Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West (Michigan Classics in Chinese Studies) (13 page)
Authors: Yueh Tung
Reading Accounts Before the Palace of the Hexagram of Limitation; Collecting Hairs on the Crest of the Hill of Grief
.
When Monkey had finished thanking himself, he jumped down from the tower and walked to a gate. Above the gate hung a stone tablet inscribed with three large characters: “Limitation Hexagram Palace.” A purple and gold rope with a limitation hexagram carved from green jade dangling at its end hung from the door-post. The gate had two doors. Water ripples were painted on one and the other was painted with rivers and marshes. On either side of the doors were pasted “spring couplets” written on cloud-swirl paper. The couplets said:
Do not leave the gate, do not leave the door:
Danger on earth, danger in heaven
.
For the youngest daughter, for mouth and tongue:
Limit sweet, limit bitter
.
1
After Monkey had finished reading, he made to go right in, but stopped in his tracks and thought, “Since this Emerald Green World has things like red threads that entangle people, I can't go just anywhere. First I'll take a look around this gate and see what I can find out. Then I can look for the old monk.”
He turned and walked through the gate's east side-door. Inside, a notice was pasted on a slanting wall. It said:
Grand Total of Wages for the Carpenters, Masons, and Miscellaneous Workers Who Built Limitation Hexagram Palace:
Limitation Hexagram Main Palace—sixty-four large and small halls. Carpenters: 16,000 ounces silver. Masons: 18,001 ounces silver. Miscellaneous: 54,060 ounces silver and 7 cash only.
Limitation's Creative Hall
2
—sixty-four chambers. The day before yesterday a sworn brother of Little Moon King, who, though 30 or 40 years of age, had neither been capped
3
nor married, acquired a wife named Lady Green-twine through Little Moon King. The ceremony was held in the third palace. Having been married only one night, they suddenly started a row. Little Moon King was enraged. He ordered me to come in for punishment—fifty strokes of the board. This came about because all the workmen got me into trouble. Just for that I'm cutting their salary to one-sixth. Carpenters only deserve 50,000 ounces silver. Masons only deserve 40,000 ounces silver. Miscellaneous only deserve 200,000 ounces silver.
Limitation's Receptive Hall—sixty-four chambers. Carpenters, masons, and miscellaneous paid as above.
Limitation's Peace Hall—four-hundred and six White Crane Chambers. Little Moon King especially praised the Little Lotus Lodge. Each laborer receives an increase of 500 ounces, which brings the total to: Carpenters: 7,000,000 ounces silver. Masons: 664 ounces silver. Miscellaneous: 2,008,000 ounces silver only.
Limitation's Stagnation Hall (Little Moon King's sleeping quarters) 15,000 Sky-blue Chambers. Little Moon King wanted to add a mirror tower, but recently several additional worlds have emerged: a small one, the World of Current Literature, broke off from the Headache World; a Red Garment World broke off from the World of Wild Herbs; and a Book-burning World broke off from the Lotus Flower World. There are countless other new split-off worlds as well. The oppressive Tower of Myriad Mirrors of the hexagram Oppression cannot contain them all. Therefore, he had no choice but to build a second Tower of Myriad Mirrors here. Tomorrow all workers will come and begin construction. Everyone must be diligent but not overly hasty or he will find himself in trouble. First, however, payment for the last job will be made as follows: Carpenters: 5,005,000 ounces silver. Masons: 40,000,000 ounces silver. Miscellaneous: 1,800,000 ounces silver and 8 cash, 5 and 1/10 cents only.
Monkey read until his eyes grew tired, though a list of sixty other palaces followed after. So adopting a Huai-su
4
method, he took in the rest at a single glance. When he had finished he was afraid and said, “I've seen
the Heavenly Palace and the Isle of P'eng,
5
too. But I've never seen anything like this Sixty-four Hexagram Palace. Now sixty-four hexagrams are not a great number but each hexagram also contains sixty-four palaces. Sixty-four times sixty-four is still a small number, but each of those again has sixty-four palaces. And this place is not the only one—there are twelve more besides. It's hard to imagine seeing it all with my eyes—it's weird enough to be a dream.”
He thought of a plan right away. He plucked a handful of hairs from his body, chewed them into tiny pieces, and commanded, “Change!” The hairs became countless little monkeys, who stood huddled together. Monkey barked orders at them: “If you come upon something worth looking at, stop and look it over. Then report to me at once. Don't dawdle!”
The little monkeys ran east, west, south, and north, jumping and dancing. After Monkey sent them off, he went for a leisurely stroll, and came to the crest of the Hill of Grief. He raised his head and saw a little boy carrying a letter.
As the boy walked he grumbled, “Man! You're ridiculous, Boss! What's so special about you that you can cause so many problems? Now I've got to carry another letter to that old official Wang the Fourth. The other day it didn't matter, but this afternoon Mr. Ch'en is drinking and watching a play in our Drinking Rainbow Pavilion, and I won't be able to stick around because of your little matter!”
When Monkey heard that the Master was in Drinking Rainbow Pavilion he wanted to turn around and go looking for him. But he thought better about it and said, “If I just walk to the east or west, I might blunder onto the wrong road. It'd be better to ask that boy.” And he said, “Young Master…”
The boy was walking along, talking to himself, and hadn't raised his head or noticed Monkey. Who would have thought that when he suddenly saw Monkey, blood would flow from the seven apertures of his head. He dropped to the ground unconscious. Monkey laughed and said, “Good boy, you know how to play dead. Let me see about this letter you're carrying.”
He quickly took the letter, and when he opened it he saw written on two sheets of coarse yellow paper:
Head Foreman in Charge of the Thirteen Palaces, Shen Ching-nan offers these words for the information of Your Honor, Old Official Wang the Fourth:
Though I am worthless, Your Honor has looked with favor upon me and promoted me to head foreman. I didn't know that a thief of thieves had caused Your Honor worry.
Even I wish to cultivate the purity of my worthless name. Hasn't all my behavior for the past several years been virtuous? Yesterday, however, Foreman Yü suddenly reported that items totaling over one hundred have disappeared from the Sixty-four Hexagram Palace, the Palace of Three Hundred Odes, and the Palace of the Eighteen Songs.
His Majesty Little Moon King was very angry. Tomorrow he will commission you, Old Official Wang the Fourth, to inspect and take an inventory of the palaces one by one.
I believe Your Honor is kindhearted. Even if I didn't tell you, you would take care of everything. Yet I still fear my heart won't be clean, but will suffer from this grievance for a hundred years. If your Honor can make a good beginning and end of this matter, I should be grateful for the rest of my life.
I, Shen Ching-nan, your student, attendant to your intimate instructions, and head foreman of thirteen palaces, bow a hundred bows.
To the Old Official, Old Father, Old Master and Lord, Wang the Fourth.
Monkey was determined to find his Master. When he had finished reading he shook his body to call back his hairs. A little monkey came flying up the hill and shouted, “Great Sage! Great Sage! So you've come here! I've been looking for you a long time.”
Monkey said, “What have you seen?”
The little monkey said, “I came to a fairy cave where I saw a white deer speaking.”
Meanwhile, two little monkeys were fighting their way up the hill, yanking each other's fur and tugging each other's ears. They knelt down together in front of Monkey. One of them said that the other little monkey ate one more double-flowering peach than he had. The other said the first plucked one more plum than he had.
Monkey let out a roar and the three of them jumped back onto his body at once. A while later another group of little monkeys came from the northeast. Some said what they had seen was interesting, some said what they had seen was not. One reported having seen two lines written on a wall:
The mind follows flowing water; it stops at the blue hills
.
When I see the fallen flowers are gone, I know that spring has departed
.
Another said that an immortal stood on each leaf of a spiraea bush. Each immortal held a pair of fish-shaped castanets and sang loudly to himself:
Return to me the thing-less self
,
Return to me the self-less things
.
The Void is host;
Things and I are all guests
.
One little monkey said, “The clouds in a fairy cave all formed a tapestry of palindromes.”
Another little monkey reported, “I saw a high pavilion made of
garu-
wood.”
A third said, “There was an ancient fairy cave with its door shut tight. They wouldn't let me in.”
A fourth said, “I found a green bamboo fairy cave, but it was very dark and deep and I was scared to go in.”
Monkey didn't have the patience to listen. He gave his body a shake and the hundred million monkeys jumped onto his body with the sound “ting-tung, ting-tung.” Monkey picked up his feet to walk away, but he heard the hairs on his body say, “Don't go, Great Sage. We have a friend who hasn't returned yet.”
Monkey stopped. He saw one last little monkey drunkenly climbing the hill from the southwest. Monkey asked him, “Where did you go?”
The monkey replied, “I was walking close to a tower where there was a girl of just sixteen with a face like peach blossoms. When she saw me outside her window she grabbed me and pulled me in. We sat shoulder-to-shoulder and she poured wine in my mouth till I was drunk as mud.
Monkey was enraged. He clenched his fist in front of the little monkey and beat and scolded him wildly. He said, “You dog! I let you go for a minute and you get tangled up with the Demon of Desire!”
That monkey wailed and wept, and could do nothing but jump onto Monkey's body. Having then gathered all his hairs, Monkey descended the Hill of Grief.
1
The Limitation
(chieh)
hexagram of the I Ching is not an auspicious one, and most of the images in these two couplets are drawn from the explanations of the various lines. The “youngest daughter” and “mouth and tongue” are attributes of the hexagram's top three lines, the trigram
tui
.
2
This palace and the three that follow are named after hexagrams in the
I Ching
.
3
The “capping” of a young man at twenty years of age ritually symbolized his attainment of maturity.
4
Huai-su was a very learned disciple of Hsüan-tsang. Legend has it that he was known for his ability to read sutras at great speed.
5
The Isle of P'eng(-lai) is a mythical island inhabited by immortals.
In the Palace of Crying Ospreys,
1
the Tears of the T'ang Priest Fall; A Young Girl Plucks the P'i-p'a
2
and Sings a Tale.
Monkey picked up his feet and walked to a tower pavilion that clearly seemed to be the Drinking Rainbow Pavilion. But he didn't see his Master, and his heart became anxious. He turned to look out over an expanse of blue water, in the middle of which stood a water palace. Two men wearing square cloth caps sat in the palace. Monkey was suspicious and quickly scampered up a hill near the tower. He hid in a fold of the hill and looking carefully, spied four elegantly done green characters on the building that read, “Crying Ospreys Water Palace.”
The bright walls were colorful as tapestries; the ornamented grounds followed a design. There were cinnamon timbers and orchid rafters, plum-wood beams and orchid chambers. The railings that surrounded the palace were randomly decked with coral. Because they had been there many years, blue-green water weeds had grown around them to make patterns like the spidery characters on an old bronze.
As for the two men in the palace, one wore a nine-flowered
T'ai-hua
3
cap, and the other man wore a fashionable
Tung-t'ing
4
cap. The one wearing a nine-flowered cap had a fair complexion, red lips, fine eyebrows, and white teeth. Except for his cap he looked just like the T'ang Priest. Monkey was at once startled and pleased. He thought, “The man in the nine-flowered cap is obviously my Master, but why is he wearing a cap? Little Moon King doesn't
look
like a monster.”
He was confused, his mind tied in knots. Just as he was about to present himself and drag his Master away, he thought, “Suppose the Master's heart has been turned. There'll be no use in going to the West.”
He remained hidden in the fold of the hill, and fixed his eyes for another look, hoping to find out whether this really was his Master. Below he saw the man in the
Tung-t'ing
cap say to the other, “The evening clouds are magnificent. Get up, Mr. Ch'en—we'll take a walk.”
The capped T'ang Priest said, “Please, you first, Little Moon King.” The two of them walked hand-in-hand to the Pavilion of Dripping Desire. In the pavilion were several scrolls, all of them paintings and calligraphy by famous artists. On the side hung a small scroll with characters written in green:
Green mountains encircle the neck;
A white stream pierces the heart.
Where is the jade lady?
In the empty sky, a white cloud.
The two of them strolled a short way and heard muffled voices from a bamboo grove. The T'ang Priest leaned on a railing and listened. A gust of wind in the pines carried the words of a song:
The crescent moon illumines several regions;
Many families are happy, many are sad.
Some dwell behind jade-tasseled, gold-hooked bed-curtains;
Some float in rainy-night boats on the rivers Hsiao and Hsiang.
Midnight—a girl beats her coverlet;
“Why did you leave me? Why didn't you stay?
If by the third watch tomorrow I haven't seen you
,
I'll cut up this quilt embroidered with love birds.”
When the T'ang Priest heard this, he nodded his head and his tears fell. Little Moon King said, “I think you've been away from home too long, Mr. Ch'en. Hearing this song has made you sad. Let's go to the Tower that Punctures Blue Heaven to hear a story sung.”
The two of them chatted for a while, then left the Pavilion of Dripping Desire and disappeared. Why do you think they disappeared? It happened that the Tower that Punctures Blue Heaven was separated from the Water Palace of Crying Ospreys by a thousand chambers. Everywhere the eye could see trails of flowers encircled the eaves. Green trees arched over crisscrossed paths—a thousand drooping willows and
t'ung
trees a hundred feet tall. The two men made their way along the paths, and, as Monkey sat hidden in the fold of a hill opposite how could he see them?
Two hours later he suddenly made out the same nine-flower-capped T'ang Priest and
Tung-t'ing
-capped Little Moon King sitting across from each other in two armchairs in the tower. Before them was a green striped pot filled with tea and two square Han dynasty-style tea mugs. Three blind girls sat on a low couch. One was called Ko-ch'iang-hua, another Mo-t'an-lang, and the third Pei-chuan-p'ing-t'ing. Though blind, they were very pretty. Each held a
p'i-p'a
pressed against her jade-white breast.
Little Moon King said, “Ko-ch'iang-hua, how many stories can you sing?”
Ko-ch'iang-hua said, “Your Majesty, there was much suffering in the past, but there will be less in the future. There are many, many stories. All that matters is which one Mr. Ch'en would like to hear.”
Little Moon King said, “Mr. Ch'en is actually familiar with many stories. Why don't you name the ones you know?”
Ko-ch'iang-hua said, “There's no need to mention the old stories, I'll only name the new ones. There are ‘Warm Chats in Jade Hall,’ ‘The Sad Story of Following the Ways of Heaven,’ and ‘The Tale of the Western Journey.’”
Little Moon King said, “‘The Tale of the Western Journey’ is new. That's the one! Sing that one!
The girls agreed. They strummed their
p'i-p'a
s and sang in full voice.
A poem says:
Don't drink while flutes and songs o'erflow the painted hall:
Only in old age can one believe that life is a long dream.
Now I've made a secret compact with my heart
,
As I peacefully gaze at a stick of incense in my hushed study.
Ko-ch'iang-hua plucked twenty-seven notes of the sad
p'i-p'a
tune. She sang in a remote and penetrating voice:
The day Heaven's emperor spread out the stars
,
5
Nine constellations and five regions, he set up the cosmos.
Shooting the sun and pursuing clouds were marks of an earlier era;
6
Fish-scale clouds, pearl-drop rain arrayed in a hundred forms.
Wu-huai's silver bamboo had many fantastic joints;
King Ko-t'ien's auspicious leaves were congealed fragrance.
7
Dragon and snake
8
—mind-pictures handed down on green tablets;
Crow and rabbit
9
—signatures inscribed on jade ice.
Don't mention the mountains' mien or words on stone;
Don't talk about the old men on Sung-feng road.
10
A jade sank in the Western Sea wrapped in a flowered tapestry.
Upright officials were rewarded in the Palace of Precious jade.
Hsü Yu fled the emperor's dragon robe
,
11
And the empire was proffered to Lord Yü Shun.
12
In the fourteenth year, the calamity of bells and stone chimes;
And in time the elder from Tung-t'ing Lake ruled the people.
13
T'ang the Successful prayed at Mulberry Grove;
14
Tears sprinkled pearled sleeves on Deer Terrace.
15
Rain banner and wind axe opened a pure world;
On Kou-ch'en Rampart
16
King Wu's Chou was founded.
For the Wu King stones of Spring and Autumn times, lament;
17
For she who sharpened a clasp in the Warring States, grieve.
18
White their robes and hats for Yen's champion;
Red in the sky the bold heart of the prince.
19
“Ting, ting” the dulcimer, mode changed from
chih
to
yü;
Flying clouds on River I, ten-thousand layers deep.
Six states died when the plot against Ch'in failed;
20
Then for the first time “emperor” was carved upon a stone.
21
Who would have thought there'd be only three Ch'in emperors?
Mermaid candles burned away, the Eastern Sea grew dim.
Sad the lament for the stallion and the beautiful lady;
22
Having just lifted mountains, he wept in the autumn wind.
The Four White-hairs of firm resolve
23
sat on the empty mountain;
The tireless Chang Liang kept company with Master Red Pine.
24
When the spirit of that true man
25
soared thirty-thousand feet
The Five Mountains
26
in unison shouted, “Ten-thousand springs!”
It is fate that grass should yellow and leaves should fall;
The swords of Tung and Ts'ao
27
carved up the House of Han.
Then came a succession of powder-puff emperors—the Six Dynasties
28
—
Colored frost and jade dew woven in patterns of ice.
It ended, the pulsing of sixes and nines,
29
with the choice of an emperor;
The wise, intelligent T'ang T'ai-tsung was pushed to the fore.
His family affairs were dark, difficult to plumb;
Don't imitate poets who satirize sandflies and centipedes.
Only because in years past beacon fires signaled the alarm by day
Did peach blossoms in the third month shine upon a jade horse.
30
Before the horse the full moon cast a bow-shaped shadow;
A pair of stars in heaven above entered sword-shaped rainbows.
31
Soldiers had no heart to grieve for jade and stones;
The Dragon's troops paid no heed to anguished souls on the River Hsiang.
In one night, sand- and wind-aggrieved ghosts were entombed;
In mountain valleys year by year were offered tracks of tears.
32
A voice, a voice spoke only hatred for the emperor of T'ang;
What mattered the lavish newness of your plum blossoms?
As the story goes, the T'ang emperor had just returned from the court. He was drinking wine, enjoying the blossoms, when all at once he fell asleep and dreamed he saw a dragon king crying, “Emperor! Save my life! Save my life!”
33
The girl played the
p'i-p'a
tune “Sobbing in the Moonlight,” and continued to sing her story:
The emperor's river of pity flowed in the palace;
34
He sent out gold tablets instructing all his officials:
“Be quick and summon the dragon-killing officer;
You Generals Black and White must both be diligent.”
The stout cord of the emperor's words soon snapped;
The butterfly
35
soared aloft and killed the old dragon.
Could the Dragon King want to go anywhere without his head?
In the bright moonlight he rattled the gate of the silver palace.
Next day, too weary to mount his dragon horse and go to court
,
The sage ruler summoned a doctor to his palace.
Devils came and took the emperor away for five days;
In nine hells, gloomy and dark, he stood before the dead.
36
A dark official, cheating, gave him extra days and months.
37
The jade phoenix sounded again, life glimmered faintly.
Back and forth twixt life and death, then the T'ang Emperor
Again as before gazed over his realm.
He sighed and said, “How sad, how very sad—
“A hundred years of life on earth are but ephemeral.
