The story of "not knowing the mirror"

There is a special type in medieval novels, and that is jokes. Some people specially collected jokes and compiled them into collections. Their representative works are "Laughing Forest" and "Qi Yan Lu". Most of the jokes are folk tales, which have the characteristics of folk literature such as orality, collectiveness, variability and inheritance. Unlike some ancient folk literature works that have solidified into literary classics and no longer develop and mutate, joke stories are still active in the people's mouths after being recorded in documents, and continue to develop and evolve in accordance with the general laws of folk literature. Some have become important elements of contemporary folk tales. components.

Volume 262 of "Taiping Guangji" quotes Handan Chun's "Xiao Lin" as having the joke "I don't know the mirror":

There are people whose wives don't know the mirror. When he came back from the market, his wife took a picture of her and told her mother in surprise: "A certain man has asked for a wife to come back." His mother also took the picture and said: "He also brought his mother-in-law."

It is also found in Buddhist scriptures. A similar story can be found in the 29th story in the second volume of the "Miscellaneous Parables", a two-volume book with untranslated names:

In the past there was an elder's son and a new wife, who loved and respected each other very much. The husband said to the woman: "You go into the kitchen and get some rosewood wine to drink." The woman went to open the urn and saw her figure in the urn. She said that there was a woman, who was very angry, and she said to her husband: " You have a wife who is hiding in an urn, why would you welcome me? "The husband went into the kitchen and looked at her. He opened the urn and saw his own figure. He was angry with his wife and said that he was hiding a man. The two became even more angry with each other and each said it was true (it was suspected that it was "Gu", which was close but wrong). There was a Brahma Zhi who was very close to the elder's son. When he saw the couple fighting each other, he asked the reason for it. He looked at them again and saw his figure. He hated the elder: "I have a close relationship hidden in an urn, and the Yang* **Douhu? Even if you give it up. There was another bhikshuni who was worshiped by the elders. Hearing her criticism, he went to look at the urn. There was a bhikshuni in it, and he also left it in anger. After a while, a Taoist also looked at it. He knew it was a shadow ear. He sighed and said: "The world is stupid and deludes, thinking that emptiness is reality." He called his wife to look at it. The Taoist said, "I will help you out of the urn." He took a big stone and broke the urn, and all the wine was gone. The two of them understood each other, knew their figures, and each felt ashamed. This story in the Sutra of Miscellaneous Parables is obviously a reference to an Indian folk tale to illustrate the teaching that "people in the world are foolish and confused, and regard emptiness as reality." In the "Jealous Shadow" of Volume 53 of "Fa Yuan Zhu Lin", "Yu Chou Pian·Za Mo Part", this story in the "Za Mi Yu Sutra" is also quoted, and it is clearly stated: "Buddha used metaphors: see "Shadow Fighters" are like people in the Three Realms who do not know the five yin and the four great emptinesses of suffering, and have three poisons in their bodies, which lead to endless life and death. "Buddhism uses this story to describe people in the Three Realms who do not know the sufferings of life and are in vain. All disputes are just opinions. Fighting with shadows.

Generally speaking, Indian stories appeared earlier than Chinese stories, and it should have influenced China through the spread of Buddhism. The plots of these two stories are not completely consistent. The jokes are somewhat similar, but the plots are quite different. I feel that the stories in "Miscellaneous Parables" are not the direct origins of the stories in "Laughing Forest". Compared with Buddhist fables, Chinese jokes are more refined and easier to make people laugh.

This story was greatly developed in "Qi Yan Lu" by Hou Bai of the Sui Dynasty. The story of "The Idiot Buying Slaves" in this book completely localized the above joke:

In Dong Zishang Village, Hu County, the villagers are crazy. An old father sent his son to the market to buy slaves with money, and said to his son: "I heard that people in Chang'an sell slaves, and many of them don't let the slaves know in advance. They will hide the slaves in other places, and they will talk to each other privately, and they will be honest about their price. This is the case. He is a good slave." When his son came to the market, he was walking in the middle of the mirror. People were walking in the market, and he saw his shadow, which was young and strong. He said that the people in the market wanted to sell the good slave, so he hid it in the mirror. Hui Jing asked: "How much money does this slave want to get?" The people in the city knew that he was crazy, so they lied to him and said: "Slave is worth ten thousand." Then he paid for the mirror and left with it in his arms. When he got home, his old father came to the door and asked, "Where is the slave I bought?" He said, "In my arms." His father said, "How about taking it and taking a look?" His father took a mirror and looked at it. He saw that his eyebrows and beard were white, and his face was dark and wrinkled. He was very angry and wanted to beat his son, saying: "How can you buy such an old slave for ten thousand yuan?" He raised his stick and wanted to beat his son. The son was afraid and sued his mother. The mother came with a little girl in her arms and said to her father, "Please watch it yourself." He then said angrily, "Foolish husband, my son only used ten thousand coins to buy his son and his mother." Maid, you still think you are expensive?" My husband was pleased. After being released, the slave was still nowhere to be seen, and everyone said that the slave was hidden and refused to come out. At that time, there was a master-in-law in the east neighbor, and everyone in the village was talking about it, so the old man went to ask about it.

The master said: "Old man, ghosts and gods are not allowed to eat, and the money has not been collected, so the slaves have not been hidden. I can prepare more food on auspicious days and ask for it." The old man invited the master for a banquet. When the master arrived, he hung a mirror on the door. , and sing and dance. Everyone in the village watched it carefully, and those who came to look into the mirror said: "The king of this family bought a good slave." However, the hanging mirror was not secure, and it fell into two pieces. The master's wife limited the light, and when she saw her shadow, she was overjoyed and said: "Gods and blessings have made one slave become two maids." Because of the song, he said: "The whole family clapped their hands together, and the gods expressed their gratitude. Buy slaves and maidservants, "One is divided into two." From the "Laughing Forest" in the Three Kingdoms period to the "Qi Yan Lu" in the Sui Dynasty, there was a gap of roughly 350 or 60 years. During such a long period of time, this joke has been greatly adapted. The plot is richer and the content is more detailed. Compared with the "Ignorance of Mirrors" story in "Laughing Forest", it should have been processed and transformed by professional actors to make it more conducive to performance. This type of story is numbered 1336B in Ding Naitong's "Chinese Folktale Type Index" and is a fool's story in the folktale typology.

In the Ming Dynasty, the spread of this joke story was still very active. This story is recorded in Volume 11 of Feng Menglong's "Xiaofu", "The Department of Fallacies·Looking in the Mirror":

For those who go out for menstruation, their wives ask them to buy a toothbrush when they return home. The husband asked about his condition, and his wife pointed to the crescent moon. When the husband was about to return home after finishing his shopping, he suddenly remembered his wife's words and bought a mirror because he saw that the moon was full. The wife looked at it and scolded her: "If you don't buy a toothbrush, how can you marry a concubine?" After hearing this, the mother went to persuade her. Suddenly she saw a mirror and looked at the cloud: "My son is willing to spend money, how can he marry a concubine?" Then she criticized him. lawsuit. When the official went to arrest him, he saw the mirror and panicked: "How can we catch someone who violated the limit?" When the interrogation came, he put a mirror on the case, the official looked at it, and said angrily: "The husband and wife are not getting along, why do the officials from Yangxiang come to talk about it?" Half of the plot of the lawsuit is unreasonable and seems to be superfluous. The story of the "pious woman" in the "Fenghuai" part of "Guangxiao Mansion" is similar to this, but there is no plot of a lawsuit later. The story of the same name recorded in the "Xiao Lin" and "Xiao Lin Guang Ji", the owner of the game, is exactly the same as the "Looking in the Mirror" story in "Xiao Mansion", but the story of "Looking in the Mirror" by Yu Yue of the Qing Dynasty in "Yu Lou Miscellanies·Yi Xiao·Wan Xi" The story recorded in "Mirror" is as follows:

There was a fisherwoman who never kept a mirror. She washed herself every day and used water to learn from herself. The husband happened to buy a mirror and returned home. The wife took a look at it and told her aunt in surprise: "My husband has married a new wife again!" The aunt looked at it and sighed: "It's okay to marry a wife, but how can I live with my mother-in-law?" Come." This story is closer to the version before the Sui and Tang Dynasties. It can be seen that during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this joke was still widely circulated and had multiple versions.

There is also a story called "Mirror" in "Indian Folktales" compiled by Lei Dongping (Yunnan People's Publishing House, 1983). The plot is quite different from the Buddhist records, but it is closer to our country's jokes. The general idea is:

The husband bought a mirror and after looking into it, he thought it was his dead father's face. So, he hid the mirror in the box and always looked at it before working every day. His wife became suspicious. One day, she took a peek in the mirror and saw an unknown beauty. She was very angry and asked her husband: "Who is that woman's face you hidden in the box?" The husband replied in confusion: " That’s not a woman’s face, it’s my father’s.” Therefore, many jokes and stories have a long history, and some of them can be spread around the world beyond the limitations of language and culture, showing that human psychology is universal. .

(Author’s Affiliation: School of Liberal Arts, Nanjing Normal University) Recommended good book "A Long Compilation of Imperial Examination Materials in the Song Dynasty"

"A Long Compilation of Imperial Examination Materials in the Song Dynasty" (5 volumes in total), Renmin University of China Compiled by Zhuge Yibing, professor of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The book collects, examines, and compiles all the literature and materials related to the imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty history books, notes, collections, collections, dictionaries, local chronicles and other categories of works, and uses time as the structural clue to organize and list them. The Southern Song Dynasty and Comprehensive Three Volumes, a total of 5 volumes with 2.7 million words, roughly present the evolution of the imperial examination system in the Song Dynasty, as well as the development and transformation of social systems, political thoughts, cultural concepts, and literary trends related to it, filling the gap between the Song Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. There are many gaps in the research on the imperial examination system.

"Long Edition of Imperial Examination Materials of the Song Dynasty", hardcover 16 pages, 5 volumes in total, published by Phoenix Publishing House in June 2017, priced at 720 yuan.