Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) (32 page)

Lord Ching sighed deeply. “Set the groom free, sir, set the groom free,” he cried, “lest my humanity be diminished.”

—Yen Tzu Ch’un Ch’iu

The king of Wu wanted to attack the state of Ching. He told his advisers so, adding, “Whoever dares to criticize me dies.” One of the king’s followers had a young son who wanted to object but was afraid to. He took a pellet and a sling and went rambling in the gardens behind the palace until the dew had soaked his clothes. For three days he continued this threshing through the shrubbery. At last the king of Wu noticed him and asked, “What’s the point of getting yourself sopping wet?”

“In the garden there’s a tree,” answered the young man, “and perched on the tree is a cicada singing sadly, sipping the dew, unaware of the praying mantis behind him. Crouching, twisting, the mantis is trying to grab the cicada, unaware that behind it is an oriole stretching its neck to swallow the mantis. Nor does the oriole reaching out to peck know that there is a slingshot below aimed at him. All three, intent on what is in front, do not notice the danger behind.”

“Well spoken,” said the king of Wu. And he called off the attack on Ching.

—Liu Hsiang

Lieh Tzu was poor, and he looked terribly underfed. Someone mentioned it to the prime minister, Cheng Tzu-yang: “Lieh Tzu is a widely known scholar of the Tao. If he suffers poverty while living in your lordship’s state, might not your lordship be thought hostile to scholars?”

Tzu-yang lost no time in sending an official to Lieh Tzu with a gift of food. Lieh Tzu came forth to receive the minister’s messenger and bowed deeply, but he declined the gift. The messenger left. Lieh Tzu went back inside his home, where his wife smote her breast and stared at her husband in despair.

“Your humble wife always thought that the families of men of the Tao would gain ease and pleasure,” she said. “Now in our direst need the prime minister sends someone to honor us with a gift of food—and you refuse it! Such is my fate!”

Lieh Tzu smiled and said to his wife, “The prime minister does not know of me for himself. He sent us food on the say-so of a third party. Should the time come to condemn me, it’s all too likely to happen also on the say-so of a third party. That’s the reason I refused his gift.”

Eventually the common people overthrew Tzu-yang.

—Lieh Tzu

The head of the Yin clan in the state of Chou had vast holdings, and his servants worked without rest from dawn until dark. There was one aged servingman whose muscles were sapped of all strength, but the head of the clan only drove him all the harder. The old man groaned as he faced his tasks each day. At night he slept soundly, insensible from fatigue, his vital spirits at ebb. And each night he dreamed that he was king of the realm, presiding over all the people, taking full command of the affairs of state. He feasted carefree in the palace, and every wish was gratified. His pleasure was boundless. But every morning he awoke and went back to work.

To those who tried to comfort him for the harshness of his lot, the old man would say, “Man lives a hundred years, half in days, half in nights. By day I am a common servant, and the pains of my life are as they are. But by night I am lord over men, and there is no greater satisfaction. What have I to resent?”

The mind of the clan head was occupied with worldly affairs; his attention was absorbed by his estate. Worn out in mind and body, he too was insensible with fatigue when he slept. But night after night he dreamed he was a servant, rushing and running to perform his tasks. For this he was rebuked and scolded or beaten with a stick, and he took whatever he got. He mumbled and moaned in his sleep and quieted down only with dawn’s approach.

The head of the clan took his problem to a friend, who said, “Your position gives you far more wealth and honor than other men have. Your dream that you are a servant is nothing more
than the cycle of comfort and hardship; this has ever been the norm of human fortune. How could you have both your dream and your waking life the same?”

The head of the clan reflected on his friend’s opinion and eased the work of his servants. He also reduced his own worries, thus giving himself some relief from his dreams.

—Lieh Tzu

The patriarch Ching of the land of Ch’i was with his companions on Mount Ox. As he looked northward out over his capital, tears rose in his eyes. “Such a splendid land,” he said, “swarming, burgeoning; if only I didn’t have to die and leave it as the waters pass! What if from the eldest times there were no death: would I ever have to leave here?”

His companions joined him in weeping. “Even for the simple fare we eat,” they said, “for the nag and plank wagon we have to ride, we depend upon our lord’s generosity. If
we
have no wish to die, how much less must our lord.”

Yen Tzu was the only one smiling, somewhat apart. The patriarch wiped away his tears and looked hard at Yen Tzu. “These two who weep with me share the sadness I feel on today’s venture,” said the patriarch. “Why do you alone smile, sir?”

“What if the worthiest ruled forever?” asked Yen Tzu. “Then T’ai or Huan would be patriarch forever. What if the bravest? Then Chuang or Ling would be patriarch forever. With such as those in power, my lord, you would now be in the rice fields, wearing a straw cape and bamboo hat, careworn from digging, with no time to brood over death. And then, my lord, how could you have reached the position you now hold? It was through the succession of your predecessors, who held and vacated the throne each in his turn, that you came to be lord over this land. For you
alone to lament this is selfish. Seeing a selfish lord and his fawning, flattering subjects, I presumed to smile.”

The patriarch was embarrassed, raised his flagon, and penalized his companions two drafts of wine apiece.

—Lieh Tzu

A member of the older generation told me this story about a shrewd magistrate in a certain county early in the dynasty.

A local merchant was about to go on a selling trip. After loading his boat, he waited on it for his servant. Time passed, but the servant did not appear. Meanwhile it occurred to the boatman that it would be easy enough in this deserted spot to do away with the merchant and steal the goods. The boatman swiftly forced the merchant into the water and drowned him. Then the murderer took the goods to his own home, after which he presented himself at the house of the merchant. He knocked on the gate and asked why the master still had not come down to the boat. The merchant’s wife sent servants to look for her husband, but they saw no trace of him. She questioned the merchant’s own servant, who said that he had arrived late at the boat only to find his master gone.

The family reported the matter to the local constable, who in turn informed the county officials, who then interrogated the boatman and the neighbors but uncovered no evidence. The investigation went through several levels of the bureaucracy without being settled.

When the case reached the magistrate, he sent everyone out of the room except the merchant’s wife. He asked for an exact description of events at the time when the boatman first came to inquire about the merchant. “My husband had been gone a good while,” said the wife, “when the boatman knocked at the gate.
Before I opened it, he suddenly cried out, ‘Mistress, why hasn’t the master come down yet? It’s been so long.’ That’s all he said.”

The magistrate sent the woman out and called for the boatman, who made a statement that agreed with the wife’s. “That’s it, then,” said the magistrate with a smile. “The merchant has been killed, and you are the killer! You have confessed.”

“What confession?” the boatman protested loudly.

“When you knocked at the merchant’s house, you addressed his wife, not him. You did not see who was behind the gate, yet you were sure he was not at home. How else could you have known this?”