top of page
Writer's pictureRachelle

An Omen on a Moonlit Night

《唐餘錄》:廬樞為建州刺史,月夜聞堂西階下若有人語笑聲,躡足窺之,見七八人,長不盈尺,雜坐飲酒,久之,席中一人曰:“今夕甚樂,但白老將至,奈何?”因歎叱。須臾,皆入陰溝中不見。後數日罷郡,新政家有貓名曰白老。既至,自堂西階地下獲鼠七八枚,皆殺之。

According to the Records of the Tang Remainder,[1] Lu Shu was the prefect of Jianzhou. On a moonlit night, [he] heard sounds of talking and laughing near the western steps of the front room. [He] tiptoed over there and took a peep: seven or eight people, each not even a foot in height, were sitting about, drinking wine. After a while, one of them said, “What a lovely evening! Yet Old White is about to come. What shall we do?” [The party] went into a chorus of sighs and curses at these words. A few moments later, [they] all went into the gutter and disappeared. A few days later, Lu Shu was dismissed from the county. The new prefect had a house cat called “Old White”. After their arrival, [the cat] seized seven or eight mice from below the western steps and killed them all.


*From Wang Chutong 王初桐 (1729-1821) ed., Mao sheng 貓乘 (Historia Felum) 1.2a: https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&file=35233&page=7.


[1] This is a now-lost history of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-979) compiled by Wang Gao 王皞 (fl. 11th century). It was one of Ouyang Xiu's 歐陽修 (1007-1072) key sources when he compiled the Xin Wudaishi 新五代史 (New History of the Five Dynasties).


Detail of "Linu tu" 貍奴圖, hanging scroll by Wang Li 王禮 (fl. 18th century)

Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art


 

Copyright Declaration*:

The texts and images used on the website of Rachelle's Lab are either from the public domain (e.g. Wikipedia), databases with open data licenses (e.g. Shuhua diancang ziliao jiansuo xitong 書畫典藏資料檢索系統, National Palace Museum, Taipei), online libraries that permit reasonable use (e.g. ctext.org), or original work created for this website.

Although fair use of the website for private non-profit purposes is permitted, please note that the website of Rachelle's Lab and its content (including but not limited to translations, blog posts, images, videos, etc.) are protected under international copyright law. If you want to republish, distribute, or make derivative work based on the website content, please contact me, the copyright owner, to get written permission first and make sure to link to the corresponding page when you use it.


版權聲明: 

本站所使用的圖片,皆出自公有領域(如維基)、開放數據庫(如臺北故宮博物院書畫典藏資料檢索系統)、允許合理引用的在線圖書館(如中國哲學電子化計劃)及本人創作。本站允許對網站內容進行個人的、非營利性質的合理使用。但請注意,本站及其內容(包括但不限於翻譯、博文、圖像、視頻等)受國際版權法保護。如需基於博客內容進行出版、傳播、製作衍生作品等,請務必先徵求作者(本人)書面許可,并在使用時附上本站鏈接,註明出處。

 

*Read more about copyright and permission here.


0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comentários


bottom of page