As soon as Tang Xianzu's "Peony Pavilion" came out, it produced a sensational effect, and the people from the north and south competed to stage it, reciting it from family to household, and "several times the price of the West Wing was reduced". The story of Du Liniang's death for love and returning the soul for love has made some young girls in the boudoir have a strong resonance, and even used their lives to continue to write various kinds of sadness outside the story of "Peony Pavilion".
The Ming Dynasty Shen Zhan wrote "Li Xiaoyun Language" recorded: "A woman in Neijiang, self-effacing and talented, not lightly allowing people, reading the "Book of Returning the Soul" (that is, "Peony Pavilion") and pleasing it, went straight to the West Lake to visit Yan, and was willing to offer a broom. The young girl, who was very confident in her talent, offered to marry Tang Xianzu, but Tang did not meet with her, saying that her old age was not compatible with it. The young girl did not believe it, and went directly to Tang Xianzu, who was entertaining guests by the West Lake, and saw that he was indeed old and weak, and he threw himself into the water and died in disappointment.
In the Qing Dynasty, Zou Tao's "Three Borrowings of Lu Pen Talk" records that Jin Fengdian, a woman in Yangzhou in the Ming Dynasty, suffered from lovesickness after reading "Peony Pavilion", and to the book Tang Xianzu "wished to be a talented woman". In ancient times, transportation was inconvenient and the postal route was blocked, and when Tang Xianzu received this letter half a year later, Jin Fengdian had already died of depression. The story is not true or false, but it was later written into lyrics and sung to this day.
The two women seem to have died for their idol, Tang Xianzu, but in fact, these tragic stories reflect the strong social impact of "Peony Pavilion" - those talented and emotionally rich deep girls who cried out in despair to that society because of their inability to marry autonomously.
Many essays and dramas record people's love for "Peony Pavilion", and some people even have uncontrollable emotions and deeply integrate themselves into it. "Essay on mothwood hall in the stone room" records that there is a drama actor In Hangzhou, Shang Xiaoling, who is particularly good at acting in "Peony Pavilion". Whenever Du Liniang's "dream hunting" and "noisy scene" are played, Shang Xiaoling seems to be in the middle of it, and her lingering and poignant feelings always make her tears stain and can't sustain herself. One day, when Shang Xiaoling performed "Looking for Dreams" and sang to "Wait for the incense soul to be a rainy plum day, keep a Megan to meet", she suddenly fell to the ground and died of exhaustion.
According to some Ming Dynasty notes, Feng Xiaoqing, a talented woman in Yangzhou, was sold to a merchant as a concubine and was not tolerated by the eldest wife and was devastated. In the night when the shadows were hanging, Feng Xiaoqing often read "Peony Pavilion" to dispatch himself, and before he died, he left a deep poem: "The cold rain and the window cannot be heard, pick the lamp and idly look at the peony pavilion." There are also people in the world who are as delusional as me, and it is XiaoQing who is sad alone. It was her groan of pain under the unreasonable institution of marriage. Feng Xiaoqing married at the age of 16, died early at the age of 18, and was buried at the foot of West Lake Mountain in Hangzhou after his death, with the tombstone inscribed "Tomb of the Ming Poet XiaoqingNuShi".
And so on.
"Peony Pavilion" is an immortal work, its story is pure fiction, but the related stories that happened after the work came out are mostly real. Tang Xianzu wrote in the inscription of "Peony Pavilion", "Love does not know what to do, always deep", these stories about love, whether fictional or real, every time they are read, they are lamentable.
(The author affiliation is the Education Bureau of Macheng City, Hubei Province)
China Teachers Daily, June 14, 2017, 16th edition