Mouse vs Cat in Chinese Literature Read online

So the second king of the Tang,

  Very pleased at heart,

  By his own mouth promised them

  That in whatever district

  And whatever prefecture,

  Whether when buying or selling,

  The rats would always

  Additionally have

  Three cups of remaining grain.41

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  King Yama thereupon has the cat summoned to the underworld, to be

  convinced by the statement of the cat of the crimes of the mice. One further conspicuous difference between The Scroll of the Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat and The Different Statements is that the latter version includes a long passage in which the cat, once arrested by King Yama’s runners, on

  arriving in the underworld observes how sinners there are punished for their crimes:

  When King Yama

  Had finished reading

  This long accusation by the mouse,

  He loudly cursed,

  “You little cat,

  You brazen animal!

  I had hoped

  That on earth you would

  Devoutly recite the Buddha’s name,

  You definitely cannot

  Without any reason

  Cruelly kill any other living beings!

  I have here my royal

  Rubbed iron tally

  And will immediately issue a warrant

  For the arrest

  Of this little cat

  So he may be questioned and confess!”

  Oxhead

  And Horseface

  Didn’t dare to delay or procrastinate,

  But mounted

  Their storm-fire wheels

  That turned like a whirlwind indeed.

  When these two ghosts

  Arrived here on earth,

  They first visited the god of the soil,

  And that old god of the soil

  Led this couple of ghosts

  Over the streets to find the location.

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  When the two ghosts

  Arrived at the gate,

  The gods of the gate blocked their way,

  Whereupon these ghosts

  Presented the iron tally

  For inspection by these divinities.

  The kitchen god Zhang

  Welcomed the couple

  And ascertained the right address,

  Whereupon the house god

  Led the two ghosts

  Into the mansion’s main room.

  Right that moment

  That little cat

  Was washing his face on the cupboard,

  And in one swish

  Around his neck

  A cuff had been fastened.

  Whatever he said,

  Whatever he claimed,

  They took him along by a chain:

  When they left the world of light

  And entered the underworld

  A heavy fog was blocking his sight.

  When looking ahead,

  He could not discern

  The wide road to the world of light,

  When looking behind him,

  He could not discern

  The house of his owner anymore.

  He encountered

  A mountain of broken coins

  That was extremely hard to cross;

  The forked trees

  Without branches or leaves

  Looked like after a fall and winter.

  He encountered

  A mountain of fiery flames

  That was extremely hard to cross;

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  At Iron-Board Mountain

  The three roads

  All hastened toward the dark city.

  When the little cat

  Thereupon arrived

  At the Ghost-Gate Pass,

  There was no end

  Of coming and going

  Of the souls that had died.

  He also saw

  At Fengdu City

  The roaring clouds of black storms

  And also heard

  The weeping of ghosts

  Who were locked inside its walls.

  At Hungry-Dogs Village

  And Soul-Blinding Station

  Everyone was bewailing his fate;

  On Bright-Mirror Hill,

  On Sin-Mirror Terrace

  Good and evil were distinguished.

  In the eastern corridor

  Were hung up

  Mule stealers and horse thieves;

  In the western corridor

  Were hung up

  Dead corpses and lost spirits.

  Steel forks

  Pierced heretics

  Who were bleeding profusely;

  Iron pincers

  Embraced the nuns

  Who had defiled the holy sutras.

  Those who had spilled rice

  Or thrown away noodles

  Saw organs and innards crushed;

  Those ugly wives

  Who had cursed their husbands

  Were beheaded without pardon.

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  Those who on earth

  Had spoken lies,

  And concocted false accusations,

  On arrival there below

  Had their tongues ripped out,

  So blood was covering their breasts.

  Those who betrayed their marriage

  There saw their bodies

  Cut into two parts by a huge saw;

  Those who hit their father,

  Those who cursed their mother

  Were all cooked alive in vats of oil.

  To a high column

  Were tied students

  To be pierced by random arrows,

  Because they,

  While reciting the Four Books,

  Had furtively cursed their teachers.

  Those who walked across

  A bridge of gold or silver

  Became Buddhas, turned into gods;

  While the deluded people

  Crossed bridges of brass or iron,

  Which were covered in heavy fog.

  There were brass snakes

  And also iron dogs

  That were guarding these bridges

  And would eat your flesh

  And lap up your blood

  Without any regard for the stench.

  But on top of that bridge

  The Old Mother was found: 42

  While seated in the lotus position

  She held in her hand

  A wooden-fish drum

  As she recited the holy sutras,

  Admonishing people

  While here on earth

  To devoutly practice good deeds

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  So they would not

  On arrival there below

  Have to suffer no end of misery.

  The first class of people

  Will through their devotion

  Become Buddhas and turn into gods;

  The second class of people

  Will through their devotion

  Live as emperors in their palaces.

  The third class of people

  Will through their devotion

  Become grandees and prince-consorts;

  The fourth class of people

  Will through their devotion

  Become civil and military officials.

  The fifth class of people

  Will through their devotion

  Achieve high status and great riches,

  But the sixth class of people

  Will for lack of devotion

  Become beggars crying in the streets.

  The seventh class of people

  Will for lack of devotion

  Be reborn as mules and change into horses;

  The eighth class of people

  Will for lack of devotion

  Be demoted to the status of furry animals.

  The ninth class of people

  Will for lack of devotion

  Become fishes or turtles, crabs or shrimps;

  The tenth class of people

  Will for lack of devotion

  Turn into slithery snakes or millipedes.

  Under a variety of titles, such as Newly Printed: A Complete Account of the Judgment of King Yama concerning the Cat and the Mouse (Xinke Yanluo panduan maoshu quanzhuan), this text was repeatedly reissued by the litho-

  graphic printers of Shanghai in the early decades of the twentieth century.43

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  It must have enjoyed quite some popularity in later years, too, as it was at least twice included in typeset booklets of the 1920s that combine several

  performance texts of dagushu (big-drum books); some of these editions carried a subtitle that draws special attention to the inclusion of the long description of the underworld.44 The text survived until recent times in the repertoire of several local performance genres.45 The lithographic publishers of early twentieth-century Shanghai also issued a very similar text that was variously titled The Latest Version of the Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat (Zuixin laoshu gao mao), Completely Il ustrated: The Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat (Quantu laoshu gao mao), or Improved: The Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat (Gailiang laoshu gao mao).46 In this case the text starts in seven-syllable lines, but quickly moves to ten-syllable lines, to conclude again in seven-syllable lines. The contents are basically the same as those of The Different Statements, but the stylistic register would appear to be somewhat more elevated. This is also one of the rare popular texts to mention the ability of aged rats to turn themselves into bats.

  Yet two other versions of the underworld law case of the mouse against

  the cat have been preserved in woodblock-printed editions of the late nine-

  teenth century from Beijing. The first of these, printed by the Baowentang

  and titled The Rat Accuses the Cat (Haozi gao mao), identifies its genre as lianhualao (beggar’s song). Following an opening consisting of a lyric and a four-line poem (celebrating the power of King Yama), the text is once again composed in ten-syllable lines. In this text, too, the cat is treated to a display of underworld punishments for sinners before it is interrogated by King

  Yama. Following the cat’s statement, mouse and cat engage in an angry

  debate, until King Yama sentences the rodent to hell and allows the cat to

  return to the world of light. Following King Yama’s verdict, this text includes a long section detailing the joy of the cat’s owner, Lady Li, when it revives.47

  As soon as Lady Li

  Had observed this,

  She was overcome by joy,

  And facing

  The northwest

  She expressed her thanks.

  First she thanked Heaven,

  Next she thanked Earth,

  And Buddha for their help,

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  And then recited

  The name of Guanyin

  Who Saves from Disaster.

  When Lady Li saw

  Her cat had revived,

  She was overcome by joy,

  She rushed forward,

  Lifted it up in her arms,

  And smothered it with kisses.

  Now, when that cat

  Had returned to life,

  It thought quite carefully:

  It remembered

  Its underworld experiences

  So even in more detail.

  “I remember

  How that mouse

  Lodged an accusation,

  And how the two of us

  Were interrogated

  In the hall of King Yama.

  In the underworld

  I have also paid

  A visit to the many hells:

  Those who do good,

  Those who practice evil—

  I have seen the final truth!

  Don’t say that

  There’s no retribution

  Here and now immediately:

  If it takes long,

  It will hit your children;

  If it comes fast, you’ll be hit!”

  In just a few words

  I cannot fully tell

  This “Accusation of the Cat”—

  May all of you

  Be covered by a thousand auspicious clouds,

  And be visited by a hundred blessings.

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  Stripped of this final section, this version of the tale survived into recent times, for instance, as a Lubei hangge (stamping song from northern Lu).

  The Rat Seeks Redress (Haozi shenyuan) was printed in 1882 by the Ronghuantang.48 The text is mostly written in ten-syllable lines and opens with an extended scene (in lines of seven syllables) of animals crowding outside the court of King Yama, waiting for their case to be heard on the first of the month.49 In this version of the tale, the mouse in its statement before the bench claims that its ancestor had once saved Emperor Li Shimin from a

  bomb plot by chewing through a wax candle containing a thousand pounds

  of gunpowder:

  Now, the country of Xiliang

  Conceived an evil scheme

  And offered a large candle in tribute

  That contained inside

  A gunpowder bomb

  Called the Commander in Chief.

  It was only

  My ancestor