The Tears of Lady Meng

I just finished reading a book entitled The Tears of Lady Meng: A Parable of people's political theology by C.S. Song published by Orbis Books in 1981. In the pages of this book, I found something very interesting about love. I'll quote some excerpts here...

The book started with this Chinese folktale:

This happened in the reign of the wicked, unjust Emperor Ch'in Shih Huang-ti. He was afraid at this time that the Huns would break into the country from the north and not leave him any peace.

In order to keep them in check, he decided to build a wall along the whole northern frontier of China. But no sooner was one piece built than another fell down, and the wall made no progress.

Then a wise (!) man said to him: "A wall like this, which is over ten thousand miles long, can be built only if you immure a human being in every mile of the wall. Each mile will then have its guardian." It was easy for the Emperor to follow this advice, for he regarded his subjects as so much grass and weeds, and the whole land began to tremble under this threat.

Plans were then made for human sacrifice in great numbers. At the last minute "an ingenious scholar" suggested to the Emperor that it would be sufficient to sacrifice a man called Wan "since Wan means ten thousand." Soldiers were dispatched at once to seize Wan who was sitting with his bride at the wedding feast. He was carried off by the heartless soldiers, leaving Lady Meng, his bride, in tears.

Eventually, heedless of the fatigues of the journey, she travelled over mountains and through rivers to find the bones of her husband. When she saw the stupendous wall she did not know how to find the bones.

There was nothing to be done, and she sat down and wept.

Her weeping so affected the wall that it collapsed and laid bare her husband's bones.

When the Emperor heard of Meng Chiang and how she was seeking her husband, he wanted to see her himself. When she was brought before him, her unearthly beauty so struck him that he decided to make her Empress. She knew she could not avoid her fate, and therefore agreed on three conditions.

First, a festival lasting forty-nine days should be held in honour of her husband; second, the Emperor, with all his officials, should be present at the burial; and third, he should build a terrace forty-nine feet high on the bank of the river, where she wanted to make a sacrifice to her husband...Ch'in Shih Huang-ti granted all her requests at once.

When everything was ready she climbed on to the terrace and began to curse the Emperor in a loud voice for all his cruelty and wickedness. Although this made the Emperor very angry, he held his peace.

But when she jumped from the terrace into the river, he flew into a rage and ordered his soldiers to cupt up her body into little pieces and grind her bones to powder.

When they did this, the little pieces changed into little silver fish, in which the soul of faithful Meng Chiang lives forever.