Whose Strange Stories? P'u Sung-ling (1640 - East Asian History

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14 JOHN MINFORD AND TONG MAN A woman lay beside him, -so it seem'd; For on her marble shoulders, like a mist Irradiate with tawny moonrise, gleam'd Thick silken tre'ises; her white woman's wrist, Glittering with snaky gold and amethyst, Upheld a dainty chin; and there beneath, Her twin breasts shone like pinks that lilies wreathe . The young man in P'u Sung-ling's "Lien-hsiang," caught between the twin fires of a ghost-infatuation and a fox-enchantment, is eventually cured of his sickness in as novel and fascinating a manner as one could hope to find. In the course of this bizarre triangular relationship and its resolution, playfully traced through a number of incarnations, we encounter powerful archetypes of the Chinese consciousness, and taste some of the extra- ShORT Key TO ReFeRences In Llen-hsIang CommenTaRY: long he dallied with delusive I know not; but thereafter never more The peace of passionless slumber soothed the boy; For he was stricken to the very core With sickness of desire exceeding sore And through the radiance of his eyes there shone ordinaIY psychological and psychic subtleties of the mental and emotional life of its cultured elite. Beyond P'u Sung-ling and Herbert Giles, beyond text and translation, we enter into a realm richly representative of the Chinese heart and psyche. In the end, to the extent that we as readers and translators can enable the powerful images of P'u Sung-ling to live again, then these are surely our strange stories too. Auerbach Nina Auerbach, Our vampires, ourselves (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) Barthes Roland Barthes hy Roland Barthes, translated by Richard Howard (London: Macmillan, 1977) Bettelheim Bruno Bettelheim, The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fa iry tales (New York: Knopf, 1976) Bredon Juliet Bredon and Igor Mitrophanow, The moon year, a record of Chinese customs and festivals (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1927) Briggs Katharine Briggs, "The Demon Dancers," a Ross-shire tale, in A hook of fa iries (Harmondsworth, Mddlx: Penguin, 1997) Buber Martin Buber, Chinese tales, translated by Alex Page (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1991)
WHOSE STRANGE STORIES? 15 Robert Burton, The anatomy of melancholy (Oxford, 1621) Burton Craig Clunas, Superfluous things: material culture and social status in early modern China Clunas (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1991) Henri Dore, Researches into Chinese superstitions (Shanghai: T'usewei Printing Press, 1914-38) Dore --- -- ------ Maureen Duffy, The erotic world offaery (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1972) Duffy Feng Chen-luan i1iBm, fl. 1819, early commentator on Liao-chai Feng Robert Hooper, A new medical dictionary, sixth ed. (London, 1831) Hooper John Minford JM Joseph Sheridan LeFanu (1814-73), "Carmilla" LeFanu Fritz Leiber, "The girl with the hungry eyes," 1949 (quoted in Auerbach) Leiber Howard Levy, Ch inese footbinding: the history of a curious erotic custom Levy (New York: W. Rawls, 1966) Joseph Needham, Science and civilisation in Ch ina, voI.V:5, Physiological alchemy Needham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) Contes fa ntastiques du Pavilion des Loisirs, translated by Li Fengbai and Pavilion des Loisirs Denise Ly-Lebreton (Peking: Langues Etrangeres, 1986) The perfumed garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui, translated by Sir Richard Burton, 1886) Perumed Garden Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The confessions (1764-70) Rousseau William Shakespeare, The merry wives of Windsor (1602) Shakespeare Secret instructions concerning the jade chamber, 4th century, in Needham, vol.V:5 Secret Instructions Sextus Propertius (b.51 Be), The elegies of Propertius, Sextus Propertius translated by H. E. Butler (London: Loeb, 1912) Tan Ming-lun, 1795-1853, early commentator on Liao-chai Tan I i Keith Thomas, Religion and the decline of magic (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971) Tong Man R. H. van Gulik, Sexual life in ancient Ch ina (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1961) ::E.±1jt 1634-1711, friend of P'u Sung-ling, early commentator Colin Wilson, Beyond the occult (London: Bantam Press, 1988) Thomas TM van Gulik Wang Shih-chen Wilson The following four-page collage is to be read as a Chinese handscroll, in revers0--that is to say, from left to right. It is composed of a pair of poems exchanged by the famous poet and critic Wang Shih-chen, and P'u Sung-ling; portraits of Wang and P'u; and a passage from P'u 's Preface to Liao-chai in Giles ' translation
Page 1 and 2: East Asian History NUMBERS 17/18·
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS 1 Whose Strange Stories? P
Page 5 and 6: WHOSE STRANGE STORIES? P'U SUNG-LIN
Page 7 and 8: Figure 4 WHOSE STRANGE STORIES' "Ch
Page 9 and 10: WHOSE STRANGE STORIES? native criti
Page 11 and 12: with potent talismans against a var
Page 13 and 14: of more human differences: the abse
Page 15 and 16: WHOSE STRANGE STORIES? translator,
Page 17: WHOSE STRANGE STORIES? Philostratus
Page 21 and 22: .. fea; lit + !-t 7" o 1f.fi:
Page 23 and 24: WHOSE STRANGE STORIES? Giles's rend
Page 25 and 26: Stone Ink Chamber E JlHI-seal carve
Page 27 and 28: Tree Shadow Brushes the Window wm i
Page 29 and 30: Snow Studio .-seal carved by Ho Che
Page 31 and 32: Charm for dispelling sadness and an
Page 33 and 34: " .... 14f)T; \r/ ' . . or· ': ( "
Page 35 and 36: Enquiring of my Heart's Desire § F
Page 37 and 38: Passport for wandering souls on the
Page 39 and 40: Charm curing from an extraordinary
Page 41 and 42: One Smile and All Cares Are Forgott
Page 43 and 44: Play Vff.JIJ.-seal carved by Kao Fe
Page 45 and 46: Studying Should Root Itself in Tran
Page 47 and 48: Entrusting Emotion to the East-Flow
Page 49 and 50: Hall of Swallow's Wmgs .1i!: -seal
Page 51 and 52: WHOSE STRANGE STORIES? long grass 1

Whose Strange Stories? P'u Sung-ling (1640 - East Asian History

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