DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷五
京瓦伎藝
Every art had a name.
The capital's entertainment district kept a register: puppets at the fifth watch, storytellers through the rain, shadow plays, acrobats, song. Meng lists the performers by name and genre — and where the list resists clean reading, the page keeps the dispute open rather than tidying it.
OPEN THE PLAYBILL ↓00 / THE PLAYBILL
Genre by genre, name by name.
The entry is a register, not an essay: genre labels followed by rosters of named performers. Eight cards below sample the list; the primary text carries all of it, in the entry's order, unshortened.
小唱
李師師 · 徐婆惜 · 封宜奴 · 孫三四The house style of the great venues — the register opens with its stars.
嘌唱
張七七 · 王京奴 · 左小四 · 安娘 · 毛團A vocal genre with its own roster of five named disciples.
杖頭傀儡
任小三 · 每日五更頭回小雜劇Ren Xiaosan's small daily show opened at the fifth watch — latecomers missed it.
懸絲傀儡 · 藥發傀儡
張金線 · 李外寧Marionettes on strings; puppets moved by gunpowder effects — two separate trades.
講史 · 小說
孫寬 · 曾無黨 / 李慥 · 楊中立 · 張十一Storytelling split by matter: the histories, and the tales.
影戲 · 弄喬影戲
董十五 · 趙七 · 曹保義 · 朱婆兒 · 俎六弄 / 丁儀 · 瘦吉Shadow theater in two registers, straight and comic.
說《三分》
霍四究Huo Sijiu is specifically associated with Three Kingdoms storytelling.
商謎 · 說諢話 · 雜班
毛詳 · 霍伯醜 / 張山人 / 劉喬 · 胡牛兒Riddles, comic patter and variety sketching close the register's tail.
01 / WHERE THE SCHOLARS STOP
Three places the list refuses to be tidy.
The transmitted sequence runs names into genres without punctuation, and modern editions disagree about where a person ends and a label begins. The page quotes the working text and keeps the disputes visible instead of silently resolving them.
A common punctuation reads this as a book title. Specialist scholarship identifies it as a person's name — the page follows the scholarly reading and says so.
Where the storyteller's name ends is disputed: 尹常賣 as a full name, or 尹常 selling the Five Dynasties. The page preserves the working text's segmentation and the doubt.
Gutenberg prints 散樂; the Siku witness reads 散藥 — the significance of that reading remains uncertain, and it changes the implied category. The page keeps both visible rather than normalizing.
Ren Xiaosan's puppet杂劇 opened the day — 差晚看不及: arrive late and you have missed it.
The court ensembles 教坊 and 鈞容直 performed on their rest days, and the public was allowed to watch.
A month ahead, the training corps assembled its young dancers and rehearsed the program.
1. The register.
崇、觀以來，在京瓦肆伎藝：張廷叟、孟子書、主張小唱：李師師、徐婆惜、封宜奴、孫三四等，誠其角者。嘌唱弟子：張七七、王京奴、左小四、安娘、毛團等。教坊減罷並溫習：張翠蓋、張成弟子、薛子大、薛子小、俏枝兒、楊總惜、周壽奴、稱心等。般雜劇：杖頭傀儡任小三，每日五更頭回小雜劇，差晚看不及矣。懸絲傀儡，張金線。李外寧，藥發傀儡。張臻妙、溫奴哥、真個強、沒勃臍、小掉刀，筋骨上索雜手伎。渾身眼、李宗正、張哥，毬杖錫弄。孫寬、孫十五、曾無黨、高恕、李孝詳，講史。李慥、楊中立、張十一、徐明、趙世亨、賈九，小說。王顏喜、蓋中寶、劉名廣，散樂。張真奴，舞旋。楊望京，小兒相撲、雜劇、掉刀、蠻牌。董十五、趙七、曹保義、朱婆兒、沒困駝、風僧哥、俎六弄，影戲。丁儀、瘦吉等，弄喬影戲。劉百禽，弄䖝蟻。孔三傳、耍秀才，諸宮調。毛詳、霍伯醜，商謎。吳八兒，合生。張山人，說諢話。劉喬、河北子、帛遂、胡牛兒、達眼五、重明喬、駱駝兒、李敦等，雜班。外入孫三神鬼。霍四究，說《三分》。尹常賣，《五代史》。文八娘，叫果子。
WORKING TRANSLATION
From the Chongning and Daguan eras onward, the arts in the capital's pleasure grounds: Zhang Tingsou, Meng Zishu, and the zhu-zhang direction of small song — Li Shishi, Xu Poxi, Feng Yinu, Sun Sansi and the rest, each the finest of their corner. Piaochang song disciples: Zhang Qiqi, Wang Jingnu, Zuo Xiaosi, An Niang, Mao Tuan and the others. Released from the court troupe and rehearsing: Zhang Cuigai, Zhang Cheng's disciples, Xue Zida, Xue Zixiao, Qiao Zhi'er, Yang Zongxi, Zhou Shounu, Chen Xin and the rest. Zaju-playing: the rod-puppeteer Ren Xiaosan, whose small zaju opened at the fifth watch daily — come later and you had missed it. String marionettes, Zhang Jinxian. Li Waining, gunpowder-effect puppets. Zhang Zhenmiao, Wen Nuge, Zhen'ge Qiang, Mo Boqi, Xiao Diaodao — acrobatics on ropes and mixed hands. Hunshen Yan, Li Zongzheng, Zhang Ge — ball-stick tricks. Sun Kuan, Sun Shiwu, Zeng Wudang, Gao Shu, Li Xiaoxiang — history-telling. Li Zao, Yang Zhongli, Zhang Shiyi, Xu Ming, Zhao Shiheng, Jia Jiu — story-telling. Wang Yanxi, Gai Zhongbao, Liu Minguang — varied music. Zhang Zhennu — spinning dance. Yang Wangjing — children's wrestling, zaju, knife-play, shield charts. Dong Shiwu, Zhao Qi, Cao Baoyi, Zhu Po'er, Mei Kunduo, Feng Sengge, Zu Liunong — shadow plays. Ding Yi, Shouji and the rest — comic shadow plays. Liu Baiqin — insect tricks. Kong Sanchuan, Shua Xiucai — zhugongdiao narrative song. Mao Xiang, Huo Bochou — riddles. Wu Ba'er — he-sheng duets. Zhang Shanren — comic tales. Liu Qiao, Hebeizi, Bo Sui, Hu Niu'er, Dayan Wu, Chongming Qiao, Luotuo'er, Li Dun and the rest — variety sketching. A guest turn by Sun San's spirits. Huo Sijiu — telling the Three Kingdoms. Yin Changmai — the Five Dynasties. Wen Baniang — fruit-crying calls. The rest cannot be counted.
GALOK READING
The register is the argument. No other passage in the book names this many private individuals, and none organizes them so like a trade directory: genre label, then roster. The page translates the whole list rather than excerpting stars, because the point is coverage — a market large enough that puppetry alone supported multiple named specialisms — rod, string and gunpowder effects — and a Three Kingdoms storyteller was specifically associated with that single saga.
2. The schedule, and the weather.
其餘不可勝數。不以風雨寒暑。諸棚看人，日日如是。教坊鈞容直，每遇旬休按樂，亦許人觀看。每遇內宴前一月，教坊內勾集弟子小兒，習隊舞，作樂雜劇節次。
WORKING TRANSLATION
The rest cannot be counted. Rain or shine, cold or heat did not matter: the spectators at the sheds were the same every day. The court ensembles Jiaofang and Junrongzhi played on their ten-day rest days, and the public was allowed to watch. And a month before each inner-court banquet, the Jiaofang assembled its disciples and children to rehearse the line-dances and the sequence of music and zaju.
GALOK READING
Three clauses turn a name list into a schedule: the fifth-watch opener, the ten-day court rehearsals open to onlookers, and the month-long assembly before palace banquets. Entertainment here is infrastructure — scheduled, rehearsed, weatherproofed — and the state's own performers rehearse where the public can watch. One scholarly reconstruction connects the passage's mention of troupe reductions with the court cutbacks of 1126; the page reports it as a hypothesis, not a date.
Variants the page refuses to flatten.
The Siku witness prints 枝頭傀儡 where common editions print 杖頭傀儡 (rod puppets). The working text keeps the common form and records the Siku variant here.
Gutenberg drops the insect character (弄蟻 only); the Siku witness prints 弄䖝蟻 — insect tricks — and 䖝 is the variant form of 蟲. The page restores it.
Some editions normalize 胡牛兒 toward 吳牛兒 and punctuate 俎六弄 toward 俎六姐. Both primary witnesses here agree with the working text; the alternatives are recorded without being adopted.
The entertainment compounds of the capital — the register's venue.
Two vocal genres, each with its own named roster.
Ren Xiaosan's trade — the fifth-watch daily opener.
Identified by scholarship as a performer's name, not a book title.
Its exact theatrical function remains unsettled; the page does not force one.
The palace band whose rest-day rehearsals were open to the public.
Entry 41 is the closest a twelfth-century text comes to a trade directory of show business — dozens of named performers across numerous genres, a schedule, and weather that did not matter. The page keeps the list whole and the disputes open, because the untidy parts are where the text is most itself.
不以風雨寒暑。諸棚看人，日日如是。03 / SOURCE TRAIL
The names are textual. The segmentation is not settled.
The primary text is read against the Siku-family witness (Kanripo KR2k0111, 卷五) and the Gutenberg transcription #24137. The 孟子書 identification follows a high-confidence specialist reading; 主張, 尹常賣 and 俎六弄 remain explicitly disputed, and the 散樂/散藥 split is kept visible.