The Soul of the Great
Bell by Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)
The water-clock marks the hour in the Tachung
sz’, in the Tower of the Great Bell: now the mallet is lifted to smite the lips of the metal monster—the vast lips inscribed
with Buddhist texts from the sacred Fa-hwa-King, from
the chapters of the holy Ling-yen-King! Hear the
great bell responding!—how mighty her voice, though tongueless! KO-NGAI!
All the little dragons on the high-tilted eaves of the green roofs shiver to the tips of their gilded tails under that deep wave of
sound; all the porcelain gargoyles tremble on their carven perches; all the hundred little bells of the pagodas quiver with desire to speak. KO-NGAI—all
the green-and-gold tiles of the temple are vibrating; the wooden goldfish above
them are writhing against the sky; the uplifted
finger of Fo shakes high over the heads of the worshippers through the blue fog
of incense! KO-NGAI!—What a thunder tone was
that!
All the lacquered goblins on the palace cornices wriggle their fire-coloured tongues! And
after each huge shock, how wondrous the multiple echo and the great golden moan, and, at last, the sudden sibilant sobbing in the ears when the immense tone faints away in broken whispers of silver,
as though a woman should whisper, “Hiai!” Even so the great bell hath
sounded every day for well-nigh five hundred years—Ko-Ngai: first
with stupendous clang, then with immeasurable
moan of gold, then with silver murmuring of “Hiai!” And there is not a
child in all the many-coloured ways of the old Chinese city who does not know
the story of the great bell, who cannot tell you why the great bell says Ko-Ngai and Hiai!
Now this is the story of the great bell in the Tachung sz’, as the
same is related in the Pe-Hiao-Tou-Choue,
written by the learned Yu-Pao-Tchen, of the City of Kwang-tchau-fu.
(1) Nearly five hundred years ago the Celestially August, the Son of Heaven,
Yong-Lo, of the “Illustrious” or Ming dynasty, commanded the worthy official
Kouan-Yu that he should have a bell made of such size that the sound thereof
might be heard for one hundred li. And he further ordained that the voice of the bell
should be strengthened with brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with
silver; and that the face and the great lips of it should be graven with
blessed sayings from the sacred books, and that it should be suspended in the
centre of the imperial capital to sound through all the many-coloured ways of
the City of Pe-King.
(2) Therefore the worthy mandarin Kouan-Yu assembled the master-moulders and
the renowned bellsmiths of the empire, and all men of great repute and cunning in foundry work; and they measured the materials for the
alloy, and treated them skilfully, and prepared the moulds, the fires, the
instruments, and the monstrous melting-pot for fusing the metal. And they
laboured exceedingly, like giants neglecting only rest and sleep and the
comforts of life; toiling both night and day in obedience to
Kouan-Yu, and striving in all things to do the behest of the Son of Heaven.
(3) But when the metal had been cast, and the earthen mould separated from the
glowing casting, it was discovered that, despite their great labour and
ceaseless care, the result was void of worth; for the metals had rebelled one
against the other—the gold had scorned alliance with the brass, the silver
would not mingle with the molten iron. Therefore the moulds had to be once more
prepared, and the fires rekindled, and the metal remelted, and all the work
tediously and toilsomely repeated. The Son of Heaven heard and was angry, but
spake nothing.
(4) A second time the bell was cast, and the result was even worse. Still the
metals obstinately refused to blend one with the other; and there was no
uniformity in the bell, and the sides of it were cracked and fissured, and the
lips of it were slagged and split asunder; so that all the labour had to be repeated
even a third time, to the great dismay of Kouan-Yu. And when the Son of Heaven
heard these things, he was angrier than before; and sent his messenger to
Kouan-Yu with a letter, written upon lemon-coloured silk and sealed with the
seal of the dragon, containing these words:
(5)
“From the Mighty Young-Lo, the Sublime Tait-Sung, the
Celestial and August, whose reign is called ‘Ming,’ to
Kouan-Yu the Fuh-yin: Twice thou hast betrayed the
trust we have deigned graciously to place in thee; if thou fail a
third time in fulfilling our command, thy head shall be severed
from thy neck. Tremble, and obey!”
(6) Now, Kouan-Yu had a daughter of dazzling loveliness whose name—Ko-Ngai—was
ever in the mouths of poets, and whose heart was even more beautiful than her
face. Ko-Ngai loved her father with such love that she had refused a hundred
worthy suitors rather than make his home desolate by her absence; and when she
had seen the awful yellow missive, sealed with the Dragon-Seal, she fainted
away with fear for her father’s sake. And when her senses and her strength
returned to her, she could not rest or sleep for thinking of her parent’s
danger, until she had secretly sold some of her jewels, and with the money so
obtained had hastened to an astrologer, and paid him a great price to advise
her by what means her father might be saved from the peril impending over him.
So the astrologer made observations of the heavens, and marked the aspect of
the Silver Stream (which we call the Milky Way), and examined the signs of the
Zodiac—the Hwang-tao, or Yellow Road—and consulted the table
of the Five Hin, or Principles of the Universe, and the mystical
books of the alchemists. And after a long silence, he made answer to her,
saying: “Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never will
embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be melted in the crucible; until the blood
of a virgin be mixed with the metals in their fusion.” So Ko-Ngai returned home
sorrowful at heart; but she kept secret all that she had heard, and told no one
what she had done.
(7) At last came the awful day when the third and last effort to cast the great
bell was to be made; and Ko-Ngai, together with her waiting-woman, accompanied
her father to the foundry, and they took their places upon a platform
overlooking the toiling of the moulders and the lava of liquefied metal. All
the workmen wrought at their tasks in silence; there was no sound heard but the
muttering of the fires. And the muttering deepened into a roar like the roar of
typhoons approaching, and the blood-red lake of metal slowly brightened like
the vermilion of a sunrise, and the vermilion was transmuted into a radiant
glow of gold, and the gold whitened blindingly, like the silver face of a full
moon. Then the workers ceased to feed the raving flame, and all fixed their
eyes upon the eyes of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu prepared to give the signal to
cast.
(8) But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his head and
all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet as a bird’s song above
the great thunder of the fires—“For thy sake, O my father!”
And even as she cried, she leaped into the white flood of metal; and the lava
of the furnace roared to receive her, and spattered monstrous flakes of flame
to the roof, and burst over the verge of the earthen crater, and cast up a
whirling fountain of many-coloured fires, and subsided quakingly, with
lightnings and with thunders and with mutterings.
(9) Then the father of Ko-Ngai, wild with his grief, would have leaped in after
her, but that strong men held him back and kept firm grasp upon him until he
had fainted away, and they could bear him like one dead to his home. And the
serving-woman of Ko-Ngai, dizzy and speechless for pain, stood before the
furnace, still holding in her hands a shoe, a tiny, dainty shoe, with
embroidery of pearls and flowers—the shoe of her beautiful mistress that was.
For she had sought to grasp Ko-Ngai by the foot as she leaped, but had only
been able to clutch the shoe, and the pretty shoe came off in her hand; and she
continued to stare at it like one gone mad.
(10) But in spite of all these things, the command of the Celestial and August
had to be obeyed, and the work of the moulders to be finished, hopeless as the
result might be. Yet the glow of the metal seemed purer and whiter than before;
and there was no sign of the beautiful body that had been entombed therein. So
the ponderous casting was made; and lo! when the metal had become cool, it was
found that the bell was beautiful to look upon and perfect in form, and
wonderful in colour above all other bells. Nor was there any trace found of the
body of Ko-Ngai; for it had been totally absorbed by the precious alloy, and
blended with the well-blended brass and gold, with the intermingling of the
silver and the iron. And when they sounded the bell, its tones were found to be
deeper and mellower and mightier than the tones of any other bell, reaching
even beyond the distance of one hundred li, like a pealing of
summer thunder; and yet also like some vast voice uttering a name, a woman’s
name, the name of Ko-Ngai.
And still, between each mighty stroke there is a
long low moaning heard; and ever the moaning ends with a sound of sobbing and
of complaining, as though a weeping woman should murmur, “Hiai!” And still,
when the people hear that great golden moan they keep silence, but when the
sharp, sweet shuddering comes in the air, and the sobbing of “Hiai!”
then, indeed, do all the Chinese mothers in all the many-coloured ways of
Pe-King whisper to their little ones: “Listen! that is Ko-Ngai crying for
her shoe! That is Ko-Ngai calling for her shoe!”
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