Mistress & Maid (Jiaohongji) translations from the asian classics Translations from the Asian Classics Editorial Board Wm.Theodore de Bary,Chair Paul Anderer Irene Bloom Donald Keene George A.Saliba Haruo Shirane David D.W.Wang Burton Watson Mistress & Maid (Jiaohongji) by Meng Chengshun Translated by Cyril Birch columbia university press / new york columbia university press New York Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for assistance given by the Pushkin Fund toward the cost of publishing this book. Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester,West Sussex Copyright © 2001 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meng,Ch˚eng-shun,17th cent. [Chiao hung chi.English] Mistress and maid :Jiaohongji / by Meng Chengshun ;translated by Cyril Birch. p. cm.— (Translations from the Asian classics) ISBN 0–231–12168–7 — ISBN 0–231–12169–5 (pbk.) 1.Meng,Ch˚eng-shun,17th cent.—Translations into English. I. Title:Jiaohongji. II.Birch,Cyril,1925– III.Title. IV.Series. PL2698.M44 C4713 2000 895.1′246—dc21 00–034583 Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Designed by Lisa Hamm c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To J.I.Crump & the chimes at midnight This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction ix Signposts of Romance xxiii Cast of Characters 1 scene 1 Legend 3 scene 2 Leaving Home 5 scene 3 Meeting with Bella 11 scene 4 Evening Embroidery 22 scene 5 In Search of a Beauty 30 scene 6 Flower Poems 37 scene 7 Response in Rhyme 43 scene 8 Trouble from Tibet 52 scene 9 Sharing the Lampblack 55 scene 10 Hugging the Stove 62 scene 11 Frontier Defense 71 scene 12 Thwarted Rendezvous 75 scene 13 Dispatching the Summons 83 scene 14 Quiet Despair 86 scene 15 Parting Vows 91 scene 16 Defense of the City 98 scene 17 Seeking a Cure 101 scene 18 Secret Pact 106 scene 19 The Portraits Delivered 113 scene 20 Cutting the Sleeve 117 scene 21 Sending the Matchmaker 126 scene 22 The Match Opposed 132 scene 23 A Drink with Courtesans 141 scene 24 The Matchmaker Reports 150 scene 25 Exorcism 158 viii Contents scene 26 Third Visit 168 scene 27 The Slippers 176 scene 28 Petal Scolded 184 scene 29 Interrogation 190 scene 30 Viewing the Portraits 196 scene 31 Solemn Pact 202 scene 32 Petal Tells 211 scene 33 Reluctant Parting 220 scene 34 Envoys Appointed 228 scene 35 The Keepsake 232 scene 36 The Road to the Examinations 239 scene 37 Celebration 245 scene 38 Return in Triumph 249 scene 39 Bewitched 254 scene 40 A Haunting Suspected 260 scene 41 The Ghost Exposed 268 scene 42 Master Shuai Proposes 275 scene 43 Parting in Life 281 scene 44 Wedding Rehearsal 290 scene 45 Weeping on the Boat 296 scene 46 Petal Questioned 310 scene 47 Maiden’s Passing 313 scene 48 Joined in Death 324 scene 49 United in the Tomb 335 scene 50 Reunion with Immortals 342 Introduction The author of Mistress and Maid(Jiaohongji),Meng Chengshun, lived from 1599 to 1684.Renewed interest in his plays in China during the last twenty years has led to the unearthing of some details of his life story,but there are still blanks,especially for the last twenty-odd years of his long life. He styled himself Meng Zisai,Ziruo,or Zishi,and invented sobriquets like Squire Cloud-Rest and Transcendent Chronicler of the Isles of Flowers, which express his disdain for worldly trammels but suggest also a mild self- mockery. Meng Chengshun’s family belonged to the mandarin class of Shaoxing,a populous city in the central coastal province of Zhejiang.Shaoxing has long been noted for the production of fine wine,lawyers,and literary talent; Meng’s own writings reflected the libertarian ideas of his brilliant,unpre- dictable fellow-townsman,the dramatist and painter Xu Wei,who died just a few years before Meng was born.In the twentieth century,Shaoxing’s tradi- tional eminence was reaffirmed by the fiery and greatly gifted fiction writer and polemicist Lu Xun. Meng Chengshun was already middle-aged by 1644,the year the Ming dy- nasty finally collapsed under its weight of corrupt and inefficient senility and the alien Manchus entered Beijing to establish the last of China’s dynasties of conquest,the Qing.The national catastrophe did not spare the intellectual and artistic elite of Jiangnan,“South of the River.”One of Meng’s closest friends,Qi Biaojia,a Ming loyalist official,was a noted book collector and a diarist who recorded an extraordinary number of dramatic performances he had witnessed.Qi’s estate in Shaoxing was the meeting place for the con- vivial poets,artists,and music lovers who comprised the Maple Club.But Qi had also served the Ming as a censor and later a local governor,and in 1644 he retired to a monastery;the following year he drowned himself rather than accept office under the Manchus.Another close friend was the famous painter,the bohemian Chen Hongshou,who took refuge as a Buddhist monk in a mountain monastery after 1644 and died eight years later. Meng Chengshun was for years a member of the reform-minded Revival