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Western |
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Vulpines |
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That's not what they meant... |
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Graves, roofs, and your own living room |
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Where next? |
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"I'm Done with You." Wu Lintang also told of a young man who was seduced by a fox, and though he was gradually wasting away, the fox kept coming. His energies became so depleted that finally he was not able to satisfy her when the two were in bed together. Putting on her clothes the fox made ready to depart. Much as the young man, weeping, implored her to stay, she adamantly refused. When reprimanded for her lack of feelings, the fox retorted in anger, "There are no marital obligations between us; I came for the specific purpose of getting spiritual nourishment. The cream and essence of your being has been exhausted. With nothing more to gain, why should I not go? This is like liaisons built on power and influence that are broken when there is no more power or influence. Liaisons built on wealth, too, are severed when there is no more wealth. Humans curry favour with those whose wealth and power have aroused their attention, not out of any genuine feelings. reviously didn't you ingratiate yourself with so-and-so, whom you now no longer care about? And I am being reproached!" This 18th-century story appears in Ji Yun's Random Jottings at the Cottage of Close Scrutiny. Translation: Leo Tak-hung Chan, The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts: Ji Yun and Eighteenth-Century Literati Storytelling. Honolulu: University of Hawai-i Press, 1998. Pp 203-4. |