^{page 64 note 1} ‘ Some formal characteristics of the hua-pen story ’, BSOAS, XVII, 2, 1955, 346–64.Google Scholar

^{page 64 note 2} A previous assessment of the ages and origins of certain stories of the Ku chin hsiao shuo was made by Chen Chen-to in Ming-Ch'ing erh tai ti p'ing hua chi 565–71 (Chung kuo wen hsüeh lun chi 3rd edition, Shanghai, 1949, Vol. 2, 530–677).Google Scholar Cheng withheld his opinion on 14 of the 40 stories. With the remainder of his estimates I am in general but not entire agreement.

^{page 68 note 1} The new title given to the Ku chin hsiao shuo when it was re–issued in 1624.

^{page 68 note 2} One of Feng Meng-lung's pseudonyms.

^{page 68 note 3} Quoted Chao-tsu, Jung ‘Ming Feng Meng-lung ti sheng p'ing chi ch'i chu shu’ , Lingnan Journal, II, 1, 1931, 61–91.Google Scholar

^{page 69 note 1} For reference purposes, a conspectus of the classifications made in this section is appended to the paper.

^{page 69 note 2} Photolithographic reproductions have now been issued by the Wen-hsüeh ku-chi k'an hsing-she under the title of Ch'ing-p'ing-shan-t'ang hua pen, 2 vols., Peking, 1955.Google Scholar At the end of Vol. 2 are reprinted prefatory articles by Ma Lien dated 1929 and 1934. See also Nagasawa Kikuya, Ching pen t'ung su hsiao shuo yü Ch'ing-p'ing-shant'ang translated into Chinese by Nai-kang, Wang contained in Hu Shih Sung jen hua pen ch'i chung Shanghai, 1935.Google Scholar

^{page 69 note 3} Nagasawa (op. cit.) considers this story to be a Sung product of Pien-liang (Pien-ching or Kaifeng) from the phrase ‘ this (che ) Eastern Capital, Pien-liang ’.

^{page 69 note 4} No specific time-setting is given for this story, but reference to ‘ Pien-chou K'ai-feng-fu ’ as the Eastern Capital indicates that the events took place during the Northern Sung period (Kaifeng ceased to be the capital in 1127).

^{page 69 note 5} See Ma Lien, op. cit., and K'ai-ti, SunChung kuo t'ung su hsiao shuo shu mu Peking: National Library, 1932, 123.Google Scholar

^{page 69 note 6} That this story originated with the story-tellers is clear from the concluding words, ‘ This hua-pen has been passed down among the old men of the capital’.

^{page 69 note 7} The composition of this story during the Southern Sung or Yüan period is suggested by the detail and nostalgic tone of the description of the yüan-hsiao celebrations in the Eastern Capital under the Emperor Hui-tsung (reigned 1101–26); by reference to the latter by his contemporary title Tao-chün Huang-ti ; and by the use of the cyclical names for years, ting-wei for 1127 and yi-yu for 1129. One passage, however, may be taken as evidence that the story was composed, or at least revised, some years after the events took place:— ‘Story-teller, you are mistaken. How was it possible for a man sent as emissary to another state [in the years following 1127, when the Sung court retreated across the Yangtse, the territories to the north were left a separate state in the hands of the Chin Tartars] to go out on the streets there, stroll about, and buy a drink ? ’ (The story-teller replies:) ‘ The Yi chien chih records that the prohibitions were not yet in force at that time, so that emissaries were still permitted to mix with the people ’.

The Yi chien chih was a collection of miscellanea by Hung Mai (1123–1202), originally in 420 chüan. Reference to it here shows that, unless this interrogation of the story-teller is an interpolation, the story was composed in its present form considerably later than the events narrated.

^{page 70 note 1} See Prusek, J., ‘ Popular novels in the collection of Ch'ien Tseng’, Archiv Orienidlni, X, 1938,281–94.Google Scholar

^{page 70 note 2} Quoted Nagasawa, op. cit., 36.

^{page 70 note 3} The material of this story was used by the dramatist as well as by the story-teller. The Yüan ch'ü hsüan contains a play of unknown authorship whose title is identical with that of the story. The play treats of the events of the latter section only of the story.

^{page 70 note 4} See Nagasawa, op. cit., 26–7.

^{page 70 note 5} Ch'en Ju-heng Shuo shu hsiao shih Shanghai, 1936, 33, quotes the opening poem of the Naikaku Bunko story. One line of this is identical with a line of the opening poem of the Ku chin hsiao shuo story.

^{page 71 note 1} The indication of oral transmission in this case is given in a marginal note (see below, p. 79).

^{page 71 note 2} A detailed investigation into the sources of this story is made by Uchida Michio in his article ‘ “ Kokon-shosetsu “ no seikaku ni tsuite ‘ [On the nature of the Ku chin hsiao shuo], Bunka, XVII, 6, 1953, 26–45.Google Scholar Uchida's deductions support the impression made by the opening words of the piece that composition took place during the Yüan period: ‘ To-day, after the “ crossing to the south ” of the house of Sung, although the barbarians rage in their might, the (imperial) family of Chao is not forgotten by the Chinese people, and its restoration may still come about if the opportunity can be seized ’. (The phrase ‘ under the former Sung dynasty’) ( is later used in the description of a Sung institution.)

^{page 71 note 3} No time-setting is specified, but Cheng Chen-to (op. cit., 569) states that the bureaucracy described in the story is that of the Ming period.

^{page 72 note 1} An anonymous T'ang collection of anecdotes. The extant version does not contain the account of Ko Chou, which is, however, preserved in T'ai p'ing kuang chi chüan 177

^{page 72 note 2} This piece has very strongly the air of a fabrication by a late-Ming scholar, tricked out with a prologue and introductory phrases in the hua-pen manner, and used as a vehicle for a quantity of poems, some of them authentically ascribed to Liu Yung , the poet-hero, others no doubt invented for the occasion.

^{page 72 note 3} That this story is a Ming product is clear from the opening poem, by T'ang Yin of tne early sixteenth century, described in the text as ‘ of the present dynasty ’.

^{page 72 note 4} Uchida (op. cit., 33) offers convincing evidence that the Hsü Tung ch'uang shih fan chuan contained in cchüan 10 of the Kuo seh t'ien hsiang (preface dated 1587) was the direct predecessor of the Ku chin hsiao shuo story.

^{page 72 note 5} cf. my tabulation of certain syntactical features of The Tryst of Two Friends (16) in my previous article, BSOAS, XVII, 2, 361.Google Scholar

^{page 73 note 1} The place-names marked on the maps are those used in the relevant stories themselves, and not necessarily either the Ming or the present-day names. Preparation of the maps was based on Herrmann, A., Historical and commercial atlas of China (Harvard-Yenching Monograph Series, 1, 1935)Google Scholar and the Chung kuo ku chin ti ming ta tz'u tien Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933.Google Scholar

^{page 74 note 1} ‘ Sung ch'ao shuo hua jen ti chia shu wen t'i’ Hsüeh wen tsa chih (Peiping), I, 1, 1930.Google Scholar

^{page 74 note 2} ‘ The narrators of Buddhist scriptures and religious tales in the Sung period’, Archiv Orientálni, X, 1938, 375–89Google Scholar, and ‘ Researches into the beginnings of the Chinese popular novel’, Archiv Orientálni, XI, 1939, 91–132.Google Scholar

^{page 75 note 1} 1 No.35, which I have classed with the romances, might equally be classed as a orime story, stemming from this Northern Sung school of Kaifeng.

^{page 77 note 1} cf. Průšek, , ‘ Popular novels in the collection of Ch'ien Tseng ’, Archiv Orientálni, X, 1938, 286–7Google Scholar:—‘… among the oldest stories preserved from Yüan and Sung times we do not find any expressly erotic themes, and it seems that this literary genre did not become popular before the latter period of the Ming dynasty, when the production of popular stories ceased to be an occupation of street-storytellers and such stories began to be written by anonymous writers; first, then, the anonymity allowed the authors to speak freely about erotic affairs.’

^{page 77 note 2} Yü-ku, a fish-shaped wooden block, no doubt similar to the mu-yü ‘wooden fish’, used in Buddhist temples.

^{page 77 note 3} Presumably a flat wooden percussion instrument, named after the wooden covers used in Sung times to enclose documents in transit.

^{page 77 note 4} Chuang Tzu t'an k'u lou . Hu Shih describes this as a T'ang story. It may be an ancestor of the story Chuang Tzu hsiu ku p'en ch'eng ta tao Ching shih t'ung yen, chüan 2, Chin ku ch'i kuan chüan 20, translated by Howells as ‘ The inconstancy of Madam Chuang ’.

^{page 78 note 1} Preface to Four cautionary tales, translated by Harold Acton and Lee Yi-hsieh, London, 1947 (previously published 1941, with the title Glue and lacquer).

^{page 78 note 2} op. cit., 291.

^{page 79 note 1} The action of The Slandered Hero (39) opens in the Ch'ien-tao reign-period (1169–74); at the end of the story there is reference to the death of the Emperor. The new Emperor is not named, but the deceased Emperor is referred to as Che-tsung (reigned 1086–1101): this is presumably in error for Hsiao-tsung (1163–90), who is in fact named in the prologue. A similar discrepancy occurs in The Loves of a Poet (12), when Liu Yung (c. 990–1050) is described as a man of the time of Shen-tsung (reigned 1068–86), although the Emperor who figures in the story is of course Jen-tsung (reigned 1023–64). Mistakes such as these would hardly have been made by contemporary writers, and suggest composition at a considerably later date. In The Robbed Miser (36), finally, the name of the minor personage Wang Pao is first given a page or so after the man has made his début. This belated introduction offends against the convention of Chinese fiction, and probably means that the formal introduction of Wang Pao has been omitted from the present text.

^{page 79 note 2} cf. Waley, loc. cit.

^{page 79 note 3} T'ang tai hsiao shuo yen chiu Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1947, 15–16.Google Scholar

^{page 80 note 1} e.g. in Ching pen t'ung su hsiao shuo, chüan 15, the story Ts'o chan Ts'ui Ning, after the wrongful execution of Ts'ui, the author emphasizes the magistrate's obligation to ascertain the truth without recourse to hearsay or torture.

^{page 80 note 2} The anecdote concerning King Chuang of Ch'u which forms the prologue to Clemency Rewarded (6) is narrated, in a more literary style, in chüan 1 of Feng Meng-lung's anthology Chih nang pu (1627). There seems no need, however, to regard this as an indication that Feng was himself responsible for this particular prologue.

^{page 80 note 3} Shionoya On, ‘ Lun Ming chih hsiao shuo “ San yen ” chi ch'i t'a ’ in Chung kuo wen hsüeh kai lun chiang hua translated into Chinese by Sun Liang-kung , 1929.

^{page 80 note 4} I am indebted to Mr. James Liu for bringing forward these important considerations.