A History of Chinese Literature

“The universe is in labour,All things are produced,And among them the Sage.”

“This must be Liu Chi,” cried Ou-yang, and ran a red-ink pen through the composition, adding these two lines: —

“The undergraduate jokes,The examiner ploughs.”

Later on, about the year 1060, Ou-yang was very much struck by the essay of a certain candidate, and placed him first on the list. When the names were read out, he found that the first man was Liu Chi, who had changed his name to Liu Yün.

Chang Hsüan-tsu was a wit of the Han dynasty. When he was only eight years old, some one laughed at him for having lost several teeth, and said, “What are those dog-holes in your mouth for?” “They are there,” replied Chang, “to let puppies like you run in and out.”

Collections of wit and humour of the Joe Miller type are often to be seen in the hands of Chinese readers, and may be bought at any bookstall. Like many novels of the cheap and worthless class, not to be mentioned with the masterpieces of fiction described in this volume, these collections are largely unfit for translation. All literature in China is pure. Novels and stories are not classed as literature; the authors have no desire to attach their names to such works, and the consequence is a great falling off from what may be regarded as the national standard. Even the Hung Lou Mêng contains episodes which mar to a considerable extent the beauty of the whole. One excuse is that it is a novel of real life, and to omit, therefore, the ordinary frailties of mortals would be to produce an incomplete and inadequate picture.

THE HSIAO LIN KUANG CHI

The following are a few specimens of humorous anecdotes taken from the Hsiao Lin Kuang Chi, a modern work in four small volumes, in which the stories are classified under twelve heads, such as Arts, Women, Priests: —

A bridegroom noticing deep wrinkles on the face of his bride, asked her how old she was, to which she replied, “About forty-five or forty-six.” “Your age is stated on the marriage contract,” he rejoined, “as thirty-eight; but I am sure you are older than that, and you may as well tell me the truth.” “I am really fifty-four,” answered the bride. The bridegroom, however, was not satisfied, and determined to set a trap for her. Accordingly he said, “Oh, by the by, I must just go and cover up the salt jar, or the rats will eat every scrap of it.” “Well, I never!” cried the bride, taken off her guard. “Here I’ve lived sixty-eight years, and I never before heard of rats stealing salt.”

A woman who was entertaining a paramour during the absence of her husband, was startled by hearing the latter knock at the house-door. She hurriedly bundled the man into a rice-sack, which she concealed in a corner of the room; but when her husband came in he caught sight of it, and asked in a stern voice, “What have you got in that sack?” His wife was too terrified to answer; and after an awkward pause a voice from the sack was heard to say, “Only rice.”

A scoundrel who had a deep grudge against a wealthy man, sought out a famous magician and asked for his help. “I can send demon soldiers and secretly cut him off,” said the magician. “Yes, but his sons and grandsons would inherit,” replied the other; “that won’t do.” “I can draw down fire from heaven,” said the magician, “and burn his house and valuables.” “Even then,” answered the man, “his landed property would remain; so that won’t do.” “Oh,” cried the magician, “if your hate is so deep as all that, I have something precious here which, if you can persuade him to avail himself of it, will bring him and his to utter smash.” He thereupon gave to his delighted client a tightly closed package, which, on being opened, was seen to contain a pen. “What spiritual power is there in this?” asked the man. “Ah!” sighed the magician, “you evidently do not know how many have been brought to ruin by the use of this little thing.”

A doctor who had mismanaged a case was seized by the family and tied up. In the night he managed to free himself, and escaped by swimming across a river. When he got home, he found his son, who had just begun to study medicine, and said to him, “Don’t be in a hurry with your books; the first and most important thing is to learn to swim.”

The King of Purgatory sent his lictors to earth to bring back some skilful physician. “You must look for one,” said the King, “at whose door there are no aggrieved spirits of disembodied patients.” The lictors went off, but at the house of every doctor they visited there were crowds of wailing ghosts hanging about. At last they found a doctor at whose door there was only a single shade, and cried out, “This man is evidently the skilful one we are in search of.” On inquiry, however, they discovered that he had only started practice the day before.

A general was hard pressed in battle and on the point of giving way, when suddenly a spirit soldier came to his rescue and enabled him to win a great victory. Prostrating himself on the ground, he asked the spirit’s name. “I am the God of the Target,” replied the spirit. “And how have I merited your godship’s kind assistance?” inquired the general. “I am grateful to you,” answered the spirit, “because in your days of practice you never once hit me.”

A portrait-painter, who was doing very little business, was advised by a friend to paint a picture of himself and his wife, and to hang it out in the street as an advertisement. This he did, and shortly afterwards his father-in-law came along. Gazing at the picture for some time, the latter at length asked, “Who is that woman?” “Why, that is your daughter,” replied the artist. “Whatever is she doing,” again inquired her father, “sitting there with that stranger?”

A man who had been condemned to wear the cangue, or wooden collar, was seen by some of his friends. “What have you been doing,” they asked, “to deserve this?” “Oh, nothing,” he replied; “I only picked up an old piece of rope.” “And are you to be punished thus severely,” they said, “for merely picking up an end of rope?” “Well,” answered the man, “the fact is that there was a bullock tied to the other end.”

A man asked a friend to stay and have tea. Unfortunately there was no tea in the house, so a servant was sent to borrow some. Before the latter had returned the water was already boiling, and it became necessary to pour in more cold water. This happened several times, and at length the boiler was overflowing but no tea had come. Then the man’s wife said to her husband, “As we don’t seem likely to get any tea, you had better offer your friend a bath!”

A monkey, brought after death before the King of Purgatory, begged to be reborn on earth as a man. “In that case,” said the King, “all the hairs must be plucked out of your body,” and he ordered the attendant demons to pull them out forthwith. At the very first hair, however, the monkey screeched out, and said he could not bear the pain. “You brute!” roared the King, “how are you to become a man if you cannot even part with a single hair?”

A braggart chess-player played three games with a stranger and lost them all. Next day a friend asked him how he had come off. “Oh,” said he, “I didn’t win the first game, and my opponent didn’t lose the second. As for the third, I wanted to draw it, but he wouldn’t agree.”

PROVERBS

The barest sketch of Chinese literature would hardly be complete without some allusion to its proverbs and maxims. These are not only to be found largely scattered throughout every branch of writing, classical and popular, but may also be studied in collections, generally under a metrical form. Thus the Ming Hsien Chi, to take one example, which can be purchased anywhere for about a penny, consists of thirty pages of proverbs and the like, arranged in antithetical couplets of five, six, and seven characters to each line. Children are made to learn these by heart, and ordinary grown-up Chinamen may be almost said to think in proverbs. There can be no doubt that to the foreigner a large store of proverbs, committed to memory and judiciously introduced, are a great aid to successful conversation. These are a few taken from an inexhaustible supply, omitting to a great extent such as find a ready equivalent in English: —

Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own.

By many words wit is exhausted.

If you bow at all, bow low.

If you take an ox, you must give a horse.

A man thinks he knows, but a woman knows better.

Words whispered on earth sound like thunder in heaven.

If fortune smiles – who doesn’t? If fortune doesn’t – who does?

Moneyed men are always listened to.

Nature is better than a middling doctor.

Stay at home and reverence your parents; why travel afar to worship the gods?

A bottle-nosed man may be a teetotaller, but no one will think so.

It is easier to catch a tiger than to ask a favour.

With money you can move the gods; without it, you can’t move a man.

Bend your head if the eaves are low.

Oblige, and you will be obliged.

Don’t put two saddles on one horse.

Armies are maintained for years, to be used on a single day.

In misfortune, gold is dull; in happiness, iron is bright.

More trees are upright than men.

If you fear that people will know, don’t do it.

Long visits bring short compliments.

If you are upright and without guile, what god need you pray to for pardon?

Some study shows the need for more.

One kind word will keep you warm for three winters.

The highest towers begin from the ground.

No needle is sharp at both ends.

Straight trees are felled first.

No image-maker worships the gods. He knows what stuff they are made of.

Half an orange tastes as sweet as a whole one.

We love our own compositions, but other men’s wives.

Free sitters at the play always grumble most.

It is not the wine which makes a man drunk; it is the man himself.

Better a dog in peace than a man in war.

Every one gives a shove to the tumbling wall.

Sweep the snow from your own doorstep.

He who rides a tiger cannot dismount.

Politeness before force.

One dog barks at something, and the rest bark at him.

You can’t clap hands with one palm.

Draw your bow, but don’t shoot.

One more good man on earth is better than an extra angel in heaven.

Gold is tested by fire; man, by gold.

Those who have not tasted the bitterest of life’s bitters can never appreciate the sweetest of life’s sweets.

Money makes a blind man see.

Man is God upon a small scale. God is man upon a large scale.

A near neighbour is better than a distant relation.

Without error there could be no such thing as truth.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

What foreign students have achieved in the department of Chinese literature from the sixteenth century down to quite recent times is well exhibited in the three large volumes which form the Bibliotheca Sinica, or Dictionnaire Bibliographique des Ouvrages rélatifs à l’Empire chinois, by Henri Cordier: Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1878; with Supplément, 1895. This work is carried out with a fulness and accuracy which leave nothing to be desired, and is essential to all systematic workers in the Chinese field.

By far the most important of all books mentioned in the above collection is a complete translation of the Confucian Canon by the late Dr. James Legge of Aberdeen, under the general title of The Chinese Classics. The publication of this work, which forms the greatest existing monument of Anglo-Chinese scholarship, extended from 1861 to 1885.

The Cursus Literaturæ Sinicæ, by P. Zottoli, S.J., Shanghai, 1879-1882, is an extensive series of translations into Latin from all branches of Chinese literature, and is designed especially for the use of Roman Catholic missionaries (neo-missionariis accommodatus).

Another very important work, now rapidly approaching completion, is a translation by Professor E. Chavannes, Collège de France, of the famous history described in Book II. chap, iii., under the title of Les Mémoires Historiques de Se-ma Ts’ien, the first volume of which is dated Paris, 1895.

Notes on Chinese Literature, by A. Wylie, Shanghai, 1867, contains descriptive notices of about 2000 separate Chinese works, arranged under Classics, History, Philosophy, and Belles Lettres, as in the Imperial Catalogue (see p. 387). Considering the date at which it was written, this book is entitled to rank among the highest efforts of the kind. It is still of the utmost value to the student, though in need of careful revision.

The following Catalogues of Chinese libraries in Europe have been published in recent years: —

Catalogue of Chinese Printed Books, Manuscripts, and Drawings in the Library of the British Museum. By R. K. Douglas, 1877.

Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka. By Bunyio Nanjio, 1883.

Catalogue of the Chinese Books and Manuscripts in the Library of Lord Crawford, Haigh Hall, Wigan. By J. P. Edmond, 1895.

Catalogue of the Chinese and Manchu Books in the Library of the University of Cambridge. By H. A. Giles, 1898.

Catalogue des Livres Chinois, Coréens, Japonais, etc., in the Bibliothèque Nationale. By Maurice Courant, Paris, 1900. (Fasc. i. pp. vii., 148, has already appeared.)

The chief periodicals especially devoted to studies in Chinese literature are as follows: —

The Chinese Repository, published monthly at Canton from May 1832 to December 1851.

The Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, published annually at Shanghai from 1858 to 1884, and since that date issued in fascicules at irregular intervals during each year.

The China Review, published every two months at Hong-Kong from June 1872 to the present date.

There is also the Chinese Recorder, which has existed since 1868, and is now published every two months at Shanghai. This is, strictly speaking, a missionary journal, but it often contains valuable papers on Chinese literature and cognate subjects.

Variétés Sinologiques is the title of a series of monographs on various Chinese topics, written and published at irregular intervals by the Jesuit Fathers at Shanghai since 1892, and distinguished by the erudition and accuracy of all its contributors.

THE END

1

Supposed to have been stamped pieces of linen, used as a circulating medium before the invention of coins.

2

Chung means “middle,” and Yung means “course,” the former being defined by the Chinese as “that which is without deflection or bias,” the latter as “that which never varies in its direction.”

3

Tê is the exemplification of Tao.

4

The name Lao Tan occurs in four passages in the Book of Rites, but we are expressly told that by it is not meant the philosopher Lao Tzŭ.

5

“To the minnow, every cranny and pebble and quality and accident of its little native creek may have become familiar; but does the minnow understand the ocean tides and periodic currents, the trade-winds, and monsoons, and moon’s eclipses…?” —Sartor Resartus, Natural Supernaturalism.

6

An account of the mausoleum built to receive his remains will be found in Chapter iii. of this Book.

7

A famous Minister of Crime in the mythical ages.

8

Contrary to what was actually the case in the Golden Age.

9

The folding fan, invented by the Japanese, was not known in China until the eleventh century A.D., when it was introduced through Korea.

10

Variant “firm,” i. e. was firmly laid.

11

Here the poet makes a mistake. These two were not contemporaries.

12

Alluding to the huge gilt images of Buddha to be seen in all temples.

13

The other two were Li Po and Tu Fu.

14

Graves are placed by preference on some hillside.

15

Referring to a famous beauty of the Han dynasty, one glance from whom would overthrow a city, two glances an empire.

16

Referring to A-chiao, one of the consorts of an Emperor of the Han dynasty. “Ah,” said the latter when a boy, “if I could only get A-chiao, I would have a golden house to keep her in.”

17

A fancy name for the women’s apartments in the palace.

18

The mandarin duck and drake are emblems of conjugal fidelity. The allusion is to ornaments on the roof.

19

Each bird having only one wing, must always fly with a mate.

20

Such a tree was believed to exist, and has often been figured by the Chinese.

21

The Great Bear.

22

Wine which makes man see spring at all seasons.

23

Emblems of purity.

24

Our previous state of existence at the eternal Centre to which the moon belongs.

25

The Power who, without loss of force, causes things to be what they are – God.

26

Alluding to the art of the painter.

27

A creature of chance, following the doctrine of Inaction.

28

Variously identified with Saghalien, Mexico, and Japan.

29

…Si vis me flere dolendum est

Primum ipsi tibi…

30

Each invisible atom of which combines to produce a perfect whole.

31

Referring to an echo.

32

This remains, while all other things pass away.

33

On the 23rd June 1900, almost while these words were being written, the Han-lin College was burnt to the ground. The writer’s youngest son, Mr. Lancelot Giles, who went through the siege of Peking, writes as follows: – “An attempt was made to save the famous Yung Lo Ta Tien, but heaps of volumes had been destroyed, so the attempt was given up. I secured vol. 13,345 for myself.”

34

Chinese note-paper is ornamented with all kinds of pictures, which sometimes cover the whole sheet.

35

Said of the bogies of the hills, in allusion to their clothes. Here quoted with reference to the official classes, in ridicule of the title under which they hold posts which, from a literary point of view, they are totally unfit to occupy.

36

A poet of the T’ang dynasty, whose eyebrows met, whose nails were very long, and who could write very fast.

37

This is another hit at the ruling classes. Hsi K’ang, the celebrated poet, musician, and alchemist (A.D. 223-262), was sitting one night alone, playing upon his lute, when suddenly a man with a tiny face walked in, and began to stare hard at him, the stranger’s face enlarging all the time. “I’m not going to match myself against a devil!” cried the musician after a few moments, and instantly blew out the light.

38

When Liu Chüan, Governor of Wu-ling, determined to relieve his poverty by trade, he saw a devil standing by his side, laughing and rubbing its hands for glee. “Poverty and wealth are matters of destiny,” said Liu Chüan, “but to be laughed at by a devil – ,” and accordingly he desisted from his intention.

39

A writer who flourished in the early part of the fourth century, and composed a work in thirty books, entitled “Supernatural Researches.”

40

The birth of a boy was formerly signalled by hanging a bow at the door; that of a girl, by displaying a small towel – indicative of the parts that each would hereafter play in the drama of life.

41

Alluding to the priest Dharma-nandi, who came from India to China, and tried to convert the Emperor Wu Ting of the Liang dynasty; but failing in his attempt, he retired full of mortification to a temple at Sung-shan, where he sat for nine years before a rock, until his own image was imprinted thereon.

42

The six gâti or conditions of existence, viz., angels, men, demons, hungry devils, brute beasts, and tortured sinners.

43

The work of a well-known writer, named Lin I-ch’ing, who flourished during the Sung dynasty.

44

The great poet Tu Fu dreamt that his greater predecessor, Li T’ai-po, appeared to him, “coming when the maple-grove was in darkness, and returning while the frontier pass was still obscured,” – that is, at night, when no one could see him; the meaning being that he never came at all, and that those “who know me (P’u Sung-ling)” are equally non-existent.

45

These two lines are short in the original.

46

A Solomonic judge under the Sung dynasty.

47

“In hearing litigations, I am like any other body. What is necessary is to cause the people to have no litigations” (Legge).