心坚石传

作者：陶蒲 (约明代人) 冯梦龙记录

前言

约20年前，我在一册故事集中发现这个故事。集子的编者说他是在日本一家图书馆发现这个故事的。我深为主人公的忠实爱情所感，也为他们的悲惨遭遇伤心。今将该故事原文及英文译文发表于此，供爱好中国古典著作者阅读。

Forward

About 20 years ago, I found this story in a <Collected Stories.> The collector said he had found it in a Japanese library. Then I was deeply moved by the hero’s faithful love, and grieved for their misery experience.。Here I publish both the original version and the English translated version of the story for those who are interested in classic Chinese works.

至元年间，松江府庠生李彦直，小字玉郎，弱冠有文誉。其学之后圃，有高楼焉，眺望颇远。彦直凡遇三夏，则读书其中，馆外则妓馆环之，丝竹之声日至于耳，彦直亦习闻不怪。

一日，与同侪饮于楼上，一友闻之笑曰：“所谓‘但闻其声，不见其形也。’”彦直亦笑曰：“若见其形，并不赏其声矣。”众请其赋其事，彦直先赋成，众方传玩，忽报学师在门，彦直急取诗怀之，迎学师登楼，因而共饮。彦直复恐诸友饶舌，托以更衣，团其诗，投于墙外。所投处，乃张姥姥之居。姥止一女，名丽容，又名翠眉；衒其才色，不可一世，旦夕坐一小楼，于李氏楼相错。丽容拾纸展视，知为玉郎手笔，心窃慕焉，随赓其韵书于白绫帕上。他日，候彦直在楼，亦投墙外。彦直读诗，知其意有属也。践太湖石望之，彼此相见，款语莫逆。丽容因问“彦卿何以不婚？”彦直曰：“欲得才貌如卿者乃可。”丽容曰：“恐君见弃，妾敢自爱乎？”因私誓而别。彦直归，告诸父母，父以其非类，叱之。复托亲知再三，终不许。将一年，而彦直学业顿废，几成瘵疾，丽容亦闭门自守。父不得已，遣媒六礼而聘焉。

婚有期矣，会本路参政阿鲁台任满赴京。时伯彦为右丞相，独秉大权，凡满任者，必献白金盈万，否则立黜罢。阿鲁台宦九载，磬囊未及其半，谋于佐吏。吏曰：“右丞少者非财也，若能于各府选财色官妓三、二人，加以装饰献之，费不过千金，而其喜必倍。”阿鲁台以为然，遂令佐吏假右相之命，咨于各府，得二人，而丽容为首。彦直父子奔走上下，谋之万端，终未能脱。丽容临发，寄缄谢彦直，以死许之。遂绝饮食。张妪泣曰：“尔死必累我。”丽容复稍稍食。舟既行，彦直徒步追随，哀动行人。凡遇停舟之所，终夜号泣，伏寝水次。如斯将两月，而舟抵临青。彦直跋涉三千余里，足肤俱裂，无复人形。丽容于板隙窥见，一痛而绝。张妪救之，良久乃苏。苦挽舟夫谢彦直曰；“妾所以不即死者，母未脱耳。母去，妾即死，郎可归家，无劳自苦。”彦直闻语，仰天大恸，投身于地，气遂绝。舟夫怜之，共为坎土埋于岸侧。是夕，丽容自缢于舟中。阿鲁台大怒曰：“我以珍衣玉食，致汝于极贵之地，而乃恋恋寒儒，诚贱骨也。”乃命舟夫裸其尸而焚之。尸尽，维心不灰。舟人以足践之，忽出一小物如人形，大如手指，净以水，其色如金，其坚如玉。衣冠眉发，纤细皆俱，宛然一李彦直也，但不能言动耳。舟夫持报阿鲁台，台惊曰：“异哉，精诚所结，一至此乎！”叹玩不已。众请并验彦直若何，亦发彦直尸焚之，而心中小物与前物相等，其像则张丽容也。阿鲁台大喜曰：“吾虽不能生致丽容，然此二物，实稀世之宝，”遂囊以异锦，函以香木，题曰：“心坚石之宝”.于是厚给张妪，听为治丧以归。

阿鲁台至京，捧函呈与右相，借述其由，右相甚喜。启示无复前形，维败血二俱，臭灰不可近。右相大怒，下阿鲁台于法吏，治其夺人之凄之罪。狱成，报曰：“男女之私，心坚志确，而始终不谐，所以一念不化，感形如此。既得合于一处，情遂气伸，复还其故，理或有之矣。”右相怒不解，阿鲁台竟坐死。

The Story of True Lovers

陈水明（1962届） 译

During the reign of Zhiyuan (1264-1294) in Songjiang Prefecture there was a scholar named Li Yanzhi, aged 20 and well-known for his talent of literature. In the garden behind his studio there was a two-storey house, in which a far distance could be seen. Li often studied there in the summer. Outside the garden were brothels, so the sound of stringed and wind instruments could be heard every day. Li got used to it and didn’t consider it strange.

One day when he was drinking with some friends of his, one of them heard it and said with smile: “This is so called that you can hear her playing and singing but can’t see the girl herself.” “If I can see her, I don’t think I am willing to enjoy her playing and singing.” said Li, smiling.All of them suggested that they should compose verses about the matter. Li composed one first.

While they were enjoying it, some one reported that the district director of studies was coming. Hurriedly, Li hid the verse into his pocket, went to meet and take him into the house. There they drank with him. Fearing his friends would talk about it, Li pretended to go to the WC, crumpled into a ball and threw it out of the wall, where there was just the courtyard of an old woman, Mrs. Zhang, who had only one daughter called Zhan Lirong (meaning beautiful appearance) and another name ‘Cui Mei (meaning pretty eye-brew)  . The girl boasted of her beauty and talent unexcelled in the world. She often stayed in an up-stair room of the two-storey building, which was opposite to that of Li’s. The verse was picked up by her. She knew that it was written by Li and admired it very much. There upon she composed another one with the same rhyme of that of Li’s and wrote it on a silk handkerchief. At another time when she saw Li sitting in his room up-stairs, she threw it into Li’s courtyard. Li read it and became award that she was hitting to him her love, so he climbed to a rockery in his garden and watched her, there they saw each other and talked heartedly and intimately.

“Why haven’t you got married?” Zhang asked.

“Because I want to marry a girl as pretty and talented as you” Li answered.

“I am afraid you’re unwilling to marry me. How dare I respect myself before you?” said the girl. Then they took an oath to love each other forever and parted。

When Li told the matter to his parents, his father got angry and scolded him as he considered Zhang was from low family stock. Li asked a few of relatives and friends of his family’s to try to persuade his father to permit them to get engaged, but his father didn’t utter any word to permit from beginning to end. Thus a year passed, Li could no go on studying and got much consumptive, while Zhang kept herself in her room and refused to receive any visitors. At length, Li’s father had to ask a go-between to go to Zhang’s with betrothed present to make an offer of marriage and formerly settle the engagement.

The wedding day was fixed when the province’s vice-governor Altai’s term of office expired and he was about to go to the capital. Then the premier Royan , who personally held the balance of the country in his hands. Any governor whose office expired must offer Boyan over ten thousand teal of gold, otherwise，he would be dismissed immediately. Though Altai had been a vice-governor for nine years, still couldn’t offer half of the number even though he emptied all of what he had got. He then deliberated over the matter with his subordinates. Some one of them proposed, “What the premier lacks is not money. If you can select two or three pretty and talented singing girls in the area under your jurisdiction, have them finely dressed and present them to the premier, he will be much pleased and this will cost you less than one thousand teal of gold..”  Altai agreed to the proposal and had him to order various prefectural officials to do so in the name of the premier. At length, they got two, the first one was Zhang Lirong. Both Li and his father tried their best to prevent her from being taken away, but in vain.

When she was sent to the capital, she wrote to Li, vowed to die for him. After that, she stopped taking any meals. Her mother wept and said, “If you commit suicide, surely I must be involved in this misfortune.” Thereupon, the girl resumed having a little food.While the boat taking her sailed forward, Li sadly followed it on foot along the bank of the waterway, which moved everyone who saw him. When the boat anchored for the night, Li would lie on the bank bitterly sobbing without stopping.

Thus it lasted for about two months. When the boat arrived at the town of Linqing, he had walked for over 1500 kilometers. Both of his feet and skin festered and he personally looked no longer like a man. On seeing him through the cracks of the boat, Zhang immediately cried mournfully to lose her consciousness and only came to life again after her mother’s emergency treatment. Then she entreated the boatmen to to allow her to meet Li and told him, “The reason why I haven’t committed suicide is only because of my mother. Once she gets free, surely I will practice my promise. Please do go home and stop troubling yourself this way.” Hearing this, Li looked up to the heaven, gave a grievous cry and fell down dead. The boatmen took much pity on him and buried him in the bank of the waterway. On that evening, the girl hung herself in the boat.

With great anger Alutai said, “I’ve given you fine dress and food and will send you to the rich and honorable place, but still you love a poor scholar, what a base girl you are!” He then ordered the boatmen to undress her and burn her naked body. Strange to say, all the body got into ashes but the heart remained. The boatmen trod it with their feet, then there appeared a small object that formed like a man and was as large as a man’s thumb. The washed it in water and found it as bright as gold, as hard as jade and much like Li Yanzhi with clothes, hat, eyebrow, hair and everything except being unable to move and speak. They brought it to Alutai, he was very alarmed and said: “How strange! Can the spirit of love condense to an object as this?” and couldn’t stop enjoying and admiring it. People asked to examine Li’s body to see what would happen. Then it was burnt, and in the heart was also found a statuette of Zhang Lirong.  Alutai was very pleased and said “Though I haven’t got Zhang Lirong alive, yet these two objects I obtain are really precious things in the world.” So he had them wrapped in valuable silk cloth and put them into a high quality wooden casket, on which was written:
“The Treasure of a Couple of True Lovers”

Thereupon he gave Zhang’s mother a lot of money, allowed her to make a funeral for the girl , and set her free. .

When Alutai arrived in the capital, he presented the casket respectively with two hands to Premier Boyan and told him about the matter in detail. The premier was much pleased, but when he opened the casket, Lo!, he found nothing but two pieces of rotten meat with offensive smell! At this, the premier got terribly angry and ordered the public procurator to charge Alutai with the crime of seizing other man’s wife by force.

After the offence was decided, it was reported: “Once a girl and a boy fall in true love but can’t get into married couples, their love will last forever and result in such forms. But when their hearts have joined each other and their complaint is vented, it is nature for them to turn back into their original forms.”The premier kept on being angry; at last, Alutai was sentenced to death.

(Written by Tao Pu, a scholar lived in Ming dynasty. )