The Butterfly Lovers: The Legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai: Four Versions with Related Texts

Beautiful book. Beautiful story. Ancient Chinese culture is a vast treasure. It is a culture inspired by the gods.

The romance of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai is to Chinese literature as the romance of Romeo and Juliet is to English literature. Both are beautiful and endearing love stories of the struggle of love to be sowed and reaped not only by lovers themselves, but to overcome their familial strictures and societal biases that separate them for each other. As their love unfolds and these obstacles to their unrequited love gradually become apparent, the reader is drawn likewise into their struggle, sadly finding their fulfillment of love being but the fluttering of two butterflies against a fated wind that sadly overpowers both of them. However, where love may not triumph in life, it grants hope in death that gives life to this legendary tale of these two estranged lovers.

Absolutely loved this text. The first translation was the best one though in my opinion.

The Butterfly Lovers, one of the great stories in Chinese tradition, is often compared to Romeo and Juliet, which this story predates by at least 700 years. The tale of Zhu Yingtai, who disguises herself as a young man in order to study, and Liang Shanbo, her "sworn brother" until he learns the truth too late, is one of the world's great tragic love stories, kept alive through the centuries in the most popular forms of Chinese traditional storytelling: ballads and operas. This scholarly/literary study of the narrative begins with a fascinating survey of the various forms the story has taken, followed by four complete translations of different versions from the 13th Century onwards, followed by another five brief or incomplete versions. It's fascinating to see how many elements remain in common through the various retellings, as well as to compare embellishments. While in every version Shanbo doesn't learn the truth of Yingtai's identity until too late, the circumstances of his arrival in her village and his subsequent death from a broken heart vary from version to version. Later, when Yingtai throws herself into Shanbo's open grave, some tales have shred from her garments transform into butterflies, while in others, the butterflies emerge from the crypt. The most interesting embellishment appears in "The Account of the Peony" in Appendix 4, in which a lengthy epilogue follows the lovers through purgatory and resurrection. This book is recommended for scholars and those like me, fascinated by the story after having seen full-length opera versions many times. The translations are clear and readable, poetic and occasionally humorous. The main disappointment for me is that all the featured versions are short, around 30 pages each, while the version with the most literary appeal, "The Account of the Peony" is a translation of only the final act. I'm still wishing for a proper translation of a full-length libretto of one of the many Chinese opera versions.