DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷十
除夕
Driving out the year.
The palace exorcism leaves by the Nanxun Gate with a thousand masked performers, households sit up around their stoves until dawn, and the book ends with the author asking that his omissions be corrected.
READ THE LAST NIGHT ↓1. The great exorcism.
至除日，禁中呈大儺儀，並用皇城親事官、諸班直，戴假面，繡畫色衣，執金槍龍旗。教坊使孟景初身品魁偉，貫全副金鍍銅甲，裝將軍。用鎮殿將軍二人，亦介胄，裝門神。教坊「南河炭」，醜惡魁肥，裝判官。又裝鍾馗小妹、土地、竈神之類，共千餘人，自禁中驅祟，出南薰門外轉龍彎，謂之「埋祟」而罷。
On the last day of the year the palace performs the great exorcism. It uses the attendants of the Imperial City and the guard units, in masks and embroidered, painted, many-colored clothes, carrying gold spears and dragon banners. The Jiaofang director Meng Jingchu, of imposing build, wears a full set of gilt bronze armor and plays the general. Two Hall-Guard Generals, also in armor, play door gods. The Jiaofang man known as “South River Charcoal,” ugly, big and fat, plays the judge. Others play Zhong Kui and his little sister, the Earth God, the Stove God and the like, a thousand and more in all. They drive out spirits from the palace, leaving by the Nanxun Gate and turning at the Dragon Bend, which is called “burying the spirits,” and then they stop.
The exorcism is recruited from two worlds. The guards and Imperial City attendants supply masks, painted clothes, gold spears and dragon banners; the Jiaofang supplies a general, a judge, and the folk-figures Zhong Kui and his sister, the Earth God and the Stove God. The only individuals the entry names are Meng Jingchu, the director who plays the general in a full set of gilt armor, and the performer called “South River Charcoal,” who plays the judge. The route is simple: out of the palace, through the Nanxun Gate, to the Dragon Bend. The ending is given as a name, “burying the spirits,” and then a verb, 罷. The Nanxun Gate is the same gate that has appeared in the outbound and returning processions of the sacrifice. Meng closes the book through it.
2. Firecrackers, shouts and the vigil.
是夜，禁中爆竹山呼，聲聞于外。士庶之家，圍爐團坐，達旦不寐，謂之「守歲」。
That night, in the palace, firecrackers and the mountain-shout rise, and the sound is heard outside. In the households of officials and commoners, people sit in a ring around the stove and do not sleep until dawn, which is called “keeping the year.”
The last image of the year has two spaces joined by sound. In the palace, firecrackers and the mountain-shout can be heard outside the walls. In ordinary households, people sit around the stove until daylight. The book does not end on a parade or a crowd; it ends on people sitting up, awake, in rings around their stoves. The name “keeping the year” is Meng’s only gloss, and he adds nothing on what the households say or eat.
3. Meng’s note: what he saw, and what he could not.
凡大禮與禁中節次，但嘗見習按，又不知果為如何，不無脫略，或改而正之，則幸甚。孟元老識。
As for the great rites and the sequences of the inner palace, I have only ever seen them in rehearsal, and I do not know how they really were, so there are bound to be omissions. If someone were to revise and correct them, that would be most fortunate. Recorded by Meng Yuanlao.
This is the one place in these six entries where Meng speaks in the first person, and what he says is a limit. For the great rites and the palace sequences he claims only to have seen rehearsals, not to know how the real events went, and expects omissions. He then invites correction. The scope he names, “the great rites and the sequences of the inner palace,” is the palace-side material, and the note says nothing about the markets and households he describes elsewhere. It is the last line of the book and carries his name.
Three readings, one of them the author’s.
The Siku scan reads 皇大儺儀; the modern edition consulted reads 呈. The page adopts 呈 (“performs the great exorcism”), since 皇 gives no sense, and flags it.
The Siku scan reads 貫金副金鍜銅甲. The modern edition reads 貫全副金鍍銅甲, “a full set of gilt bronze armor.” The page adopts that reading and flags the two substitutions, 金→全 and 鍜→鍍.
習按 is read as “rehearsal.” The page does not emend and gives no further source for the term. The note is the last text line of the Kanripo file.
The palace rite of driving out spirits on the last day of the year, performed by guards and Jiaofang players in masks and costume.
Two armored men who play the door gods in the exorcism; the same title appears among the hall guards at the New Year audience.
The nickname of the ugly, large, fat Jiaofang man who plays the judge.
The name of the act performed at the Dragon Bend outside the Nanxun Gate, after which the rite ends.
Sitting up around the stove until dawn on the last night.
What Meng says he saw of the great rites and palace sequences; the page reads it as rehearsal or practice.
Entry 86 closes the ten volumes. The palace drives out the year through the south gate with a thousand masked players, and households sit up around their stoves until daylight. Then Meng steps into the first person, in the only such line of these six entries, to say that for the great rites and the palace sequences he saw only rehearsals, that omissions are likely, and that he would welcome correction. After eighty-six entries the book stops on an admission about the limits of its author’s view.
或改而正之，則幸甚。孟元老識。The last night is Meng’s. The punctuation is editorial.
The primary text is read from the Siku-family witness (Kanripo KR2k0111, 卷十); punctuation and the standardization of Siku variant glyphs are editorial. The closing note is the last line of the Kanripo file. The readings 呈, 全 and 鍍 follow a modern edition where the Siku scan is faulty; see Text Detective.