Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury

S. E. KILE University of Michigan [email protected]

In “An Honest Bed: The Scene of Life and Death in Late Medieval England,”1 authors Katherine L. French, Kathryn A. Smith, and Sarah Stanbury examine the significance of the bed in fourteenth- to sixteenth- century England from a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on an array of historical, literary, and visual sources to demonstrate the “moral, ethical, economic, and spiritual expectations that beds carried” (84).They link these concerns through the notion of an “honest” bed, which was common parlance at the time, to demonstrate how a mundane household object accrued a range of symbolic associations that are distinctive to this particular historical context. In response to this collaborative study of beds in late medieval England, I will briefly examine the symbolic significance of the bed in China during the overlapping, but slightly later period of the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. I draw examples from four sources: the fifteenth-century carpenter’s manual The Classic of Lu Ban (Lu Ban jing 魯班經, attr. Lu Ban, ca. 5th c. BCE); the sixteenth-century erotic novel The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅, anon., first print edition 1610); the early seventeenth-century manual of taste, Treatise on Superfluous Things (Zhangwu zhi 長物志, comp. Wen Zhenheng, first print edition ca. 1615–1620); and the seventeenth-century guide to living, Lei- sure Notes (Xianqing ouji 閒情偶寄, Li Yu 李漁, first print edition 1671).2 A comparative look at the “economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom” (61) in these two geographically far- removed, but roughly synchronous contexts reveals intriguing similarities alongside the expected differences. Needless to say, given limitations of space, this study is by no means intended to offer a comprehensive picture of the significance of beds in China during this period. Whereas the authors note that, in England, beds were the “most important item of furniture in the premodern household” (61), in China’s late imperial period the most important piece of furniture was likely the family altar or the furniture that was used in reception halls. In general, furniture was not highly valued by the literati elite, who tended to dis- miss expensive or elaborate furniture as the preoccupation of uncultured merchants. Nevertheless, the bed was certainly the most expensive, and often the largest, piece of household furniture. There was considerable variation in sleeping arrangements by class in this period, ranging from that of a servant—a thin mat and bedding on the floor—to the babu

Fragments Volume 7 (2018) 64 KILE: Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury chuang 拔步牀, “canopy bed with alcove,” enjoyed by the very rich.3 Babu chuang were canopy beds mounted on a platform that enclosed an entrance area separate from the bed itself. This entrance area could con- tain chairs, tables, shelves, or chests. They were elaborately constructed using the finest materials, often covered in black or colored lacquer and inlaid with marble, gold, or mother-of-pearl. More common than these unwieldy and expensive pieces of furniture was the type of bed called the ta 榻, or “daybed.” This type of bed was more portable and lower to the ground. Usually a simple platform on four legs, it often had a raised back and raised sides and could serve as a couch for seating during the day. In northern China, a heated platform called a kang 炕 was used for much of the year. The kang was heated using a tray of coals underneath the platform, and it served as a family gathering place, a place for taking meals, and a place for sleeping during cold winters. Some wealthier homes installed both a kang and a bed.4 All of these beds were spaces in which daily activities, such as eating, playing games, or sewing could take place. In addition, there was a range of low tables, desks, and even cupboards designed for use on all types of beds. In traditional carpentry, beds were distinguished from all other furniture in that their construction was subject to geomantic calculation that was otherwise reserved for architecture and landscape design.5 The Classic of Lu Ban thus includes a list of the days on which it would be appropriate to install a bed and hang up bed curtains (ranging from four to eight auspicious days in the sexagenary cycle per month).6 In close comparison to the concern with the relationship between “nativities, and the influence of the movements and positions of the planets and stars on the character and destiny of the newborn” (74) identified by the authors of “Honest Bed,” an example from a somewhat later period reflects a shared concern with the ability of the bed to harm children born in it: There was (another) carpenter from Jiangnan, called Xie. In the year geng shen of the Jiaqing period (1800) he found his son a wife, and gave him a wooden bed to sleep on. In the years thereafter, the little children who were born did not stay alive; there were two grandsons who died one after another. But I didn’t have any suspicion about the bed yet. Xie was a very poor man, and had to look after the children each time. One day, the bed cracked suddenly, and inside the crack he found two straw dolls, lying topsy turvy, head facing toes. Then he understood that the dying of his little children was caused by magic. He burned the dolls, and thereafter his children stayed alive. (trans. in Ruitenbeek, 88) As the place where life begins and often ends, the bed also functioned as a portal to the world beyond: dreams might transport one to the un- derworld or treasures might be delivered to the ground beneath the bed. People also often buried their savings in the ground beneath their beds

Fragments Volume 7 (2018) 65 KILE: Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury or sewed precious metals into their pillows, in order to keep watch over these valuables throughout the night. As luxury objects, beds were associated primarily with women. For those families of the period who were wealthy enough to afford its inclu- sion, the bed would be the most prized item in a daughter’s dowry. The novel The Plum in the Golden Vase describes the luxurious lifestyle of a wealthy merchant, and the bed is the first in a formulaic list of items in- cluded in a dowry: “Bed(s), dressing cases, chests, and cupboards (chuang lian xiang chu 牀奩箱廚).”7 In the association of the bed with the dowry, we see a significant gendering of the bed that persists after marriage. Beds, especially the larger, enclosed beds that functioned as a personal space, served for women as a material form of continuity from their natal home to their husband’s in usual virilocal marriage arrangements. The association of women with the inner chambers in the ideal Confucian division of male and female spheres further identified women with beds, where they would often spend time during the day, whether sewing, eating, or chatting. A proportion of well-to-do families in late imperial China were polygynous, and in such living situations the association between beds and women is particularly evident. In these larger households, each wife or concubine would have her own bedroom with her own bed, whereas the master of the household would usually consider his study, furnished with a daybed, to be his personal space. This consistent association of beds with women provides a useful counterpoint to the article’s English context, wherein the authors expected, but did not find, such extensive gendered associations (“Honest Bed” 62). The fictional representation of a wealthy merchant household in The Plum in the Golden Vase offers a chance to understand the symbolic po- tential of luxurious beds as indicators of excess. The detailed description of elaborate beds highlights the sumptuousness of their embellishments. The riches of the wealthiest woman (Meng Yulou) to marry into Ximen Qing’s household are illustrated by her possession of two of the canopy beds with alcoves (babu chuang) discussed earlier. Her beds are described as being lacquered in many colors with gold tracery, and their place of production, Nanjing, is also indicated (Ch. 8, 1a; Roy 1.147). When another wife (Pan Jinlian), who lacks the means to purchase her own bed, enters the household in the following chapter, Ximen Qing spends sixteen taels of silver to buy her a black lacquer bedstead, elaborately adorned with gold tracery, bed curtains of scarlet silk and gold roundels, a dressing case ornamented with floral rosettes, and a complete complement of tables, chairs, and porcelain taborets embossed with patterns of ornamental brocade. (Roy 1.171) 西門慶旋用十六兩銀子，買了一張黑漆歡門描金床，大紅羅圈金帳幔，寶象花揀庒，卓椅錦杌，擺設齊整。(Ch. 9, 1b)

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Jinlian’s resourcefulness in competing for status with the other women in the household is indicated not only by her ability to secure a marriage proposal without any dowry whatsoever, but also in her ability to convince her husband to provide her with all that she needs to establish herself as on par with the other wives. After Ximen’s marriage to yet another woman (Li Ping’er), Jinlian seeks an upgrade to a bed that is nearly four times as expensive as her first bed. This bed is first described through Ximen Qing’s eyes: When he lifted aside the portiere and went in, he saw that directly in front of him the woman was lying asleep on her newly purchased bedstead of inlaid mother- of-pearl. It so happens that, because Li Ping’er had an alcove bedstead of inlaid mother-of-pearl in her quarters, the woman had subsequently induced Ximen Qing to spend sixty taels of silver in order to buy a balustraded bedstead of inlaid mother-of-pearl for her. Facing the interior of the bed, the two side panels were decorated with inlaid mother-of-pearl designs depicting: Towers and terraces, halls and chambers, Flowers and foliage, birds and animals.8 The three comb-back shaped back rests inside were decorated with the motif of pine, bamboos, and plum blossoms, the ‘three cold-weather friends.’ From the tester there hung: Bed curtains of purple gauze, held in place by: Brocade sashes and silver hooks, while from either side: Aromatic pomanders were suspended.” (Roy 2.187–88) 掀開帘櫳進來，看見婦人睡在正面一張新買的螺鈿牀上。原是因李瓶兒房中，安著一張螺鈿廠廳牀，婦人旋教西門慶使了六十兩銀子，也替他也買了這一張螺鈿有欄杆的牀。兩邊槅扇，都是螺鈿攢造。安在牀內，樓臺殿閣，花草翎毛。裡面三塊梳背，都是松竹梅，歲寒三友。挂著紫紗帳幔，錦帶銀鈎。兩邊香毬吊掛。 (Ch. 29, 11b–12a) Following this description is an equally detailed account of Jinlian’s naked body on the bed. One way to understand the significance of the bed in this narrative is simply as a symbol of decadence: the more degenerate the (female) character, the more extravagant her bed. However, while this interpretation allows us to make sense of the depiction of Jinlian, it cannot be deployed to understand the other characters. A focus on the circulation and accumulation of luxury goods would do more to demonstrate how beds function here: when Meng Yulou, the wife from a wealthy household, brings two beds as part of her dowry, it does not signal that she is more corrupt. Instead, the fact that one of these beds is immediately repurposed by Ximen Qing to form part of the dowry of his daughter,

Fragments Volume 7 (2018) 67 KILE: Commentary to French, Smith, and Stanbury coupled with subsequent purchase of Pan Jinlian’s first new bed, shows that the arrival into this particular household of elaborate beds sets off a series of purchases and exchanges. It is this economy in which Pan Jinlian emerges as the most skillful participant. The fact that Jinlian was sold as a child for thirty taels of silver makes her ability to secure a bed valued at sixty taels all the more impressive. Given that all of our sources on beds for this period were authored by men, it should come as no surprise that the association of women with beds was most often invoked in order to criticize unnecessary extravagance in construction or decoration. The authors of “Honest Bed” consider the bed as “an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality” (62). Although The Plum in the Golden Vase offers an elaborate picture of the bed’s function as an object that conveyed a women’s status, and perhaps aspiration, relative to other wives in a household, it does not concern itself much with decorum or morality, except as a negative example. The most interesting Chinese corollary to this aspect of their project may be found in the late-Ming manual of taste, Treatise on Su- perfluous Things, which instructed readers in a literati style grounded in traditional aesthetics. This style was explicitly coded as masculine and set in opposition to the implicitly feminine trend of recent fashions and ornate designs. In that text, both the flashy and the feminine are dismissed as “vulgar” (su 俗) in favor of the plain. Although no absolute distinction is drawn in the case of beds, the text makes clear that ta (daybeds) were more masculine, and more appropriate for use by cultured literati, while chuang 牀 (beds) were more feminine: Best are those grain-patterned finely lacquered beds of the Song and Yuan dy- nasties. Next come the single-sleeping beds produced in the imperial palace. After that are the ones produced by skilled carpenters. All of these can be used. Yongjia [in modern Jiangsu province] and Yuedong [in modern Guangdong province] have collapsible ones that are convenient to carry onto a boat. As for the likes of bamboo beds—along with those with floating eaves, elevated steps (babu), colored lacquer, swastika designs [for good luck], and rectangular spiral patterns—they are all vulgar (su). Recently, there have been some cedar beds that are carved as delicately as bamboo. These are fine indeed and are suitable for the inner chambers or for use in a small study. 以宋、元斷紋小漆牀為第一，次則內府所製獨眠牀，又次則小木出髙手匠作者，亦自可用。永嘉、粵東摺疊迭者，舟中攜置亦便；若竹牀及飄簷、拔歩、彩漆、卍字、回紋等式，俱俗。近有以柏木琢細如竹者，甚精，宜閨閣及小齋中 (241). The “single-sleeping beds” are, as their name suggests, suited to a single occupant, and are a type of ta. Later in a section on arranging furniture within the bedroom in the same text, it is suggested that an additional bed be installed in an alcove to facilitate late-night chats with friends. It also suggests that the room be “refined, pure, and simple (jingjie yasu

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精潔雅素),” and that any foray into vibrant colors would immediately turn an acceptable room into the “inner chambers (guige 閨閣)” (422). The vision proposed in this manual on literati refined taste hinges on a dichotomy between refined and vulgar (ya 雅/su 俗), and it tends to asso- ciate vulgarity with all things relating to women. Although there are few surviving beds from the Ming, and few records that indicate the actual distribution of different types of beds, there is evidence that at least one of the wealthiest households of the time, that of former Grand Secretary Yan Song 嚴嵩 (1480–1565) whose property was confiscated and invento- ried, did possess a great number of the sorts of elaborate beds described in Jin Ping Mei.9 As this example suggests, wealthy people in the Ming invested in elaborate beds and other decor for the inner chambers, even as connoisseurship manuals like the Treatise on Superfluous Things used the term “inner chambers” to stand for all things feminine, and to call for the elimination of signs of women even from those parts of the home most associated with them. Written in the wake of the fall of the Ming, when extravagance and in- dulgence were considered significant causes of the demise of the dynasty, Li Yu’s take on beds in Leisure Notes is surprising for the degree to which he encourages a significant amount of attention to be paid things usually associated with women’s quarters. In contrast to the Treatise on Superfluous Things, he argues that the fact that men wish their wives to take care in their appearance, despite the fact that they tend to remain out of sight in the inner quarters, suffices to demonstrate that beds, too, although they are not seen by those outside the family, are worth taking time to design with care. However, as Li Yu lacks the funds to purchase, or even see, such elaborate beds as those described in The Plum in the Golden Vase, he does not spend time discussing whether they are in good taste or not. Instead, he offers four modest proposals for how to improve one’s sleeping area: namely, how install a shelf so that flowers may bloom in the bed; how to add a frame to the bed curtains to stop them from sagging; how to add fastenings to the bed curtains to keep out mosquitoes; and how to add a skirt to the bed to keep the curtains clean. Taken together, Li Yu’s proposals draw multiple parallels between the bed and a woman. First, as mentioned above, he argues for the need to pay attention to beds by asking his (male) readers to consider whether they would let their wives stop adorning themselves just because they are not seen by others: If that is good reasoning, then, given that wives, concubines, and maids are “beds” [ta] among people, because with them, too, one sees them oneself but others do not see them, should one let them become [like notoriously ugly] Wu Yan’s and Mo Mu’s, asking nothing when one finds them with disheveled hair and smudged faces?

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若是，則妻妾婢媵是人中之榻也，亦因己見而人不見，悉聽其為無鹽嫫姆，蓬頭垢面而莫之訊乎？(Li, juan 10, 9a–b) Second, his proposals also proceed through a metaphor with women: I would like to update [the bed’s] design and lament that I lack the funds to hire a carpenter. However, I have not failed to expend every effort to embellish the bed and bed curtains and find ways to manage the sleeping area. This effort on my part can be likened to that of a poor scholar upon acquiring a wife: although he may not be able to turn a country girl into a national beauty, he can at least have her carefully wash her face and comb her hair, and add some oil to her hair to make it shine. 欲新其制，苦乏匠資﹔但於修飾牀帳之具，經營寢處之方，則未嘗不竭盡綿力，猶之貧士得妻，不能變村妝為國色，但令勤加盥櫛，多施膏沐而已 (Li, juan 10, 9b). Finally, the proposals themselves encourage readers to conceive of the bed as a body, and in particular, as a female body. The bamboo frame (gu 骨) that he suggests adding to the inside of the bed curtains to prevent the corners from sagging literally means “bones,” while the cloth cover he advocates using to protect the valuable bed curtains from grease and sweat from the heads of the bed’s occupants is called a “skirt” (qun 裙). He completes this implied conception of a body with an explicit proposal for fastening the curtains: “put in buttons, like those that are used to fasten women’s clothes 若婦人之衣扣然” (Li, juan 10, 12a). The authors open their discussion with the figure of the “honest bed,” examining briefly the significance of the term “honest” in the medieval English context, where it “acquired esthetic and even stylistic implications” in addition to its earlier meaning as a “social and ethical category” (62).10 Transposing this expanded notion of the “honest bed” into the Chinese context might lead us to critique the excess of the most elaborate beds; it might also lead us to critique A Treatise on Superfluous Things, which is categorically opposed to such displays of wealth, and indeed any decoration or hint of the feminine. Li Yu’s interest in economizing is borne of necessity, and it takes aesthetic connections between women and beds to an extreme. When Li Yu calls women “beds among people,” he is refer- ring to the fact that well-to-do women for the most part remained in the home, where they were not seen by outsiders. The possibility of an honest bed thus is posed, in all cases, as the possibility of an honest woman, and the ethical and aesthetic implications of a man focusing his attention on the furniture of the inner chambers.

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Notes 1. Katherine L. French, Kathryn A. Smith, and Sarah Stanbury, “An Honest Bed: The Scene of Life and Death in Late Medieval England,” Fragments 5 (2016): 61–95. Page citations will be given in parentheses in the text. 2. The first two of these sources have been translated into English in their entirety with copious notes (see Ruitenbeek and Roy); Ruitenbeek also includes a good facsimile version of the late-Ming version of the text. For an accessible study of the third, see Clunas, Superfluous Things. For studies of Chinese material culture that incorporate the last work, see Bray and Hay. I have updated all instances of Wade-Giles romanization to pinyin. 3. This term can be written 拔步牀 (lit. “raised-step bed”) or 八步牀 (lit. “eight-span bed”). 4. Clunas, “Novel,” 65. 5. Based on a detailed comparative study of sources on carpentry, Klaas Ruitenbeek has noted that “[a]part from the house, the bed is the only other product of the carpenter which is subject to non-technical considerations such as the choice of proper measurements and the selection of a favorable day to start its manufacture” (89). 6. Ruitenbeek, 227; his facsimile of the original text, juan 2, 17a–b. Around half of these days would appear in any given actual month. Ruitenbeek has also noted that The Classic of Lu Ban copied these dates from existing sources, and generally, as here, tends not to include all of the relevant information. See his Appendix II (99–106). 7. Chapter 91, 1b. Roy translates this more generally as “furniture, trunks” (5.194). Al- though nominally set in the Song dynasty (960–1279), the rich material culture described in the novel belongs to the Ming (1368–1644). 8. Compare these motifs to the “floral and vegetal patterns” described in Lives of SS Edmund and Fremund, as discussed in “Honest Bed” (72). 9. Seventeen of the beds confiscated from Yan Song’s household were retained, while the remaining 640 were sold for just over 2,147 taels of silver. Details about each type of bed were carefully recorded in the Tianshui bingshan lu, along with details about the 22,427 articles of bedding (sold for a total of just over 2,248 taels): Bed of carved lacquer with Dali-stone inlay (1) Bed of black lacquer with Dali-stone inlay (1) Bed of mother-of-pearl-inlaid lacquer with Dali-stone inlay (1) Canopied bed of lacquer with Dali-stone inlay (1) Bed in the shape of the character shan (mountain 山) with Dali-stone inlay (1) Bed of modeled, mother-of-pearl-inlaid, and painted-gold lacquer (1) Beds inlaid with mother-of-pearl with dressing chambers (3) Canopied “cool” beds, inlaid with mother-of-pearl (5) Rattan beds with comb-shaped backs inlaid with mother-of-pearl (2) Bed with folding screens edged in tortoise shell (1) (Tianshui bingshan lu, juan 4, 170a–b; trans. in Clunas, “Furnishing,” 23–24) And subsequently, Beds of Mother-of-Pearl-inlaid and Painted Lacquer Converted to Cash Large “eight-pace” beds of mother-of-pearl-inlaid lacquer, carved lacquer, or painted lacquer (52 items at 15 ounces of silver each) Carved beds inlaid with Dali stone (8 items at 8 ounces of silver each) Medium-sized “eight-pace” beds of painted lacquer or carved lacquer (145 items at 4.3 ounces of silver each)

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Medium-sized bed of elm wood carved with poems and paintings (1 item at 5 ounces of silver) Cool beds of painted gold lacquer with rattan and carved flowers (130 items at 2.5 ounces of silver each) Small cool beds with screens in the form of the character shan (mountain), or of a comb (138 items at 1.5 ounces of silver each) Cool beds of plain lacquer and huali wood [and other types of wood] (40 items at 1 ounce of silver each) Various old and new wooden beds of miscellaneous patterns (126 items at a total of 83.35 ounces of silver). (Tianshui bingshan lu, juan 5, 251a–252a; trans. in Clunas, “Fur- nishing,” 25) 10. In the latter instance, the authors are citing Mary Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 118.

Works Cited

Bray, Francesca. Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1997. Clunas, Craig. “Furnishing the Self in Early Modern China.” In Nancy Berliner, ed. Beyond the Screen: Chinese Furniture of the 16th and 17th Centuries, 21–35. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1996. . “The Novel Jin Ping Mei as a Source for the Study of Ming Furniture.” Orientations 23(1) (January 1992): 116–24. . Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004 (1991). French, Katherine L., Kathryn A. Smith, and Sarah Stanbury. “An Honest Bed: The Scene of Life and Death in Late Medieval England.” Fragments 5 (2016): 61–95. Hay, Jonathan. Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010. Jin Ping Mei ci hua 金瓶梅詞話, 3 vols. Reprint of Ming Wanli dingsi ed. Hong Kong: Taiping shuzhu, 1987. Li Yu 李漁. Xianqing ouji 閒情偶寄 [Leisure Notes]. Yisheng tang, 1671. Roy, David Tod, trans. The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Chin P’ing Mei. 5 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993–2014. Ruitenbeek, Klaas. Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Fifteenth-Century Carpenter’s Manual Lu Ban Jing. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 23. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993. Tianshui bingshan lu 天水冰山錄 [Record of Heavenly Waters Melting the Iceberg]. Taibei: Yiwen yinshu guan, 1956. Wen Zhenheng 文震亨. Zhangwu zhi jiaozhu長物志校注 [Treatise on Superfluous Things, Corrected and Annotated], ed. Chen Zhi 陳植 and Yang Chaobo 楊超伯. Nanjing: Jiangsu kexue jishu chubanshe, 1984.

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