Ritual, Legend, and Metaphor: Narratives of the Willow in Yuan Zaju

Abstract

Narratives of willow trees in Yuan zaju 雜劇, or variety play, largely come in three types, namely, the ritual performance of shooting willows; the deliverance of willow spirits by Lü Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals of Daoism; and the use of the word willow to refer to women. The willow shooting ritual depicted in Yuan zaju was highly reminiscent of the willow shooting ritual popular throughout the Song (960–1279), Liao (916–1125), Jin (1115–1234), and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties, with its conceptual origins traceable to the ancient shamanic belief in the willow as a sacred tree prevalent among the Khitans and Jurchens who lived in what is now northeastern China. The legend of Lü Dongbin delivering a willow spirit to immortality is a recurring motif in Han Chinese folklore and Daoist hagiography, which also finds expression in the iconic image of Guanyin Pusa or Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara holding a willow branch with which they cure diseases for people and bring fulfillment to their wishes. The frequent use of “willow leaf-shaped eyebrows” (liumei 柳眉) and “willow-like waist” (liuyao 柳腰) in Yuan zaju as metaphorical references to women can be seen as a continuation of the great literary tradition of Shijing 詩經 (The Book of Songs) and also as a dramatic enactment of the fertility cult of the willow and women in Chinese folk religion. Evidence abounds that the narratives about the willow in Yuan zaju were not a new creation but an artistic manifestation of centuries-old folk belief and literary tradition.

1. Introduction

It should be pointed out at the outset that the corpus of this paper on the narrative of the willow trees in Yuan zaju 雜劇 (variety play) is based on the Quan Yuan xiqu 全元戲曲 in 12 volumes, edited by Wang Jisi 王季思 (1906–1996), which is the most complete collection of plays of the Yuan dynasty ever compiled. According to the electronic version of the Quan Yuan xiqu, 28 species of trees appear in Yuan drama texts, including willow, peach, apricot, elm, mulberry, osmanthus, Chinese parasol, acacia, pomegranate, and jujube trees. Among them, the willow tree is mentioned about 2000 times,¹ and that is 1.5 times the mentions of all other kinds of trees combined. Narratives of the willow in Yuan zaju were created by 48 playwrights. According to our statistics, there are 67 known authors in Quan Yuan xiqu.² This means that, in Quan Yuan xiqu, more than 70% known playwrights had written about the willow in their works. There are three types of narratives related to the beliefs about the willow in Yuan zaju, namely, the willow shooting ritual, deities delivering willows to immortality, and willows as references to people. Many Yuan zaju plays involve narratives of willows: two plays mention the willow shooting ritual, four involve deities delivering willows to immortality, and almost half of all the Yuan zaju plays in the corpus compare willows to people (see Table 1). This phenomenon is not common in the history of Chinese literature and deserves to be explored in depth.

Unfortunately, most scholars in China and overseas regard willow narratives in Yuan zaju as literary imagery only and tend to explore the topic of willow imagery archetypes, ignoring the connection between these willow narratives and the beliefs in the Yuan context of multiethnic intermingling. For example, Zheng Wang (2013, pp. 108–15) explores the one-to-one correspondence of ritual elements (month, surroundings, and costume of shooters) between willow shooting rituals in Yuan zaju and that of the Khitans and the nobles of the Jurgens, but he does not take into account the conceptual link between narratives on willow shooting rituals in Yuan zaju and the ancient shamanic belief in the willow of the Khitans and Jurchens in present-day northeastern China. Based on the concept of ghosts, Zhao (2015, pp. 1–31) interprets the ways ghosts and deities appear on stage, the types of ghosts and deities, and the endings of ghostly figures in the narratives of deities delivering willows to immortality in Yuan zaju plays. Zhao’s focus is the view of ghosts as shown in Yuan zaju. The narratives about willows are only a case study to support his arguments. Recently, some young scholars have explored the function of the willow tree in the construction of the imagery of the back garden in Yuan zaju as well as the metaphorical function of the willow tree (Zhu 2015, pp. 48–55; Zhang 2019, pp. 32–34). However, limited to their examination of the willow tree per se, these studies have not fully demonstrated the role of the narratives of the willow in shaping the literary imagery in Yuan zaju.

In short, existing studies on narratives of the willow in Yuan zaju are not systematic and have not paid enough attention to the folkloristic implications of the narratives. To fill this lacuna, this paper explores the relationship between the narratives of the willow in Yuan zaju and folk beliefs through examining the presentation of folk beliefs about willows as shown in these works as well as the shaping force of these beliefs on the narratives of the willow. The following questions will be discussed in this paper: Why are there so many narratives on willows in Yuan zaju? What roles do these willow narratives play in Yuan zaju? What is the connection between these narratives and the beliefs about the willow in China? The tentative conclusion this paper draws is that special narratives about the willow in Yuan zaju were not a new creation of the playwrights in the Yuan dynasty but an artistic manifestation of the centuries-old folk beliefs and literary traditions against the background of cultural exchanges among multiple ethnic groups in the Yuan dynasty.

2. Narratives of Willow Shooting Rituals

Two Yuan zaju plays include scenes of willow shooting rituals, namely, Wang Shifu’s 王實甫 Lichun tang (Wang 1990, 2.324–49) and an unknown author’s Ruiwan ji (Wang 1990, 7.177–201). The play Lichun tang tells the story of Wanyan Leshan 完顏樂善, the Assistant Director of the Right in the Department of State Affairs 尚書省右丞相, and Li Gui 李圭, the deputy officer who was responsible for reward and punishment in the army of the Jin dynasty. Wanyan won a willow shooting competition against Li held in the imperial garden. When Wanyan beat won again in a second competition against Li, Li humiliated him, so Wanyan beat Li. For this, the emperor demoted Wanyan to Jinan 濟南, where he spent his days drinking and fishing. Later, Wanyan was recalled by the emperor and greeted by officials at his mansion in Zhongdu 中都. Wanyan was ordered by the emperor to have a sumptuous banquet at Lichun tang, the beautiful place in his mansion house. Li apologized to Wanyan and asked for punishment for the fault. Wanyan reconciled with Li after the latter made a public apology. In this play, the willow shooting ritual is an entertaining competitive event held at the imperial garden where the shooter can receive rich rewards.

The Ruiwan ji play is a story about how Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 identified a hero between Yan Shouma 延壽馬 and Ge Jianjun 葛監軍 (an army supervisor) by means of the willow shooting ritual. Yelü Wanhu 耶律萬戶, the Khitan general, was shot dead by Yan with an arrow in a battle, but Ge claimed it was his credit. Therefore, Fan let them compete at the willow shooting ritual held in the imperial garden. As a result, Yan shot the target, while Ge failed. Fan concluded that Yan was the hero. The willow shooting ritual in the play Ruiwan ji is a special way through which Fan could tell who the hero who shot Yelü in the battlefield was. Furthermore, it is an entertaining competitive event.

Although not penned by the same author, the two plays, Lichun tang and Ruiwan ji, portray similar scenes of willow shooting rituals. Based on their descriptions, willow shooting rituals were held at the Ruibin 蕤賓 Festival, and the location was the imperial garden. Lichun tang reads: “At the time of the Ruibin Festival, by order of the sage, all civil and military officials went to the Imperial Garden for the willow shooting” 時遇蕤賓節屆，奉聖人的命，但是文武百官都到御園中赴射柳會 (Wang 1990, 2.325). Ruiwan ji reads: “Today was the Ruibin or Double-Fifth Festival. As a convention, officials all went to the imperial garden for ball playing and willow shooting. The purpose of this event was twofold: to entertain the troops, and to accompany the Peace Banquet in the imperial garden.” 今日是五月端午蕤賓節令，御園中一來犒勞三軍，二來設一太平筵會，眾官慶賀蕤賓節令，都要打球射柳 (Wang 1990, 7.194–95).

The Ruibin Festival no longer exists today, but it is possible to establish that it is another name for the long-existing Double-Fifth Festival (Duanwu jie 端午節), which is on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Ruiwan ji directly identifies the festival as “Ruibin Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month”; Lichun tang refers to it as the Ruibin Festival. Ruibin 蕤賓 is one of the twelve ancient Chinese musical rhythms, and the rhythms correspond to the twelve lunar months and the twelve earthly branches.³ Sima Qian 司馬遷 (ca. 145 or 135 BC–86 BC) pointed out in Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian) (Sima 1959, 25.1246), “The fifth month corresponds to ruibin in the musical rhythms. The origin of the term ruibin is as follows: rui 蕤 [down] hints the lower position of the yin 陰; bin 賓 [respect] indicates the respective attitude of a guest, who is the yin [as opposed to the host as the yang].” 五月也，律中蕤賓。蕤賓者，言陰氣幼少，故曰蕤；痿陽不用事，故曰賓. According to this rule, the Ruibin Festival corresponds to the Double-Fifth Festival.

In addition, in Yuan zaju plays, the participants of the willow shooting party are the emperor and civil and military officials, and others are not eligible to partake. In Lichun tang, among the officials who participated in the willow shooting ritual, the Assistant Director of the Right in the Department of State Affairs aide 右丞相 Le Shan 樂善 and the Assistant Director of the Left in the Department of State Affairs 左丞相 Tudan Kening 徒單克寧 (d. 1191) were the highest-ranked. In Ruiwan ji, Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 (989–1052), the Minister of War and the Grand Academician 大学士 of Hall of Heavenly Manifestations (Tianzhang ge 天章閣, one of the palace buildings to which Hanlin Academincians 翰林學士 were assigned), was the highest-ranked official amongst the participants.

The above two Yuan zaju plays were penned by two different authors, Wang Shifu and an anonymous author; both described scenes of the willow shooting ritual. This shows that Yuan dynasty playwrights were familiar with the ritual and that they did not make up the scenes out of pure imagination. The scenes in the two plays were quite realistic, closely corresponding to willow shooting scenes in written records. In his book Yuan gongci 元宮詞 (Songs on the Yuan Palace), Zhu Youdun 朱有燉 (1379–1439), the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) playwright, offers a wonderful description of the willow shooting ritual in the Yuan dynasty: “At springtime, princes and nobility went out of the inner gates, followed by officials who carried bows and arrows in quivers (huochi 火赤). [They] shot willow trees and hit balls in the Eastern Garden, [their] fine horses that ran like shooting stars stirring up red dust” 王子王孫值三春，火赤相隨出內闉，射柳擊球東苑裡，流星駿馬蹴紅塵 (Zhu 2014, p. 797). A similar description of the “willow-chopping ritual” (zhuoliu hui 斮柳會) is found in Xiong Mengxiang’s 熊夢祥 (1285–1376) Xijin zhi 析津志 (Records of Xijin):

Willow choppers at the Double-Fifth Festival… The front rows are honor guards; The playground is filled with numerous flags. Upon hearing the order, all the military officers chopped off willow branches, removed the top one chi, inserted the truncated branches five cun into the soil, and then each marked his willow branch by fastening a handkerchief onto it. Then, led by someone on horseback, the Commander of Wanhu萬戶 (who managed 10,000 households) with his arrow drawn on the horseback, began to march and shoot willows. 斮柳者於端午日，…前列三軍，旗幟森然。武職者咸令斮柳，以柳條去青一尺，插入土中五寸。仍各以手帕系於柳上，自記其儀。有引馬者先走，萬戶引弓隨之，乃開弓斮柳

(Xiong 1983, p. 204)

The willow shooting rituals depicted in the two Yuan zaju plays, Lichun tang and Ruiwan ji, took place in the Jin dynasty and Song dynasty respectively, and their specific procedures are quite similar to those described in literature from the Jin and Song dynasties. During the Song dynasty, willow shooting had become a popular national competitive event. From the royal palace to restaurants and theaters, willow shooting events were held everywhere. Cheng Dachang’s 程大昌 (1123–1195) Yanfanlu 演繁露 (Illustrating the Luxuriant Dew) records the scenes of a willow shooting event held during a military parade in the Song dynasty:

On the third day of the third lunar month in the year of Renchen [1172], in Jinling [today’s Nanjing], I observed as a participant and watched General Li Xianzhong 李顯忠 (1109–1177) parade his troops. At the end of the parade, he had his soldiers cut willow branches and insert them into the ground, forming a circle, and these soldiers on horsebacks tried to shoot the willows while charging forward. The arrows used for willow shooting, about an inch wide, were wider than the regular ones. When a willow branch was shot, it would break apart, hence the name of this event: willow treading. 壬辰三月三日，在金陵，預閱李顯忠司兵，最後折柳，環插球場，軍士馳馬射之。其矢鏃闊於常鏃，略可寸餘，中之輒斷，名曰躤柳

(Cheng 2018, 13.909)

Zhou Hui’s 周煇 (1126–1198) Qingbo zalu 清波雜錄 (Miscellaneous Records of Clear Wave Studio) records scenes of Song dynasty palace maids shooting willows:

In the fourth lunar month of the fifth year of the Zhenghe reign (1115), the emperor entertained ministers at the Xuanhe Hall. His majesty first stopped at the Chongzheng Hall. There he paraded more than five hundred soldiers shooting arrows on horsebacks, using heavy bows. When they finished, they were offered seats. Then palace maids were led out, lining up under the hall. Some palace maids began to beat drums and watchman’s clappers, others shot arrows on horsebacks, hitting willow branches and embroidered balls, or beating the pill that was a special ball used in a competition. Those palace maids were able to pull the heaviest bows. The soldiers all looked ashamed. 政和五年四月，燕輔臣於宣和殿。先御崇政殿，閱子弟五百餘人馳射，挽強精銳，畢事賜坐，出宮人列於殿下，嗚鼓擊柝，躍馬飛射，剪柳枝，射繡球，擊丸，據鞍開神臂弓，越絕無倫。衛士皆有愧色

(Zhou 1997, 8.364)

According to Jinshi 金史 (The History of Jin), the willow shooting ritual of the Song dynasty (960–1279) originated from the Jin dynasty (1115–1234). It says: “Inheriting the old customs of the Liao (907–1125), Jin performed the ritual of worshipping Heaven on the Double-Fifth Festival, the Mid-Primordial Festival, and the Double-Ninth Festival.” 金因遼舊俗，以重五、中元、重九日行拜天之禮 (Toqto’a 1975, 35.826).

Details of the willow shooting ritual of the Jin dynasty were similar to the descriptions in Yuan zaju. Jinshi has the following record:

On the Double-fifth Festival, when the Heaven worship rituals are finished, two lines of willow branches are then planted into the ground. Arrow shooters, in the order of their official positions, each fasten a handkerchief to a branch, identifying the one assigned to him. They also peel the parts of the branches that were several inches above the ground. One person then rides a horse ahead; another one rides to follow, and shoot the willow with a special horizontal-headed arrow that has no feather. If the arrow breaks the willow branch, and the first person catches the broken willow branch and rides away, it is considered perfect. If the arrow breaks the willow branch but the arrow is not caught, it is considered good. If the willow branch is shot in its unpeeled lower or caught but not broken, or not shot at all, it is considered a failure. Whenever someone is shooting, drums are beaten to cheer him on. 凡重五日拜天禮畢，插柳球場為兩行，當射者以尊卑序，各以帕識其枝，去地約數寸，削其皮而白之。先以一人馳馬前導，後馳馬以無羽橫鏃箭射之，既斷柳，又以手接而馳去者，為上。斷而不能接去者，次之。或斷其青處，及中而不能中者，與不能中者，為負。每射，必伐鼓以助其氣

(Toqto’a 1975, 35.826–27)

Based on this record in Jinshi, the willow shooting ritual of the Jin imperial court was a competitive recreational event. In terms of time, venue, and participants, it was quite similar to that described in Lichun tang.

However, in the Liao dynasty, the willow shooting activity was called the sese 瑟瑟 ritual, and it was a prayer ritual for rain. There is a clear record in Liaoshi 遼史 (The History of Liao) on this point:

If there is a drought, [the court would select] an auspicious day to perform the sese ritual to pray for rain. Before the day comes, a huge tent with hundreds of columns is set up. On the day, the emperor offers tributes to the portraits of former emperors, and then the willow shooting begins. The emperor shoots twice, and then princes and the state councilor each shoots once in turn. [Each of the willow branches is identified by someone as “his.”] A shooter who hits a willow branch is entitled to temporarily hold the hat and robe of the “owner” of that willow branch. If the shooter fails to get the target, he must have his hat and robe kept by the “owner” of the willow branch. Losers then toast to winners, and the latter return the held garments. On the next day, willows are planted to the southeast of the huge tent. A shaman offers wine and grains as sacrifices, praying. The emperor and empress then offer a sacrifice to the east. After this, young members of the royal family shoot willows. Royal family members, brothers of the empress dowager and the empress, and ministers present at the ritual are all granted rewards. 若旱，擇吉日行瑟瑟儀以祈雨。前期，置百柱天棚。及期，皇帝致奠於先帝御容，乃射柳。皇帝再射，親王、宰執以次各一射。中柳者質誌柳者冠服，不中者以冠服質之。不勝者進飲於勝者，然後各歸其冠服。又翼日，植柳天棚之東南，巫以酒醴、黍稗薦植柳，祝之。皇帝、皇后祭東方畢，子弟射柳。皇族、國舅、群臣與禮者，賜物有差。

(Toqto’a 1974, 49.835)

The sese ritual of the Liao dynasty was a royal prayer ritual for rain with high specifications, and its details were similar to the descriptions of willow shooting rituals in Yuan zaju. For example, the participants of both were the ruling class including the emperor, and the winners were rewarded.

The willow shooting ritual was held at the Double-Fifth Festival and the third month of the lunar calendar in Yuan and in the third and fourth lunar months in the Song dynasty. In the Jin and Liao dynasties, the time of the willow shooting ritual was not fixed. According to Liaoshi and Jinshi, the willow shooting ritual was held by the emperor in the imperial garden from the fourth to the ninth lunar months. In Liaoshi, the willow shooting ritual was held by the emperor in the royal garden in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh lunar months. In Jinshi, the ritual was held in the fifth and ninth lunar months. The Jin emperors conducted the willow shooting rituals just for entertainment, while the Liao emperors conducted the rituals both for entertainment and for the special purpose of praying for rain. When the Liao emperors shot the willow in the imperial garden to pray for rain, it was not a game, but a solemn ritual from which, they believed, they could obtain mercy from Heaven. Therefore, it can be confirmed that in Jin and Liao, the willow shooting ritual was held in spring, summer, and autumn. That is, in Liao and Jin, the willow shooting ritual was held in various months. Based on the surroundings and time, the willow shooting ritual in Yuan zaju was very close to that recorded in Liaoshi and Jinshi (Wang 2013, pp. 109–13).

In summary, the works of Yuan zaju describe the grand occasion of the willow shooting ritual in the Song and Jin dynasties and that it originated in the sese ritual in the Liao dynasty. Certainly, the depictions (surroundings and participants) of willow shooting rituals in Yuan zaju were similar to sese rituals described in Liaoshi. That is to say, the source of the narratives of willow shooting in Yuan zaju can be traced back to the sese ritual of the Liao dynasty. It should be noted that in the willow shooting events, the willow branch was the key subject of the ritual and the sacred symbol. Hitting the willow tree meant good luck would be handed to the shooter. This raises the question of why the willow tree was sacred in the willow shooting. In other words, what made the rulers of the Liao dynasty treat the willow tree as a special sacred tree?

Fundamentally, the sacredness of the willow tree was directly related to the Khitans’ shamanic belief in the willow god. The Khitans were the founders of Liao. Academic definitions of shamanism vary, but the working definition which most scholars are using covers several elements: the shaman’s ecstasy, his/her patron gods and helpers, the illusion of receiving gods, the travel of the shaman’s soul to another world, and some cosmic characteristics (Meng 2000, p. 14). In the shamanic beliefs of the Khitan people, the willow is a sacred tree with multiple identities and has a very important place. Fu Yuguang’s field study shows that in the shamanism of the Oroqen people in northeastern China, when a new shaman learns about the ritual from an old shaman, he/she has to build a xianrenzhu 仙人柱 (immortal pillar, referring to an Oroqen-style cottage) with two willow poles standing in the middle. The willow is a sacred tree through which one communicates with the gods. The shaman then hangs sacrificial offerings on it. In the shamanic healing ritual, the willow tree also plays an important role: “When the shaman is about to heal a person, he would make an offering to the gods outside the xianrenzhu, and the person in charge of the offerings, ‘Cha’erbalaiqin’ 查爾巴來欽, kneels or stands next to the offerings, holding in his or her right hand a small willow tree branch with leaves. When the shaman is about to finish reading the spell, the Cha’erbalaiqin would take the leaves off the branch one by one and throw them forward.” (Fu 1990, p. 112) The Oroqen people’s and the Khitans’ shamanic beliefs both belong to the category of northeastern Chinese shamanism, so the existing beliefs about the willow tree of the former can, to some extent, reflect the cognitive concept of the willow tree in the Khitans’ shamanic beliefs.

The idea that the willow tree can communicate with the gods and cure diseases in the above-mentioned rituals is based on the shamanic belief that the willow is a sacred object. In the context of this belief, the willow tree is a sacred tree and a hierophany, as defined by Mircea Eliade: A hierophany is “something sacred that shows itself to us” (Eliade 1959, p. 11). It could be claimed that willows take on this function in the Khitans’ folk beliefs, in which the willow tree is transformed from the holy tree to a secular one, and even its branches, leaves, and bark are regarded as the hierophany of the willow god. The resulting perception is that touching the willow tree and its parts is tantamount to encountering the willow god and will bring good luck. This perception is similar to what James G. Frazer ([1922] 1990) called the law of contact, which is based on association. In this way of thinking, shooting a willow branch is the same as touching the divine willow goddess.

In addition, willow trees mostly grow near water, so they are inseparable from water. Therefore, willow shooting symbolizes proximity to water, and thus a drought can be lifted. On this basis, performing the willow shooting ritual to pray for rain emerged in the Liao court. It is hard to tell whether the willow in the sese ritual was the Khitans’ creation goddess or ancestor goddess. However, it can be claimed that the goddess’s hierophany is the willow branch. In this process, people’s perception of the willow extended from the sacred to the hierophany and then to the target of the willow shooting ritual. As for the willows in Yuan zaju, the Yuan playwrights, on the basis of memory, wrote about willow shooting rituals, and the perception of willows also was transformed from sacred trees in folk beliefs to secular targets of shooting. At this time, the willow in folk beliefs had become a cultural gene, giving birth to the willow narrative in Yuan zaju.

The explanation given above helps us understand the complex relationship between willow shooting in Yuan zaju and the folk beliefs of the Khitan people. That is, willow shooting in Yuan zaju with its conceptual origins is traceable to the ancient shamanic belief in the willow as a sacred creature, which was prevalent among the Khitans and Jurchens who lived in what is now northeastern China. In other words, in Yuan zaju, the willow shooting ritual was a secular activity, but the willow branch that was the target for shooting was regarded as sacred. Because of its supposed sacredness, the willow branch was regarded as a symbol of good luck in the willow shooting ritual. Moreover, the willow shooting narratives in Yuan zaju drew on willow shooting events of the Song and Jin dynasties, while Song dynasty willow shooting originated from the Jin dynasty; the willow shooting event of the Jin dynasty originated from the sese ritual of the Liao dynasty. The perception of willow shooting in the sese ritual was based on the shamanic beliefs of the Khitan people, who regarded the willow as a sacred object. Therefore, the willow shooting in Yuan zaju was an indirect narrative of Liao dynasty shamanic willow beliefs. It was related to the shamanic beliefs in northeastern China, not an invention of Yuan dynasty playwrights.

3. Stories on Deities Delivering Willows

Four Yuan zaju plays involve narratives of deities delivering willows. They are: Ma Zhiyuan’s Yueyang lou (Wang 1990, 2.157–86), Gu Zijing’s Chengnan liu (Wang 1990, 5.295–314), Jia Zhongming’s Shengxian meng (Wang 1990, 5.512–29), and Li Shouqing’s Du Liu Cui (Wang 1990, 2.437–67). The plots of the first three are somewhat similar, all about Lü Dongbin delivering a willow spirit to immortality. In the Lü Dongbin story of the first three plays, the willow spirit first became a human and then became an immortal; in the fourth play, Buddhist Monk Moonlight delivered a willow branch, who was originally a sacred willow branch in Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’s vase and became first a human, then an enlightened being.

Xiaohuan Zhao sees the above-mentioned process of transformation, namely, the transition from incarnation/reincarnation to deity/buddha, as the fourth way for ghosts to make their appearance onstage.⁴ However, as we see it, this is a transformation from ghosts and spirits to deities and immortals. In Yuan zaju, the Lü Dongbin story on delivering a willow spirit emphasizes the willow tree’s transformation from a spirit to an immortal, and the Buddhist Monk Moonlight’s story emphasizes the willow tree’s transformation from a willow branch to a woman and then to a willow branch in Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’s vase. This theme of deities delivering willows largely originated from the Chinese folk beliefs about willow trees. In these beliefs, the willow tree has multiple faces: sometimes it is a spirit, and sometimes it is a monster; sometimes it can expel evil spirits and even cure diseases. These diverse conceptions about the willow tree fostered the narrations of similar stories in Yuan zaju plays. In the following section, this paper interprets the narrations of the stories of willow spirits delivered by Lü Dongbin and Liu Cui and the willow branch that was delivered by Buddhist Monk Moonlight in Yuan zaju.

The Lü Dongbin stories in Yuan zaju focus on how willow spirits harmed people. For example, in Yueyang lou, the willow spirit and the white prune tree spirit appeared at Yueyang Tower to charm human beings every night. This idea came from Chinese folk beliefs. In the three plays mentioned above, willow spirits were all harmful creatures. They were all male, with female tree spirits as their mates. In Yueyang lou, the willow tree spirit’s mate was a white prune tree spirit. In the other two plays, the willow tree spirits’ mates were peach blossom spirits. Both willow tree spirits and the white prune tree spirit harmed people at night. In Yueyang lou, a waiter said to Lü Dongbin: “At night, two spirits will come out upstairs, charming and harming people. Customers dare not eat upstairs at night.” 如今天色晚了，這樓上有兩個精怪，到晚便出來迷人，酒客晚間不敢在這樓上喫酒 (Wang 1990, 5.299). The idea that spirits, especially willow spirits, come out to harm people at night, was not created by Yuan playwrights. Before the Yuan dynasty, this idea had been commonly accepted by the Han Chinese, and it can be traced back to the Tang and Song dynasties. In Tang dynasty (618–907) folk beliefs, willow spirits already existed. However, at this time, willow spirits mostly appeared as benign humans, and they did not harm others (Liu 2005, p. 106). In the Song dynasty, as systemic beliefs in tree spirits developed, the willow spirit became a notable part of folk beliefs. In the early Song dynasty story anthology, Taiping guangji 太平廣記 (Extensive Records of the Taiping Era), some willow spirits were learned scholars (Li 1961, 415.3383–84), but others were evil spirits who harmed people. One of the stories is about an evil willow spirit harming people in an old compound in Luoyang 洛陽 who was finally killed by an official:

There was a grand old house in Eastern Luoyang. Most of the people who had resided in it met sudden death, so the house had been long left empty and locked. … (The owner) always wanted to sell the house. … One night, Lu Qian 盧虔 and his officer attendant stayed in the house. Lu ordered his servants to stay out of the gate. The officer attendant was good at shooting, so he brought his bow and arrows, and stayed awake in the lobby. Later that night, someone knocked at the door. The attendant asked who it was. A voice said: “General Liu [lit: willow] has sent me to deliver a letter to Attendant Censor Lu.” Later, he came again… The attendant shot him in the chest. [He was] startled and fled to the east. At dawn, Lu ordered the attendant to trace him down. [The attendant] went eastwards and saw a hundred-foot-high willow tree, with an arrow through its trunk. That was General Liu. Lu chopped it down. Since then, no more residents in the house were harmed. After a year or so, the house was renovated. During the process, a gourd ladle was found under the roof. It was about a zhang 丈 [about 3.3 meters] long, and its handle was penetrated by an arrow. That was what the “general” was holding in hand. 東洛有故宅，其堂奧軒級甚宏特。然居者多暴死，是以空而鍵之且久。……常欲貿其宅而止焉。……後一夕，虔與從吏同寢其堂，命僕使盡止於門外。從吏勇悍善射，於是執弓矢，坐前軒下。夜將深，聞有叩門者，從吏即問之。應聲曰：“柳將軍遣奉書於盧侍御。”……久之又來，……從吏又射之，中其胸。厲驚，若有懼，遂東向而去。至明，虔命窮其跡。至宅東隙地，見柳高百餘尺，有一矢貫其上，所謂柳將軍也。虔伐其薪。自此其宅居者無恙。後歲餘，因重構堂室，於屋瓦下得一瓢。長約丈餘，有矢貫其柄，即將軍所執之瓢也

(Li 1961, 415.3385–86)

In folk beliefs of the Tang and Song dynasties, most of the willow spirits were centuries old. This is a reflection of the notion that “old things grow into spirits” (物老成精 wu lao chengjing). This idea and the folk belief that willow spirits were harmful to people largely influenced the authors of Yuan zaju, so the authors of the three aforementioned Lü Dongbin stories coincidentally portrayed willow spirits as ones with centuries of cultivation. For example, the willow spirit in Yueyang lou introduces himself as follows: “I am an old willow tree under Yueyang Tower. I have been here for more than a thousand years.” 小聖乃岳陽樓下一株老柳樹是也。我在此千百餘年 (Wang 1990, 2.162).

Because of their longevity, willow spirits are often referred to as laoliu 老柳 (old willow) in Yuan zaju. For example, the plum spirit in Chengnan liu says: “I am a fairy peach, and that is the willow planted in the south of the city. In the past, when Master Lü Dongbin came here, he intended to deliver the old willow, so he planted me by the neighboring wall, and married me to the old willow. Thus, the old willow became a spirit.” 妾身乃天上仙桃，此乃城南柳樹。昔日呂洞賓師父到此，有意度脫這老柳，將我種向鄰牆，與老柳配作夫婦，以此成為精靈 (Wang 1990, 5.297–98). The word old in “old willow” refers to the old age of the willow spirit and therefore is not just a respectful or honorific term for the willow spirit. It is evident that when the Yuan playwrights created the narratives of Lü Dongbin’s delivery of willow spirits, they, to a large extent, accepted the folk beliefs about the willow tree in Tang and Song folklore.

The religious connotation of the figure of Lü Dongbin is worth mentioning. A scholarly figure who is both historical and legendary, in folklore, Lü is generally associated with Daoist alchemy and immortality. Among the Eight Immortals (baxian 八仙) in Daolist literature, he was the one who most often delivered enlightened people and beings to immortality. As a historical figure, Lü belonged to the orthodox of Daoism (Eskildsen 2016). Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein (1986) has clarified some basic aspects about him in early legends that were created in the Northern Song dynasty, which were mainly hued with the color of Daoism. Other studies have, from different perspectives, showed that stories about Lü were tapped by other beliefs, for example, Buddhism (Capitanio 2016). Artistic and literary representations of Lü are so abundant and complex (as partly shown in (Katz 1999)) that the figure can be viewed as a cultural symbol for the expression of various ideas, mostly associated with religion and folk beliefs alike. In our case, Lü’s Daoist practice of delivering enlightened beings to immortality is comfortably combined with the image of willows as spirits in folklore.

Compared with the Lü Dongbin stories on the delivery of willow spirits, the narrative of Buddhist Monk Moonlight’s delivering a willow tree was derived from the belief that willows can ward off evil and cure diseases. In Du Liu Cui, a willow branch in Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’s vase was relegated to the human world and then became Liu Cui (green willow). This plot contains the cultural message that the willow was a sacred object and can cure diseases. Specifically, both the willow branch and the vase were Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’s magic tools to help all beings. The willow branch could purify life and therefore was a sacred object capable of healing.

The concept of the sacred willow was not unique to the Yuan dynasty but had been prevalent in the shamanic beliefs of Han Chinese before the Yuan dynasty. In folk beliefs, the willow was regarded as a divine object. Because it was vigorous and grew near water, it was believed to be able to cure diseases and ward off evil spirits. The practice of using willow branches to ward off evil spirits was recorded in Jia Sixie’s 賈思勰 (386–534) important work Qimin yaoshu 齊民要術 (Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People): “If you put a willow branch on your door on the first day of the first month, ghosts will not enter your home.” 正月旦取楊柳枝著戶上，百鬼不入家 (Jia 1998, 5.352).

The folk custom of wearing willow branches on the Double-Fifth Festival, derived from the idea that the willow tree can cure diseases, was extremely popular in southern and northern China before the Yuan dynasty. Without going into details, here are just two examples. In Jingchu suishi ji荊楚歲時記 (Chronological Record of the Chu Region) by Zong Lin 宗懍 (501–565), it is recorded that in ancient times, in the Chu region, there was the custom of offering sacrifices to the willow on the 15th day of the first month: “Nowadays, it is a local custom to offer sacrifices to the door. The method is to stick willow branches on the left and right doors, and offer food and drink including wine, jerky, bean porridge, cakes, and meat sauce to the directions to which the branches point.” 今州里風俗，望日祭門戶。其法先以楊枝插於左右門上，隨楊枝所指，乃以酒脯飲食及豆粥、糕糜插著而祭之 (Zong 2018, pp. 18–19) Generally speaking, “ancient people used the words yang 楊 (poplar) and liu 柳 (willow) interchangeably” (Guan 2006, p. 9). Here, yangzhi 楊枝 means willow branches. This was the practice of using willow branches to ward off evil spirits on the fifteenth day of the first month, and behind it was the idea that willow branches were sacred.

This concept was prevalent among not only commoners but also the ruling class. During the reign of Emperor Zhongzong (Li Xian 李顯, 656–710) of Tang, he introduced the folk belief that willows could cure diseases and ward off evil spirits in the palace: “On the third day of the third month, he gave his ministers fine willow rings, saying that by wearing them they could be free from insect bites.” 三月三日賜侍臣細柳圈，言帶之免蠆毒 (Duan 1981, 1.2) This idea was passed on to the Yuan dynasty and was accepted and inherited by the playwrights, resulting in the Yuan zaju plot about Liu Cui being delivered to immortality in Du Liu Cui.

The stories about the delivery of willows also clearly contain the Buddhist belief that Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara uses a willow branch to heal the sick and save people. In Du Liu Cui, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara rescues sentient beings and uses a willow branch in a purifying vase to heal the sick and save people. Unfortunately, “the willow branch in the vase was occasionally polluted with dust and was therefore punished with reincarnation in the human world. It became a prostitute named Liu Cui who lived on Baojianying Street, Hangzhou”. 淨瓶內的楊柳枝葉上，偶汙微塵，罰往人間打一遭輪回，在杭州抱鑒營街，積妓牆下，化作風塵匪妓，名為柳翠 (Wang 1990, 2.438). This narrative contains two ideas: first, that Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara heals and saves people, and second, that the willow branch inside Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’s purifying vase is a holy object with healing properties.

One only has to turn to the Buddhist classics to find that this narrative in the play originated from the Buddhist belief that Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara saves people. In the Buddhist sutra, Qing Guanshiyin pusa xiaofu duhai tuoluoni zhou jing 請觀世音菩薩消伏毒害陀羅尼呪經, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is granted a willow with purified water to heal the sick and save people: “The person from Vaishali then granted a willow branch with purified water to Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara” 爾時毘舍離人。即具楊枝淨水。授與觀世音 (Qing Guanshiyin Pusa Xiaofu Duhai Tuoluoni Zhou Jing 2021. Q4, T20, no. 1043, p. 34, c13–14). In the opening section of Du Liu Cui, the depiction of how Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara appeared and healed people was derived from the same idea about Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara in the above-mentioned sutra. The relevant narratives in the play are all based on this Buddhist concept. The image of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara has been modified in the Chinese cultural context: of interest to many, in China, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara has appeared as a female deity since the ninth century (Idema 2008; Yü 2001); she is believed to have ability to heal the sick and protect the weak; she is also understood with concepts from other beliefs—for example, the Confucian idea of filial piety (Dudbridge 2004; Berezkin and Mair 2014). Similar to Lü Dongbin, Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was and is also a cultural signifier, whose representations welcomed elements from various religious and folk beliefs.

The above-mentioned stories of Lü Dongbin in the plays are primarily Daoist, and the story of Buddhist Monk Moonlight has to do with Buddhism. The former originated from the belief that the willow can be a ghost and a spirit, added to by the Daoist idea that deities and immortals never die; the latter story originated from the belief that the willow tree could ward off evil spirits and cure diseases, and therefore it was a sacred object. These two types of ideas seem contradictory, but this kind of contradiction is precisely a characteristic of folk beliefs. This means that the folk beliefs about willows contained in the related Yuan zaju works were not univocal but diverse, and some of the ideas were even opposed to each other.

4. Willows as References to Females

In Yuan zaju, many words compare women with willow trees, such as liuyan柳眼 (willow leaf-shaped eyes), liuyao 柳腰 (willow-like waist), liumei 柳眉 (willow leaf-shaped eyebrows), and so on. Liuyan was used as a metaphor for the slender and beautiful eyes of a young woman. For example, Xiao Tao 小桃, a young lady who was transformed from a peach tree by Lü Dongbin in Chengnan liu, had a beautiful pair of liuyan (Wang 1990, 5.304). In this mythical text, the word liuyan was only used to refer to the beauty of the eyes, which were as narrow and long as willow leaves. In real life, this eye shape was often associated with deities and fairies. Before her incarnation, Xiao Tao had been a peach of immortality. The most prominent female deity in Chinese mythology, the Queen Mother of the West or Xiwangmu, gave the peach as a gift to Lü Dongbin. Lü ate it and dropped the kernel under the east wall of the Yueyang Tower, and it quickly grew into a willow tree. Later, Lü delivered it into a human being (Wang 1990, 5.297). In this text, the function of the word liuyan is to highlight the beauty of Xiao Tao with her fairy aura. Since the term does not appear very often in Yuan zaju, we will not dwell on it here.

The word liumei appears frequently in Yuan zaju, mostly used as a figurative reference to a woman’s thin and slender eyebrows, especially those of a young girl. Li Yunying 李雲英, a female character created by Li Tangbin 李唐賓 (fl. 14th c.) in Li Yunying feng song wutong ye 李雲英風送梧桐葉 (Wind Sends a Wutong Leaf for Li Yunying), had attractive willow leaf-shaped eyebrows, and her beauty was enchanting. “Slim and graceful, she just finished dressing up. Her curved willow leaf-shaped eyebrows were light black, and her face was like a peach, fragrant, red, and delicate. Her waist was so small that one could hold around it with one arm, and her demeanor was utterly graceful. Her flower-like face was more beautiful than a painting. She was three times fairer than a fairy.” 玉娉婷新梳掠，曲彎彎柳眉青淺，香馥馥桃臉紅嬌。腰肢一捻輕，舉止十分俏，便似畫真兒描不成如花貌。有三般兒比並妖嬈 (Wang 1990, 5.359).

In most cases, liumei was used together with other words to describe the pretty face of a young girl. In Sa Zhenren yeduan bitao hua 薩真人夜斷碧桃花 (Perfect Man Sa Holds a Night Trial of Peach Flower) by an anonymous author, when Zhang Daonan 張道南 saw Xu Bitao 徐碧桃, a young maid with delicate cheeks and eyes, he was enchanted: “Looking at her with her cloud-like hair, almond-shaped face and peach-like cheeks, her willow leaf-shaped eyebrows and starry eyes, I could not but be touched.” 看他那雲鬟霧鬢，杏臉桃腮，柳眉星眼，不由咱不動心也 (Wang 1990, 6.660). In the works of Yuan dynasty playwrights, the charm of women with willow leaf-shaped eyebrows is irresistible to men. In Jia Zhongming’s 賈仲明 play Jing Chuchen chong dui yu shu ji 荊楚臣重對玉梳記 (Jing Chuchen Met the Jade Comb Again), Gu Yuxiang 顧玉香, a singer, had a pair of curved eyebrows that made her look different. A merchant, Liu Maoying 柳茂英, after seeing Gu, was so enchanted by her beauty: “Her willow leaf-shaped eyebrows and starry eyes were full of emotions, and the white teeth and red lips gave her such a heart-melting look. When she smiled at him, his legs became weak. When she leaned on him, his spirit fled his body instantly.” 散春情柳眉星眼，取和氣皓齒朱唇。和他笑一笑敢忽的軟了四肢，將他靠一靠管烘的走了三魂 (Wang 1990, 5.433) Almost all of the beautiful women in Yuan zaju had willow leaf-shaped eyebrows.

In Yuan zaju, liumei is usually used to describe a woman’s narrow or curved eyebrows, and its main function is to emphasize the feminine beauty of tenderness. Because willow leaves are long, thin, fragile, and gentle, they give people a very soft impression. The evocativeness of liumei is somewhat similar to that of willow leaves, so it can arouse people’s feelings of compassion. From the point of view of literary rhetoric, the term liumei was used so often in Yuan zaju to describe the long and thin eyebrows of women that it became a cliché rather than an original or idiosyncratic description of an author. Trite as it is, this cliché reflects the collective aesthetics of the Yuan opera writers: women with willow leaf-shaped eyebrows are beautiful. The term liuyao is usually used to describe the slender waist of a young woman in Yuan zaju. In Wu Changling’s 吳昌齡 (fl. 13th century) Xiyou ji 西遊記 (Journey to the West), an old man boasts the beauty of his daughter: “I am a widower, lonely and clumsy, but my child is graceful and beautiful. She was born with a waist like a willow and eyes like peach blossoms. She is a piece of fragrant jade that even Bian He would be overjoyed to see” 老漢鰥寡孤獨連拙，俺孩兒風流美麗奇絕。他生得楊柳腰，桃花眼，是一塊生香玉卞和也歡悅 (Wang 1990, 3.450). Similar to liumei, liuyao is also used with other words to describe women’s beauty. For example, in Yang Jingxian’s 楊景賢 (1345–1421) play Ma Danyang dutuo Liu Xingshou 馬丹陽度脫劉行首 (Ma Danyang Delivers Liu Xingshou), Liu Xingshou 劉行首, a young woman who does not want to be delivered, says to Wang Chongyang 王重陽: “I have a willow-like waist and my face is as beautiful as a begonia flower. I am bedecked with gold and silver and dressed in colorful clothes. Why would I want to follow you and become a monk?” 我楊柳腰肢，海棠顏色，穿金帶銀，偎紅倚翠，我跟你出家有甚麼好處 (Wang 1990, 5.332).

The term liuyao is used to describe not only a woman’s slim waist but also the waist of a demon or spirit. In Journey to the West, Wu Changling used the term on Princess Iron Fan 鐵扇公主 (Tieshan Gongzhu), a spirit: “He was afraid of my beauty—my willow-like waist (yangliuyao), my peach-blossom like face, which would be broken with just a gust of wind.” 更怕我楊柳腰肢嫋娜，耀武揚威越逞過，更怕我桃臉風吹得破 (Wang 1990, 3.484). Although Princess Iron Fan is a spirit, her beauty is not different from that of an ordinary girl, i.e., she also has liuyao. It is clear that the term liuyao had a very broad usage in Yuan zaju to describe both humans and spirits.

The term yangliuyao in the above text is identical to liuyao, the willow-like waist, which seems clear enough and does not need much explanation. Liuyao is used to describe a woman who is slim with a willow-like waist, walks gracefully, and is a beauty in the eyes of men. Like liuyan and liumei, liuyao was also a cliché that Yuan playwrights used to describe women. It reflects the aesthetic tendency of Yuan playwrights to see women with slender, willow-like waists as beautiful.

To sum up, it can be said that in Yuan zaju, the three words liuyan, liumei, and liuyao are used to figuratively describe the delicate beauty of women, i.e., liuyan is used to describe a woman’s thin and long eyes, liumei to describe her slender eyebrows, and liuyao to describe her slender and gentle waist.

It appears that Yuan dynasty playwrights had similar aesthetic standards for women, preferring those with liuyan, liumei, and liuyao. It would seem that the authors mentioned above in Yuan zaju use liuyan, liumei and liuyao, three common references to the willow, to describe elements of the female ideal of beauty. This aesthetic was not unique to them, but rather it was inherited from the literary narrative tradition of older generations. The practice of using the willow as a figurative reference to people originated from Shijing 詩經 (The Book of Songs). The poem “Caiwei” 采薇 (Plucking the Bracken) says: “Long ago when we started, the willows spread their shade. Now that we turn back, the snowflakes fly. The march before us is long; we are thirsty and hungry. Our hearts are stricken with sorrow, but no one listens to our plaint.” 昔我往矣，楊柳依依。今我來思，雨雪霏霏。行道遲遲，載渴載飢。我心傷悲，莫知我哀 (Mao 1982, 9.414).⁵ However, only later did liumei and liuyao become literary vehicles to describe women. Since the two are different terms, we discuss them separately below.

The first writer to use the term liuyao was Yu Xin 庾信 (513–581), the poet of the Southern and Northern Dynasties period. In a poem entitled “He renri wanjing yan Kunming Chi” 和人日晚景宴昆明池 (Written at the Evening Banquet by the Kunming Pond on the Seventh Day of the First Month), Yu writes: “The scene of spring is in full swing; Zhao and Li used to pass by. In this gorgeous garden comparable to Shanglin, beautiful women have thin willow-like waists; like the imperial resort Xinfeng, paths here lead to banquets.” 春餘足光景，趙李舊經過。上林柳腰細，新豐酒徑多 (Yu 1980, 4.317). The second couplet of this poem seems to be about the willow tree, but the context suggests that it is an allusion to a beautiful woman of the Han dynasty who was known for her thin waist and who appeared in the Shanglin Garden.

In the Six Dynasties period (220–589), the literary imagery of the willow had already been formed. According to a study, “by the late Southern Dynasties, the imagery of willow had long been on the path of classicization. In this process, Yu Jianwu 庾肩吾 (487–551) and Yu Xin, who were father and son, and the Xiao brothers—Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501–531), Xiao Gang 蕭綱 (503–551), and Xiao Yi 蕭繹 (508–555)—played major roles.” (Cheng 2011, p. 56). One of Yu Xin’s greatest contributions was that he coined the term liuyao as a figurative reference to the waist of a young woman.

During the Tang and Song dynasties, liuyao became a ready figure of speech used to describe the beauty of a woman’s waist. Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846), Du Fu 杜甫 (712–770), Li Shangyin 李商隱 (813–858), Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773–819), and other poets frequently used the image of a beautiful woman with liuyao in their poetry. Han Wo 韓偓 (842–923) depicted the image of a young girl with a “willow-like waist and lotus-like face” (柳腰蓮臉) in his poem “Pinfang Lu Xiucai” 頻訪盧秀才 (Frequent Visits to Scholar Lu) (Zhonghua shuju bianjibu 1999, 682.7895). In “Nangezi” 南歌子 (Nangezi), Wen Tingyun 溫庭筠 (812–866) described a young girl with large eyes and a willow-like waist: “Her eyes were as tender as waves, and her waist was as graceful as a willow” 轉眄如波眼，娉婷似柳腰 (Wen 2010, p. 59).

Song dynasty writers were also used to describe women with liuyao, but the beauty of these women varied. For example, Yan Jidao 晏幾道 (1038–1110) wrote of such a girl with long, slender eyebrows: “Her eyebrows were long and dark like a distant mountain, and her waist was as soft as a thin willow” 遠山眉黛長，細柳腰肢嫋 (Tang 1965, 1.229). Yang Wujiu 楊無咎 (1097–1169) wrote about a girl with liuyao, and she was a smart and tender woman: “[her] willow-like waist and flower-like look were natural and beautiful, [and she was] smart and gentle” 柳腰花貌天然好，聰慧更溫柔 (Tang 1965, 2.1199).

Similar to this was the case of the term liumei, except that it appeared later in Chinese literature than liuyao. The famous Tang poet Bai Juyi used the willow as a vehicle for women’s eyebrows in his “Changhen ge” 長恨歌 (Song of Everlasting Sorrow). In describing the beauty of the imperial concubine Yang Yuhuan 楊玉環, he wrote: “Hibiscus looked like [her] face and willows looked like [her] eyebrows. Facing this natural scenery, how can [the emperor] not shed tears?” 芙蓉如面柳如眉，對此如何不淚垂 (Zhonghua shuju bianjibu 1999, 435.4829). In this poem, both hibiscus and liumei are figures of speech, personification and metonymy to be exact, used not only to describe a woman’s beautiful face and long and thin eyebrows, respectively, but also to refer to a specific person, Yang Yuhuan.

The late Tang poet Li Shangyin combined the words willow (liu) and eyebrows (mei) into willow’s eyebrows (liumei) in the poem “He ren ti Zhenniang mu” 和人題真娘墓 (In Response to Poems Written on Zhenniang’s Tombstone): “The willow’s eyebrows were growing mechanically, and the elm pods were flying like paper money.” 柳眉空吐效顰葉，榆莢還飛買笑錢 (S. Li 2005, p. 115). Although in this case, willow’s eyebrows mean willow leaves rather than a woman, it is one of the early instances of joining liu and mei into liumei in poetry.

In the writings of Tang and Song writers, liumei could be used to describe both unmarried and married women. In the Tang dynasty, the poet Li Xun 李珣 (855–930) wrote about Xiao Niang 蕭娘, a married woman: “When the dew dropped to the quiet garden and the leaves fell, sorrow gathered on Xiao Niang’s willow leaf-shaped eyebrows” 露滴幽庭落葉時，愁聚蕭娘柳眉 (Zhonghua shuju bianjibu 1999, 896.10188). The Song dynasty poet Chao Buzhi 晁補之 (1053–1110) describes a young girl who just reached puberty: “[her] willow leaf-shaped eyebrows were soft, apricot flower-like cheeks lightly brushed, and two lovely dimples as always” 柳眉輕掃，杏腮微拂，依前雙靨 (Tang 1965, 1.576).

It is worth noting that in Tang and Song literature, the term liumei referred to a much broader category than liuyao; it could be used to describe both commoner and royal women. For example, in the Song dynasty lyricist Zhao Zhangqing’s 趙長卿 “Yu Meiren” 虞美人 (Lady Yu), liumei refers to an imperial concubine: “To whom did the sorrowful willow leaf-shaped eyebrows unfold? It seems to be to the King of the East; she was happy to see the old friend come. When the sorrow is finally gone, peach blossoms are still blooming as lovely as before. However, where is the concubine now?” 柳眉愁黛為誰開。似向東君、喜見故人來。碧桃銷恨猶堪愛。妃子今何在 (Tang 1965, 3.1772).

This usage is very common in Tang and Song literature, and the Song literatus Bai Yuchan 白玉蟾 (1194–1229) even used liumei as a metaphor for all women who become sentimental in springtime. In his “Shangchun ci ji Ziyuan si shou” 傷春詞寄紫元四首 (Four Poems for Ziyuan about Spring Sentiment): “Why does a sorrowful person become sentimental in spring? The spring rain makes people emotional for no reason. Not only are sorrowful people lonely and sad, but many willow leaf-shaped eyebrows are frowning by the river.” 幽人何事苦傷春，春雨無端愁殺人。不但幽人獨愁怨，江頭多少柳眉顰 (Bai 2013, 6.219).

5. Willow Metaphors and Belief about Willow’s Fertility in Chinese Folk Religion

As observed, authors of Yuan zaju and writers from the Tang and Song dynasties tend to use the three terms about the willow to depict the delicate beauty of women. Our analysis of these rhetorical devices shows that they were closely related to the ancient Chinese folk beliefs about the fecundity of willows.

In northeastern Chinese shamanic mythological beliefs, the willow tree is the goddess of creation, who created all things. For example, in the shamanic beliefs of the Xitala 喜塔拉 clan of Hunchun 琿春 County in northeast China, the supreme god of the universe is Abka-hehe, whose image is the shape of a willow leaf, which looks like the female genitals (Fu 1990, p. 76). In the oracle of the Fucha 富察 clan in Hunchun County, the entire clan was born by the willow tree goddess (Fu 1985, p. 198). There are many other similar mythical stories, which will not be listed here. This shows that in shamanic beliefs in this area, the willow tree represents fecundity, the source of human beings who are her descendants, and hence, a close and sacred relationship between the willow tree and human beings.

Similarly, the Han Chinese in the Central Plains also believe in the reproductive ability of the willow. In today’s eastern and southern parts of Henan Province, on the day before a wedding, an essential ritual is to lay willow sticks on the bridal bed so that the new couple will give birth to successful children (X. Meng 1994, p. 64; Ren 1997, p. 2). The willow tree has many branches, so the willow sticks symbolize many children and grandchildren. It was believed that this ritual would also help the children become successful candidates in the imperial examinations at the provincial level. We can infer that the aforementioned shamanic and Han Chinese beliefs in the willow’s fecundity already existed before the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties and the aforementioned rituals during those dynasties were inherited from earlier times.

The crux of the question is how this folk belief in the fecundity of the willow is translated into the three metaphorical terms in Yuan zaju. To put it simply, the rhetorical technique of using the willow as a metaphor for women is an indirect presentation of the folk beliefs about fecundity. The willow tree has a vigorous vitality, and this phenomenon gave rise to folk beliefs about its fertility, while associating the tree with women who have the ability to reproduce. Willow trees mostly grow near water, and their branches are slender and soft, similar to the graceful body of a young female. Literati linked these physical characteristics of the tree to females, so the graceful beauty of the willow is compared to the slender beauty of women.

These associations are based on the reality that willow trees have been commonly grown in China. According to Guan (2006, p. 9), the cultivation of willow trees in China originated in the Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BCE), more than three thousand years ago. It developed significantly during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE). In the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) and Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), willows were introduced into royal palaces. In the Sui (581–619) and Tang dynasties, willows were planted on a large scale both in and out of royal residences. They could be found everywhere on riverbanks, official roads, gardens, and royal palaces (Guan 2006, pp. 8–11). A willow tree consists of branches, leaves, roots, catkins, etc. Long and slender is the intuitive impression of the tree to people. On this basis, words such as liuyan, liumei, and liuyao appeared in Chinese literature to describe the delicacy of women.

However, the introduction of these rhetorical terms to Chinese literature is attributed to the efforts of literary figures of two eras: the court-style poets of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, who explored the expressive power of poetry about women and affection, and the poets of the early Tang dynasty, who expanded the scope of the imagery of the willow (L. Wang 1987, p. 20). As discussed above, Yu Xin, the poet of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, first introduced the metaphorical term liuyao into Chinese literature, while the poets of the Tang Dynasty expanded the use of the terms liuyan, liumei, and liuyao. The writers of Yuan zaju inherited these metaphorical figures of speech and did not create any new ones.

To summarize, the three metaphorical expressions that associate the willow with female beauty in Yuan zaju originated from the ancient Chinese folk belief that the willow has a powerful reproductive capacity. However, the transformation from folk belief to literary device was not straightforward but accomplished through a complex process. Specifically, this transformation took place at two levels. The first level was analogical association. The second level was aesthetic imagination. The aesthetic imagination was based on the analogical association. The analogical association was formed among the people and its exact origin is difficult to prove. The aesthetic imagination took place in the literary world, beginning with the court-style poems from the Southern and Northern Dynasties and flourishing in the poetry of the Tang and Song dynasties. Thus, it can be said that the ancient Chinese folk belief about the fertility of the willow gave rise to the association of the willow with women, and the aesthetic imagination of the court-style poets in Southern and Northern Dynasties and the early Tang poets created the three metaphorical words of liuyan, liumei, and liuyao.

6. Conclusions

It can be concluded that the three types of willow narratives in Yuan zaju were not an original creation of Yuan playwrights but a product of ancient Chinese folk beliefs about the willow tree. In other words, the narratives of the willow shooting ritual originated from the shamanic belief that the willow is a sacred object; the stories of deities delivering willows came from the belief that willows are spirits or creatures; the rhetoric of willows as references to females originated from the belief about the fertility of willows. The three kinds of willow narratives do not play the same role in Yuan zaju. The narratives of willow shooting rituals provide backgrounds and plots for the development of the stories in the plays, the narratives of deities delivering willows form motifs, and the rhetorical use of willows as references to females are a means to depict the tenderness of females. While the narrative of the willow shooting rituals is a motif is unique to Yuan zaju, the narratives about deities delivering willows and about female beauty are the continuation of the great literary tradition of the Shijing. Moreover, the narratives of willow shooting and deities delivering willows are direct narratives based on folk beliefs about the willow, whereas using the willow to describe beautiful women is an indirect narrative based on the belief about the fertility of the willow and filtered through literary aesthetics. Although these three kinds of narratives have different roles in Yuan zaju, they all represent, in different ways, the beliefs about the willow that had existed before the Yuan dynasty. This was a conversion process, not only from beliefs about the willow to willow narratives but also from collective common perceptions to individual narratives. In this process, folk beliefs about the willow had a conceptual role in shaping narratives in Yuan zaju. The beliefs shaped some zaju plots about willows as well as the choice of the object in the willow narratives in zaju. Therefore, the folk beliefs about the willow were the source, and the willow narratives of Yuan zaju were the offspring. This was also a conversion of folk beliefs about the willow from collective cognition to individual cognition, or, in other words, a process of folk beliefs in the oral tradition shaping the literary works that were written.

Indeed, this paper shows that the three narratives about willow beliefs were depicted for the first time simultaneously in Yuan zaju. Specifically, the three types of narratives on beliefs about the sacred willow, about willow spirits, and about the willow’s fertility never coexisted in the same literary genre before the Yuan dynasty. Since the Shijing, there have been numerous expressions of beliefs about willows in Chinese literature, for example, the descriptions of liumei and liuyao in Tang and Song poetry mentioned above. However, these cases from the Tang and Song dynasties represented the belief about the willow from a given perspective. The coexistence of these narratives of willow beliefs in Yuan zaju was largely because of the multiethnic interactions and exchanges of the time. The diversified representation of willow beliefs in Yuan zaju is not a simple transformation from folk beliefs about the willow to literary narratives of willows. It is actually a rare literary phenomenon created by the combined forces of religion, history, and culture under a specific background.

Author Contributions

Writing—original draft preparation, Q.W.; writing—review, translation and editing, Q.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Data Availability Statement

Data available in a publicly accessible repository.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Xiaohuan Zhao of the University of Sydney, Shouhua Qi of Western Connecticut State University, and Zheng Wang of Huaibei Normal University for their generous help with the writing of this paper.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Footnotes

Notes

1. The details are as follows: Volume 1, 126 times; Volume 2, 256 times; Volume 3, 282 times; Volume 4, 120 times; Volume 5, 414 times; Volume 6, 95 times; Volume 7, 80 times; Volume 8, 201 times; Volume 9, 79 times; Volume 10, 108 times; Volume 11, 69 times; and Volume 12, 170 times. The total mentions are 2000 times in these volumes.

2. The details are as follows: Volume 1, 2 playwrights; Volume 2, 12 playwrights; Volume 3, 19 playwrights; Volume 4, 8 play-wrights; Volume 5, 22 playwrights; Volume 9, 1 playwright; Volume 10, 1 playwright; Volume 11, 2 playwrights. The total known authors is 67 in these volumes.

3. The twelve musical rhythms are: huangzhong 黃鐘, taicu 太蔟, guxian 姑洗, ruibin 蕤賓, yize 夷則, wuyi 無射, dalü 大呂, jiazhong 夾鐘, zhonglü 中呂, linzhong 林鐘, nanlü 南呂, and yingzhong 應鐘. The twelve musical rhythms were first recorded in the Hanshu 漢書 (Ban 1962, 21.954–55).

4. According to Zhao (2015, p. 15), there are five main ways of ghosts and spirits making their appearance onstage in zaju: 1. first as a human, then as a ghost; 2. first as a human, then as a ghost, and finally as a reincarnation; 3. first as a human, then as a living soul that splits from the body, and finally back to his or her former self; 4. first as an incarnation or reincarnation, then finally as an enlightened immortal or a heavenly being; 5. as a ghost throughout the play.

5. The translation is Arthur Waley’s (Waley 1987, p. 123).

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Table

Table 1

Three types of narratives of the willow in Yuan Zaju *.

Narratives or Comparisons Related to the Willow	Title	Author	Volume and Page in Quan Yuan xiqu
Willow-shooting ritual	Si chengxiang gaoyan Lichun tang 四丞相高宴麗春堂 (The Fourth Assistant Director of the Right Entertained at Lichun tang, hereafter Lichun tang)	Wang Shifu王實甫 (1260–1336)	Vol. 2, pp. 324–49
	Fayue wu sheliu rui wan ji 閥閱舞射柳蕤丸記 (Officials Shooting Willows and Playing Balls at the Dragon Boat Festival, hereafter Ruiwan ji)	Anonymous (fl.14th century)	Vol. 7, pp. 177–201
Deities delivering willows to immortality	Lü Dongbin san zui Yueyang Lou 呂洞賓三醉岳陽樓 (Lü Dongbin Drunk at Yueyang Tower Three Times, hereafter Yueyang lou)	Ma Zhiyuan馬致遠(1250–1321)	Vol. 2, pp. 157–86
	Lü Dongbin san du chengnan liu 呂洞賓三度城南柳 (Lü Dongbin Delivers the Willow Tree in the South of the City Three Times, hereafter Chengnan liu)	Gu Zijing谷子敬 (fl. 14th century)	Vol. 5, pp. 295–314
	Lü Dongbin tao liu shengxian meng 呂洞賓桃柳升仙夢 (Lü Dongbin Delivers Peach and Willow Trees through Dreams, hereafter Shengxian meng)	Jia Zhongming賈仲明 (1343–1422)	Vol. 5, pp. 512–29
	Yueming heshang du Liucui 月明和尚度柳翠 (Buddhist Monk Moonlight Delivers Liu Cui the Willow Branch,hereafter Du Liu Cui)	Li Shouqing李壽卿(fl. 13th century)	Vol. 2, pp. 437–67
Willows as references to females	More than half of the zaju plays in Quan Yuan xiqu	Not listed here due to space limit	Not listed here due to space limit

* Source: Wang Jisi ed., Quan Yuan xiqu, 1990.

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