Jīnpíngméi 金瓶梅
Gold Vase Plum (The Plum in the Golden Vase) anonymous
About the work
Jīnpíngméi 金瓶梅 is one of the greatest novels of the Ming dynasty, attributed in the earliest sources to the pseudonymous “Lánlíng Xiàoxiào Shēng” 蘭陵笑笑生 (Scoffing Scholar of Lanling). The Kanripo entry KR4k0216 preserves a fragment of approximately 2,818 lines, comprising the famous preface by Dōngwú Nòngzhū Kè 東吳弄珠客 and the opening chapter. It does not contain the full text of this 100-huí 回 novel. The full text in Chinese has been separately edited in modern critical editions; the Kanripo corpus does not appear to hold a complete copy under a different identifier.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The Kanripo fragment opens with the famous preface by 東吳弄珠客 Dōngwú Nòngzhū Kè, one of the most-cited paratext documents in Chinese literary history. The preface characterizes the novel as a “filthy book” (huì shū 穢書) that nevertheless serves as a moral warning, and famously ranks readers by their response: “One who reads Jīnpíngméi and feels compassion is a Bodhisattva; one who feels fear is a gentleman; one who feels delight is a petty person; one who feels the urge to imitate is a beast” (讀金瓶梅而生憐憫心者，菩薩也；生畏懼心者，君子也；生歡喜心者，小人也；生傚法心者，乃禽獸耳). Following the preface, the text runs through the novel’s opening chapter (第一回 西門慶熱結十弟兄 武二郎冷遇親哥嫂), including the two famous warning poems — one attributed to Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓 — and the extended philosophical preamble on the dangers of wealth and sex.
The Jīnpíngméi was composed in the late Wànlì period of the Míng dynasty; Wilkinson (§31.2.1) gives the earliest extant printed edition as 1617–18. The identity of the author remains unknown despite centuries of conjecture; the name Lánlíng Xiàoxiào Shēng has never been conclusively linked to any historical person. The novel is set in a pharmacy in the canal town of Línqīng 臨清 in Shandong and centers on the merchant Xīmén Qìng 西門慶, his household of six wives and concubines, and the complex social world around them. It represents a landmark in the development of realistic prose fiction, with an encyclopedic range of social observation, and contains approximately 800 named characters (Wilkinson).
The Dōngwú Nòngzhū Kè preface is the earliest significant critical document on the novel and exists in two slightly variant forms in the cíhuà 詞話 and xiùxiàng 繡像 recensions. Its appearance here identifies the Kanripo fragment as belonging to the cíhuà tradition (the Wànlì 萬曆 recension). The full novel in either recension is a primary source for Ming social and material history, legal culture, commercial practice, and vernacular language — the Jīnpíngméi cídiǎn 金瓶梅詞典 (Bai Weiguo 白維國, ed., Zhonghua, 1991) documents its extensive dialect vocabulary.
For the sequels to this novel preserved in the Kanripo corpus, see KR4k0217 (Sān Xù Jīnpíngméi 三續金瓶梅) and KR4k0218 (Xù Jīnpíngméi 續金瓶梅).
Translations and research
- Roy, David Tod, tr. The plum in the golden vase, or, Chin P’ing Mei. 5 vols. Princeton University Press, 1993–2013. The definitive English translation, meticulously annotated.
- Bai Weiguo 白維國, ed. Jīnpíngméi cídiǎn 金瓶梅詞典. Zhonghua, 1991. Dictionary of the novel’s dialect vocabulary.
- Huang Lin 黃霖 et al., eds. Jīnpíngméi jiǎnshǎng cídiǎn 金瓶梅鑒賞詞典. Rev. edn. Shanghai cishu, 2008 (1987).
- Chang, Han-liang. 1990. Article on traditional reading of the novel. (Cited in Wilkinson.)
- McMahon, Keith. Misers, shrews and polygamists. Duke University Press, 1995.
Other points of interest
The opening philosophical meditation on wealth and sex (cái 財 and sè 色), culminating in the Buddhist equation of all worldly goods with funeral objects, is one of the most artfully constructed preambles in Chinese fiction, deploying the Jīngāng jīng 金剛經 (Diamond Sutra) formula “如夢幻泡影，如電復如露” (like a dream, illusion, bubble, shadow; like lightning and like dew) to frame the entire novel as a Buddhist cautionary tale. This framing device directly inspired the sequels KR4k0218 and KR4k0217.
Links
- Wikipedia: Jin Ping Mei
- Wikidata: Q465600