Tang Xianzu: Connecting Three Realms with a Bee
By Brenda Schatz
In the Cyril Birch translation version of the Peony Pavilion: Mudan Ting (Tang Xianzu), there is a legend of love and longing, where a consummate dream of passion is interrupted; yet it is so potent that it manifests through three incarnations.These embodiments of desire and devotion present in oppositional realms of death and life; however, it was initially cultivated in the dream realm. This saga is beautifully produced through metaphors, intertextuality, recurring symbols, and passion drenched verse; however, there is also hilarity, vulgarity, and awkward interjections throughout this body of work. At times it feels as though it doesn’t work; nevertheless, it does work in the larger contextual lens, as some of these themes and apparatus are demonstrated in all three realms, thereby creating contextual continuity.Although apparent in many forms, it is most easily recognizable through recurrent symbolism and in something as simple as a lowly bee.
The bee is an agent of love, as in a pollinator (as in fertility); but, moreover, this social insect is also synonymous with ancient symbolism of possessing the capacity to connect the natural world with the underworld. Determinedly, this love messenger symbol was not only represented in the natural, and underworld in The Peony Pavillion, but also in the supernatural dream world.
The first instance of this is in the natural world where Tutor Chen, in Scene 7, exclaims that “bees invade the window to raid the blooms in my vase” (p 24). In the Interrupted Dream (Scene 10), the bee is personified as Liu Mengmei’s unbridled desire to copulate with Bridal Du in the dream state; “Ah, how the male force surges and leaps as in the way of wanton bee”(p 49). The third and final example is in the underworld where Judge Hu sentences Monkey Li (convicted of sodomy) to be reincarnated as a bee under the auspicious direction of the Flower Spirit to help in this plan to reunite Liu and Bridal in earthly consummation. Further connections can be made to fertility, the garden, intoxication or in “spring fever”, etc. and all of this from a simple bee in the infamous text of Tang Xianzu.
Tang Xianzu: Connecting Three Realms with a Bee
Tang Xianzu: Connecting Three Realms with a Bee
By Brenda Schatz
In the Cyril Birch translation version of the Peony Pavilion: Mudan Ting (Tang Xianzu), there is a legend of love and longing, where a consummate dream of passion is interrupted; yet it is so potent that it manifests through three incarnations.These embodiments of desire and devotion present in oppositional realms of death and life; however, it was initially cultivated in the dream realm. This saga is beautifully produced through metaphors, intertextuality, recurring symbols, and passion drenched verse; however, there is also hilarity, vulgarity, and awkward interjections throughout this body of work. At times it feels as though it doesn’t work; nevertheless, it does work in the larger contextual lens, as some of these themes and apparatus are demonstrated in all three realms, thereby creating contextual continuity.Although apparent in many forms, it is most easily recognizable through recurrent symbolism and in something as simple as a lowly bee.
The bee is an agent of love, as in a pollinator (as in fertility); but, moreover, this social insect is also synonymous with ancient symbolism of possessing the capacity to connect the natural world with the underworld. Determinedly, this love messenger symbol was not only represented in the natural, and underworld in The Peony Pavillion, but also in the supernatural dream world.
The first instance of this is in the natural world where Tutor Chen, in Scene 7, exclaims that “bees invade the window to raid the blooms in my vase” (p 24). In the Interrupted Dream (Scene 10), the bee is personified as Liu Mengmei’s unbridled desire to copulate with Bridal Du in the dream state; “Ah, how the male force surges and leaps as in the way of wanton bee”(p 49). The third and final example is in the underworld where Judge Hu sentences Monkey Li (convicted of sodomy) to be reincarnated as a bee under the auspicious direction of the Flower Spirit to help in this plan to reunite Liu and Bridal in earthly consummation. Further connections can be made to fertility, the garden, intoxication or in “spring fever”, etc. and all of this from a simple bee in the infamous text of Tang Xianzu.
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