Cù Húlu 醋葫蘆
The Vinegar Gourd by 西子湖伏雌教 (撰)
About the work
Cù Húlu 醋葫蘆 (The Vinegar Gourd) is a short vernacular novel (xiǎoshuō 小說) of 20 huí attributed to a pen name rendered “Xīzǐ Hú Fúcí Jiào” 西子湖伏雌教 — literally “The Teaching of Submission to the Female, from the West-Lake.” The identity behind this pen name is unknown. The title is a comic metaphor for jealousy: the “vinegar gourd” (cù húlu 醋葫蘆) is a figurative term for a jealous wife, derived from the common phrase “to eat vinegar” (chī cù 吃醋, to feel jealous). The novel centers on the household of Chéng Yuánwài 成員外, a man tormented by his violently jealous wife, Dū shì 都氏 (Madam Dū), who tyrannizes her husband with fanatical jealousy. Her machinations — elaborate schemes to prevent Chéng from taking a concubine, her abuse of household members, and her eventual supernatural punishment — drive the 20-chapter narrative. The preface, written from the perspective of a sympathetic observer of women’s circumstances, paradoxically critiques feminine jealousy as destructive while also acknowledging the asymmetrical social position that provokes it.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
Cù Húlu belongs to the sub-genre of Qīng fiction concerned with domestic jealousy (chī cù tí cái 吃醋題材), a tradition that includes the earlier Míng work Shī Hǒu jì 獅吼記 (based on the story of Chén Zào 陳遭 and his wife, adapted in Su Shi’s prose-poem) and the comic tale Pà Pó 怕婆. The preface — signed by Xīzǐ Hú Fúcí Jiào — explicitly invokes these predecessors (“前有《獅吼》，繼有《怕婆》”), positioning Cù Húlu as a third entry in a comedy-of-jealousy series. The twenty chapters trace the full arc of Dū shì’s jealous career, from her prevention of her husband taking a second wife, to supernatural retribution and the family’s eventual moral resolution. The novel has a carnivalesque moral structure: jealousy is shown as cosmically offensive (妒氣觸怒于天庭, “jealous rage offends the Heavenly Court”), while virtue and male patience are vindicated in the final chapters.
Dating the novel with precision is difficult. The earliest datable witnesses to the text are mid-Qīng editions; no Míng imprints have been identified. The pen name and the preface’s geographical reference to the West Lake (Xī Hú 西湖, i.e., Hángzhōu 杭州) suggest a Jiāngnán provenance. Internal references to “前有《獅吼》” place the work after the Míng dramatization of that story; the style and vocabulary are consistent with a composition date in the late Shùnzhì to Qiánlóng period (ca. 1650–1750), and this bracket is used here. The author is otherwise unknown.
Translations and research
Lévy, André. 1981. Inventaire analytique et critique du conte chinois en langue vulgaire. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises. Includes an entry on this work.
No substantial secondary literature in English located.