| Legend of the White Snake | |||||||||||||||
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| Image from the Summer Palace, Beijing, China, depicting the legend | |||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 白蛇傳 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 白蛇传 | ||||||||||||||
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The Legend of the White Snake, also known as Madame White Snake, is a Chinese legend, which existed as oral traditions before any written compilation. It has since become a major subject of several Chinese operas, films and television series.
The earliest attempt to fictionalize the story appears to be The White Maiden Locked for Eternity in the Leifeng Pagoda (白娘子永鎮雷峰塔) in Feng Menglong's Jingshi Tongyan (警世通言), which was written during the Ming Dynasty.
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At its most basic, the story tells of a young scholar who falls in love with a beautiful woman, unaware that she is a thousand year old white snake that has taken on human form. A monk intervenes in order to maintain a law that forbids humans and spirits from falling in love with each other, and casts the white snake into a deep well at Leifeng Pagoda.
Over centuries the story has evolved from a horror tale to a romance story, which tells that the scholar and the snake woman are genuinely in love with each other, but their relationship is forbidden by nature's law. There are also other variations of the story, such as the white snake having met the scholar before and the story continues in their next lives, or the white snake's offspring being a reincarnation of the deity Wenchang Wang.
An additional character is a hundred year old green snake (or in some cases a carp) that has also transformed into a woman, and serves as the white snake-woman's close friend and confidante.
The story is set in the Southern Song Dynasty.
Bai Suzhen (白素貞), a female white snake, dreams of becoming a goddess by doing good deeds. She transforms herself into a woman and travels to the human realm. There, she meets a green snake, Qing (青), who causes disaster in the area she lives. Bai holds Qing captive at the bottom of a lake but promises her that she will return 300 years later to free her. Bai keeps her word and develops a sisterly bond with Qing. They encounter Fahai, a sorcerer who believes that every demon is inherently evil and must be destroyed. However, Bai is too powerful and Fahai is unable to eliminate her immediately, so he vows to destroy them if he sees them again.
Fearing that they will meet more human sorcerers, Bai and Qing retreat to the Banbuduo, a realm that exists between the human and demon worlds. They try to perform good deeds by bringing rain to places experiencing drought. However, Qing was careless and almost flooded the whole town once. Due to this mistake, Bai loses her chance to become an immortal. However, Guan Yin informs her that she may have yet another opportunity.
In the meantime, Bai and Qing accidentally bring a scholar named Xu Xian, and his friend, into the demon world. Bai protects them from the other demons and falls in love with Xu in the process. After the battle with the lord of the Underworld, Xu confesses his feelings for Bai, claiming that it was love at first sight. However, for a human to return to his world, he must first become unconscious and have any memory about his experience in the demon realm erased, but Xu knows and avoids being knocked out. However, Fahai finds a way into the demon world and he tricks Xu into being knocked out.
When Xu Xian returns to the human realm he forgets everything. Since he and his friend entered the portal separately, they end up in different locations. Xu meets many new people there. Not long later, Bai takes a final step to becoming a goddess, which is to collect human tears. Bai sees Xu with another woman and assumes that they are a couple. Qing realizes that when Xu and Bai meet, Xu will fall in love with Bai again, so she helps to arrange a meeting for them. Xu and Bai are married, open a medicine shop and live happily together.
However, as humans and demons are forbidden to bond, the town is struck by a plague and ends up on the verge of total destruction. Bai, Qing and Fahai finally agree to a truce and obtain a magical herb needed to help the population. Bai becomes pregnant later with Xu's child, but Fahai continues to attempt to eliminate her and Qing.
On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, when the Duanwu Festival is held, demons in human form will revert to their original shape. Bai thus decides to take Qing and Xu Xian back to Banbuduo, but Xu falls for Fahai's trick again. Bai's true form is revealed and Xu is literally scared to death. Bai retrieves a drug that restores Xu to life. After giving birth to Xu's son, Bai is unable to control herself anymore and is forced to tell her husband the truth about her origin. Xu kindly accepts her, but Fahai attacks the weakened Bai and imprisons her for eternity in Leifeng Pagoda.
In Feng Menglong's Jingshi Tongyan (警世通言), the white snake did not have a name. The name "Bai Suzhen" was created only later.
The story in Jingshi Tongyan was a story of good and evil, with Fahai out to save Xu Xian's soul from the demon Bai Suzhen. Over the centuries however the story has evolved from horror to romance with Bai and Xu genuinely in love with one another, but such a relationship is forbidden by the laws of Heaven.
Modifications to the story included:
1. Redemption of Bai:
2. Redemption of Bai (alternative version)
A quote from the adaptation Madam White Kept Forever under Thunder Peak Tower (Stories to Caution the World) states: "Judging from the case of Empress Wu, how we know that this white snake is not a beautiful woman? Who is to say that a white snake can’t change into a beautiful woman?" [i] Another quote in Lady White Snake: A Tale From Chinese Opera, retold by Aaron Shepard, states that an "animal may become a human. A human may become a god. Just so, a snake may become a woman."
Chinese folklore and Zodiac traditions both acknowledge snakes as the seducers and charmers throughout history of which there is equal fear and admiration for. There is a common and likely male dominated perception that Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty thrust herself into power by having these intrinsic serpent qualities. Therefore the parallels between the story of Madam White and Wu Zetian are easy to draw.
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