But the witness House Dog is punished for his false testimony. His crime
deserves the death penalty, but I take into consideration that he did not know the original facts: thirty strokes of the heavy bamboo.
The whole party is released. They will all abide by this decision.
A poem:
The mouse is the most criminal creature in the world of men:
How can it be allowed to breed without end in house and wall?
It may be as cunning as can be and have a thousand dirty tricks—
In the end it will fall into the sea, attacked by nail and claw.
The Scroll of the Accusation
of the Mouse against the Cat
The earliest-known prosimetric adaptation of the story of the court case of the mouse against the cat is The Scroll of the Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat (Laoshu gao limao juan). This text is appended to a manuscript of The Precious Scroll of Ciyun (Ciyun baojuan) that was copied out in 1803, and it is likely that The Scroll of the Accusation also was copied around the same time.
A modern typeset edition of the text is provided by Shang Lixin and Che
Xilun in their A Study of Popular Precious Scrol s of Northern China (Beifang minjian baojuan yanjiu).
The Scroll of the Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat is a relatively short text. The prose element is limited to a short speech by the mouse, in which he has the water buffalo compose his accusation document. Apart from the
opening poem and the final poem, which both employ seven-syllable lines,
the main body of the text is composed in lines of ten syllables. Such lines of ten syllables, quite common in the popular performance literature of late-imperial China, usually are made up of three groups of syllables: following two groups of three syllables, the final group contains four syllables. I have tried to bring out the strongly marked rhythmic structure of these lines by typographical means.
Even while the text of The Scroll of the Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat is preserved in the manuscript of a precious scroll, it is perhaps best not con-This content downloaded from 129.174.21.5 on Wed, 17 Jul 2019 13:04:36 UTC
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sidered a precious scroll in the strict sense of the word. It is better classified as a “small scroll” ( xiaojuan), short lighthearted pieces that performers of the long precious scrolls might include in their repertoire to entertain their patrons.58
The Scroll of the Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat
From birth the old mouse is never sure of his sustenance:
“The court entitled me to three cups from each one stone.
The cat complotted against me and robbed me of my life!
Unjustly killed, this wronged ghost has no place to run to,
So I intend to plead my case down in Dark-Welkin Hall!”
“My surname is Old and my name is Mouse. I was born in a hole in the earth
and grew up in a hole in the earth. At night I quietly sneaked out of the gate to steal some grain to eat, but I suddenly ran into a cat, which cruelly caught me and devoured me completely, bones and flesh! Because of him I abandoned
my father and mother, wife and children. Longing for them by day and night, I could only go to the world of shade to lodge an accusation! Water buffalo, compose the accusation!”
Only when King Yama had taken his seat below his canopy,
Could the old mouse make his statement in these words.
The old mouse arrived
At Dark-Welkin Hall,
Raising his case and shedding tears;
Crying “I’ve been wronged,”
He quickly knelt down,
Bitterly weeping, wounded at heart.
“Your Majesty, here
In the world of shade,
You are the lord of all living souls,
So I, this little ball of hair,
Bring the injustice I’ve suffered
To the attention of you who are king.
My body is only small
So I am incapable
Of pushing a cart or carrying loads.
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ch a p t e r 3
Living in a hole
I steal some food—
My intention is only to make a living.
But my mother,
The female mouse spirit,
Had considerable supernatural abilities:
In the Western Heavens,
At Thunderclap Monastery,
She blocked the way of the Tang monk.
But when Heavenly King Li
Managed to capture us,
He did not impair our life or fate.
During the Song dynasty
There lived the Five Rats
That rampaged in the Eastern Capital,
The sagely enlightened ruler
Awarded us noble titles, rich gifts:
From each stone of grain
First we rodents
Would receive full three cups.
We never once
Struggled with the cat
Over dry fields or wet fields,
We never once
Engaged with the cat
In any physical fight or brawl.
He never received
From the imperial court
Any clear writ or sagely edict,
But deviously ran off
With the bones and flesh
Of me, this poor little mouse.
So I appeal to Your Majesty:
For the sake of this hairball
Take action and right this wrong!
Arrest that cat,
Bring it to the underworld
And question it as to its motives.”
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King Yama said:
“I’ll dispatch ghostly runners
To bring him in with due haste.”
These ghostly underlings
Left the realm of shade
Running as fast as the wind,
And in a short while
They arrested the cat
And escorted it to the underworld.
In the Dark-Welkin Hall
It hastily knelt down
And defended itself most clearly.
The cat stated:
“Your Majesty,
Please listen to what I will say.
If one talks
About this mouse,
The situation is insupportable!
In government offices
It chews to shreds
The files of written documents;
In Buddhist monasteries
It chews to pieces
The sutras of Buddha and Law.
Tea offered to the Buddha,
Wine sacrificed to the gods:
It’s the mouse that drinks it first!
Before fields in the four seasons
Even have ripened, the grain
Is carried off by mice into their holes:
‘[As if sowed] on flat stones,’
One would say,
The fields look utterly emptied.
In embroidery rooms
They completely mess up
Needles and threads of the girls,
Enraging these girls
To such an extent
Their powdered faces
turn scarlet.
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ch a p t e r 3
In the prisons
They chew on the prisoners,
Who continuously cry out in pain,
But tied to their beds
They cannot fight them off
And have no means to escape them.
Jinyong City
Produced flying rats
That stole the government stores,
At that time
Filling with rage
Li Mi and the men in his court.59
Each and every year
They aim to devour
The land of Your Royal Majesty,
But they never show
Any inclination at all
To show the court any gratitude.
And now you lodge
Here in front of Your Majesty
A vague accusation against me!
Think about it,
You and your family
Should be thrown into boiling oil!
If you commit
Acts such as these,
How can I be harming you?
I implore Your Majesty,
On behalf of the cat,
To establish the facts of the case!”
The subordinate officials confirmed
That the mouse had received
Titles and gifts from the court,
But that upon consideration
The cat, too,
Had earned great merit:
If these mice
Were not controlled
Thanks to the effort of the cat,
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They might even above,
In the Divine-Welkin Hall,
Disturb the officials of heaven.
King Yama concluded:
“In this matter—
Send both of them back!
Cat and mouse
Shall in the world of light
Each act as they did before.”
A poem reads:
The rat lodged a most cunning accusation;
The cat then countered by telling the truth.
But King Yama, at a loss how to investigate,
Ordered both of them to live in harmony.
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4
A Tale without Shape or Shadow
T h roughou t t h e n i n e t e e n t h a n d t w e n t i e t h c e n t uries the tale of the underworld court case of the cat against the mouse
remained popular in many genres of popular song and prosimetric literature.
Many of these texts develop their story, either by expanding details of the court case or by adding a prequel to the tale.
Expanding the Court Case
Those performers and authors who wanted to stay within the confines of the
court case as such still had many possibilities to expand their narratives. First of all they could develop the statements of the mouse and the cat. If the mouse could stress its poverty as the cause of its mischief, the cat could stress the social consequences of its wanton destruction. If the mouse could elaborate on the cruelty of the cat, the cat could expand its catalog of the crimes of rodents. If the mouse could vaunt its noble descent and its service to the state, the cat could appeal to its duties toward its demanding owners, and if the
mouse could claim its status as the first of the twelve birth-year signs, the cat could describe it as a failed creation of the Queen Mother of the West, thrown out of heaven for its misdeeds. If need be, the mouse and the cat could repeat and develop their statements.1
Perhaps more interesting, each aspect of the judicial proceedings could
be described in detail. For instance, both the mouse and the cat would need a written statement for their case. Such formal documents could be provided by specialized clerks inside the courts or litigation masters outside the court, and while some of these professionals were willing to work on
credit, others expected to be paid for their services on the spot—in one
version the mouse is forced to return to earth and steal a gold hairpin to
pay the clerk:
114
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A Ta l e w i t hou t Sh a pe or Sh a dow
115
When the little mouse and the little ghost went inside,
He knelt down on all fours on seeing the clerk, crying:
“Dear Mr. Clerk, please be so kind as to take down
My deposition concerning the injustice I’ve suffered!”
When the clerk heard him, he smiled with pursed lips:
“Hand me the cash and I’ll take down the deposition!”
That little mouse / was awash in tears,
As he begged the clerk: “Dear Mr. Magistrate,
In the world of light I was only a little animal,
I never in my life had half a penny to my name!”
“I do not care whether you were an animal or not,
But without money I can’t take down a deposition.”
For the little mouse / there was nothing else to do
But to hastily hurry back and return to his house.
That night he went to steal some food in the mansion of Magnate Zhang,
And in that house he stole one golden hairpin.
When he presented that hairpin to the old clerk,
He was smiling all over as soon as he saw it.
With a lot of noise he prepared the ink, and then
Lifted his brush to take down that deposition.2
The ghostly constables that are dispatched by King Yama to summon and
arrest the soul of the cat may lose their way or may be at a loss to identify the cat they have to arrest. On arrival at its house, they may have to obtain permission from the house gods to enter. When they eventually locate their cat, they usually find it dozing on a kang in texts from northern China, but in versions from Hubei the tired-out runners rest below a tree and accidentally notice the cat on a branch above their heads as it munches on a mantis.3 Once the ghostly runners have arrested and shackled the cat, they may try to extort some money from their prey:
They pulled the cat along and set out on their way,
Their pair of feet moved as fast as wind-swept clouds,
And in big strides they had arrived at the main street.
In one step they entered into a wineshop,
Where they tied the cat to the table side.
They said to the cat, “Now listen carefully.
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ch a p t e r 4
In this mortal world you are a rich person,
So you are dressed in a nice leather jacket,
You always eat meat, you never go without.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Today the mouse has lodged an accusation.
Whether a blessing or a disaster, that’s your fate.
But if you are smart, you now first ask our help:
Give some money, and you’ll suffer no torture.
But as soon as you start to say you refuse,
Your body will be stuffed with red cudgels.
As of today you will enter the gate of hell,
From which there is no possibility of escape.”4
The cat may pay up and follow along immediately or may ask for a few days
of respite so it can assure itself of the services of a litigation master. When it follows the runners to the underworld, it may, as we already saw, be treated to a display of the tortures in hell, and upon arrival it may have to go to great efforts to appease the enraged King Yama.