龍王送魂 The Dragon King Returns the Soul
三人望江痛哭，早已驚動水府，有巡海夜叉將祭文呈與龍王。龍王看罷，就差鱉元帥去請光蕊來到，道：「先生，恭喜，恭喜。今有先生夫人、公子同岳丈俱在江邊祭你。我今送你還魂去也。再有如意珠一顆、走盤珠二顆、絞綃十端、明珠玉帶一條奉送。你今日便可夫妻子母相會也。」光蕊再三拜謝。龍王就令夜叉將光蕊身屍送出江口還魂。夜叉領命而去。三人望江痛哭，早已惊动水府，有巡海夜叉将祭文呈与龙王。龙王看罢，就差鳖元帅去请光蕊来到，道：「先生，恭喜，恭喜。今有先生夫人、公子同岳丈俱在江边祭你。我今送你还魂去也。再有如意珠一颗、走盘珠二颗、绞绡十端、明珠玉带一条奉送。你今日便可夫妻子母相会也。」光蕊再三拜谢。龙王就令夜叉将光蕊身尸送出江口还魂。夜叉领命而去。
逐句解 Line by line
The three of them wept toward the river, and their grief soon stirred the water-court; a sea-patrolling yaksha brought the funeral address to the Dragon King.
水府, the water office. The dragon court has a civil service and the novel never lets you forget it. The 巡海夜叉, the sea-patrolling yaksha, holds the same rank as the officer who fished Guangrui's body out of the river eighteen years ago; a 夜叉 is a yaksha, a fierce spirit that came into Chinese with Indian Buddhism and has been put to work here as a river patrolman. 呈與, submitted upward, is the correct verb for handing a document to a superior.
When the Dragon King had read it, he sent Marshal Turtle to fetch Guangrui, and said:
鱉元帥, Marshal Soft-shelled Turtle. This is the joke the water-court exists to make: a full underwater administration, ranks and titles and dispatches, staffed by fish. 差, to send out on official business, is chāi.
'Sir, congratulations, congratulations!'
恭喜, said twice, is precisely what you say to somebody at a wedding or a promotion — and it is being said to a corpse. 先生, sir, holds the register at the level of a polite office visit.
'Your wife, your son, and your father-in-law are all at the riverside making sacrifice to you.'
公子, the young master, keeps 子 as zǐ. 岳丈 is a wife's father, where 岳 is a mountain peak, from an old link between a wife's family and the sacred mountains. The whole sentence is delivered as good news: your family are at the riverside making offerings to you.
'Now I send you back to life.'
還魂, to send the soul back into the body, takes 還 as huán, to give back. It is the standard term for a resurrection in vernacular fiction and on stage — the most celebrated play in the Chinese theatre, The Peony Pavilion, carries it in its full title, The Return of the Soul at Peony Pavilion.
'I send you besides a wish-granting pearl, two rolling-plate pearls, ten lengths of fine silk, and a belt of bright pearls and jade.'
The parting gifts, itemized like a manifest. 如意珠 is the wish-fulfilling pearl of Buddhist lore, the one that gives you what you ask for; 走盤珠, the plate-rolling pearl, is one so perfectly round it will not sit still on a dish — a jeweller's term for the top grade. 絞綃 is fine raw silk, counted in 端, bolts. The Dragon King is settling an account, and he settles it in the currency of the deep.
'Today you may be reunited with wife, son, and mother.'
夫妻子母, husband and wife, child and mother: four relations in four characters, with 子 as zǐ. 相會, to meet one another, takes the reciprocal 相 as xiāng. It is the reunion the chapter has been holding back since the basket went into the water.
Guangrui bowed his thanks again and again.
再三, twice and then three times: over and over. Eighteen years a guest of the water-court, and he leaves it with the manners of a man being seen off after dinner.
The Dragon King then had the yaksha bear Guangrui's body out to the river-mouth to be restored to life.
身屍, the body — and the text is still calling it a corpse right up to the last character of the sentence, where 還魂, with 還 as huán, changes what it is. 江口, the river mouth, which is where he went in.
The yaksha received the command and departed.
領命, took the order: the same phrase used of the Chancellor receiving the emperor's edict a few passages back. Above the water and below it, the paperwork moves in exactly the same way.
Here is the debt this chapter has been carrying since its opening pages. A young man on his way to his first posting saw a golden carp for sale at an inn door, bought it to cook for his mother, looked at it blinking at him and put it back in the river instead. The carp was the Dragon King of the Hong River in a poor disguise, and everything since has been interest on that one small kindness: a body kept from rotting, a soul held in reserve, and now, on the strength of a burned letter, the whole debt paid off at once.
The water-court is played for comedy and the comedy is fond rather than mocking. There is a submarine civil service down there with ranks, dispatches and correct forms of address, and its officers include a Marshal Soft-shelled Turtle. The Dragon King opens with 恭喜, congratulations, twice over — the greeting for a wedding or a promotion, addressed to a dead man — and sends him off with an itemized list of pearls and silk, as though coming back to life came with a leaving present.
What keeps it from being merely silly is that the grief was real and nobody was performing it. The three of them wept at the water because they believed they were saying goodbye. It simply happens that in this novel's universe there is an office directly underneath, and somebody down there was reading the post.