Excerpts from Dangerous Women
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Liu Shi was a serious scholar, painter and writer as well as a concubine to an important senior official. Photo by Sadie Jo Smokey |
Chapter 2
In the late fall of 1640 Liu Shi dresses up as a man, presents herself to Qian Qianyi and asks his opinion of her poetry. According tot he lore of the event, for a moment Qian Qianyi believes the ruse; he thinks the poems are indeed written by a man ... by the end of the year Liu joins Qian on his estate ... the next year, the two vow loyalty to each other and Lui becomes Qian's wife.
The marriage lasts for twenty-four years until Qian's death.
As an editor, Liu helped define the tradition of female poets by compiling an important collection of female writers.
Despite being independent, Liu loved contact with other writers. She was part of a network of women, especially women writers.
Following the death of her husband, Liu took the course of a virtuous wife, she suicided.
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The cover of Dr. Victoria Cass' book, Dangerous Women. Cass spent a decade researching and writing this book on women in China. Photo by Sadie Jo Smokey |
"One day in the capital Li Huang passed by a carriage with a large retinue of servents and stole a look inside to see who it was within. He was startled by what he saw: a woman of extraordinary beauty, clothed in white silk."
At this point, of course, the warning flags are up. The mystery, eroticism, the white clothes, the feminine trap, all meant one essential danger ... manly energies were no match for it. Undeterred, however, the young man pursues her, and finds that she is called simply, but so very aptly, "Lady White." They meet and he is invited into the back apartments for a nice dinner.
"Six or seven served the meal, and when the two were done they summoned the wine and enjoyed some drinking. His stay turned into a visit of three days' time, and they enjoyed each other in every way.
Then on the fourth day ... Li Huang took leave and departed. But as he was mounting his horse to leave, his servant smelled something foul about his master. After Li returned, his family asked him where he'd been these several days.
The scholar, however, could only summon his quilt and take to his bed, for he felt heavy of his body and his head swam. His wife Lady Zheng sat beside him and told him what had happened in his absence ... But Li Huang only became increasingly frightened and said to his wife, "I will get up no more."
After that he couldn't speak, and he felt his body disolving beneath the quilt. When his wife pulled back the covers she saw that what had once been Master Li's body was now just a channel of water, and only his head remained."
Too late for the husband, the horrified family learns that the mysterious woman is a great white snake ... His encounter is not described, however, as a form of adultry, a moral deviation, but a serious laps in hygiene. His decline was a process of transformation: he is first a smell of putrefaction, then a man disoriented, and finally a flow of water.
Posted April 7, 2000
Copyright 2000 Nevada Outpost
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