Mouse vs Cat in Chinese Literature Read online

  29 Idema (2015a). In a ballad from Guangdong preserved in both a nineteenth-century printing and a recent recording, the mouse has run into a cat when taking his family on a walk on his birthday and appeals to Judge Bao. Judge Bao sides with the cat (Liu Xiaoming 2017, 235–36). In traditional adaptations from eastern Sichuan, the slain mouse appeals to an otherwise unspecified “divine immortal” in a local temple, who dispatches the gods of storm and fire to summon the cat (Xiong Tongfu 2008, 182–89; Zou Zhongxin 1984, 113–23).

  30 In traditional China, judges were allowed to use torture to extract confessions from criminals who refused to admit to their crimes. In stories of the honest Judge Bao, he often uses cruel means of torture to extract confessions. King Yama does not need torture to establish the sins of the dead, and the tortures of hell are used as punishment.

  31 Teiser (1994, plates 8a, 8b).

  32 See, e.g., “Qutu Zhongren” in Li Fang (1960, 667–69). The tale was later adapted by Ling Mengchu (1580–1644) as chapter 37 of his Pai’an jingqi (Lévy et al. 1981, 1064–69).

  33 Tanaka Kenji (1983, 251–68). Wang Yaping (1949, 26) lists A White Ox Lodges an Accusation (Bainiu gaozhuang) among the titles that are to be condemned because of their descriptions of ghosts, demons, and hells, suggesting that the complaint of the ox remained popular in drum ballads also in the first half of the twentieth century. I have been unable to find more information about this item.

  34 Wang Senran (1997, 211–12); Zhang Guixi and Zhang Wei (2013, 291–302).

  35 For a full list of the versions of the law case of the mouse against the cat that I have consulted, see the bibliography.

  36 A full translation is also included in Idema (2015a, 265–70).

  37 A rare New Year print devoted to the court case of the mouse against the cat, produced in 1920 by the Qingchuncheng Huadian in Wuqiang, depicts eight scenes: (1) the mice destroy books and food; (2) the mouse is killed by the cat; (3) the soul (of the mouse) requests someone to write his accusation statement; (4) the mouse presents his accusation to King Yama; (5) King Yama dispatches runners to summon the soul of the This content downloaded from 129.174.21.5 on Wed, 17 Jul 2019 13:04:51 UTC

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  cat; (6) the cat details the crimes of the mouse, which is thrown into hell; (7) the cat returns to the world of light; and (8) the cat pursues his duty of killing mice and rats even more vigorously.

  38 A copy of this edition is preserved in the Fu Ssu-nien Library of the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica in Taipei.

  39 This typographical layout is intended to reflect the strong rhythmical structure of the ten-syllable line, which is made up of three short phrases of, respectively, three, three, and four syllables.

  40 The second king of the Tang refers to Li Shimin (r. 627–649). He led campaigns against the state of Koguryo in the years 645 and 647 and died while a third campaign was under preparation (Twitchett 1979, 231–35). In Chinese vernacular literature, Koguryo is also designated as Liaodong (“East of the Liao”), because the area of Koguryo covered not only the northern part of the Korean peninsula but also parts of southeastern Manchuria. During the 630s and 640s, the most powerful man in Koguryo was Yŏn Kaesomun (Chinese: Yuan Gesuwen/Gaisuwen), who served as commander in

  chief. Chinese vernacular sources of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries held that he had taunted Li Shimin to attack him, publicly calling him a patricide and a fratri-cide (Idema 2007, 343–47).

  41 Li Shimin’s predicament at Yuehucheng (Jumping Tiger City) is described at great length in chapter 25 of the eighteenth-century military romance Xue Rengui zheng dong, but that novel does not mention any mice. Nor do the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century accounts of the career of Xue Rengui.

  42 The Unborn Old Mother (Wusheng Laomu, also rendered as the Venerable Mother) is a deity that was widely venerated in the new religions (sects) of the Ming and Qing dynasties as the source of all life.

  43 Chen Yiyuan and Ke Rongsan (2013, 111–13).

  44 The cat’s visit to hell may also have circulated as an independent item in storytelling.

  Wang Yaping (1949, 26) mentions the title The Cat’s Visit to the Underworld on the Eighth Day of the Fourth Month (Siba mao you yin), only to condemn it for its descriptions of ghosts, demons, and hells (the eighth day of the fourth lunar month was celebrated as the birthday of the Buddha).

  45 In some versions that have been recorded in recent decades, the description of hell is very much shortened, but in others even further expanded, while the Old Mother is replaced by Guanyin.

  46 Chen Yiyuan and Ke Rongsan (2013, 111–13).

  47 This version of the tale appears to have served as the basis for the very free and inventive rendition by Stent (1878).

  48 The Ronghuantang is known as the name of a bookshop in Chengdu, Kunming, and Guiyang, and according to Liu Fu and Li Jiarui (2011, 1:537) this text hails from Yun-nan. But on its title page, Haozi shenyuan identifies the location of the Ronghuantang clearly as Beijing (Jingdu, the capital).

  49 The story of the case of the mouse against the cat is followed in this edition by an account of the case of the loach against the rice-field eel. See also Idema (2015a, 272–77).

  50 The Chinese text writes “Beijing.” Xiliang had been the name of a short-lived regime of the early fifth century in modern Gansu. Later it came to refer to a fictional barbarian This content downloaded from 129.174.21.5 on Wed, 17 Jul 2019 13:04:51 UTC

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  country that threatened the Tang dynasty. The wars between the Tang and Xiliang serve as the background to the story of Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan that was quite popular on the late-imperial stage.

  In a modern adaptation from Nanyang District, the bomb-carrying candles are submitted by envoys from the “southern barbarian state of Annan” to an emperor of the Song dynasty. Again, the devious scheme is discovered by mice, who are rewarded in the same way (Lei Enzhou and Yan Tianmin 2004, 134). One also encounters a version in which the meritorious mouse is rewarded with an appointment as the first of the birth-year animals ( Sanmenxiashi quyi zhi 1993, 77). In a version from northern Henan (recorded in the 1980s but said to reflect a version that was popular in the 1950s) the foreigners responsible for the bomb plot are described as “foreign devils” and identified as Japanese (Wang Xiaokun and Du Yuanyuan 2017, 47–52).

  51 Liu Xiaomin (2005, 296–97).

  52 One also encounters versions that are classified as children’s songs, for instance, Jin Bo (2012, 206–9).

  53 Meng Fanshu (1991, 69–76). Also see Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Shaanxi juan (1995, 640).

  Meng only provides excerpts from both the ballad and the play. The ballad apparently also was known in Shanxi (Wei Ling 2009, 137). The Eleventh Yama King is otherwise unknown, and his introduction should be understood as a device for stressing the fictional, fantastic nature of the story. In the same way, one can encounter ballads that add a “sixth watch” to the night (Zhang Daoyi 2009, 62).

  In Chenhe opera from Hunan, the play Zhuxianzhen, itself part of the series Jinpai (which is based on the early Ming play Xiangnang ji and is set in the early years of the Southern Song dynasty), contains a scene called “Laoshu gao mao.” This scene derives from the scene “Wenfu” in Xiangnang ji. In this scene a wounded soldier on his way home tries to sell an incense bag he has picked up on the battlefield to the wife of the male protagonist; when she recognizes the object as her husband’s and asks about his whereabouts, she is told he has died in battle. In Zhuxianzhen the wounded soldier has been replaced by a beggar, who entertains the heroine with his performing mice and sings an adaptation o
f the underworld court case of the mouse against the cat; when leaving, he accidentally drops the incense bag ( Hunan Gaoqiang jumu chutan, n.d., 62–63). Unfortunately, no information on the date of the present version of Zhuxianzhen is available.

  54 The following translation is based on Wu Shouli (2006, 123–26, 90–95).

  55 Market-Day Rat is the name of one of the so-called lunar lodges, a series of twenty-eight asterisms circling the polestar that each have their own divinity.

  56 The rat that was defeated by Heavenly King Li and allowed to flee to the world below is the White Mouse Demon, whose story is told in chapters 80–83 of the sixteenth-century novel The Journey to the West. In view of her insatiable sexual appetite, this demon is of course a creature of yin, but she is not otherwise associated with floods.

  But Heavenly King Li and his son Nezha are well known for defeating the dragon that caused the floods of Hongze Lake.

  57 The Chinese expression translated here as “grain for rats” is haomi, which in late-imperial times meant “wasted grain” and referred to the amount of grain that was lost in transport and storage and had to be made up by a surcharge on the grain tax. But the term may also be understood, from the perspective of the rodents, as translated here.

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  According to one source from the Ming dynasty, probably reflecting a popular tradition, the collection of a “wasted grain” surcharge on taxes had started in the Five Dynasties period (907–960) but had at one time been abolished by imperial decree during the Song (960–1279).

  58 The following translation is based on the text in Shang Lixin and Che Xilun (2015, 542–43).

  59 During the wars following the collapse of the Sui dynasty, the warlord Li Mi (582–618) occupied Luoyang, with its huge government granaries at Jinyong. In later legend, he lost this advantage when his rich stores of grain were devoured by flocks of flying rats.

  The cats that were assembled to devour these rats ended up being so overfed that they fell asleep amid the rodents (Zhu Shenglin 1956, chap. 9).

  Ch a p t e r 4: A Ta l e w i t hou t Sh a pe or Sh a dow

  1 As a rule, the mouse that lodges a complaint with King Yama is male, but in the version in the “filial songs” ( xiaoge) from southern Shaanxi, the mouse is female (Tai Kexiang 2016, 255–60).

  2 Linqu minjian wenxue jicheng (ziliao ben diyi juan) (1989, 383–88). According to this source, the song was performed by “Ma Yiqin, female, illiterate, age 68, from Sanyuan Village in Chengguan Town” and recorded by one Ma Tongxiu in the context of the nationwide campaign of the 1980s and 1990s to inventory Chinese folktales and folk songs.

  3 The

  kang is a raised brick platform, heated from below by the smoke from the stove. It is a typical feature of traditional farmhouses in northern China. As the warmest place in the house, it was also the place that was preferred by cats.

  4 Zhao Tianlu and Yu Xiuwu (2004, 49–50).

  5 Finger presses are common instruments of torture in the courts of law.

  6 Hu Zhongcai and Li Su’e (2010, 433–34).

  7 Lei Enzhou and Yan Tianmin (2004, 134).

  8 This introduction is quoted in Wang Yaping (1949, 28–29), when condemning Laoshu gao limao for blatantly spreading the poison of superstition. He earlier had already condemned all descriptions of ghosts, demons, and hells. Stories about the descent of mankind from a brother-sister couple are not uncommon in China. Such a story is for instance also encountered in the introduction of an adaptation of the law case of the mouse against the cat that was recorded in northern Henan in the 1980s (Wang Xiaokun and Du Yuanyuan, 2017, 47–52).

  9 Dagushu Xiaolaoshu gaozhuang (n.d.).

  10 Linqu minjian wenxue jicheng (ziliao ben diyi juan) (1989, 383–88).

  11 Zhang Daoyi (2009, 58).

  12 Idema (2015a, 281–84). A complete English translation of this text is provided in Idema (2015b, 355–96).

  13 Li Jing.

  14 Wei Ren and Wei Minghua (1985, 110–13).

  15 In this particular local genre, a ballad is made up of a number of stanzas that each have a three-line introduction.

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  16 Ma Changyi (1997a, 8).

  17 Chen Hongbin (2009, 551–59).

  18 For a detailed discussion of the theme’s popularity in the Middle East and western Europe, see the epilogue. While there is no positive evidence, one may of course wonder whether the emergence of this theme in China at the beginning of the nineteenth century may in some way be linked to the intensified contacts of China with the Muslim world of Central Asia following the Qing conquest of Xinjiang.

  19 In traditional fiction, the generals of the Yang family play a major role in the defense of the Song dynasty against the Khitan Liao (Idema and West 2013). When the men in the different generations of the family all have given their lives for the Song dynasty, the remaining twelve widows take up arms and inflict major losses on the barbarians.

  20 “Shooting stars” are two iron balls connected by a chain and used as a weapon.

  21 The influence of The Revolt of the Mice can be clearly detected in a number of oral ballads that circulated in Shandong and northern Jiangsu in the final decades of the twentieth century. Like The Revolt of the Mice, these ballads structure their narrative according to the five watches of the night, but also include an account of the court case.

  22 Pu Songnian (1986, 108) provides a poor reproduction of an undated New Year print from Shaanxi titled The Great Battle at Cat Mountain (Dazhan Mao’ershan), showing the mice in their attack on the stronghold of the cats. Cat Mountain is not mentioned in any of the accounts of the battle that I have seen, so this print may well refer to yet another tradition of the battle. Pu Songnian (2008, 131) adds that the print carries a poem that reads: “The mice had after many years become a demon plague: / How could the king of cats upon his mountain live with this? / When he in rage set out the battle lines to capture them alive, / The mice lost their commanders and they also lost their troops.”

  23 According to Mi Cheng (2013, 560), the expression wuying zhuan (locally pronounced wuying zuan) may refer either to “unlimited bragging, unfounded lies, and unrealistic rubbish” or to “a kind of prosimetric storytelling that specializes in narrating nonsen-sical things to make people laugh.”

  24 Professor Shang Lixin kindly provided me with scans of a copy of a manuscript of the Wuying zhuan that carries the date of 1883. Unfortunately, this copy is incomplete. The text stops in the middle of the formal accusation of the mouse.

  25 Zhong Shengyang (1992, 30).

  26 Qin Gui (1090–1155) served as the prime minister under Emperor Gaozong (1107–1197; r. 1127–1162), the first ruler of the Southern Song dynasty, after the Jürchen had conquered northern China and abducted the two emperors Huizong and Qinzong to the far north. When Qin Gui realized that continuing the war against the Jürchen was useless, he decided on seeking peace, but in order to be able to conclude a peace treaty, he had to disarm the commanders in the field. The most famous of these, Yue Fei (1103–

  1142), was, at least in the eyes of later Chinese, at that moment poised to retake the north and free the captive emperors. Recalled to the capital, he was soon imprisoned on trumped-up charges and killed. It was widely believed that this had happened at the instigation of Qin Gui, who had acted this way because he was in the pay of the Jürchen. Qin Gui’s murder of Yue Fei has been decried as a great injustice ever since the thirteenth century. For the early develo
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  Idema (2015, 319–53). When the student Hu Di read an account of the case, he accused King Yama of unfairness, whereupon he was allowed to visit the underworld in order to witness the eternal tortures of Qin Gui. The story of Hu Di’s visit to the underworld to watch the tortures of Qin Gui and his wife is first told by Zhao Bi in his Xiaopin ji.

  This collection of classical tales carries a postface by the author dated 1428 (Zhao Bi 1957, 57–66). For the political interpretation of A Tale without Shape or Shadow, see Idema (2018).

  27 Shang Lixin and Che Xilun (2015, 542–44) list this text in their survey of precious scrolls from northern China, but the text has no clear religious content and lacks an opening poem inviting the Buddhas and bodhisattvas to attend its performance as well as a concluding poem for sending them off, so there is no reason to classify it as a precious scroll, as is done in Xi Yingying (2017).

  28 The translation is based on the manuscript in the collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library. At one point someone tried to destroy the manuscript by tearing it apart, but the binding kept the torn pages together.

  29 Great Lord Jiang (Jiang Taigong) was the adviser of King Wu, the founder of the Zhou dynasty. Zhang Liang (d. 185 BCE) was an adviser of Liu Bang (d. 195 BCE), the founder of the Han dynasty. Zhuge Liang (181–234) was an adviser of Liu Bei (161–223), the first emperor of the Shu-Han dynasty in Sichuan. All three men are proverbial for their strategic insight and tactical skills. Peach Blossom girl (Taohuanü) in a widely popular traditional tale outwits the infallible soothsayer Master Zhou (Zhou Gong) on numerous occasions (Anonymous 2013a; Durand-Dastès 2018).

  30 Xu designates 7–9 p.m.

  31 A