The Play Read online

  Lasting-life Palace-hall

  (Hung Sheng 1654-1704)

  Volume One

  The Play

  Translated and Introduced by

  William Dolby

  This Straightback Publishing Paperback Edition published 2016

  ISBN-13: 978-1539886174

  ISBN-10: 1539886174

  (This is the first volume of a 2-part publication)

  (First Published by Carreg Publishers in 2012, Hardback Edition and

  Digitally published in 2016 by Straightback Publishing.

  Find out more about William Dolby at http://www.williamdolby.com

  Copyright © 2016 Ieuan Dolby

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a public or open retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of direct trade or barter, be lent, re-sold, lent or circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, digital, binding or cover other than that which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  For all who have a deep love of classical Chinese Drama; the romance, the political and military intrigue and of course, the damsel in distress.

  FOREWORD

  William Dolby, my father, was one of the foremost experts on the Chinese language, culture and history. He was a highly respected and renowned lecturer in Mandarin, researcher of Classical Chinese and father of five, and he spent his life surpassing academic excellence.

  Bill sadly passed away in 2015, but right to the last he freely shared his deep love of a subject and in so doing created a truly inspirational and sound foundation in those who took the time to listen. As a true master, the respect that he gained from his peers and from students, friends and colleagues was indisputably a priceless rarity.

  Beavering away for over sixty years he produced an amazing selection of works, some of which are captured in his ‘Chinese Culture Series’ - 33 volumes of classical Chinese translation, research and insight. These volumes, through many kind donations are now becoming available in digital format: a means towards the preservation of a great legacy and for students of the subject to now access.

  This particular translation (as all were) was a continual work in progress, adapted and improved upon as the decades rumbled past. We present it here in its last known form.

  Please note that question marks abound throughout as my father continually updated and queried his own explanations/reasonings and we leave such thought alone, for others to determine/gain value from. This particular translation comes in two parts – the work being so large. The first volume is the actual translation of the play, the second volume contains his copious footnotes and appendices.

  Ieuan Dolby

  November 2016

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Wu, Chin Ling for her untiring efforts to get this right

  Lasting Life Palace Hall

  Volume One

  Introduction and Play

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Dramatis personae:

  Act One: Resumé of the story3

  Act Two: Betrothal

  Act Three: Bribing authority

  Act Four: Spring sleep

  Act Five: Strolling on the day of Waterside Purification-ceremony162

  Act Six: Bystanders’ puzzlement

  Act Seven: Favoured by imperial love

  Act Eight: Gifting her hair to the emperor

  Act Nine: Summoned back by the emperor

  Act Ten: Writing on the wall

  Act Eleven: Hearing court-musical performance

  Act Twelve: Composing a music-score

  Act Thirteen: Power shindig

  Act Fourteen: Stealing the melody

  Act Fifteen: Presenting fruit to the empress

  Act Sixteen: Dancing on a tray

  Act Seventeen: Joining for the hunt

  Act Eighteen: Night repinings

  Act Nineteen: Reunited

  Act Twenty: Spy report

  Act Twenty-one: Peeping at bathing

  Act Twenty-two: Secret vows

  Act Twenty-three: Taking the Pass

  Act Twenty-four: Alarm at political upheaval

  Act Twenty-five: Burying the white-jade one

  Act Twenty-six: Gifting a meal to the emperor

  Act Twenty-seven: Frequenting the Shades

  Act Twenty-eight: Berating the rebel

  Act Twenty-nine: Hearing little bells

  Act Thirty: Love-remorse

  Act Thirty-one: Extirpating the rebel

  Act Thirty-two: Weeping over her statue

  Act Thirty-three: A god’s plea

  Act Thirty-four: Assassinating the rebel

  Act Thirty-five: Taking back the capital

  Act Thirty-six: Looking at the stocking

  Act Thirty-seven: Corpse released

  Act Thirty-eight: Strum-lyric857

  Act Thirty-nine: Secret sacrificial service

  Act Forty: Immortal reminiscences

  Act Forty-one: Seeing the moon

  Act Forty-two: Posting-station preparations

  Act Forty-three: Reburial

  Act Forty-four: Spurring re-union

  Act Forty-five: Rain dream

  Act Forty-six: Seeking her spirit

  Act Forty-seven: Remedying woe

  Act Forty-eight: Conveying love

  Act Forty-nine: Obtaining the tokens

  Act Fifty: Love reunion

  END

  (Volume Two contains the Appendices and Endnotes)

  Introduction

  Chinese civilization has a prolific tradition of love romances, such themes predominating in its stage drama. Four or so stories stand out for popularity in that tradition, and one of them is that of the love between China’s most romantic couple: Shining August-emperor (Shining August-emperor 明皇) and his Most-prized-empress Yang (Yang Kui-fei 楊貴妃), originating in a real-life love that occurred in T’ang dynasty mid - 8th century Ch’ang-an. The most extensive and powerful presentation of that story is the famous play translated in this book: Lasting-life Palace-hall (Ch’ang-sheng tien 長生殿)1 by the dramatist and poet Hung Sheng 洪昇 (1659 - 1704)2.

  Hung Sheng, born on the 21st of August 1645, was from Ch’ien-t’ang 錢塘, present-day Hang-chou city in Chekiang province, and had the courtesy-name Fang-ssu 昉思 and the cognomens Pai-ch’i 稗畦, Pai-ts’un 稗村 and Nan-p’ing Ch’iao-che 南屏樵者. At the time of his birth, his whole family were refugees in flight from troubles for a month before being able to return to the city. His was a locally respected family of generations of high literary education, his father, name unknown, was a studious man, fond of discussion, and served as a mandarin in the Ch’ing dynasty government. He was eminently connected through his wife, who was the grand-daughter of Huang Chi 黃機 (1612 - 1686) who also served in government, sometime during the reign-period 1662 - 1722, rising to the lofty posts of Minister of Justice (hsing-pu shang-shu 刑部尚書) and Grand Academician of Literary-florescence Palace-hall (Wen-hua-tien ta hsȕeh-shih 文華殿大學士), concurrently Minister of Personnel (li-pu shang-shu 吏部尚書). She herself was an expert on music, and some of his passion for songs and plays was undoubtedly due to her influence.

  As a youth, Hung Sheng studied under such as Lu Fan-ch’ao 陸繁弨 (AD 1700), Mao Hsien-shu 毛先舒 (1620 - 1688) and Chu Chih-ching 朱之京 (fl. ca. AD 1660), some of them leading scholars and poets of the age, receiving an orthodox Confucian education from them, and also some influence from their loyalties to the defunct Ming dynasty. He was an accompli
shed shih poet, but because of his unfashionable poetic theories was often at loggerheads with another of his teachers, Wang Shih-chen 王士禛 (1634 - 1711), sometimes considered the foremost shih 詩 poet of the age. He also acquired poetic techniques from Shih Jun-chang 施閏章 (1618 - 1683). On seeing poetry by Chao Chih-hsin 趙執信 (1662 - 1744), he was astonished and admiring, and become a good friend of his. Hung was also a fine essayist, and in addition wrote ten or more plays.

  A zealous student, he showed his genius very early on, and by the age of fourteen was already celebrated in the realm of literary composition. By nineteen, he’d created many shih 詩-poems, tz’u 詞 -lyrics and ch’ü 曲-arias, and prose writings, which earned much praise. Sometime during the days 21st August to 19th September AD 1644, he married his maternal uncle’s daughter, his cousin Huang Lan-tz’u 黃蘭次. Four years later, he went to Peking and became a student of the Imperial Academy or “National University” (Kuo-tzu-chien 國子監), but failing to gain a government post, returned home in disappointment.

  When about twenty-six, a crisis in family relations saw him forced out of his home, and he lived in indigence, without cooked meals.

  In the winter of AD 1673, he went a second time to Peking, to seek a livelihood. Two years later, he’d finished compiling his collection of his shih-poems, Whistling-at-the-moon Bower’s collected works (Hsiao-yȕeh-lou chi 嘯月樓集). He was appreciated and fostered by various eminent poets such as the former infant-prodigy Liu T’ien-fu 李天馥 (1637 - 1699) and Wang Shih-chen, his poetic reputation soaring. Selling his literary writings for his living, he became as overweening as of old. Hsü Lin 徐麟 (fl. early-mid 17th century AD) in his Preface to Abiding-life Palace-hall remarks: “In the company of friends at feasts and parties, he’d always be squatting up high, looking supercilious and referring to things past and citing things modern.” He was very dissatisfied with the state of the world in his times.

  In the winter of AD 1679, his father was slandered over some matter and banished to guard-duty on the far frontier. Hung Sheng rushed around yelling and wailing, seeking explanations from princes and men of eminence, then rushed back to Ch’ien-t’ang, travelling night and day, He accompanied his parents on their trek north. A general amnesty occurred, but these experiences left him bodily haggard and worn, and he mentally exhausted. He gained greater insight into people’s sufferings, and wrote poems expressing his sympathies for them.

  He again spent some years in Peking. There, in 1687 or 1688, he completed Abiding-life Palace-hall, an adaptation of his play Dancing “Rainbow-skirt” (Wu Ni-ch’ang 舞霓裳) begun in Hang-chou in 1679. A small part of it was staged at once, in Cha Tower (Cha-lou查樓). A troupe which specialized in the K’un-shan-ch’iang style of music and was suffering from the lull in the fortunes of that music, performed the play, and one performance shot it to fame, it coming to the notice of Emperor Sage-progenitor (Sheng-tsu 聖祖, reigned 1662 - 1722), who praised it highly and awarded the performers twenty tales of silver. The grateful actors invited Hung to a special performance of one of the acts in the summer of AD 1689, for which most of the celebrated men of the time clubbed together to support, but unfortunately he’d incurred the wrath of a certain Executive Assistant (chi-shih 給事) Mr. Huang Liu-hung 黃六鴻 (Huang Yi), whom he’d neglected to invite. Huang realised that it was a period of national mourning for an empress, Filial-and-beauteous August-empress Lady T’ung (孝懿皇后佟氏 Hsiao-yi Huang-hou T’ung-shih), when mourning garb hadn’t yet been doffed and such entertainments were forbidden. He addressed a memorial to the throne, urging the impeachment of those concerned. All the guests at the performance were dismissed from office, including Academician Reader-in-waiting (shih-tu hsȕeh-shih 侍讀學士) Chu Tien 朱典 (fl. ca. AD 1670), the Prefect of Taiwan (T’ai-wan chih-fu 臺灣知府) Weng Shih-yung 翁世庸 (fl. ca. AD 1670) and the merry eccentric poet and Admonisher (tsan-shan 贊善) Chao Chih-hsin 趙執信 (1662 - 1744), a friend of Hung’s who had newly won his Presented Scholar (chin-shih 進士) degree. A contemporary composed the lines: “How pitiful that for one night’s Abiding-life Palace-hall, their government fame and success were put paid to even till they were white-haired.” Hung himself was thrown into the Ministry of Justice’s jail, and expelled from the National University. A sad poem by him commemorates this event.

  This happened to the background of political struggles in the imperial court between Northern and Southern factions. The Southern Faction was headed by the historian, classicist and Minister of Justice (hsing-pu shang-shu 刑部尚書) Hsü Ch’ien-hsȕeh 徐乾學 (1631 - 1694) and consisted mainly of Han Chinese mandarins, and the Northern Faction by the Manchu Man Grand Councillor (hsiang-kuo 相國) Ming Chu 明珠 (1635 - 1708), made up mainly of Manchu mandarins. Hung Sheng was closer to the Southern Faction, and added to that was his habitual overweening nature, and the fact that his Abiding-life Palace-hall in places offended against certain taboos of the time. The Northern Faction latched onto the troubles, wanting to make a major case out of them. The emperor deliberately adopted a relatively tolerant stance, and apart from dealing with those who’d attended the gathering, and never probed the play itself in any depth.

  Whatever the details of the scandal, it no doubt served to boost the fortunes of the play. In consequence of its fame in Peking and elsewhere, the K’un-shan-ch’iang kind of music it employed came to be favoured for many more plays.

  After this sudden crisis, Hung Sheng everywhere in the capital suffered disdain and mockery, and in the year AD 1691 he felt he’d no choice but to return home to Ch’ien-t’ang, where he further pursued his writing of the play. In AD 1697, the Governor of Kiangsu (Chiang-su hsȕnfu 江蘇巡撫) Sung Lo 宋犖 (1634 - 1713) ordered that a performance of it be arranged. A great multitude attended it, and it was the most splendid performance of the era. At the accompanying feast, according to Yu T’ung’s 尤侗 (1618 - 1704) (Ch’ang-sheng tian hsu 長生殿序), “Hung’s crazy eccentricity burst forth again, he pulled off his robe and sat cross-legged, and drank freely as of old.” Subsequently, Abiding-life Palace-hall was successively performed in such places as Wu-shan 吳山 and Sung-chiang 松江. In AD 1704, the Chiang-ning Imperial Silk-manufactory (Chiang-ning chih- tsao-ts’ao 江寧織造曹) assembled celebrities from north and south for a magnificent banquet, according Hung Sheng the top seat in splendid isolation, and performed the whole enormous length of Abiding-life Palace-hall, which took three days and nights to complete. Heading back from Chiang-ning afterwards, his path went through Wu Market-town (Wu-chen 烏鎮), and as he boarded a boat, on Hsȕn Brook (Hsȕn-hsi 潯溪) in Wu-hsing 吳興, having drunk wine and presumably unsteady because of it, he fell into the water and drowned, that occurring on the 2nd of July AD 1704.

  Hung Sheng was especially fond of composing arias and dramas. Of the many plays he produced, those we know about include the Wonder-play (ch’uan-ch’i 傳奇) dramas Palindrome brocade (Hui-wen chin 回文錦), Dragon-returning Court (Hui-lung yȕan 迴龍院), Kao-t’ang shindy (Nao Kao T’ang 鬧高唐), Integrity-and-filiality Ward (Chieh-hsiao fang 節孝坊), Brocade-and-embroidery picture (Chin-hsiu t’u 錦繡圖), Dancing “Rainbow skirt” (Wu Ni-ch’ang 舞霓裳), Eaglewood Pavilion (Ch’en-hsiang t’ing 沉香亭), and Abiding-life Palace-hall, and the Variety Play (tsa-chü 雜劇) drama Four graceful ladies (Ssu ch’an-chȕan 四嬋娟), which were frequently sung “amid banner pavilions and painted walls”, town mansions and luxury muralled dwellings”.

  Four graceful ladies, surviving in the collection Ch’ing dynasty playwrights’ Variety Plays (Ch’ing-jen tsa-chu 清人雜劇), has the four acts customary for the genre, each act dealing with a talented woman of the past. Act One features Hsieh Cosmic-truth-latency (Hsieh Tao-yȕn 謝道蘊, fl. ca. AD 376), niece of the celebrated Hsieh An 謝安 (320-385), and a line of her poetry that Hsieh An praised: “Never as good as willow-floss rising with the breeze.” Act Two concerns Wei Lush-ripple (Weri Mao-yi 衛茂漪), elder cousin of China’s most famous calligr
aphy Wang Hsi-chih 王羲之 (321-379), how he formally took her as his calligraphy teacher, she conveyed to him the writing-brush array illustration (Pi-chen t’u 筆陣圖), which enabled him to make a great advance with his calligraphy. Act Three’s about China’s most famous poetess Li Ch’ing-chao 李清照 (1081 - 1141 or after) and her conjugal spiritual bliss with her husband. Act Four treats of the skilled painter Kuan Cosmic-truth-ascending (Kuan Tao-Sheng管道昇 (1262 - 1319) (Kuan Middle-beauty, Kuan Chung-chi 管仲姬), wife of the outstanding painter Chao Meng-fu 趙孟頫 (1254 - 1322), how she composed a poem to the tune Fisherman’s song (Yü-ke-tzu 漁歌子), and he played the dulcimer and sang it, a fisher-lad accompanying him on a flute. This play is more eulogistic and lyrical than strongly dramatic.

  Palindrome brocade, now non-extant, presented the story of how, during the time of Fu Chien 苻堅 (reigned 357-384) of the Former Ch’in 前秦 dynasty (351 - 394), Tou T’ao 竇滔 was sent to govern Hsiang-yang 襄陽, and he took along his favourite concubine Chao Sun-terrace (Chao Yang-t’ai 趙陽臺). When he took the appointment, he ceased all correspondence with his wife Su Orchidea (Su Hui 蘇蕙). So Orchidea wove brocade as a palindrome (hui-wen 迴文), all the different colours setting each other off, eight inches square, with a composition of two hundred or so poems, amounting to eight hundred or so lines, which, read vertically or horizontally or the other way round, all formed meaningful lines. It was called Armillary-sphere chart (Hsȕan-chi t’u 璇璣圖).

  Dragon-returning Court, also found called Dragon returning (Hui-lung chi 迴龍記), non-extant, was about Han Yȕan-jui 韓原睿, who abandoned his wife so as to sacrifice himself in the conscientious service of the country. She was a woman of enduring integrity, and their filial son sought out his parents, and performed noble deeds. Han Yȕan-jui, at Dragon-returning Village (Hui-lung ts’un 迴龍邨), threw himself into a river to commit suicide for his cause, but someone rescued him, and he was spared. The son then met his parents at a sleeping-dragon Villa (Wo-lung-ke 臥龍閣).