DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷八
六月六日崔府君生日、二十四日神保觀神生日
A god’s birthday, staged.
Two temple birthdays in the sixth month, the second built from palace workshops, court musicians and a night of rival incense, then an open terrace of performances ending in poles forty feet high.
READ THE BIRTHDAY ↓1. Two birthdays, and the court’s eve.
六月六日，州北崔府君生日，多有獻送，無盛如此。二十四日，州西灌口二郎生日，最為繁盛。廟在萬勝門外一里許，敕賜神保觀。二十三日，御前獻送後苑作與書藝局等處製造戲玩，如毬杖、彈弓、弋射之具，鞍轡、銜勒、樊籠之類，悉皆精巧。作樂迎引至廟，於殿前露臺上設樂棚，教坊、鈞容直作樂，更互雜劇舞旋。太官局供食，連夜二十四盞，各有節次。
On the sixth of the sixth month is the birthday of Lord Cui, north of the prefectural city. Many offerings are brought, and none is so grand as this. On the twenty-fourth is the birthday of Erlang of Guankou, west of the prefectural city, the busiest and most splendid of all. The temple stands about a li outside the Wansheng Gate and was named by imperial decree the Shenbao Abbey. On the twenty-third, offerings are presented from the imperial presence: playthings made by the Rear Park workshop, the Calligraphy and Art Bureau and other offices, such as polo sticks, pellet bows and arrow-shooting gear, saddles and bridles, bits and reins, birdcages and the like, all exquisitely made. With music they are escorted to the temple, where a music stand is set up on the open terrace before the hall; the Jiaofang and the Junrong Corps play, alternating with variety plays and dances. The Imperial Banquet Office supplies the food, through the night, twenty-four rounds of cups, each with its appointed order.
Two superlatives stand next to each other: the offerings to Lord Cui are said to be unmatched, and the next sentence calls the twenty-fourth the busiest of all. Meng then spends his detail on the second. The eve is built almost entirely from state offices: palace workshops, the Calligraphy and Art Bureau, the two music units, the banquet office. What they send is playthings and horse tack, listed by type and all called exquisite; the text does not say how these are used at the temple, and it names no rite performed to the god beyond incense and entertainment. A twenty-four-round order of cups gives the night a fixed program.
2. The race for the first incense, and a day of acts.
至二十四日夜五更，爭燒頭爐香，有在廟止宿、夜半起以爭先者。天曉，諸司及諸行百姓獻送甚多。其社火呈於露臺之上，所獻之物，動以萬數。自早呈拽百戲，如上竿、趯弄、跳索、相撲、鼓板、小唱、鬥雞、說諢話、雜扮、商謎、合笙、喬筋骨、喬相撲、浪子雜劇、叫果子、學像生、倬刀裝鬼、砑鼓、牌棒、道術之類，色色有之，至暮呈拽不盡。
By the fifth watch of the night of the twenty-fourth, people vie to burn the first incense in the censer; some stay overnight at the temple and rise at midnight to be first. At dawn the various offices, the trade guilds and the common people bring offerings in great numbers. Their festival troupes perform on the open terrace, and the offerings are counted by the ten thousand. From early morning they stage and draw out a hundred entertainments: pole-climbing, leaping play, rope-skipping, wrestling, clapper-and-drum, light songs, cockfighting, comic patter, mixed-costume skits, riddle-guessing, ensemble reed-organ playing, feigned acrobatics, mock wrestling, rogue-style variety plays, fruit-sellers’ cries, imitations of living types, knife-tossing and ghost impersonation, drum-burnishing, shield-and-staff, Daoist conjuring and the like. Every kind is there, and by dusk they have still not finished. (Translations of individual act names are provisional.)
The day is handed from individuals to institutions. The night belongs to a race for the first incense, with devotees sleeping at the temple to win it. At dawn the offices and the guilds arrive and the terrace becomes a performance floor, with the offerings counted in the ten-thousands. The list that follows is a catalogue of acts and nothing more: twenty names, none described, closed by “every kind is there” and by the statement that the program cannot be completed before dark. The text does not say who judges, who pays or who sits where.
3. Two poles and the people who climb them.
殿前兩幡竿，高數十丈，左則京城所，右則修內司，搭材分占，上竿呈藝解。或竿尖立橫木，列於其上，裝神鬼，吐煙火，甚危險駭人。至夕而罷。
Before the hall stand two banner poles, several tens of zhang high. On the left the Capital Office, on the right the Palace Repair Office, their timber-raising crews divide the poles between them, climbing to show their skills. Sometimes a crossbar is set at the tip of a pole and performers line up along it, dressed as gods and demons, spitting smoke and fire, which is very dangerous and frightening to see. It ends at evening.
The last paragraph is the one place in the entry where two named offices are set against each other, one for the city and one for the palace, each with a pole. Their “timber-raising” crews are scaffold builders, which suggests that municipal building skill is being shown as entertainment. The height, tens of zhang, is hard to take literally, and the passage ends on the one judgment of danger in the entry. “It ends at evening” is the whole closing statement; the text records no outcome, prize or accident.
Three places where the list or the sentence is open.
The offerings to Lord Cui are said to be unmatched (無盛如此); then the second birthday is called the busiest of all. The page keeps both claims and does not try to reconcile them.
The reference edition prints these four graphs without a break, as one item. The page keeps that, though two acts, knife-tossing and ghost impersonation, are also possible.
The Siku scan has 趯弄, “leaping play”; the reference edition prints 躍弄. Both denote a leap, and the page keeps the Siku graph.
A deity styled with a prefect’s title; the text gives only his birthday and the offerings.
The god of Guankou, called by the familiar title Erlang (“Second Son”); the text gives his birthday and temple only.
The name the temple received by imperial decree; it stands about a li outside the Wansheng Gate.
A court music unit named alongside the Jiaofang (Music Bureau); the text says nothing more about it.
The festival troupes and displays brought by offices and guilds; here they perform on the open terrace.
Scaffold-building crews belonging to the two offices, who divide the two poles between them.
Entry 63 describes a temple day in which the god barely appears. The court supplies toys and music, the banquet office supplies the night’s cups, and the offices and the guilds fill the terrace with acts until two poles close the day. The next entry steps out of the temple and back into the street, where heat, not a god, sets the calendar.
或竿尖立橫木，列於其上，裝神鬼，吐煙火，甚危險駭人。The sequence is Meng’s. The punctuation is editorial.
The primary text is read from the Siku-family witness (Kanripo KR2k0111, 卷八); punctuation and the standardization of Siku variant glyphs are editorial. The list of acts is punctuated after the reference edition; the translations of its names are provisional.