Chen Baoyue, a native of Fujian Province, was the chief executive of Qinzhou dao (Trans. Note: Dao in ancient China was an administrative division under the province).
Once, he was sitting alone in his room when a woman lifted the door curtain and entered. Baoyue looked up and saw it was a total stranger. She was extremely beautiful and gorgeously dressed in the style of Ming Dynasty court ladies, with long sleeves and skirt. She said with a smile, “Aren’t you lonely sitting idly here in the night?” Taken by surprise, Baoyue asked who she was, and she said,”My home is not far from here, as near as your next door neighbor to the west.”
Baoyue figured she must be a ghost but his heart was drawn to her. He pulled at her sleeve and sat her down on a chair. The woman spoke with a quiet elegance, which impressed Baoyue very much. When he embraced her, she showed no resistance but turned her head to look behind her. “There’s nobody else here, is there?” she asked, and Baoyue rushed over to shut the door. “No,” he said. Then he urged her to take off her clothes. When she appeared quite shy about it, he did it for her. The woman said, “I’m twenty, but I’m still a virgin. I wouldn’t be able to take it if you’re too rough. When they had finished making love, the bed linen was stained with a bit of red. Lying side by side, the two talked quietly. The woman said her name was Fourth Lady Lin. Pressed for further details, she said, “I have always been a virtuous woman. Now you have disgraced me. If you really love me, just maintain our relationship. Why do you have to keep asking these
questions?” Soon, the cock crowed, heralding the dawn. Fourth Lady got out of bed and left.
From then on, she would come every night. The two would drink and talk behind closed doors. When the conversation touched on music, she was often able to analyse the melodies so that Baoyue was sure she must be a good singer and musician. She explained that she’d learned the songs when she was a child. When Baoyue pleaded for a song, she said, “I haven’t touched music for a long time and have forgotten many of the melodies. I’m afraid anyone who knows music will laugh at me.” After much urging, she began to sing with her head lowered as she beat out the tune. Her renderings of the Yizhou and Liangzhou songs were most emotional and touching. As soon as the notes ended, tears poured down her cheeks. Equally moved by the melancholy of the songs, Baoyue took her into his arms and comforted her. “Don’t sing such songs of lost kingdoms any more, they make one so sad.” But she said, “Music expresses one’s mood. A miserable person can’t sing a cheerful song, nor can a person drunk with joy sing a melancholy one.” The two thus became closer than ordinary husbands and wives.
By and by, other members of the family came to eavesdrop. No one who heard the Fourth Lady’s singing could refrain from shedding tears. Baoyue’s wife took one look at the Fourth Lady and felt sure there was no mortal who could be as beautiful and bewitching and therefore she must be either a ghost or a fox-fairy. Afraid that her husband would come to disaster as a result of her seduction, she tried to persuade him to break with Fourth Lady. Baoyue would not comply.
However, he time and again asked Fourth Lady for the truth. The woman finally said sorrowfully, “I used to be a maid of honor in the House of King Heng towards the end of the Ming Dynasty. Seventeen years ago, I was killed in a turmoil. Since you are of good moral character, I gave myself to you, but I never would dare to harm you. If you are suspicious of me and dread me, I shall leave right away.” “It’s not that I mind you,” Baoyue said, “it’s just that we are so close to each other now, I have to know the truth of your background.” So he proceeded to ask her questions about life in the palace. She recalled the past with great vividness and when she came to the part about the decline of the House of Heng, her sentences were broken by sobbing. Fourth Lady slept very little. Every night, she would get out of bed to read the sutras, and when Baoyue asked her, “Can one redeem oneself in the nether world?” her reply was, “It’s no different from the world of mortals. When I think of how low my whole life was, I must do some good to make my next life better.”
Often, Fourth Lady Lin discussed poetry with Baoyue,pointing out the flaws and reciting verses that she liked in her tender, musical voice. She appeared so unrestrained yet refined, Baoyue would forget all about sleep. When he asked her, “Do you write poetry?” her reply was, “Occasionally, when I was alive.” He then asked her for one of her works, but she smiled and said, “They are much too childish,not worth offering to someone with your scholarship.”
One night, three years later, Fourth Lady, with grief on her face, suddenly came to bid farewell. Surprised, Baoyue asked what the matter was. She said, “Because I committed no crime in my previous life and never forgot to study the scriptures and chant the incantations after death, the King of Hell has had me reincarnated into the family of a prince. I’ve come tonight to say goodbye. There will never be a time for us to meet again.” She spoke those words with such extreme sadness that Baoyue began to shed tears as well. Wine was brought in and they drank together. With deep fervour, she started to sing, the tones full of misery and regret, the words and notes lingering. She could hardly go on each time she came to a bitter part of the song. Several times she had to stop and pick up again before she could finish the tune. Neither could they enjoy the drinking as they used to.
At last, Fourth Lady hesitantly rose to leave. After repeated urgings by Baoyue, she sat down for a little longer. Then the cock crowed and she said, “I mustn’t remain any longer. However, many times you have complained to me for not showing you my humble works. Now that we will part forever, I shall write a verse, rough as it may be, to offer to you.”
She asked for a brush and thought for a while before putting it to paper. After she had finished composing the lines, she said, “My mind is so confused right now, I cannot think carefully and ponder over each word. There are faults with the rhythm, too. Be careful not to show it to anyone.” Then, covering her face with her sleeve, she left.
Baoyue saw her to the door and all of a sudden, she vanished. Baoyue stood there disconsolate, for a long while. Then he picked up her poem. The characters were written with care and grace. He put it away as a precious belonging. The poem read like this:
For seventeen years in solitude
I lay beneath the palace ground；
Little did I remember my native land.
Of Heaven I asked, is it prospering or subdued?
My soul visited the palace of old,
Now overgrown with grass, the courtyard sealed.
Tears fall as my thoughts go to my King；
May be turn into a cuckoo after death.
No more the roaring of surging waves,
Sunset heralds the end of day；
A new master has taken over the kingdom now,
To music and drums the war flames died out.
How could beauty overpower force?
Little could I do to punish the devils.
Yet the pure heart of a woman will not change,
In the midst of misery I found the chant.
(Trans. Note: dhyana)
Amitabba I recite
A hundred, a thousand times a day；
The avatamsaka and other scriptures.
I read two or three chapters as time permits.
Recalling the songs I once learned in Liyuan,
A song of lament, instead of crying, likewise evokes pity.
Fortunate am I to have such a bosom friend
To share my emotion and my tears.
Should there be redundancies or missing words in the poem, I suspect they were mistakes that arose in the course of being handed down.
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