Chapter 105 Rebecca and the Merry Widow's Story

tales with the merry widow A few days ago, I was reading "Satyricon" by the ancient Roman writer Patronios, and saw an article introducing Shaowen mentioned that this satirical masterpiece by Patronios has been lost and incomplete.today Among the surviving fragments, in addition to "The Banquet of Trimalgio", there is another one is "Ai The Widow of Feisus".The story of the widow mentioned in the last article is said to be an ancient legend. A very famous story of the Merry Widow.Not only from Roman times to European literature and art In the Renaissance era, many writers in Europe repeatedly used this story as a theme and wrote many novels of their own.

The characteristic works, that is, ancient Chinese writers have also used this story. This last sentence intrigued me.The author never stated that this ancient Chinese writer was Who, but since I said that, there must be some basis for it.Then came the famous widow's tale After thinking about it for a while, and reading some collections of ancient Chinese scripts, I realized that the reference was The story of Zhuangzi playing his wife is also the skill of old Beijing opera. The story of "The Widow of Ephesus" goes like this: A woman who usually prides herself on her chastity, after her husband dies, vows to die for her husband and lives in her husband's house.

In the tomb of her husband, she refused to eat and drink, and mourned day and night.A soldier nearby heard the cry and walked away. Come and ask.He was responsible for guarding the corpses of the death row prisoners on the nearby execution ground.he sees this cry After asking the widow for the reason, he tried his best to comfort her, and persuaded her to eat a little, saying that since she She loves her husband, and if he knows it underground, he will not bear to see her like this.The soldier was young and handsome, The woman was also famous for her beauty in Ephesus, and the two fell in love with each other unconsciously.

The soldier brought his rations and persuaded the woman to eat some.At this time, the woman not only stopped crying, but Talking and laughing with soldiers.So the two gradually became chaotic, and they made a misty marriage in the tomb. The next morning, the soldier returned to the execution ground and found that the dead prisoner's body he was guarding had been stolen. gone.According to military law, this was punishable by death, so he had no choice but to bid farewell to the widow sadly. Unexpectedly, although the widow had been in love overnight, she had already fallen in love with the soldier, and would die if she couldn't bear him.

And half of the fault was due to her, so after thinking about it, I proposed to the soldier that her husband's new Not long after his death, since the body of the death row prisoner disappeared, why not take the husband's body before the boss found out? Take the corpse and hang it on the hanger to make up the number. Wouldn't it be possible to save yourself from paying for the crime?soldiers agree So the two joined forces to open the coffin and take out the husband's body, hang it on the hanger and pretend to be a death row prisoner. Sure enough, it was hidden from the eyes and ears of the boss.

The skill of Beijing opera comes from the scriptures of the Song and Yuan Dynasties "Zhuangzixiu drums and pots into a road", See edited by Feng Menglong.Combining the story of "The Widow of Ephesus" with "Zhuang Zixiu" Comparing the scripts of Drum Pen into the Great Dao, we can see that although the plots of the stories are quite different, the two The widow is the same typical character. The story of Zhuangzi's play on his wife in "The Widow of Ephesus" is related to Although the part about the husband is quite different, the behavior of the two widows is almost the same.Say

It is very believable that these two stories have the same source. See the second volume of this famous Chinese story of a romantic widow: Zhuang Zixiu Drums into a Dao", using Zhuangzi seeing a woman fanning the grave as an introduction, leading to his own desire to try his own Wife, this constitutes the story of Zhuangzi pretending to be dead to play with his wife.Beijing Opera Great Cracking of Coffins, That's where it comes from.The plot of splitting the coffin is also the most vivid in the story of the widow in ancient Rome. wonderful part.Everyone is willing to sacrifice the dead husband's body to save the lover in front of them.

body.In the story of ancient Rome, the coffin was opened to take out the husband's body to replace the missing death row prisoner. The dead body, in this Chinese story of the Merry Widow, is trying to split the coffin to take out the brain of the dead husband, Come to heal the heart disease of the new lover. Both stories are very humane.We can certainly say that both widows were too It's not humane, but if we look at it from the common sense of "the dead are already dead" and the common sense of saving lives but not dying, they What he did was really very humane.The husband is dead anyway, since there is a new lover,

In order to save the lover's life, it is really very difficult to use the dead husband's body as waste. realistic move. I remember that when Shanghai was advocating the improvement of Peking Opera, it was adapted. After Zhuangzi came back to life, when he taught his wife a lesson and ridiculed him, he was ridiculed by Tian back and forth. played a game.In the newly edited libretto, there are two wonderful lines, which are to use the spear of the son to attack the shield of the son, and to attack the shield of the son with the Zhuang criticize Zhuangzi for his philosophical thought.Those two lines are:

"Zhuang Sheng's theory of equalizing things with empty words does not blame men and women!" It is said that Zhuangzi can remarry after losing his wife, but he must ask his wife to keep the chastity after he dies.Chuang Tzu was scolded I was speechless.Therefore, in the new edition, Tian was not hanged, and Zhuangzi was also hanged. There is no chance of "drum basin". The story of "Zhuangzixiu drums the pots into the road" is of course more tortuous and varied than the stories of the Romans. It is also more oriental.I prefer the introduction of fanning the grave, the widow is a frank

Bai Zhen's good people are much better than those who wear the widow's sign and steal people secretly.Chuang Tzu see you Feeling dissatisfied is really not a solution, no wonder after returning home, they have to plan to pretend to be a dead wife.in this regard, Zhuangzi is much worse than the husband in the ancient Roman story.that husband is really sick The dead, therefore, can make their useless corpses available to their wives, unlike this Oriental husband, so He deliberately pretended to be dead, set a trap to lure his wife into the trap, and then humiliated her again. The plot of feigning death and playing with his wife in the story of "Zhuangzixiu Gupan Cheng Dao" contained in the story, I don't know the source, but Zhuangzi's death of his wife Gupen and Mengdie has a basis, which can be seen in Zhuangzi own writings. According to records, Zhuang Zhou said that in his dream he tasted and turned into a butterfly, and the butterfly was so lifelike. Then 蘧 蘧 Ran Zhou also.I don't know that Zhou turns into a butterfly, and the butterfly turns into Zhou.According to Zhuangzi? "Pian" contains: Zhuangzi lost his wife, Huizi went to hang, Zhuangzi Fangji sat on the drum basin and sang.Huizi said: "It's okay if you don't cry." Enough, isn't the song too much?Zhuangzi said, people still sleep in the room, but I cry and cry, I think I don't understand life, so I stop. It can be seen that Mengdie's loss of his wife is well-founded.Probably because of this basis, Adding the famous story of the Merry Widow to it constitutes "Zhuangzi Hugh Drums into the Great Way" This script. In addition to the storybook received, according to "Hua Zhaosheng's Notes", There is also "Legend of Butterfly Dream", which was written by Yan Zhu in the early Qing Dynasty, which was adapted from the story of the storybook. And make it more generalized.I have never seen this legend, but from the title It is conjectured that the old Beijing opera "Butterfly Dream Breaking the Coffin" must have been adapted from Yan's legend, not It is directly drawn from the script of Song and Yuan people. This "Widow of Ephesus" story, in Europe except in the disabled Patronios In addition to the manuscript, the Roman writer Obernius, who was later than him, also wrote in his famous "Golden Donkey" Here, the story of the Merry Widow is included.Later, the French philosopher Voltaire, in his irony This story is also used in the novel "Sardiq".Also, La Fontaine, the French fabler, He also wrote a long poem on this subject. In addition, such as Italy's "One Hundred Stories Collection", Breton's "Life History of Merry Women", Never let go of this wonderful story, too numerous to mention. When I was young, I liked watching this play very much, and I liked watching the scene of Tian's splitting the coffin. Kung fu.As usual, the dan roles in this play have to be stepped on, so after breaking the coffin, I saw Zhuangzi from The lid of the coffin was pushed up, she was so frightened that she threw the axe, somersaulted off the spirit table, and then Tumbling and falling on the ground, expressing frightened action.It is extremely difficult to perform well, and it is very tasty Powerful.In addition, after Zhuangzi became the grandson of the king of Chu, he turned a paper figurine golden boy in front of his soul into his own What happened is also very interesting.The paper figurine, decorated by a real person, had to be completely pretended to be A dummy, who can be moved and teased by others, without the slightest movement of eyebrows, hands and feet, is often a clown The good opportunity to show off my talents also made the young me laugh out loud. At that time, it was completely unexpected that the story of the widow splitting the coffin had such a long history. And it was imported from abroad.