百花羞家書 The Family Letter
不孝女百花羞頓首百拜大德父王萬歲龍鳳殿前，暨三宮母后昭陽宮下，及舉朝文武賢卿臺次：拙女幸托坤宮，感激劬勞萬種。不能竭力怡顏，盡心奉孝。乃於十三年前八月十五日良夜佳辰，蒙父王恩旨，著各宮排宴，賞玩月華，共樂清霄盛會。正歡娛之間，不覺一陣香風，閃出個金睛藍面青髮魔王，將女擒住，駕祥光，直帶至半野山中無人處，難分難辨，被妖倚強，霸占為妻。是以無奈捱了一十三年，產下兩個妖兒，盡是妖魔之種。論此真是敗壞人倫，有傷風化，不當傳書玷辱。但恐女死之後，不顯分明。正含怨思憶父母，不期唐朝聖僧亦被魔王擒住。是女滴淚修書，大膽放脫，特托寄此片楮，以表寸心。伏望父王垂憫，遣上將早至碗子山波月洞捉獲黃袍怪，救女回朝，深為恩念。草草欠恭，面聽不一。逆女百花羞再頓首頓首。不孝女百花羞顿首百拜大德父王万岁龙凤殿前，暨三宫母后昭阳宫下，及举朝文武贤卿台次：拙女幸托坤宫，感激劬劳万种。不能竭力怡颜，尽心奉孝。乃于十三年前八月十五日良夜佳辰，蒙父王恩旨，著各宫排宴，赏玩月华，共乐清霄盛会。正欢娱之间，不觉一阵香风，闪出个金睛蓝面青发魔王，将女擒住，驾祥光，直带至半野山中无人处，难分难辨，被妖倚强，霸占为妻。是以无奈挨了一十三年，产下两个妖儿，尽是妖魔之种。论此真是败坏人伦，有伤风化，不当传书玷辱。但恐女死之后，不显分明。正含怨思忆父母，不期唐朝圣僧亦被魔王擒住。是女滴泪修书，大胆放脱，特托寄此片楮，以表寸心。伏望父王垂悯，遣上将早至碗子山波月洞捉获黄袍怪，救女回朝，深为恩念。草草欠恭，面听不一。逆女百花羞再顿首顿首。
逐句解 Line by line
The unfilial daughter Hundred-Flowers-Shy bows her head and makes a hundred obeisances before the Dragon-and-Phoenix Hall of her great and virtuous royal father, Ten Thousand Years; and beneath the Resplendent-Sun Palace of the queen-mothers of the three chambers; and at the desks of the worthy ministers, civil and military, of all the court:
The elaborate salutation follows the form of a formal memorial. 不孝女 ("unfilial daughter") is the conventional self-abasement; 頓首百拜 = "kowtowing a hundred times." The 龍鳳殿 (the father-king's hall), the 昭陽宮 (the queen-mothers'), and the ministers' 臺次 (desks) are addressed in the descending order of a court's hierarchy. 舉朝 (朝 = cháo) = "the whole court."
This unworthy daughter was fortunate to be born of the palace of the Earth-queen, and is grateful beyond measure for the ten thousand toils of her rearing. Yet she could not exert her strength to gladden her parents' faces, nor exhaust her heart in the service of filial duty.
拙女 = "this clumsy [i.e. humble] daughter"; 坤宮 ("the palace of Kun," the earth-trigram) = the queen's palace, hence "born of the queen." 劬勞 = "the toil [of parents]," a Shijing term for parental labor; 盡心 (盡 = jìn) = "with all [her] heart."
Now, thirteen years ago, on the fine night and fair hour of the fifteenth of the eighth month, by the gracious command of her royal father, each palace was bidden to set out a banquet, to delight in the moon's splendor and share together in the grand gathering of that clear night.
八月十五 is the Mid-Autumn Festival, the night of the full moon; 良夜佳辰 = "a fine night, a fair hour." 著各宮排宴 (著 = zhuó, "to order") = "commanded each palace to arrange a feast"; 共樂 (樂 = lè) = "to enjoy together." The festival idyll sets off the abduction that breaks it.
In the very midst of the merriment, unlooked-for, there came a gust of fragrant wind, and out flashed a demon-king with golden eyes, an indigo face, and green hair, who seized your daughter, mounted an auspicious light, and bore her straight off to a wild and unpeopled place among the hills. There, powerless to resist, she was forced by the demon and made his wife against her will.
一陣香風 ("a gust of fragrant wind") is the conventional harbinger of a demon's apparition; 金睛藍面青髮 describes the Yellow-Robe Ogre in his true, terrible aspect. 將女擒住 (將 = jiāng, coverb) = "seized the girl"; 半野山中 (中 = zhōng) = "amid the half-wild hills." 霸占為妻 (為 = wéi) = "usurped her as his wife."
And so, helpless, she has endured thirteen years, and has borne two demon-children, wholly of a monster's seed. To speak of it is truly to corrupt the bonds of kind and to injure decent custom, and it were unfit to send a letter that would only bring dishonor.
捱 = "to endure, to drag out a wretched existence"; 妖兒 (兒 = er) = "demon-brats." 敗壞人倫 = "to ruin the human relations"; 有傷風化 = "to injure public morals." The princess's shame at her defilement is the counter-motion to her plea — she writes only because she must.
But she feared that, once dead, her fate would never be made known. Even as she nursed her grief and longed for her father and mother, it chanced that a holy monk of Tang was likewise seized by the demon-king. So your daughter, with falling tears, wrote this letter, boldly set the monk free, and entrusted to him this scrap of paper to declare the little of her heart.
不顯分明 (分 = fēn) = "her case would not be made clear." 片楮 = "a slip of paper" (楮, the paper-mulberry, standing by metonymy for paper); 寸心 = "an inch of heart," a humble word for one's feelings. The letter and the monk's release are one and the same act of desperate contrivance.
Prostrate, she begs her royal father to look upon her with pity, to dispatch a chief general with all speed to the Wave-Moon Cave on Bowl Mountain, to take the Yellow-Robe Ogre and rescue his daughter back to the court — for which she would be deeply grateful. Written in haste and wanting in respect; there is more than a letter can say. The disobedient daughter Hundred-Flowers-Shy bows her head again and yet again.
伏望 = "prostrate, I beg"; 遣上將 (將 = jiàng, "a general") = "to send a chief general." 深為 (為 = wéi) = "deeply, greatly [grateful]." 草草欠恭，面聽不一 is the epistolary closing formula — "hastily done, wanting in courtesy; what remains to be heard face to face is more than one letter can hold." 逆女 ("disobedient daughter") echoes the 不孝女 of the salutation.
The family letter is a formal-epistolary set-piece, cast in the full form of a court memorial: an elaborate tripartite salutation to father, queen-mothers, and ministers; the conventional filial self-abasement (不孝女, 拙女); and the Shijing vocabulary of parental toil (劬勞) and unpaid duty. Within this decorous frame the princess recapitulates the abduction of thirteen years past — the Mid-Autumn banquet, the gust of fragrant wind, the golden-eyed ogre — now told from the victim's own side, so that the reader hears at last the inner history of a captivity glimpsed only from without in the cave.
Its emotional crux is shame. The princess writes against her own inclination, for the truth she must tell — that she was forced, that she has borne "two demon-children of a monster's seed" — is by her lights a defilement that "ruins the human relations" and would only "bring dishonor"; she sends the letter only because she fears to die unknown. This tension, between the daughter's disgrace and the daughter's plea, gives the document its poignancy, and it is the hinge of the plot: by converting her private, shameful captivity into a public wrong and a filial appeal, the letter turns a demon's household into a matter of state, to be answered with troops — or, as it will prove, with the pilgrims.