MANY WIVES
This is the story that Kung Lin tells, hour after hour, in the peaceful shade of Bell that Rings Often Temple. The people have relish for Kung Lin’s favorite story and give him much money. The tattered old fellow sometimes receives as much as five cents—in a single day. So outrageously fortunate is Kung Lin, the teller of tales. He does no work of any kind whatsoever, merely sits in the shade and talks, and hears the tinkle of coins in his bowl, and hears the people saying: “It is well told, Kung Lin. Here is some money—and I hope you find it as good as your story.” Not all makers of yarns find such sympathetic hearers.
As the story is given by Kung Lin, there once lived a maiden named Radiant Blossom, and she was still more lovely than the loveliest maiden. The face of Radiant Blossom was shaped like a seed of the melon. It was regularly oval, wide at the brow, small as to chin. The maiden’s eyebrows were like a leaf of the willow. Her eyes resembled the heart of an apricot. Her lips in color made cherries seem pale. Her feet were three-inch golden lilies. And when she walked she swayed as a poplar sways in summer zephyrs.
Furthermore, she was skilled in embroidery. Her fingers coaxed sweetest music from flute and lute. Her voice had its only rival in a fountain of the palace, where water plashes on tuneful silver keys. A brief description, this, but even so—where within the Province of Many Rivers, journeying by boat of two sails, or three, could one look for a maiden to surpass Radiant Blossom, daughter of Ming Chi, red-button mandarin and proud?
Hear now of the reigning Emperor, Wong Sing. That illustrious monarch was having a fine time in the ruling of his realm. He dined in heavy armor and slept with a saddle for pillow. It was war here, and battle there, and fighting in between. A dozen of his generals were in revolt. No sooner was a rebellion put down than two new ones, and worse, took its place. And there was trouble elsewhere—outside the empire. Fierce Barbarians, led and inspired by their haughty chieftain, Wolf Heart, grew every day more impudent and threatening. Wolf Heart openly boasted that with the coming of pleasant weather he intended to leap his horse over the Great Wall. Is it any wonder that Wong Sing’s noble beard soon took on a hue like that of the lime which boys splash on fences?
But Wong Sing was no weakling monarch, to lose his crown and his head, saying: “It was willed by the Fates. What else could I do?” He called in a fearless old councillor known as Ching Who Speaks Only Enough. Said the Emperor: “Good Ching, although you are ever up to your ears in a book, perhaps you have heard of my numerous troubles—a new one, I think, every day. What, wise Ching, is the cure?”
Ching Who Speaks Only Enough replied, “Marriage.”