The Cloak of Dreams by Béla Balázs & Jack Zipes & Mariette Lydis

Author:Béla Balázs & Jack Zipes & Mariette Lydis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

4 | The Clumsy God

Fu-Hi had been covered by a mountain for a thousand long years. This was how the Lord of the Heavens had punished him for his clumsiness.

It all began right after Fu-Hi’s mortal death, when he was appointed god of friendship. He had not governed very long in his office and had not yet been registered in the imperial sacrificial lists when, one day, a golden dragon appeared before him as messenger and summoned him to the Lord of the Heavens. All at once clouds billowed from Fu-Hi’s feet. Then he climbed upon them and flew past the nineteen houses of the moon and through the thirty-three heavens to the great alabaster throne, where the Lord of the Heavens was sitting and where golden dragons crawled through his ears and re-emerged through his nose.

“Fu-Hi,” said the Lord of the Heavens, “you have been governing in your office for only a short time. You need some practical experience. Look down below: there is an old man standing at the River of the Seven Bends. His name is Chang-Be, and he is holding a burning torch in his hand and wants to set fire to his neighbor’s house. Go there, and reconcile the two of them, for they are deeply bound to one another.”

Fu-Hi was happy to have received such an assignment and flew as fast as he could through the thirty-three heavens and past the nineteen houses of the moon down to earth, where he assumed the guise of an old wise man and appeared before Chang-Be just as he was about to set fire to his neighbor’s house.

“Stop!” he called out to him. “Don’t harm your neighbor! Instead, I advise you to make up with him, for you are deeply bound to one another.”

Old Chang-Be turned to the stranger and looked at him for a long time. Finally, he said, “You seem to be a learned man, for your eyebrows have a certain inclination. But what do you know about us? At one time during my youth my neighbor was my friend. However, there was a thorn between us, and the tighter we embraced one another, the deeper the thorn pierced our hearts. Until today I’ve never done anything to harm him. Now I am old and shall die very soon. But the knot of hatred shall be unraveled in this lifetime.”

After he said all this, he raised the torch to light the straw beneath the roof of his neighbor’s house.

“Stop!” Fu-Hi cried loudly, anxious that he might not succeed in carrying out his assignment. “I’ve come to announce to you that you will die today before the second change of the night watch. Go home, bring your house in order, and take a last look at the life that you’ve led. You will glimpse your future incarnation and see how deeply you are bound to your neighbor.”

With these words Fu-Hi rose into the clouds, and Chang-Be realized that he had been speaking to a god who had come to announce his pending death.

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