Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

eyes. La-ya-la — La-ya la-la-ya-la — My life was hanging by a thread, so I rested my front hooves on Butterfly Lover’s body and raised my rear legs, a sort of handstand, if you will, and when Diao came at me like a shot, he slipped under my belly, and all I had to do was settle back and I was astride him. He was totally defenseless. I stuck my hooves in his eyes — no more glare. La-ya-la — La-ya la-la-ya-la — Mama’s straw hat has flown up to the moon — Taking my loves and my ideals with it — Sure, the tactic was on the cruel side, but this was such an important moment that I couldn’t concern myself with sermons of hypocrisy.
    Diao Xiaosan careened around frantically until he finally managed to throw me from his back. Blue-tinged blood oozed from his eye sockets. Covering his eyes with his hooves, he cried out in agony as he rolled on the ground:
    “I can’t see . . . I’m blind . . .”
    La-ya-la — La-ya-la — All the pigs were quiet, looking very solemn. The moon flew high up into the sky, the straw hat fell to earth, bringing an end to the straw hat song; now the only sounds swirling around the air of Apricot Garden were the agonizing shrieks of Diao Xiaosan. The castrated boars headed back to their pens, their tails between their legs, whereas the sows, under Butterfly Lover’s leadership, circled me and turned their heads outward, offering up their backsides to me. Master, they muttered, beloved master, we are yours, all of us, for you are the king, and we are lowly concubines fully prepared to become the mothers of your offspring . . . La-ya-la — La-ya la-la-ya-la — The straw hat that had fallen out of the sky was crushed beneath Diao Xiaosan’s body as he rolled on the ground. My mind was a blank, except for soft strains of the straw hat song, and those soft strains were, in the end, like pearls sinking to the bottom of a lake. Everything had returned to normal; the watery rays of the moon were chilled, causing me to shiver and raising goose bumps on my skin. Is this how territory was won? Is this how you gained dominance? I couldn’t possibly handle all that many sows, could I? To be perfectly honest, by then I’d lost interest in mating with any of them. But all those nice rear ends raised in my direction were like an indestructible wall penning me in, with no way out. How I wished I could escape on the wind, but a voice from on high made my position clear: King of Pigs, you have no right to escape, just as Diao Xiaosan has no right to mate with them. Mating with them is your sacred obligation! La-ya-la — La-ya la-la-ya-la — The straw hat song rose slowly to the surface like pearls. Yes, a monarch has no domestic affairs; politics rest on a monarch’s sex organ. It was necessary for me to faithfully discharge my duties by mating with those sows. I absolutely had to fulfill my obligation to deposit my seed in their wombs. It made no difference whether they were pretty or ugly, whether they were white or black, whether they were virgins or had already mated with other boars. The real problem that presented itself was selection. They were all equally demanding, equally passionate, so who was I to choose? Or, to put it differently, who was going to be honored by an imperial visit? With all my heart, I wished I could be aided in my selection by one of the castrated boars, but there was no time for that now. The moon, close to fulfilling its nightly obligation, had retreated to the western edge of the sky, until only half of its red face was still visible above the treetops. A shark’s-belly silver-gray sky had already appeared on the eastern horizon; dawn was breaking, the morning stars sparkled. I nudged Butterfly Lover’s rear end with my hard snout as notice that I had selected her for the first imperial visit. She moaned coquettishly. Ah, Great King, your slave’s body has long awaited this moment. . . .
    For the moment, I put aside all thoughts of past lives and gave no thought to what would follow my present life. I was a pig, through and through, so I rose up and mounted Butterfly Lover . . . La-ya-la — La-ya la-la-ya-la — The straw hat song rose triumphantly. As the background music swelled, a sonorous tenor voice rose into the sky: Mama’s straw hat has flown up to the moon — Taking my loves and ideals with it — All the other sows, free of jealousy, took the tail of the pigs in front in their mouths and began a circle dance around Butterfly Lover and me