A summary of the main content of the "Legend of the White Snake

The legend takes place in Hangzhou, Suzhou and Zhenjiang during the Song Dynasty. Bai Suzhen, a snake demon with a thousand years of cultivation, took human form to repay Xu Xian, a scholar, for saving her life in his previous life. Bai Suzhen exerted her magic power and trickery to meet Xu Xian and married him.

After the marriage, Fa Hai, a monk from Jinshan Temple, told Xu Xian that Bai Suzhen was a snake demon, and Xu Xian was skeptical. Later, Xu Xian followed Fahai's advice and made Bai Suzhen drink wine with Xionghuang at the Dragon Boat Festival, and Bai Suzhen had to show her original form, but Xu Xian was scared to death. Bai Suzhen went to the heaven to steal the herb Ganoderma lucidum to bring Xu Xian back to life.

Fa Hai lured Xu Xian to the Jinshan Temple and put him under house arrest. Bai Suzhen and Xiao Qing fought with Fa Hai and flooded the temple, but hurt other living beings. After giving birth to her child, she was put under the mantle of Fahai and suppressed under the Leifeng Pagoda. Later, Bai Suzhen's son grew up and won the Scholarship, and went to the pagoda to sacrifice his mother, rescuing her and reuniting the family.

Expanded Information

The Legend of the White Snake seems to be a household story today, and the love story of the White Snake and Xu Xuan has always been a topic of endless talk. Under the pen of more and more editors, the story is constantly changing and developing. After centuries of accumulation, it has become one of the four famous folk legends in China.

Early in the Tang Gu Shenzi "Bo Yi Zhi" in a short story called "Li Juan", wrote Longxi man Li Juan and the appearance of a beautiful woman in white cohabitation for three days, but after returning to the body full of fishy, "heavy head spinning," "although the mouth language, but feel that the bottom of the body is gradually disappearing. Uncovered by the view, empty water only, but only the head to survive."

The family went to look for the white woman's house, but they saw an empty garden with a lonely tree, and when they asked the neighbors, they saw a big white snake coming and going under the tree. At the end of this article, there is another story, which says that Li Koon, the son of a government official, had a relationship with a woman in plain clothes, and died of a brain fracture after returning to his home.

The family went to the place where he had stayed the day before to check, but they saw a large snake coiled in a dead acacia tree. They cut down the tree and found several small white snakes. These two stories have the first glimpse of the white snake, but the stories are just to illustrate the theme of demons harming people.

The prototype of the real "Legend of the White Snake" was the Ming Dynasty's Hong (2)'s "Record of the Three Pagodas of West Lake," a Song and Yuan dynasty playbook. It was written during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong Chunxi of the Song Dynasty, when Xi Xuanzan married a woman in white who had been transformed by the White Snake Spirit, and was later victimized by her, but fortunately was saved by Xi Zhenzhen, and the three demons were suppressed under the Three Pagodas of the West Lake.

The male protagonist in the book is a native of Lin'an, with a name similar to that of Xu Xuanzan, and the woman in white is changed by the white snake, and she has companions, all of whom are suppressed under the pagodas of the West Lake, which is a clear connection with the later story of the White Snake.

The further development of the White Snake story was in the Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Dynasty, Feng Menglong's "A Cautionary Tale", a collection of words called "The White Snake Forever Suppresses the Leifeng Pagoda", tells a much more complex and richer story of the White Snake than before. There are episodes such as swimming in a lake and borrowing an umbrella, betting on an alliance and giving away silver, court hearing and dispatching, and giving away a talisman to drive away the road, etc. At the same time, numerous characters have been portrayed, and the characters of the main characters, such as the White Snake and Xu Xu Xuan, have been prominent.

While the White Lady has not yet lost her demonic spirit, she is already a righteous demon who boldly pursues love and happiness. Xu Xuan, on the other hand, is a vulgar, cowardly commoner, timid and weak, forming a strong contrast with the White Lady. This storybook depicts the conflict between the White Snake and Xu Xuan, and lays a good foundation for the further evolution and development of the White Snake story.

The earliest opera production of the story of the White Snake that can be seen today is the Leifeng Pagoda saga engraved by Huangtu Gembay's Guanshange. This book was written in the Yongqian period of the Qing Dynasty, inheriting the characterization of the White Lady in the book, and focusing on depicting the White Lady's persistent pursuit of love. And more coloring of the white lady's tenderness and sentimentality, to a large extent, weakened the white lady's demonic spirit.

But from the point of view of the whole play, he still holds the concept of feudal orthodoxy, and denies the marriage of the White Lady, which is not in accordance with the law. From the beginning of the play, it is clear that he preached that the marriage of Xu and Bai had been fixed by heaven and could not be undone by human power.

He also strongly opposed the folk artists in the play to increase the "birth of the first" and other episodes, in the "Guanyan performance of the Leifeng Pagoda Legend - Guide", said: "White Niang, snake demon, and into the ranks of the clothes, will be placed on their own in the evil?" This passage is very revealing that in the author's heart, the White Lady is still a demon.

In the middle of the Qianlong period, there appeared the old copy of the Leifeng Pagoda and the Water and Bamboo Residence Leifeng Pagoda, two more important books. The old Liyuan copy was earlier than the Shui Zhu Ju copy, which is rumored to be the performance copy of Chen Jiayan and his daughter.

Shui Zhu Ju Ben is Fang Cheng Pei's rewrite of the old copy of the Liyuan book, which refers to the Liyuan book and adds Duan Yang, Seeking Grass, Shui Dou, Broken Bridge, and Hopping Bowls, which established the tragic conflict of the Leifeng Pagoda saga. And with its tragic depth and uniqueness, conquered the majority of the audience.

With the deepening of the tragic conflict, the image of several characters in Fangben also changed greatly. In particular, in several plays such as "Duan Yang", "Shui Dou", "Seeking Grass" and "Broken Bridge", which depict the White Lady's yearning and pursuit of an ideal life, the character is more profound than that of the Huang Ben. She has become a snake fairy in pursuit of a happy life.

Faced with powerful forces of persecution, her revolt ends in failure despite its great impact. The destruction of the White Fairy in her pursuit of beauty and her revolt against ugliness constitutes her tragic character. This is also an important reason why the Leifeng Pagoda saga can be passed down to this day and still has a touching power.

Objectively speaking, Fang Ben is one of the more complete and outstanding of the many Leifeng Pagoda dramas. He said in the "Leifeng Pagoda Legend - Preface", he thought the old book "rhetoric despicable tune pseudo", so "heavy for the more finalized, the words and ideas, quite a lot of management, to make sure that there is a way to benefit the world to return to the elegant and correct." He did a good job of scraping and polishing this folklore, making this tragic story of love between a man and a god a household name.

In addition, the Thunder Peak Treasure Scroll of the late Qing Dynasty explains for the first time the predestined destiny as stated in various talking books or legends of the previous generations in an understandable and thorough manner. Only because 1,700 years ago, a small white snake dying under the beggar's knife, was bought by Xu Xuan's previous life to release, the white snake is therefore going to repay the favor, and Xu Xuan has a husband and wife.

Shakyamuni Buddha forces the white snake to swear that if anything goes wrong, he is willing to suffer from suppression. The treasure scroll adds this beginning, giving the impression at the outset that there is a magical force in the underworld manipulating the tragic fate of White Snake and Xu Xuan.

But it would be oversimplifying to see the Thunderbolt Scroll only as an expression of heavenly numbers and karma. There is also an ethical element in it. In the first part of the book, White Snake and Xu Xuan write, "Husband and wife love each other like fish and water, and a family's happiness is worth a thousand pieces of gold". In the middle of the book, a section about stealing grass to save her husband is inserted, which also shows that "since then, the couple has been in harmony, and the husband and wife have been singing and following each other with great affection".

And the section of "The Bowl" describes the pain of parting of husband and wife, mother and child, and the theme is still ethics. Later, Xu Mengjiao wrote a tower, recognize his father, the gold list, and other episodes, and finally rescued his mother, "the husband became a Buddha to his wife became a fairy". In this way, the upper volume is written about the love of husband and wife, and the lower volume is written about the love of filial piety, and the family ethics is fully and powerfully embodied, which is what the treasure volume really wants to express.

In terms of novels, the "Leifeng Strange Traces" of the West Lake Tales signed by Guwu Mo Rangzi and the two tales of the White Snake compiled by Shen Shuji, the "Leifeng Pagoda Strange Traces" by the master of Yushan during the Jiaqing period, as well as the "White Snake Tales Before and After Collection" by the master of the Dreaming Flower Pavilion, and the novel "Legend of the White Snake" by the famous writer Zhang Henshui, were all the developments and evolutions of the story of the White Snake.

Thirteen chapters of Master Yushan's Leifeng Pagoda of the Qing Dynasty were written for "posterity", as Wu Bingwen said in his preface, but the author's attitude towards the White Snake's quest for love and a happy life was positive, as shown in the text. So in the end, the author still wrote a beautiful ending of "the yellow list of fame shook the golden street, and the flower candle family reunion".

As for the "White Snake Chronicles Before and After" by the master of the Dream Flower Pavilion in the Qing Dynasty, it was completely changed from a moving folk tale to a full-length novel of gods and monsters.

The author stated the main idea at the beginning of the first book: "The original intention of the book is to say that one should not be ungrateful after being a human being, and that even a demon has to repay the kindness of his past life in order to be able to cultivate the fruits of Taoism and be ranked in the class of immortals", and borrowed a line from "University": "It is possible to be a human being but not as good as a bird" to illustrate the writing of the book. " line, indicating the purpose of its writing.

Today's opera script "The Legend of the White Snake" was mainly compiled and adapted by Mr. Tian Han, a famous modern dramatist, based on Fang Chengpei's opera script "Leifeng Pagoda". The play directly brings White Snake and Green Snake to the earth, deleting such episodes as "Xu Shilin's sacrifice to the pagoda" and "Bai Suzhen's conversion to Buddhism", and only hinting at the collapse of the Leifeng Pagoda in the epilogue that the White Snake was rescued.

In the section of "Opening a Medicine Shop", the White Lady is accounted for her practice of medicine, treating the sick and saving people, and the "theft of silver from the government treasury" and "theft of clothing" are removed, which damages the image of the White Lady, making the reader feel more comfortable with her. The contents of the book make the readers feel that the White Lady is more approachable.

The Leifeng Pagoda has flourished on the theater stage since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, and has never ceased to be performed over the past two centuries, with the Peking Opera and the Sichuan Opera leading the way, the story of "The Legend of the White Snake" has never ceased to flourish on the stage. Various local theaters also continue to stage famous plays such as "Waterfight" and "Broken Bridge".

In short, from the Song and Yuan dynasties to the Leifeng Pagoda legend, and then to the various local dramas "The Legend of the White Snake" and literati novels, the story of "The Legend of the White Snake" has gone through thousands of refinements and continuous development and enrichment, and it has reached a very high level in terms of ideology and art, and it has become an important repertoire in the history of China's operatic development.

Baidu Encyclopedia - The Tale of the White Snake