Chinese Literature and Law. Judge Bao Zheng. Shuochang Cihua. Ballad-Stories, o Ming Chantefables (tell-and-sing). Popular Culture and Chinese Law.

Wilt Lukas Idema (ed.)
Judge Bao and the rule of law : eight ballad-stories from the period 1250-1450
World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2010, xxxv, 417 pp. : ill
ISBN 9789814277013

Pure, orthodox and incorruptible, Judge Bao has been serving as the preeminent embodiment of justice in China for almost a thousand years, so much so his court cases have been adapted as stories, novels and plays over the centuries. Now, for the very first time a series of eight ballad-stories on Judge Bao, dating from the period 1250–1450, are offered in a complete and annotated translation. These texts will provide the reader a reflection of the legend of Judge Bao in its earliest phase of development, with an extended introduction placing the ballad-stories in context with the development of the Judge Bao legend. These ballad-stories, in contrast to past plays dating from the same period, present abuse of power and corruption as endemic in the courts and bureaucratic service, and show Judge Bao imposing the rule of law even on the emperor.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

(disponible en http://www.worldscibooks.com/etextbook/7327/7327_intro.pdf)

Note on the Translations xxxv

Chapter 1 The Tale of the Early Career of Rescriptor Bao 1

Chapter 2 Judge Bao Selling Rice in Chenzhou 31

Chapter 3 The Tale of the Humane Ancestor Recognizing his Mother 67

Chapter 4 Dragon-Design Bao Sentences the White Weretiger 105

Chapter 5 Rescriptor Bao Decides the Case of the Weird Black Pot 133

Chapter 6 The Tale of the Case of Dragon-Design Bao Sentencing the Emperor’s Brothers-in-law Cao 197

Chapter 7 The Tale of Zhang Wengui. Part One 277

The Tale of Zhang Wengui. Part Two 309

Chapter 8 The Story of How Shi Guanshou’s Wife Liu Dusai on the Night of the Fifteenth, on Superior Prime, Watched the Lanterns. Part One 347

The Story of the Judgment of Dragon-Design Bao in the Case of Prince Zhao and Sun Wenyi. Part Two 375

Glossary 403

Bibliography 411-417

Wilt Idema studied Chinese Language and Culture at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Following further study in Japan and Hong Kong he returned to Leiden to teach Chinese literature there from 1970 till 1999. Since 2000 he has taught Chinese literature at Harvard. He has published widely on the vernacular traditions of premodern China, with an emphasis on early fiction and drama. He has also published on China’s women’s literature. His most recent publications are focused on China’s rich heritage of popular narrative ballads. His publications in this field include Meng Jiangnü Brings Down the Great Wall: Ten Versions of a Chinese Legend (with an essay by Haiyan Lee (University of Washington Press, 2008; ISBN 10: 0295987839 – ISBN 13: 9780295987835); Personal Salvation and Filial Piety: Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and her Acolytes (University of Hawaii Press, 2008, ISBN 10: 0824832159- ISBN-13: 9780824832155); Heroines of Jiangyong: Chinese Narrative Ballads in Women’s Script (University of Washington Press 2009, ISBN 10: 0295988428 – ISBN-13: 9780295988429); The White snake and her Son: A Translation of the Precious Scroll of Thunder Peak with Related Texts (Hackett Pub Co Inc, Indianapolis. Indiana, 2009, ISBN-10: 0872209954- ISBN-13: 978-0872209954); and Filial Piety and Its Divine Rewards: The Legend of Dong Yong and Weaving Maiden with Related Texts (Hackett Pub Co Inc, Indianapolis. Indiana, 2009. ISBN-10: 1603841350 – ISBN-13: 978 1603841350). In 1991 he received the Martinus Nijhoff Award, the highest distinction for literary translations in the Netherlands, for his renditions of classical Chinese poetry.

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La edición crítica de Wilt Idema ha utilizado la de Zhu Yixuan (ed.), Ming Chenghua shuochang cihua congkan (明成化說唱詞話叢刊), Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, Zhengzhou, 1997. No obstante, han sido publicadas y se hallan relativamente disponibles otras ediciones de las Ming Chenghua Chantefables; así la reprodución fotolitográfica patrocinada por el 上海博物馆 (Shanghai Museum), Shanghai, 1973 en 12 vols. (reimp. Wenwu chubanshe, Beijing, 1979), colección de dieciséis historias prosa rimada (prosimetric Lyric Tales) del período Chenghua (1465-1487) en el reinado de la dinastía Ming, que igualmente incopora un drama Chuanqi “El cuento del pequeño conejo blanco” (這個故事的小白兔).

Útiles para el mejor conocimiento y estudio de las 明成化說唱詞話叢刊 resultará la consulta de Anne Elizabeth McLaren, Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden [Netherlands]; Boston, 1998, viii, 340 pp. (ISBN 13: 978-9004109988), que entre otros aspectos aborda la influencia de este tipo de textos originados en la tradición oral –a los que con fortuna expresiva denonimó chantefables– en el desarrollo chino del género de la ficción. Una recensión del libro de McLaren puede consultarse en Asian folklore studies, 58:1 (1999), pp. 259-263 a firma de Vibeke Børdahl. De éste –Ph.D., Dr.Phil., senior researcher en el Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Copenhagen– son provechosos su trabajo “Chinese storytellers on storytelling”, en Arv- Nordic Yearbook of Folklore, 55 (1999), , pp. 73-92, su Introduction (pp. 1-14) en Vibeke Børdahl (ed.), The eternal storyteller, oral literature in modern China, Curzon [Nordic institute of Asian Studies, Studies in Asian Topics vol. 24], Richmond, 1999 (368 pp. ISBN 13: 978-0700709823) –donde es muy ventajosa la lectura del estudio introductorio de John Miles Foley, “Comparative View of Oral Traditions”, pp. 15-30– y el artículo “The Storyteller’s Manner in Chinese Storytelling”, en Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 62-1 (2003), pp. 65-112 (disponible en http://www.shuoshu.org/Storyteller).

Las 明成化說唱詞話叢刊, descubiertas en Shangai el año 1867, además de una buena muestra de los avances tecnológicos en el arte de imprimir y la ilustración en la antigua China, ya que se soportan en bloques de madera, lo son principalmente de un género de tradición oral –género gongán como relatos en prosa metrificada– del que no se han conservado vestigios en Occidente.

Bao Zheng

Bao Zheng, Pao Cheng o el «oficial de rostro negro» como también es conocido, fue juez de Bian (Kaifeng), la capital imperial durante la dinastía Song (宋朝), que gobernó China entre los años 960 y 1279. La fama en el recto e imparcial ejercicio de su magistratura ha perdurado hasta nuestros días, conducida por las alabanzas de los más humildes. La cultura popular lo presenta del todo independiente en el desempeño de las funciones judiciales y severo en la aplicación de los castigos, sin que la justicia de sus decisiones eludiera la responsabilidad de altos funcionarios ni aún siquiera de miembros de la familia imperial. La tradición oral se alimenta de historias en las que Bao acude a ingeniosos razonamientos para resolver casos difíciles.

J.C.G.