袁枚 Yuan Mei (1716-1796)
Zibuyu 子不語
11 卷十一
19
Topic 7 City God, Ledger, Case
冤鬼戲台告狀 A Ghost with a Grievance Complains on Stage
冤鬼戲台告狀
乾隆年間,廣東三水縣前搭台演戲。一日,演《包孝肅斷烏盆》。淨方扮孝肅上台坐,見有披髮帶傷人跪台間作申冤狀,淨驚起避之,台下人相與嘩然,其聲達於縣署。縣令某著役查問,淨以所見對。縣令傳淨至,囑淨:「仍如前裝上台,如再有所見,可引至縣堂。」
淨領命行事,其鬼果又現。淨云:「我係偽作龍圖,不若我帶汝赴縣堂,求官申冤。」鬼首肯之。淨起,鬼隨之至堂。令詢淨:「鬼何在?」淨答:「鬼已跪墀下。」令大聲喚之,毫無見聞。令怒,欲責淨。淨見鬼起立外走,以手作招勢。淨稟令,令即著淨同皂役二名尾之,視往何處滅,即志其處。淨隨鬼野行數里,見入一塚中:塚乃邑中富室王監生葬母處。淨與皂將竹枝插地志之,回縣覆令。
令乘輿往觀,傳王監生嚴訊。監生不認,請開墓以明己冤。令從之。至墓,開未二三尺,即見一屍,顏色如生。令大喜,問監生。監生呼冤,云:「其時送葬人數百,共觀下土,並無此屍。即有此屍,必不能盡掩眾口,數年來何默默無聞,必待此淨方白耶?」令韙其言,復問:「汝視封土畢歸家否?」監生曰:「視母棺下土後即返家,以後事皆土工為之。」令笑曰: 「得之矣。速喚眾土工來!」見其狀貌凶惡,喝曰:「汝等殺人事發覺矣,毋庸再隱!」眾土工大駭,叩頭曰:「王監生歸家後,某等皆歇茅蓬下,有孤客負囊來乞火,一夥伴覺其囊中有銀,與眾共謀殺而瓜分之,即舉鐵鋤碎其首,埋王母棺上,加土填之,竟夜而成塚。王監生喜其速成,復厚賞之,並無知者。」令乃盡致之法。
相傳眾工埋屍時自誇云:「此事難明白,如要得申冤,除非龍圖再世。」鬼聞此言,故籍淨扮龍圖時,便來申冤云。
English
A Ghost with a Grievance Complains on Stage
coming soon
Deutsch
Ein Geist beschwert sich auf der Bühne
in Bearbeitung
Translation into English and German, unless otherwise indicated, by:
Übersetzungen ins Englische und Deutsche, soweit nicht anders angegeben, von:
Teresa Johnson, Ph.D.
Topics
In a corpus of ca. 3100 stories from the strange tales collections Zibuyu, Xu Zibuyu, Yuewei caotangbiji, Liaozhai zhiyi, Yetan suilu, Ershilu and Xieduo an LDA-based topic modeling algorithm was asked to identify exactly 50 topics. The algorithm calculated the probability of each of the 50 topics to appeaer in each of the stories. Below are given the Top 5 topics in decending order of their probabilities for the story above. Probabilities are indicated with percentage numbers.
Locations
Placenames have been manually extracted from the story content.
