Literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages - Summary - 2019

From Judgments about the moral, at the green gate
Liu Fu (XI-XII centuries)

Notes on Xiaolian

One mighty man by the name of Li-lanzhou bought something on the occasion of a slave girl thirteen years old. It turned out that she was not inclined to music or to homework, so he decided to return her to her former mistress. The girl begged not to do this, promised to thank and eventually not only learned singing and dancing, but also became an unusual beauty.

Soon between them arose passionate love.

Somehow, in the middle of the night, the beauty disappeared imperceptibly out of the bedroom. Li was angry, suspecting a secret love date. When the maiden appeared in the morning, he attacked her with reproaches. I had to admit that she was not of the people of the world, but not unclean. On the last day of every moon, she must appear before the messenger of the god of the earth. Lee did not believe it and the next time the girl was detained. But he still slipped away, but when he returned, he showed him a scratched back - she was punished for being late. Since then Lee has never been angry.

It soon became clear that the virgin was a skilled physician and a diviner. When Lee was about to leave for a year for service, she predicted his wife's death, dissatisfaction with the officials and retirement. He persuaded her to go together, but he explained that he had no right to leave the local places.

Everything happened, as the beauty predicted. Lee is back and they have lived together. Once, Xiaolian said that in the past birth she defiled herself with disgusting naivees, cunning, haughty, mistreated the hostess, seduced the master and was punished to turn into a fox. Today she repents and begs Lee, after her imminent death, to go outside the gate, meet the hunter on the fox and buy from him the one with long purple hair in her ears. This fox needs to be buried in the human rite.

Everything happened, as Xiaolian said. But Lee also fulfilled his promise. From that time, the place where he buried his beloved is called Lysia Mountain.

Van See is a sailor

A young man named Van See, a wealthy family who was engaged in maritime trade, set up a ship and sailed with goods to distant lands. Flying since the month when a violent storm broke out. Soon the ship split in two. Wang Xie managed to escape from the whole team.

Three days he wore him by the sea until he hit the ground. Climbed to the shore, and facing the old man with the old woman, dressed in all black. To Wang's surprise, they recognized in him the master and the gentleman, asked about the incident, fed, warmed.

A month later he was presented to the local emperor.

Another time passed, and Van See married a beautiful woman, the daughter of an old man with an old woman. They lived together. From his wife, I learned that the country here is called the kingdom of black clothes, but why the parents call Van See the owner, his wife did not tell him - he says he knows everything.

Wang Xie noticed that his wife was sadder with each passing day, foretells their separation. And indeed - the sovereign's command came to return the guest home. At the farewell, a disgruntled wife presented him with a magic drug capable of bringing the dead to life, and the emperor sent a scab from a bird's down.

Wang Xie turned in a suit. They told him to knead down the eyelids and not to open his eyes to the house at the same time, in order not to collapse into the sea bottom. Then they were sprinkled with water from a local lake, and only the whistle of the wind and the rumble of water shafts vaned to the ears.

Then everything went away. He was at home.

I looked, and on the stomach two swallows sadly whistled. Then he realized that he lived in the country swallows. Homemakers approached with inquiries. He told them everything. I noticed that nowhere is my favorite son visible. It turned out, since half a month, as he died. Then Wang Xe ordered to open the coffin and put a magic pill - the gift of the swallow's wife. The boy was alive again.

Fall came. The swallows gathered together to fly away. Wang Xie attached to the tail of one of them a letter, and in the spring received the same answer in the same way. But more swallows never flew.

This story has become known. Even the place where Wang Xie lived was called Swallow Lane.

Zhang Hao - (Under flowers she marries Li's maid)

Zhang Hao came from a rich and noble family, and he himself was an extraordinary scholarship. Enviable groom! Only he did not think about the wedding. Arranged in his own mansion a wonderful garden, met with friends.

Once in the spring I saw an extraordinary beauty. It turned out to be a young lady from the estate of the neighbors, the Lee family. They talked. Soon they felt a mutual inclination. But the girl did not agree to the secret meeting - only for the wedding. She asked the young man something to remember. He received poetry, with their own hand written there, chanting their meeting.

Swaha started negotiations, but the matter did not fit. It's been a year. Lovers have been tired of each other without a friend. It happened that Lee's family was about to leave. The girl felt sick, stayed at home, and at night the lovers secretly met in the garden.

A few months later, the father of the girl suddenly received a new meaning in the service to distant lands. The beauty asked her lover to wait for her return. There were no news for two years. And then Uncle Zhang Hao returned who, as he learned that his nephew was still not married, immediately launched a wedding conspiracy with a maiden from a noble Sun. Zhang Hao did not dare to contradict.

Lee's family returned unexpectedly. I learned the young lady about the contraction of a narrow one and in my heart he reproached her father and mother for their past inclinations. And soon disappeared. They searched everywhere, but found at the bottom of the well. El came out. And immediately they sent out to Zhang Hao Swahu, but he was already connected by word.

Then the lady went to the governess and told about everything. Began to understand - it seems, with the maid Lee earlier tied himself in a word. And she and his poems presented their own hands. So they decided to interrupt the engagement with Sun, and to marry Lee.

They lived happily until they were 100 years old and gave birth to two talented sons.