%Menota_entities;] > The Dream of Gong Yu Hong Mai 洪邁 Transcription by Likun Yang Translation by Likun Yang Encoded in TEI P5 XML by Jordan Rosen-Kaplan Global Medieval Sourcebook

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This story is one of five in the Global Medieval Sourcebook to have been selected from the Yijian Zhi (or Record of the Listener, hereafter the Record) by Hong Mai (1123-1202). Like many well-educated men in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), Hong Mai grew up in a prominent family, passed the civil service examination, and obtained a post in the imperial government. However, due to misconduct during a diplomatic mission, his career came to an abrupt end. From then on, he retreated to his study and devoted himself to writing the Record.

The corpus of the Record originally consisted of 420 chapters. What we have today, however, is but a small fraction of the original text. The Record shows a remarkable degree of accuracy when we compare it with the official documents and other texts of the same period. Nevertheless, many stories in the Record are outright fictitious or based on highly unreliable sources. The Record preserved much information about the society, culture and religion of the Southern Song Dynasty and was a source of inspiration for generations of writers after Hong Mai. Writers in late imperial China, for instance, took up many stories in the Record and refashioned them into stories that met the demands and expectations of their own times.

Allen, Sarah M. Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series. Harvard University Asia Center, 2014. Explores the tale literature of eighth- and ninth-century China to show how the written tales we have today grew out of a fluid culture of hearsay that circulated within elite society. Contains a chapter that explains the modern (mis)understanding of the tale literature as a genre.

Hansen, Valerie. Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127-1276. Princeton UP, 1990. Uses the Yi Jian Zhi tales as historical documents and shows that social and economic developments underlay religious changes in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 - 1276).

Inglis, Alister David. Hong Mai's Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context. Suny Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. SUNY P, 2006. A comprehensive survey of the scholarship on Yi Jian Zhi.

Luo, Manling. Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China. The Modern Language Initiative. U of Washington P, 2015. Shows how the tales offer crucial insights into the reconfiguration of the Chinese elite, which monopolized literacy, social prestige, and political participation in tenth-century China.

 龔輿夢 The Dream of Gong Yu

Zhonghua Shuju edition: Hong, Mai. Yi Jian Zhi. Di 1 ban. ed. 4 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju : Xin hua shu dian Beijing fa xing suo fa xing. 1981.

"The Dream of Gong Yu" is published by The Global Medieval Sourcebook (GMS), a free, open access, and open source compendium of medieval texts in their original languages and in English translation. GMS comprises computer-readable transcriptions or editions alongside new translations of texts dating from the ninth to the sixteenth century and originating in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The GMS platform includes critical introductions as well as sources for further reading.

Transcriptions and translations are encoded in XML conforming to TEI (P5) guidelines. The original-language text is contained within <lem> tags and translations within <rdg> tags.

Texts are translated into modern American English with maximum fidelity to the original text, except where it would impair comprehension or good style. Archaisms are preserved where they do not conflict with the aesthetic of the original text. Scribal errors and creative translation choices are marked and discussed in the critical notes.

 <app> <lem wit="#Transcription">龔輿夢</lem> <rdg wit="#Translation">The Dream of Gong Yu</rdg> </app>

潭州士人龔輿, There is a literatus from Tanzhou named Gong Yu. 乾道四年冬, In the winter of the fourth year of the Dao Qian reign, 與鄉里六七人偕赴省試. he went with six or seven people from his hometown to participate in the provincial exam. 過宜春, When they passed Yi Chun, 謁仰山廟祈夢. they paid their respects to the Yangshan Monastery and prayed for dreams. 輿夢至官府, 見柱上掲紙一片, Gong Yu dreamt that he went into the government building and saw a piece of paper on the pillar of the building. 書[龔輿不得]四字, On the paper were the four characters: “Gong Yu Bu De” Meaning, “Gong Yu will not get it” were written. 而[不]字上下稍不聨接. But the upper part and the lower part of the character “Ge” were not connected. 既覺, 殊不樂, 自意必下第. When Gong Yu woke up, he was quite unhappy and thought he would fail the exam. 及春榜至, 輿中選, 餘人盡黜, When the results came out in the spring, Gong Yu was selected and the rest of his group were rejected. 始以語人, 謂夢不驗. Gong Yu began to tell people [what had happened], saying that the dream was not accurate. 好事者曰: “不字斷續如此, 乃一个也. 神言龔輿一个得耳, 豈不昭然?” His acquaintances said: “When the character ‘Ge’ is disconnected like that, it should be read as two characters ‘Yi Ge.’ The deity was saying that only Gong Yu himself could do it, isn’t that obvious?”