a just cause. See, for example, Shiji 7.313, 81.2440, 86.2534; Yue Fei’s (1103– 1142) song lyric to the tune “River Filled with Red” ┯⊏㌵ (Quan Song ci 2:1246). Both the Yellow Turbans and the Black Mountain Troops were rebel armies that precipitated the disintegration of the Han empire in the late second and early third century. Lines 4 to 8 are spoken from Wu Sangui’s perspective. Literally, “the abodes of Tian and Dou.” Tian and Dou were both powerful families of consorts during the Han dynasty. The name of Tian Hongyu, said to have taken Chen Yuayuan by force in Lu Ciyun’s account (see below), provides a convenient link. We can imagine lines 9 to 12 articulating the perspective of Wu, Chen, or the poetic narrator (“we” in line 9 can also be rendered as “they”). This and the following five lines take up the voice of Chen Yuanyuan. More broadly, the middle section of the poem (lines 13– 50) assumes Chen’s perspective. The line implicitly compares Yuanyuan to Xi Shi (see Plum Shadows n. 4; Plank Bridge n. 295). According to some sources, the “imperial relative by marriage” who had “overreaching sway” (line 23) forcibly took Yuanyuan from Suzhou and sent her to the imperial palace, hoping thereby to gain the emperor’s favor, but the emperor was indifferent.

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10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

305

Wu Sangui was around thirty when he first met Chen Yuanyuan. The celestial lovers, the Cowherd and Weaving Maid stars, crossed the River of Heaven to meet on Double Seventh (seventh day of the seventh month). The trope of the pining wife gazing at willows is based on Wang Changling’s (698– 765) famous poem, “Boudoir Sorrow” 䯘ᙘ (QTS 143.1446). Literally, “looking for Lüzhu [Green Pearl]” and “Shouting for Jiangshu [Coral Branch].” Lüzhu was the Jin minister Shi Chong’s favorite concubine (see Plum Shadows n. 200); Jiangshu was the name of a Wei (early third c.) singing girl. Qinchuan is the area north of the Qin range in present-day Shanxi and Gansu. The Golden Bull Road led from Shanxi to Sichuan. Slanting Valley and Sanguan are both in Shanxi. This and the above three lines describe how Chen Yuanyuan traveled with Wu’s army as he fought rebels and anti-Qing forces in the Hanzhong (Shanxi and Sichuan) area. Legend has it that Xi Shi had humble origins as a maiden washing silk by the river. Yuanyuan’s precipitous rise again invites comparison with Xi Shi. The Tang emperor Xuanzong sends Consort Mei a peck of pearls, which she returns with a poem describing her sorrow over being neglected. The emperor sets it to music, which he calls “A Peck of Pearls” (Mei fei zhuan 376– 77). This alludes to Ouyang Xiu’s (1007–1072) “Again Matching the ‘Song of the Bright Consort’ ” ޽઼᰾ླᴢ: “A furious wind rises as the sun sets. / Drifting, homeless, where will she fall? / Beauties who excel others must suffer a sad fate— / blame not the east wind, you should just lament your lot” ⣲付ᰕ ᳞䎧ˈ┲⋺㩭䃠ᇦDŽ㌵乿ऍӪཊ㮴ભˈ㧛ᙘᶡ付⮦㠚ఏ (Ouyang Xiu ji biannian jianzhu, 1:331). Wu is implicitly comparing Yuanyuan to Wang Zhaojun (the Bright Consort). For Zhaojun, see Plum Shadows n. 200. The poet facetiously proclaims his surprise: Chen is the exception to citytoppling femmes fatales. Just like the younger Qiao sister who enhanced the fame of the famous general Zhou Yu (175– 210), Chen Yuanyuan has given Wu Sangui a “great name.” The rebels killed Wu’s family. From this line until the end of the poem, Wu Weiye uses the Xi Shi and Fucha story to evoke the ephemerality of glory. Guanwa Palace, the Fragrant Stream, the Corridor of Steps, and the Han River are all names associated with the ancient Wu kingdom. This alludes to Li Bai, “Song on the River” ⊏к੏: “If fame and fortune could last forever, / the Han River should also flow northwest” ࣏਽ᇼ䋤㤕ᑨ൘, ╒≤Ӗ៹㾯े⍱ (QTS 166.1716). Wu implies that although the Han River will always flow southeast, it will carry with it fame and fortune. On the representations of Yuanyuan from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, see Wai-yee Li, Women and National Trauma, 554– 78. Shen Qiu’s account is included in Guang Yu Chu xinzhi (1803 preface) compiled by Huang Chengzeng (Shuo hai 4:1130– 32). This refers to the rivalry between Empress Zhou in the Eastern Palace and Consort Tian (d. 1642) in the Western Palace. On Wu Weiye’s poem on

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27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

32. 33.

34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

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Consort Tian (WMC 1:52–55), see Wai-yee Li, “History and Memory in Wu Weiye’s Poetry,” 112–15. This refers to Zhou Kui, the father of Empress Zhou. He is called “the Wu traitor” in the text because of his rebellion against the Qing in the 1670s. Shanhai Pass was the eastern terminus of the Great Wall and a strategic bastion guarding the capital from northeastern incursions. Literally, “to help with the drinking games.” “Confiscation of property” often involved the women of the household being turned into maidservants or concubines of the new masters. Wu had invited the Qing troops to enter Shanhai Pass and came back to Beijing with them. Shen Qiu, writing as a Qing subject, refers to the Qing army as “the royal army” or “our ruler’s army.” The original has “Yellow Turbans” instead of “Red Turbans.” On the idea of the poet-historian, see Yim, The Poet-Historian; Zhang Hui, Zhongguo shishi chuantong; Wai-yee Li, “Facing History and Its Alternatives in Early Qing Poetry.” Having surrendered to the Qing, Wu was fighting the rebels on behalf of the new regime. Jiangzhou is in southwest Shanxi. If this means the prefect of Gui’an (present-day Huzhou), this would be Zhang Daokong, who was prefect of Gui’an from 1682 to 1687. Zhang and Shen both hailed from the Songjiang area. SJ 3:955 (260), “Myriad People” 㫨≁: “Prudent he is and also wise, / and thus he protects his person” ᰒ᰾фଢˈԕ‫ަ؍‬䓛. This refers to the Yi people in Guizhou. Lingxiao (or Lingqiao) Terrace (Anhui) was a summer palace built by Emperor Wu of Song (r. 420–422). Congtai (Handan in Hebei) was where King Wuling of Zhao (r. 325– 299 BCE) reviewed his troops and watched the performances of singers and dancers. For Green Pearl, see Plum Shadows n. 200. The singing girl Guan Panpan starved herself to death on Swallow Tower upon reading Bai Juyi’s poem that laments how she fails to follow her master in death (QTS 438.4870). Niu Xiu, Gusheng, 68– 73. Yu Xuanji (mid-ninth century) was a famous courtesan poet. See the introduction xiii. For Red Thread (Hongxian), see Plum Shadows n. 102; Liu Rushi 214. This story first appears in Lu’s Beixu xuyan and is included in Yuchu xinzhi, compiled by Zhang Chao (Shuohai 2:506– 9). Jade Peak (Yufeng) is modern Kunshan (Jiangsu). Throughout the narrative, Tian Hongyu is called Tian wan or wan: the word wan means “distaff relative of the imperial family,” usually the kinsmen of consorts and empresses. Huaizong was the posthumous honorific the Qing court conferred on the Chongzhen emperor. The Hongguang court gave him the honorific Sizong and later Yizong.

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48.

49.

50.

51.

52. 53.

54. 55. 56.

57.

58.

59.

307

The one who “understands the music” (zhiyin) is the true friend. In a wellknown story, Zhong Ziqi divines whether Boya has in mind Mount Tai or the flowing stream when he listens to Boya playing the zither (Shuoyuan 8.241). Since Consort Tian died in 1642, this detail cannot be true. Some other accounts suggest that Tian Wan presented Yuanyuan after Consort Tian’s death in the hope of continuing his hold on power. The text has “shangfang sword,” the sword cast by imperial foundries and bestowed to confer special powers and privileges on the recipient (Hanshu 67.2915). Literally, “You should use Shi Chong as mirror.” For Shi Chong, see Plum Shadows n. 200. Shi Chong was destroyed because he would not give Green Pearl to his rival; Yuanyuan thus implies that Tian can save himself by “sharing” her. Golden Valley was the name of Shi Chong’s estate. The burning of jades and stones together (Shangshu 7.104) means indiscriminate destruction. Beauty is dangerous (Zuo Zhao 28.2, 3:1686–87). On the idea of “city-toppling beauty,” see Plum Shadows n. 39. In the Tang tale “Curly Beard” 㲟償ᇒۣ (ca. ninth c.) (TPGJ 193.1445–58), Hongfu recognizes Li Jing’s genius and elopes with him, thereby escaping service under her inane and corrupt master, Yang Su. Yuanyuan is implicitly comparing Wu Sangui to Li Jing. She is claiming that Tian is worse than Yang, so how can she be expected to be content? This is a messenger sent to investigate the situation (zhenzhe); he is akin to a spy. The image is supposed to evoke Zhang Liang’s attempt to assassinate the First Emperor of Qin (Shiji 55.2034). Wei Xiaokuan (509–580) was a strategist and commander who rallied Western Wei forces against Eastern Wei invasion, and then led Northern Zhou forces to fight Northern Qi aggression (Zhoushu 31.535–44). During the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang official Yan Gaoqing (692– 756) cursed An Lushan when he was captured and was gruesomely executed (Xin Tangshu 192.5529– 32). Yan Gaoqing was the prefect of Changshan; his brother Yan Zhenqing (709– 785) was the prefect of Pingyuan: Lu Ciyun might have got the two confused. After Chu’s defeat by Wu (506 BCE), the Chu minister Shen Baoxu wailed at the Qin court for seven days and seven nights, and Lord Ai of Qin finally relented and sent Qin troops to help Chu (Zuo Ding 4.3, 3:1760– 61; Shiji 66.2176– 77). Yipianshi at Shanhai Pass (at the border between Hebei and Liaoning) was the site of a decisive battle between Li Zicheng’s troops and the army led by Wu Sangui and the Manchus that took place between the 18th  and the 22nd day of the fourth month in 1644. The text has “one drumming,” alluding to Cao Gui’s analysis (684 BCE) of how the first round of drumming is most important in rousing the courage of the troops: “Drumming once arouses energy; but at the second drumming, it declines; and at the third, it is spent” (Zuo Zhuang 10.1, 1:160– 61).

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60.

61.

62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70. 71. 72.

73. 74.

75.

76.

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The Wu king Fucha (d. 473 BCE) built the Spring Night Palace on Sutai (also called Gusutai or Xutai) and indulged in long nights of revelry (Taping yulan 178.996). Dong Zhuo built Meiwu to store grain and position himself as a contender for the empire (Sanguo zhi 6.176). Lu is associating Wu’s power base in Yunnan with licentiousness and ambition. “Great Wind” is the song of Liu Bang (d. 195 BCE), the founding emperor of the Han dynasty. Chen Yuanyuan is using the song to encourage Wu Sangui’s ambition. Gu Yanwu (1613–1682), among others, criticizes the fatuousness of this excuse of vengeance in Rizhi lu, 4.85–86. Facing south is the position of honor reserved for a ruler. Wu Sangui was like a king in his fiefdom. For “waters” the text has “pond” (hengchi), implying that the rebels represent only a puny threat (Hanshu 89.3639). In fact, of course, Wu’s rebellion was a major test for Qing rule. This is a saying from Zhongyong (Liji zhushu 53.898– 99). For these poems by Bai Juyi, see Plum Shadows n. 102; Plank Bridge n. 94. This story is also told in Liu Jian, Ting wen lu, 1.4b and in scene 14 of the late Qing play about Chen Yuanyuan, Beauty in the Turmoil of History by Ding Chuanjing. Lu refers to Wu Weiye by his sobriquet Meicun and by his title “director” (Wu headed the directorate of education [guozi jian] in Nanjing). This refers to the lament of mutability at the end of Wu Weiye’s poem. Dong Hu was an ancient historian who could divine and reveal the truth and held the Jin minister Zhao Dun responsible for the assassination of the Jin ruler in 607 BCE (Zuo Xuan 2.3, 1:596– 97). See Sha Zhangbai, Dingfeng wenxuan; Shuohai 7:2425– 31. On Zhang Chao’s collection, see Barr, “Novelty, Character, and Community in Zhang Chao’s Yu Chu xinzhi ”; Son, Writing for Print, 131–61. Zhu Youlang, also called the Yongli emperor or the Prince of Gui, continued the hopes of Ming resurgence by being the focus of anti-Qing resistance in southwest China after the fall of Beijing and the Chongzhen emperor’s suicide in 1644 and the fall of the Hongguang emperor’s government in Nanjing in 1645. He retreated to Yunnan in 1658 and fled to Burma in 1661. Qing forces captured and executed him in 1662. “The Wu king” refers to Wu Sangui. The last Shu ruler, Liu Shan, said to the first Jin emperor about his life in captivity after the fall of Shu (263): “I have found pleasure here and no longer think of Shu”: see Pei Songzhi’s commentary in Sanguo zhi 33.902. One of the popular images of Guanyin iconography shows her gazing at the reflection of the moon in water, an image mentioned in the Lotus Sutra. This is called the Water Moon Guanyin. Publishing four years after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, this author adopted the Han nationalist rhetoric and refers to the Manchus as barbarians.

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77. 78. 79.

80. 81. 82.

83. 84.

85.

86.

87. 88.

89.

90.

309

Zhuge Liang discourses on these three factors in determining the course of history when he discusses Liu Bei’s prospects in Three Kingdoms, chapter 38. Dorgon (1612–1650) and Oboi (1610–1669) were Manchu commanders who played a key role in the Qing conquest of China. “The Ming scion” refers to the aforementioned Zhu Youlang, the Yongli emperor whose power base was in Yunnan. Wu Sangui was responsible for suppressing this last remnant of Ming loyalist resistance in 1662. Literally, “the years when the clepsydra is about to run its course.” For this trope, see Plank Bridge n. 66. Tradition has it that the poet in a Shijing poem is moved to lamentation about the decline of the Zhou dynasty by the sight of drooping millet (SJ 1:209–12 [65]). The signet presumably belonged to Wu Sangui, who claimed heavenly mandate when he rebelled against Qing rule. Ye Erkai (1864–1942) was a Qing administrator in charge of education in Yunnan from 1906 to 1911. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, he remained a Qing loyalist and made a living by selling his calligraphy. The case is only two inches thick, which suggest that this is supposed to be a stone bas-relief. Alternatively, the author could have made a mistake with the measurements. Chen Yuanyuan is supposed to have written the above-mentioned letter on the eve of Wu Sangui’s rebellion in 1673, and the “archaeological discovery” happens in 1906, so 233 years had elapsed. Zhenzhen is a painted woman who comes to life; see Wen qi lu in TPGJ 286.2283. In Ge Hong’s Shenxian zhuan, the woman immortal Magu tells of seeing the blue seas turn into mulberry fields, and vice versa, three times over (TPGJ 7.45– 48; 60.369– 70). Instead of being the mythical Jingwei bird destined to fail as it tries to fill up the sea with rocks (Bowu zhi, in TPGJ 463.3803), Chen Yuanyuan sees herself as the goddess Nüwa making humans (Fengsu tongyi, cited in Shanhai jing jiaozhu 389) and repairing heaven (Huainanzi 6.207). For the Jingwei bird, see Plank Bridge 108. See Nüzi shijie 4 (1915), “Tancong,” 8–11. This journal edited by Chen Diexian and published in Shanghai by Zhonghua tushu guan ran for six issues between December 1914 and July 1915. It should not be confused with the eponymous journal published in Shanghai by Datong yinshuju from 1904 to 1905.

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Yueju shu jiaoshi 䎺㎅ᴨṑ䟻. Yuan Kang 㺱ᓧ and Wu Ping ੣ᒣ. Annotated by Li Bu ᵾ↕హ. Wuchang: Wuhan daxue chubanshe, 1992. Zamperini, Paola. Lost Bodies: Prostitution and Masculinity in Chinese Fiction. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Zhang Dai ᕥዡ. Langhuan wenji Shen Fucan chaoben ⪟ᅋ᮷䳶⊸ᗙ⠖ᢴᵜ. Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2016. ——. Tao’an mengyi 䲦ᓥདྷ៦. Ed. Huai Ming ␞㥇. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008. ——. Xihu mengxun 㾯⒆དྷሻ. Ed. Wang Jiaju ⦻ぬਕ. Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2004. Zhang Duanyi ᕥㄟ㗙. Gui’er ji 䋤㙣䳶. In Song Yuan biji xiaoshuo daguan ᆻ‫ݳ‬ㅶ䁈 ሿ䃚བྷ㿰, 6 vols., ed. Shanghai guiji chubanshe к⎧ਔ㉽ࠪ⡸⽮. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2001. Zhang Hui ᕥᲹ. Zhongguo shishi chuantong ѝ഻䂙ਢۣ㎡. Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2012. Zhanguo ce ᡠ഻ㆆ. Ed. Liu Xiang ࢹੁ. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978. Zhao Feiyan waizhuan 䏉伋⠅ཆۣ. In Shuofu sanzhong 䃚䜋йぞ, compiled by Tao Zongyi 䲦ᇇܰ et al. 10 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988. Zheng Chuhui 䝝㲅䃘. Minghuang zalu ᰾ⲷ䴌䤴. Ed. Tian Tingzhu ⭠ᔧḡ. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1994. Zhongguo gudai chaxue quanshu ѝ഻ਔԓ㥦ᆨ‫ޘ‬ᴨ. Ed. Yang Dongfu ὺᶡ⭛ and Yang Ji ὺ傕. Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2011. Zhou Lianggong ઘӞᐕ. Yinshu wu shuying ഐ⁩ቻᴨᖡ. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1958. Zhou Mi ઘᇶ. Qidong yeyu 啺ᶡ䟾䃎. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983. ——. Wulin jiushi ↖᷇㠺һ. In Ducheng jisheng (wai ba zhong) 䜭෾㌰ऍ˄ཆ‫ޛ‬ぞ˅. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993. Zhou Mingchu ઘ᰾ࡍ. “Li Yunxiang shengping shiji jikao ji Fengshen yanyi zhu wenti de xin renshi” ᵾ䴢㘄⭏ᒣһ䐑䕟㘳৺ljሱ⾎╄㗙NJ䄨୿乼Ⲵᯠ䂽䆈. Wenhua yichan ᮷ॆ䚪⭒ 6 (2014): 81– 92. Zhu Xi ᵡ⟩. Zhuzi wenji ᵡᆀ᮷䳶. Ed. 䲣‫≁׺‬. Taipei: Yuncheng wenhua, 2000. Zhu Yixian ᵡа⦴ and Liu Yuchen ࢹ∃ᘡ. Shuihu zhuan ziliao huibian ≤┨ۣ䋷ᯉ य़㐘. Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2002. Zhu Yizun ᵡᖎሺ. Jingzhi ju shihua 䶌ᘇት䂙䂡. Ed. Huang Juntan 哳ੋඖ. 2 vols. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2006. Zhuangzi jishi 㦺ᆀ䳶䟻. Annotated by Guo Qingfan 䜝ឦ㰙. Ed. Wang Xiaoyu ⦻ ᆍ冊. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995. Zou Shu 䝂⁎. Shi mei ci ji ॱ㖾䂎䁈. In Xiangyan congshu. Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan. Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals.” Trans. Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg. 3 vols. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016.

Index of Names

Aying (Qian Xingcun), 93 Bai Juyi, xviii, 150, 152, 179, 206 Bai Xingjian, xix Bai Yuru, 128 Bai Zaimei, 128 Benighted Lord of Qi, 120, 160 Bi Jinliang (Francesco Sambiasi), 19 Bian Min, 72, 125– 26 Bian Sai, xiii, 72, 112– 23, 223 Binghua Meishi, xx Bright Consort. See Wang Zhaojun Cai Ruheng, 142–43 Cai Yan, 51, 122, 175, 265n200 Cai Yong, 122, 137, 140, 289n252, 289n253 Cao Cao, 32, 122, 175, 214 Cao Dazhang, xx Cao E, 32, 33, 58 Chen Danxian, 87 Chen Fan, 30

Chen Jiru, xvii, 5, 206, 251n11, 302n69 Chen Liang, xvii, 21, 22, 101, 103, 155, 158, 170, 292n310 Chen Peizhi, xxix Chen Shubao, 108 Chen Weisong, 64, 102, 141, 149, 269n242 Chen Yinke, xxix–xxx, 79, 204, 205, 212, 215, 216, 218 Chen Yuanyuan, xi, xix, xxii, xxix, xxx, 9, 10, 219–45 Chen Yunheng, 130 Chen Zhenhui, 6, 96, 136, 137, 141, 173, 289n250 Chen Zilong, xvii, 193, 194, 202, 204– 9, 297n2, 299n30, 302n60 Chen Zun, 132, 287n232, 292n302 Cheng Hao, 180–81 Cheng Yi, 180–81 Chongzhen emperor, xxx, 79, 140, 224, 304n1, 306n47

Chu Suiliang, 192 Confucius, xiii, 182 Consort Tian, 225, 230, 237, 305n26 Consort Yang (Yang Yuhuan), 58, 267n218 Cui Jiao, 112 Cui Ke, 72, 133 Cui Lingqin, xxiii, 179 Daoist Yujing. See Bian Sai Deng Hanyi, 61, 100 Ding Chuanjing, 229, 245 Ding Jizhi, 80, 99, 156, 162– 63, 293n332 Ding Peng, 152 Dong Bai, xix, xxii, xxiii, xxvi, 3– 64, 74, 108–12, 133– 34, 145, 158, 172 Dong Hu, 235 Dong Nian, 133– 34, 285n196 Dong Qichang, xvii, 31– 32, 129 Dong Shuangcheng, 5, 13 Dong Zhuo, 137, 140 Dorgon, 241 Du Fu, 29, 160, 214

324

Du Jun, 19, 25, 27, 33, 34, 42, 45, 51, 56, 61– 63, 255n65 Du Mu, xviii, xxviii, 41, 70, 95, 169, 170, 250n55, 270n9, 270n10, 271n27, 281n118, 281n119 Dun Ren, 74, 128, 272n36 Dun Wen, 72, 74, 126– 28 Emperor Cheng of Han, 128, 279n103 Emperor Huizong of Song, xviii, 83, 248n27, 275n62, 276n72, 282n130 Emperor Wu of Han, 132, 214, 253n39, 263n170, 268n230, 290n285 Emperor Xuanzong of Tang 57, 253n27, 255n66, 256n68, 256n72, 267n218, 272n32, 294n348, 305n18 Emperor Yang of Sui, xiv, 270n6, 281n127 Fan Jingwen, xxvii, 70, 83, 103, 133, 164, 276n69, 283n148 Fan Jue, 126, 287n203 Fan Li, 140, 151, 152, 301n46 Fan Pang, 30 Fan Qi, 149 Fan Wenguang, 100, 102, 282n142 Fan Ye, 37, 262n153 Fang Gongqian, 52, 172, 265n201

Index of Names

Fang Hengxian, 171, 172 Fang Kongzhao, 90, 91 Fang Qu’an, 99 Fang Weiyi, 90 Fang Wen, 152, 153 Fang Yizhi, xxvi, 5– 7, 90, 91, 142, 169, 256n67, 266n207 Fang Zhizhi, 91 Fang Ziyao (Fang Yao, Lady Fang), 90, 92 Fangping (Wang Fangping), 213, 215 Feng Er, 78 Feng Jingrong, 171 Feng Kezong, 173 Feng Menglong, xxi, 248n23, 249n41, 276n70 Feng Yansi, 69, 83 Fu Shan, 104 Fucha, 151, 152, 220, 250n4, 305n22, 308n60 Gao Jishi, 132 Gao Ming, 140, 289n252 Gao Shi, 82 Ge Hong, 215 Ge Nen, 89– 93, 142, 143, 280n105 Gong Dingzi, xx, xxvi, 31, 60, 62, 98, 99, 102, 103, 105, 106, 157, 268n255, 283n152, 283n164 Goujian, xiii, 151, 152 Green Pearl (Lüzhu), 51, 228, 265n200 Gu Ermai, 132 Gu Jingxing, 106 Gu Ling, 187, 191, 192, 216 Gu Mei, xvii, xx, xxvi, 20, 21, 31, 72, 74,

96–108, 145, 158, 161, 170, 279n95, 281n123, 282n134, 282n140, 283n144, 283n155 Gu Qiyuan, 70 Gu Xi, 151–52 Gu Yuan, 126 Gu Zijian, 34 Guan Hanqing, 162 Guan Longfeng, 56 Guan Wu, 156 Guan Yu, 32, 55, 56, 266n210 Guan Zhong, xiii, xiv, 179, 180, 247n6 Guardian Zheng (Zheng Qinyu), 113, 116 Guo Changchun, 99 Guo Shengpu, 129, 287n219 Guo Tai, 30 Han Shizhong, xv Han Tan, 6 He Liangjun, 128 He Zhu (He Fanghui), 81, 82 Hede, 128, 279n103, 288n214, 286n216 Hongguang emperor (Zhu Yousong, Prince Fu), 21, 79, 92, 93, 122, 129, 140, 149, 152, 215 Hongwu emperor, 67, 160, 270n4 Hou Fangyu, xxv, xxvi, 6, 131, 135–41, 163, 168, 173, 254n53, 264n193, 288n249 Hu Run, 77, 274n53 Hu Yinglin, 70

Index of Names

Hu Zhenheng, 28, 29, 259n109 Huan Wen, 166, 279n97 Huang Chao, xxviii Huang Chuanzu, 61 Huang Daozhou, xxiv, 276n69 Huang Degong, 140 Huang Tingjian, 81, 82, 179 Huang Xuantai, 171, 172 Huang Yuqi, 216, 266n207, 298n11 Huang Zongxi, xxv, 167, 168 Huo Xiaoyu, xix Iron-faced Xiu, 179 Ji Kang, 212, 213, 293n330, 303n81 Ji Liuqi, 106 Ji Yingzhong, 104 Ji Zhenyi, 29 Jia Dao, 40, 42 Jiang Fang, xix, 255n59 Jiang Gai, 169, 295n350 Jiang Qiqun, 236 Jiang Tan, xxix Jiang Zong, 170, 295n355 Jin Pingshu, 36 Jin Rongfan, 124 Jin Shukan, 171 Kang Hai, 128 Kangxi emperor, 181 Kou Mei, 148–53 Lady Dong’e, 63 Lady Gu. See Gu Mei Lady Li (consort of Emperor Wu of Han), 132, 253n39

325

Lady Li. See Li Daniang Lady Pistil, 29 Lady Tong, 105 Lan Ying, 136 Li Boyuan, xxi Li Daiwen, 202, 204, 302n60 Li Dan, 62 Li Daniang, xxvi, 20, 72, 88, 93– 96, 100, 156 Li Deyu, 148, 281n128, 290n285, 293n320 Li He, 40, 41 Li Jing, 83, 84 Li Kan, 179 Li Ling, 132, 287n226 Li Mei (Sister Mei), 87–88 Li Qingzhao, 34, 84, 132, 189, 259n121, 259n123, 263n165, 287n228, 298n9 Li Sanniang, 171 Li Shangyin, 29, 117, 270n12, 285n189, 293n334, 303n78 Li Shaoquan, 242 Li Shiniang, xx, 74, 85–89, 100, 156, 161, 169, 252n14 Li Shishi, xviii, 83, 248n27, 275n62, 276n72 Li Suiqiu, 37, 262n152 Li Tenth. See Li Shiniang Li Tuona, 129, 287n219 Li Wa, xix, 172, 295n362 Li Wen, 22, 254n53, 302n60 Li Xiang (Li Xiangjun), 131, 134–41, 172– 73, 288n241, 288n247

Li Xianhe, 171 Li Ye, xiii Li Yi, 18, 255n59 Li Yunxiang, xxi, 134, 249n35 Li Zhenli, 136, 172– 73 Li Zhichun, 61, 266n207, 269n233 Li Zhuang, 171 Li Zicheng, 103, 232, 234, 236, 238, 254n40, 263n177, 264n179, 278n87, 299n26, 307n58 Li Zijian, 22 Liang Hongyu, xiv Linglong, xviii Little Ma Nen, 130 Liu Daxing, 17, 18, 255n58 Liu Fang, 102 Liu Jingting, 145, 156, 163– 68, 294n346 Liu Lüding, xxv, 22, 158, 172, 255n58, 255n61 Liu Poxi, 171, 295n357 Liu Rushi, xi, xiii, xvii, xx, xxii, xxix, xxx, 104, 117, 187– 218, 228, 250n59, 260n125, 275n63, 298n7, 298n10, 300n33, 301n46 Liu Yong, xviii, 170, 248n23, 295n353 Liu Yuan, 133 Liu Yusheng, 171, 172 Liu Yuxi, xviii, 260n131 Lord Guan. See Guan Yu Lord of Jiading, 225 Lord of Zhongshan, 72, 115, 118, 119, 122, 159, 161, 271n26, 284n187

326

Lu Ciyun, 229, 235, 236, 245 Lü Jingqian, 171 Lü Kun, 181–83 Lu Tong, 35, 260n132 Lu You, 84 Lu Yu, 35, 260n130, 260n132 Lü Zhaolong, 158 Luo Binwang, 60, 268n226 Lüzhu. See Green Pearl Ma Jiao, 72, 129– 30, 182 Ma Nen, 130 Ma Shiying, 129, 130, 131, 140, 149, 176 Ma Xianglan, xvi, 83, 96, 97, 100, 248n18, 271n22 Magu, 3, 213, 215, 250n2, 309n88 Mao Xiang, xi, xix, xx, xxiii–xxix, 3– 64, 88, 95, 101, 103, 108–12, 155, 158, 172, 223 Mao Yuanyi, 188, 297n4 Mei Dingzuo, xxiii, 272n36 Meng Sen, 63, 102 Meng Yuanlao, xxvii, 249n52 Min Ziqian, 56, 266n212 Minister Gong. See Gong Dingzi Minister of Rites Gong. See Gong Dingzi Minister of War Fan. See Fan Jingwen Miss Ruan, 217, 304n91 Mo Houguang, 166– 68

Index of Names

Ni Sanlan, 88 Niu Xiu, 192, 201, 217, 228– 29, 245 Oboi, 241 Old Dun, 74, 78, 126, 128 Old Man Min, 144–47 Pan Zhiheng, xx, xxii Panpan, 228, 229, 306n40 Peng Jiannan, xxix Peng Sunyi, 61 Qian Chengzhi, 90, 131, 162 Qian Qianyi, xx, xxvi, xxix, 18, 25, 29, 75, 77– 79, 96, 103, 117, 148–49, 153, 154, 162– 63, 172, 187– 201, 215–17 Qian Xi, 173 Qian Zeng, 191 Qian Zhongwen, 156 Red Thread (Hongxian), 27, 214, 229 Rourou, 113, 115–16, 285n188 Ruan Dacheng, 21– 23, 30, 111, 129– 31, 136, 138–40, 149, 155, 167– 68, 256n79, 264n193, 289n250, 289n257, 294n338, 294n346 Sha Cai, xxvi, 72, 128– 29, 252n17, 285n196 Sha Jiuwan (possibly another name for Sha Cai), 5, 24, 252n17 Sha Nen (Nen), 128– 29

Sha Zhangbai, 235– 36 Shan Tao, 213 She Yiceng, 21 Shen Baoxu, 235, 282n131, 307n57 Shen Defu, 70 Shen Fu, xxix Shen Gongxian, 164, 170, 295n354 Shen Menghuan, xx Shen Qiu, 201, 224, 228– 29, 245, 301n56 Shen Weijiu, 124, 285n198 Shen Yuanfu, 156 Shen Yun, 94 Shen Yuruo, 154 Shen Zengzhi, 215, 218 Shen Zhou, 177– 78 Shi Chong, 231, 265n200, 293n320, 307n51 Shi Kefa, 140 Shi Zhong, 126 Shunzhi emperor, 63, 112 Sima Qian, 166, 167, 268n230, 271n19 Song Huixiang, 174– 75, 296n375 Song Zhengbi, 205– 7 Song Zhengyu, 202–4, 302n60 Su Shi, 35, 147, 189, 260n130, 290n278, 290n281, 298n12 Sun Jin, 90 Sun Lin, 6, 89– 93, 130, 142, 162, 169, 279n97, 279n104, 280n109 Sun Qi, xviii, xxiii, xxviii Sun’ai (Qian Sun’ai), 191 Tang Xianzu, 136, 138, 140, 173, 288n248, 303n79

Index of Names

Tang Yuzheng, xv Tao Runai, 104 Tian Hongyu, 230, 304n6, 306n46 Tian Yang, 138–40, 173 Tu Long, 163 Tuo Shiniang, 80 Wang Changling, 82, 291n298, 305n12 Wang Duo, 28, 259n108 Wang Gongyuan, 156 Wang Gui, 29 Wang Huanzhi, 99, 170 Wang Jian, 29, 275n66 Wang Jieniang, 100 Wang Jiusi, 128 Wang Qichang, 127 Wang Ruqian, xviii, 212–15 Wang Ruwei, 23 Wang Shizhen, 80, 102, 163, 276n67, 286n203 Wang Shizhi, 99, 170 Wang Tao, xxix Wang Wei (ca. 1595– ca. 1647), xii, xvii, xxii, 188, 297n4 Wang Wei (699– 761), 108, 258n95, 286n204 Wang Xianke, 18, 255n59 Wang Xianzhi, 130, 270n3, 287n222 Wang Xiaoda, 132 Wang Xizhi, 33, 58, 154, 291n301 Wang Yue (Wang Yuesheng), xxii, 89, 92, 141–47, 164– 65 Wang Yunzhang, 93 Wang Zhaojun, 51, 122, 173, 175, 265n200, 296n381, 305n19

327

Wang Zhideng, xvi Wang Zhihuan, 82 Wei Dazhong, 21 Wei Xuelian, xxiv, xxvi, 21– 23, 135, 254n53, 256n74 Wei Zhongxian, 21, 30, 112, 130, 136, 139, 149, 173, 249n48, 256n74, 288n244 Wenji. See Cai Yan Wenjun (Zhuo Wenjun), 3, 250n4, 279n102 Wu Hong, 149 Wu Jishan, 116 Wu Koukou, 64 Wu Qi, xxvi, 61– 62, 100, 172, 249n38, 268n227 Wu Sangui, 9, 223–45, 307n58 Wu Weiye, 103, 109, 111, 113–14, 116–18, 124– 25, 128, 150, 152–53, 161, 166, 168, 215, 219, 223– 24, 226, 235, 245, 283n152, 284n174, 284n185, 289n261, 305n22, 305n26 Wu Xiang, 232, 234, 236 Wu Yingji, 6, 137, 155, 252n21, 289n250, 292n307 Wu Zhangfu, 156 Wu Zimu, xxvii Xi Shi, 3, 151– 53, 250n4, 291n295, 301n46, 305n17, 305n22 Xia Ji, 87 Xia Yunyi, 135– 36, 174 Xiao Boliang, 78, 154 Xiaoqing, 102, 111, 283n145

Xiaosheng (Dong Xiaosheng), 24, 134 Xie An, xxviii, 169, 170, 179, 276n71, 278n82 Xie Qiuniang, 148 Xie Zhaozhi, 70 Xie Zhuang, 39 Xu Da, 160. See also Lord of Zhongshan Xu Fo, 192– 93, 201 Xu Hezi, 82 Xu Pianpian, 83, 276n70 Xu Qingjun, 159– 61 Xu Yuqing, 188, 297n4 Xu Zhi, 8, 253n26 Xu Zhiyan, 63 Xue Susu, xxii Xue Tao, xvi, xxii, 3, 34, 110, 117 Xue Yongruo, 82 Yan Ermei, 104, 106 Yan Rui, xv, 171 Yan Shun, 175 Yang Jianqing, 242 Yang Neng, 74 Yang Shen, xx, 292n304 Yang Wan, 188, 297n4 Yang Wencong, 90, 92– 93, 130– 31, 135– 36, 140, 280n109, 287n223 Yang Yizhao, 5, 9, 252n17 Yang Yuan, 74 Yao Beiruo, 154–55 Yao Quan, 61 Yao Wenyan, 171– 72 Yao Zhizhuo, 217 Ye Erkai, 242 Ye Xianzu, 162 Yiguang, 3 Yin Chun, 84–85 Yin Wen, 85

328

Yongle emperor, xiii, 69, 71 You Tong, 180–82 Yu Huai, xi, xix, xxii, xxv–xxx, 67–184, 274n54 Yu Ruizi, 143 Yu Shinan, 192, 299n23 Yu Xin, 166 Yu Xuanji, xiii, 229, 291n286 Yuan Jiao, 214 Yuan Mei, xv, 104 Yuan Zhen, xviii, 60, 179, 255n66, 268n226, 275–276n66, 278n81 Zeng Guofan, xiv Zeng Shen, 56 Zhang Chao, 106, 236 Zhang Dai, xxii, 74, 92, 102, 111, 143, 145, 147, 162, 164– 65, 256n79, 271n27, 281n127 Zhang Haohao, 95, 281n118 Zhang Kui, 88, 94, 156–58 Zhang Lihua, 20, 120 Zhang Mao, 156 Zhang Mengzheng, xxiii Zhang Mingbi, 6, 110–11, 158, 254n46, 254n50 Zhang Mingzhen, 217 Zhang Pu, 135– 36, 138, 192– 93, 201

Index of Names

Zhang Weize, 85 Zhang Xianzhong, 142–43, 252n25, 253n37, 254n40, 278n87 Zhang Xinbiao, 171– 72 Zhang Xun, xix Zhang Yanzhu, 99, 127, 156, 162– 64, 286n210 Zhang Yuan, 133 Zhang Ziding, 133 Zhao Erbian, 62 Zhao Feiyan, 128, 278n89, 279n103, 286n214 Zhao Guan, 191 Zhao Mingcheng, 189, 298n9 Zhao Xuehua, 176– 77 Zhao Yanru, xvi Zhao Yi, xv Zheng Chenggong, 79, 217, 266n207, 293n322, 294n339, 304n91 Zheng Lüxiang, 142–43 Zheng Tuoniang, 72, 74, 79 Zheng Yuanxun, xxvi, 133, 252n23, 264n179 Zhengde emperor, 74, 128, 173, 272n32, 280n110 Zhong Yao, 31– 32, 58 Zhou Bangyan, xviii, 248n27 Zhou Hui, 69

Zhou Rusong (Su Kunsheng), 136, 173, 288n247 Zhou Yuxi, 78 Zhou Zhibiao, xx Zhu Chusheng, xxii Zhu Dou’er, 83 Zhu Guobi, 148–50 Zhu Kui, 10 Zhu Weizhang, 156, 162– 63 Zhu Xi, xv Zhu Xiaoda, 132 Zhu Yexian, 187 Zhu Yizun, 104, 178 Zhu Youlang (Prince Gui, Yongli emperor), 236, 308n72, 309n79 Zhu Yousong. See Hongguang emperor Zhu Yuanji, xxiii Zhu Yuanzhang. See Hongwu emperor Zhu Yujian (the Prince of Tang, Longwu emperor), 92, 131 Zhu Yuye, 129, 287n219 Zhu Zhifan, 28, 258n107 Zou Gonglü, 163 Zou Shu, 9 Zou Zhimo, 102 Zuo Liangyu, 140, 164, 167– 68, 294n338, 294n346 Zuo Si, 34

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS Major Plays of Chikamatsu, tr. Donald Keene 1961 Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu, tr. Donald Keene. Paperback ed. only. 1961; rev. ed. 1997 Records of the Grand Historian of China, translated from the Shih chi of Ssu-ma Ch’ien, tr. Burton Watson, 2 vols. 1961 Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings by Wang Yang-ming, tr. Wing-tsit Chan 1963

Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of KenkĎ, tr. Donald Keene. Also in paperback ed. 1967 The Pillow Book of Sei ShĎnagon, tr. Ivan Morris, 2 vols. 1967 Two Plays of Ancient India: The Little Clay Cart and the Minister’s Seal, tr. J. A. B. van Buitenen 1968 The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, tr. Burton Watson 1968 The Romance of the Western Chamber (Hsi Hsiang Chi), tr. S. I. Hsiung. Also in paperback ed. 1968

Hsün Tzu: Basic Writings, tr. Burton Watson, paperback ed. only. 1963; rev. ed. 1996

The ManyĎshĝ, Nippon Gakujutsu ShinkĎkai edition. Paperback ed. only. 1969

Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, tr. Burton Watson, paperback ed. only. 1964; rev. ed. 1996

Records of the Historian: Chapters from the Shih chi of Ssu-ma Ch’ien, tr. Burton Watson. Paperback ed. only. 1969

The Mahæbhærata, tr. Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan. Also in paperback ed. 1965; rev. ed. 1997 The ManyĎshĝ, Nippon Gakujutsu ShinkĎkai edition 1965 Su Tung-p’o: Selections from a Sung Dynasty Poet, tr. Burton Watson. Also in paperback ed. 1965 Bhartrihari: Poems, tr. Barbara Stoler Miller. Also in paperback ed. 1967 Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, tr. Burton Watson. Also in separate paperback eds. 1967 The Awakening of Faith, Attributed to Aēvaghosha, tr. Yoshito S. Hakeda. Also in paperback ed. 1967 Reflections on Things at Hand: The Neo-Confucian Anthology, comp. Chu Hsi and Lü Tsu-ch’ien, tr. Wing-tsit Chan 1967 The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, tr. Philip B. Yampolsky. Also in paperback ed. 1967

Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shan, tr. Burton Watson. Also in paperback ed. 1970 Twenty Plays of the NĎ Theatre, ed. Donald Keene. Also in paperback ed. 1970 Chĝshingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, tr. Donald Keene. Also in paperback ed. 1971; rev. ed. 1997 The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected Writings, tr. Philip B. Yampolsky 1971 Chinese Rhyme-Prose: Poems in the Fu Form from the Han and Six Dynasties Periods, tr. Burton Watson. Also in paperback ed. 1971 Kĝkai: Major Works, tr. Yoshito S. Hakeda. Also in paperback ed. 1972 The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases: Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Lu Yu, tr. Burton Watson 1973 The Lion’s Roar of Queen Ërümælæ, tr. Alex and Hideko Wayman 1974

Courtier and Commoner in Ancient China: Selections from the History of the Former Han by Pan Ku, tr. Burton Watson. Also in paperback ed. 1974 Japanese Literature in Chinese, vol. 1: Poetry and Prose in Chinese by Japanese Writers of the Early Period, tr. Burton Watson 1975 Japanese Literature in Chinese, vol. 2: Poetry and Prose in Chinese by Japanese Writers of the Later Period, tr. Burton Watson 1976 Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gütagovinda, tr. Barbara Stoler Miller. Also in paperback ed. Cloth ed. includes critical text of the Sanskrit. 1977; rev. ed. 1997 RyĎkan: Zen Monk-Poet of Japan, tr. Burton Watson 1977 Calming the Mind and Discerning the Real: From the Lam rim chen mo of Tsȯ-kha-pa, tr. Alex Wayman 1978 The Hermit and the Love-Thief: Sanskrit Poems of Bhartrihari and Bilhȧa, tr. Barbara Stoler Miller 1978 The Lute: Kao Ming’s P’i-p’a chi, tr. Jean Mulligan. Also in paperback ed. 1980 A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: JinnĎ ShĎtĎki of Kitabatake Chikafusa, tr. H. Paul Varley 1980 Among the Flowers: The Hua-chien chi, tr. Lois Fusek 1982 Grass Hill: Poems and Prose by the Japanese Monk Gensei, tr. Burton Watson 1983 Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-shih, tr. Kenneth J. DeWoskin. Also in paperback ed. 1983 Theater of Memory: The Plays of Kælidæsa, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller. Also in paperback ed. 1984 The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth

Century, ed. and tr. Burton Watson. Also in paperback ed. 1984 Poems of Love and War: From the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil, tr. A. K. Ramanujan. Also in paperback ed. 1985 The Bhagavad Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War, tr. Barbara Stoler Miller 1986 The Columbia Book of Later Chinese Poetry, ed. and tr. Jonathan Chaves. Also in paperback ed. 1986 The Tso Chuan: Selections from China’s Oldest Narrative History, tr. Burton Watson 1989 Waiting for the Wind: Thirty-Six Poets of Japan’s Late Medieval Age, tr. Steven Carter 1989 Selected Writings of Nichiren, ed. Philip B. Yampolsky 1990 SaigyĎ, Poems of a Mountain Home, tr. Burton Watson 1990 The Book of Lieh Tzu: A Classic of the Tao, tr. A. C. Graham. Morningside ed. 1990 The Tale of an Anklet: An Epic of South India—The Cilappatikæram of ÏȧkĎ Aʼikä, tr. R. Parthasarathy 1993 Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince, tr. with introduction by Wm. Theodore de Bary 1993 Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees: A Masterpiece of the Eighteenth-Century Japanese Puppet Theater, tr., annotated, and with introduction by Stanleigh H. Jones Jr. 1993 The Lotus Sutra, tr. Burton Watson. Also in paperback ed. 1993 The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, tr. Richard John Lynn 1994

Beyond Spring: Tz’u Poems of the Sung Dynasty, tr. Julie Landau 1994 The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair 1994 Scenes for Mandarins: The Elite Theater of the Ming, tr. Cyril Birch 1995 Letters of Nichiren, ed. Philip B. Yampolsky; tr. Burton Watson et al. 1996 Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk ShĎtetsu, tr. Steven D. Carter 1997 The Vimalakirti Sutra, tr. Burton Watson 1997 Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan rĎei shĝ, tr. J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves 1997 Breeze Through Bamboo: Kanshi of Ema SaikĎ, tr. Hiroaki Sato 1998 A Tower for the Summer Heat, by Li Yu, tr. Patrick Hanan 1998 Traditional Japanese Theater: An Anthology of Plays, by Karen Brazell 1998 The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors (0479–0249), by E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks 1998 The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-te ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi, tr. Richard John Lynn 1999 The Four Hundred Songs of War and Wisdom: An Anthology of Poems from Classical Tamil, The Pủanæ̇ĝ̉u, ed. and tr. George L. Hart and Hank Heifetz 1999 Original Tao: Inward Training (Nei-yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism, by Harold D. Roth 1999 Po Chü-i: Selected Poems, tr. Burton Watson 2000

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian, by Robert G. Henricks 2000 The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair 2000 Mistress and Maid ( Jiaohongji), by Meng Chengshun, tr. Cyril Birch 2001 Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays, tr. and ed. C. Andrew Gerstle 2001 The Essential Lotus: Selections from the Lotus Sutra, tr. Burton Watson 2002 Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900, ed. Haruo Shirane 2002; abridged 2008 The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Korean Poetry, ed. Peter H. Lee 2002 The Sound of the Kiss, or The Story That Must Never Be Told: Pingali Suranna’s Kalapurnodayamu, tr. Vecheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman 2003 The Selected Poems of Du Fu, tr. Burton Watson 2003 Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women, tr. Makoto Ueda 2003 Just Living: Poems and Prose by the Japanese Monk Tonna, ed. and tr. Steven D. Carter 2003 Han Feizi: Basic Writings, tr. Burton Watson 2003 Mozi: Basic Writings, tr. Burton Watson 2003 Xunzi: Basic Writings, tr. Burton Watson 2003 Zhuangzi: Basic Writings, tr. Burton Watson 2003 The Awakening of Faith, Attributed to Aēvaghosha, tr. Yoshito S. Hakeda, introduction by Ryĝichi Abé 2005 The Tales of the Heike, tr. Burton Watson, ed. Haruo Shirane 2006

Tales of Moonlight and Rain, by Ueda Akinari, tr. with introduction by Anthony H. Chambers 2007

The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender 2011

Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, ed. Haruo Shirane 2007

Tamil Love Poetry: The Five Hundred Short Poems of the Ai̅kůunĝ̊u, tr. and ed. Martha Ann Selby 2011

The Philosophy of Qi, by Kaibara Ekken, tr. Mary Evelyn Tucker 2007

The Teachings of Master Wuzhu: Zen and Religion of No-Religion, by Wendi L. Adamek 2011

The Analects of Confucius, tr. Burton Watson 2007 The Art of War: Sun Zi’s Military Methods, tr. Victor Mair 2007 One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Translation of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, tr. Peter McMillan 2008 Zeami: Performance Notes, tr. Tom Hare 2008 Zongmi on Chan, tr. Jeffrey Lyle Broughton 2009 Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, rev. ed., tr. Leon Hurvitz, preface and introduction by Stephen R. Teiser 2009 Mencius, tr. Irene Bloom, ed. with an introduction by Philip J. Ivanhoe 2009 Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown: Poems by Zen Monks of China, Charles Egan 2010 The Mozi: A Complete Translation, tr. Ian Johnston 2010 The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China, by Liu An, tr. and ed. John S. Major, Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth, with Michael Puett and Judson Murray 2010 The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales, tr. Burton Watson, ed. with introduction by Haruo Shirane 2011 Haiku Before Haiku: From the Renga Masters to BashĎ, tr. with introduction by Steven D. Carter 2011

The Essential Huainanzi, by Liu An, tr. and ed. John S. Major, Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth 2012 The Dao of the Military: Liu An’s Art of War, tr. Andrew Seth Meyer 2012 Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the Yi Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts, Edward L. Shaughnessy 2013 Record of Miraculous Events in Japan: The Nihon ryĎiki, tr. Burton Watson 2013 The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, tr. Burton Watson 2013 Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai, tr. and ed. Mark Teeuwen and Kate Wildman Nakai with Miyazaki Fumiko, Anne Walthall, and John Breen 2014; abridged 2017 Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang, tr. Anne Behnke Kinney 2014 The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama, ed. C. T. Hsia, Wai-yee Li, and George Kao 2014 The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun, by Wilt L. Idema 2014 The Sarashina Diary: A Woman’s Life in Eleventh-Century Japan, by Sugawara no Takasue no Musume, tr. with introduction by Sonja Arntzen and ItĎ Moriyuki 2014; reader’s edition 2018

The Kojiki: An Account of Ancient Matters, by Æ no Yasumaro, tr. Gustav Heldt 2014 The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions, tr. and introduced by Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema 2014 Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn, attributed to Dong Zhongshu, ed. and tr. Sarah A. Queen and John S. Major 2016 A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings, by Li Zhi, ed. and tr. Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline Lee, and Haun Saussy 2016 The Shenzi Fragments: A Philosophical Analysis and Translation, Eirik Lang Harris 2016 Record of Daily Knowledge and Poems and Essays: Selections, by Gu Yanwu, tr. and ed. Ian Johnston 2017 The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China, by Shang Yang, ed. and tr. Yuri Pines 2017; abridged edition 2019 The Songs of Chu: An Ancient Anthology of Works by Qu Yuan and Others, ed. and trans. Gopal Sukhu 2017 Ghalib: Selected Poems and Letters, by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, tr.

Frances W. Pritchett and Owen T. A. Cornwall 2017 Quelling the Demons’ Revolt: A Novel from Ming China, attributed to Luo Guanzhong, tr. Patrick Hanan 2017 Erotic Poems from the Sanskrit: A New Translation, R. Parthasarathy 2017 The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection, by Zhang Yingyu, tr. Christopher G. Rea and Bruce Rusk 2017 Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds: A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales, ed. R. Keller Kimbrough and Haruo Shirane 2018 Hidden and Visible Realms: Early Medieval Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, compiled by Liu Yiqing, ed. and tr. Zhenjun Zhang 2018 A Couple of Soles: A Comic Play from Seventeenth-Century China, by Li Yu, tr. Jing Shen and Robert E. Hegel 2019 The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of Change, by Zhu Xi, tr. and ed. Joseph A. Adler 2019