Pigsy

T he road west ran on through a soft spring, willows trailing gold thread, peach and apricot crowding the hills, and Tang Sanzang on his white horse with one disciple at his side — Sun Wukong, lately sprung from under his mountain and not yet finished testing exactly how far his new master could be pushed. They had come a long way from heaven's execution post. By evening they reached a tidy village of good houses and walled yards, and stopped to beg a night's lodging like any pair of tired travelers, which they emphatically were not. Grass cushioned the soft hoofprints of the jade-white horse; willows swayed their golden threads, the dew fresh upon them. Peach and apricot filled the woods, vying in beauty; creeper and moss wound the path and seemed to breathe. So master and disciple traveled, and the days passed — autumn gone, winter spent, spring half over — and still they did not know in what year the journey would be done and the true scriptures won. One evening they came to a cluster of houses and meant to beg a lodging for the night.

They had walked into a household under siege. The place belonged to one Squire Gao, the richest man for miles, and the squire was a wreck. Wukong got the story out of a servant first, then out of the old man himself over tea he was too anxious to drink. Three years back a young fellow had turned up — strong, willing, a fine catch — and the squire had married him to his youngest daughter, Cuilan. For a while it was the best bargain he ever made. The lad worked like an ox, plowed without a plow, brought in the harvest with his bare hands. And then he started to change. The house belonged to Squire Gao, the wealthiest man of the place. He received them, and being asked his trouble, told it. Three years past a young man had come who said he had neither family nor home, and asked to be taken in as a son-in-law. He was given the squire's third daughter. At first he was diligent and strong — he tilled the fields without an ox and reaped the grain without a sickle. The household prospered, and the squire was well content. But after a time the man began to alter.

The handsome husband, it turned out, had a second face, and it was a pig's. A black, stout fellow at first, the squire said, lowering his voice — and then a long snout, ears like fans, a ridge of bristles down the back of his neck, a body coarse and frightful to look at, the whole head and face of a hog. He ate enough at one sitting to feed the village. He could call up a wind that flung sand and stones. And worst of all, half a year ago he had walked his bride into the back building, shut the door, and not let her out since. We do not even know, the squire said, whether the girl is still alive in there. Only there was this one thing — he could change his looks. When he first came he was a stout black fellow, but later he became a creature with a long snout and great ears, a ridge of bristles at the back of his head, his body coarse and fearful, his head and face just like a pig's. His appetite was huge — at one meal he would eat several bushels of rice. And he could summon a wind that sent stones flying and sand whirling. Half a year ago he shut my daughter away in the rear court, and from that day to this no one has seen her, and we do not know whether she lives or not.

“He wanted nothing more than to be rid of his daughter's husband. He had no idea he was about to gain a brother-in-arms instead.”

Wukong was delighted. This was the kind of errand he lived for. Leave it to me, he told the squire — and to prove he meant it, he had the old man lead him to the locked back building, took the iron rod from behind his ear, and smashed the copper-cast lock clean off the door. Inside, the daughter was pale and worn but alive. They got her out to her weeping mother, and Wukong sent the whole household to the front of the compound. Then he did the thing he does best. He shook himself, and where the Monkey King had stood there sat Cuilan — same pale face, same frightened eyes — waiting in the dark bedroom for a husband to come home. The Great Sage said, this is an easy thing; tonight I will catch him for you, and make him give back a deed of divorce, and return your daughter to you. He had the squire lead him to the rear court, and with his iron rod struck open the copper-poured lock and broke the door. Within sat the girl, frail and unkempt, and she was brought out to her mother, and the two wept together. Then the Great Sage said, do not weep; let me take her place. He told them all to withdraw, and shaking his body, changed himself into the exact likeness of the girl, and sat alone in the room to wait for the monster.

A wind came up that flung sand and rolled stones, and out of it stepped the husband — snout, ears, bristles and all. He clumped into the dark room, threw an arm around what he took to be his wife, and went in for a kiss. Wukong let him get close, then grabbed the long snout and flipped him clean onto the floor. The monster picked himself up, baffled. You're cross with me tonight, little wife, he said, rubbing his nose. Did I do something? And Wukong, still wearing her face, began, sweetly, to complain — about her father, about the gossip, about a certain monkey said to be on the road who hunts down monsters like him. Not long after, a wind arose, truly sending stones flying and sand whirling. When the wind passed, a monster came down out of the air — surely ugly to look on, with a snout and great ears. He entered the room, embraced the figure he took for his wife, and made to kiss her. The Great Sage seized his long snout and gave it a twist, throwing him to the floor. Picking himself up and leaning on the bedstead, the monster said, sister, why are you angry with me today? Is it that I came home late? The Great Sage, in the girl's voice, began to speak of her father's displeasure and her own complaints.

The monster, soft and sorry, spilled everything. He was no ordinary husband, he confessed; he was lord of the Cloud-Paths Cave on Mount Fuling, and her father had nothing to fear from his kind. He even let slip his name. Wukong wheedled a little more, then decided he had heard enough. He wiped his own face, and the girl was gone, and there in the bed sat a thunder-browed, gold-eyed monkey. The monster took one look, knew exactly what he was looking at, and bolted — leaving the very arm he had thrown around his wife clutching at nothing. The monster said, do not be vexed; though I am somewhat ugly, if your father wants a proper son-in-law I am not so bad. I keep good order in the house. My home is the Cloud-Paths Cave on Mount Fuling, and my name there is known. Talk like this is nothing to be ashamed of. Hearing all he needed, the Great Sage wiped his face and resumed his own form, and cried, monster, look up and see who I am. The monster looked, saw the Great Sage's thunderous brow and golden eyes, let go his hold, and broke away. He turned into a fierce wind and fled, and the Great Sage rode the wind after him.

The chase ended at the cave mouth, and there the monster turned and made his stand — and pulled out a weapon that was no farm tool at all. A nine-toothed rake, forged of divine metal, heavy as a hill. He swung it at Wukong's head, and the two of them went at it through the night, rake against iron rod, neither giving ground, all the way to the gray of dawn. Then the monster, winded, dove back into his cave and slammed the door, and Wukong sat down outside it to wait, which is the kind of patience even a monkey can manage when he knows the other fellow has to come out eventually. The monster fled to the Cloud-Paths Cave, brought out his weapon, and turned to fight. It was a nine-toothed rake, and he wielded it with both hands and struck at the Great Sage's face. The two of them battled there before the cave, blow upon blow, from the dark of night until the gray of dawn, and could not be parted. At last the monster's arms grew weary; he could hold out no longer, broke off the fight, fled within, and shut the stone door fast, and would not come out again.

When the fight cooled, the truth came out, and it was a heaven-fall story. The monster had not always been a pig. He had been Marshal Tianpeng, commander of the navies of the Heavenly River, an officer of the sky. Then, drunk at one of heaven's great banquets, he had reeled into the Cold Palace of the moon and laid hands on Chang'e, the moon-goddess herself. For that he took two thousand blows and was thrown out of heaven's gate to be reborn below — and even his fall went wrong. He missed his mark, dropped into the womb of a sow, and came out this — a man's mind in a hog's monstrous body. The monster said, I was not always thus. I was Marshal Tianpeng, by heaven's decree commander of the Heavenly River, in charge of all its water-hosts. Once, drunk and witless at a banquet, I staggered into the Cold Palace of the moon and behaved wildly, laying hold of the goddess Chang'e. For this my crime was judged, and I was beaten with two thousand strokes until flesh split and bone all but broke, and I was banished from the gate of heaven. Falling to the mortal world, I lost my way and entered the womb of a sow by mistake, and so came forth in this shape.

And then came the turn that drained the fight out of him entirely. He had already been found, he said. Some time back the bodhisattva Guanyin had come this way and talked to him — talked him off his diet of travelers and into a different fate. She had given him a religious name, Zhu Wuneng, Pig Awakened-to-Ability, and told him to stop eating people and wait. A pilgrim would come west to fetch the scriptures, and when he did, this pig was to drop everything and follow him, and earn his way back to heaven by the road. So when Wukong said the words — Tang Sanzang, scriptures, the journey west — the monster threw down the rake on the spot. The monster said, the Bodhisattva Guanyin once persuaded me to keep the precepts and do good, and to wait here for the pilgrim who goes to the west to fetch the scriptures; I was to follow him as his disciple and so atone for my sin and win merit. She laid her hand on my crown and gave me the precepts, and gave me the dharma name Zhu Wuneng. When the Great Sage said he was the disciple of the scripture-seeking monk of Tang, the monster was overjoyed and said, where is the holy monk? Pray take me to him. He cast down his rake at once and made his bow.

Wukong marched him back to Gao Village, where Tang Sanzang was waiting and the squire was braced for the worst. Instead the monster knelt to the monk and called him master. Sanzang, pleased and a little dazzled, looked over his new disciple — the snout, the ears, the bristles — and decided the dharma name needed company. Since you keep the fasts now, he said, and touch none of the five pungent roots nor the three forbidden meats, I will give you another name to go with it. From now you are Bajie — Eight Prohibitions. The monster bowed to it gratefully. Nobody pointed out that they had just named the hungriest creature in the world after the eight things he was forbidden to eat. The Great Sage led him back, and he bowed to Tang Sanzang and called him master. Sanzang was glad, and said, since the Bodhisattva has already given you a religious name, Wuneng, that is good. The monster said, master, the Bodhisattva also bade me eat no meat — neither the five pungent herbs nor the three forbidden flesh-meats — and so I have kept the fast since I came to this house. Sanzang said, since you do not eat the five pungent herbs and the three forbidden meats, I will give you another name, and call you Bajie, Eight Prohibitions. The monster gladly accepted it.

So the band grew. The squire, weak with relief, loaded them with thanks and saw his daughter free at last of a husband who had turned out to be a fallen admiral with a pig's face and a heart that mostly wanted dinner. The pilgrims set out west again — the timid monk on his dragon-horse, the cocky monkey with the iron rod, and now the great snouted Bajie shouldering his nine-toothed rake and falling in behind, the second disciple of a company that was beginning, against all odds, to look like a company. They had a long way still to go, and one more of them yet to find. The squire, overjoyed, set out a great feast to thank them, and gave gifts of money and silk, which Sanzang would not take, accepting only what was needful for the road. So Bajie took up his rake and his belongings and followed, and master and disciples left the Gao household and went on toward the west. Now the pilgrim had two who guarded him on the way, and they pressed forward, the road still long before them.

收豬 The original Chinese · honored as an artifact

草襯玉驄蹄跡軟，柳搖金線露華新。桃杏滿林爭豔麗，薜蘿遶徑放精神。

Opening lines, classical Chinese · Journey to the West 西遊記 · Wu Cheng'en (attrib.)