玉兔精毛穎山兔穴 · 56
Leaf 56 of the pilgrimage · 假公主 The False Princess
Jade Rabbit Spirit 玉兔精
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a demon on the road west · nicknamed 假公主 “The False Princess”
She came down to repay one slap, buried the real princess in a field and wore her face, then aimed an embroidered ball at the one husband the book would never give her.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 93
The Wind-Borne Princess
風刮公主A hundred-and-five-year-old monk at the Gold-Brick Temple heard a wind and a cry over the old garden site, and found a girl there who said she was the king's daughter, blown out of the flower-viewing; he bricked her into a room with a hole only a bowl would pass.
- ch. 93
Playing Mad Before the Monks
裝風守身She understood why she was locked up and played mad on purpose — sleeping in urine and filth, talking nonsense by day, weeping for her parents at night — because a temple full of monks had other ideas about a girl about town.
- ch. 93
The Ball That Hits the Monk
繡球打僧At the crossroads the princess threw the ball for a heaven-sent husband and hit the monk; Wukong called it leaning on a wedding to bring a demon down, and had the monk ask for his disciples to be summoned before the papers were signed.
- ch. 94
The Ugly Disciples Sent Away
放出醜徒The false princess petitioned her father to send the three ugly disciples out of the city, saying she dared not look on them, and the king had the travel documents stamped and gold and silver loaded on them, which Bajie took without comment.
- ch. 94
The Bee in the Master's Hat
留春亭For four days the banquet ran in the Imperial Garden while the monk counted the date on his fingers — the twelfth, the wedding day — and Wukong came in as a bee and settled in his master's hat for the ceremony.
- ch. 95
The Short Stick from the Shrine
土地廟棍Wukong showed himself at the bride's side and grabbed her, and she came out of her dress and hairpins, ran to the earth-god's shrine in the garden and fetched a short stick with which she fought him half a day and up into the clouds.
- ch. 95
The Mortar-Tread at the Gate
西天門She ran for the Western Gate, was met there by the four great celestial marshals on a shout from Wukong, turned to fight again, and gave her weapon away: he saw one end thick, one end fine, and knew it for the tread of a grain mortar.
- ch. 95
Three Rabbit Holes Under Boulders
三處兔窟She went down as gold light on a mountain in the south, and the land-god there swore his mountain was Fur-Tip Mountain with three rabbit holes in it and no demon since the world began — behind two boulders, which Wukong levered off with his staff.
結局 The ending
The Lady of the Moon stops the blow with a word: the princess was no mortal but a moon nymph who struck the rabbit eighteen years ago, and the rabbit, one slap in debt, came down to throw her into a field. She is rolled into a white hare and led off on the moon's banner. The king goes sixty li for his daughter, and Wukong's last favour to the city is a thousand cocks on the centipede mountain.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials