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ì'Yen Ch'a-san Thrice Tested': Printed Novel to Oral Tale Susan Blader In my earlier studies of the late nineteenth-century novel San-hsia ωu­ yi 三俠五義 (Three Heroes and Five Gallants) and its relationship to an incomplete song-book manuscript located in the Rare Book Library of Academia Sinica, Taiwan,l 1chose the episode 'The Pig-Head Purchase' for comparison with the song-book version of the same episode, entitled 'The Nine-Heads' Murder Case'.2 Although 1 could not prove linear development from that particular song-book to San-hsia ωu-yi which is thrice removed from whatever oral version served as the source for transcription,3 the comparison brought to light the differences we are likely to find between transcribed versions of an oral performance and versions that have been fixed by writing and revised by literary men. See my Ph.D. dissertation,'A Critical Study of 5an-hsia ωu-yi and Its Relationship to the Lung-t'u kung-an Song-Book' (University of Pennsylvania, 1977), and '5anhsia ωu-yi and Its Link to Oral Literature', in CHINOPERL Papers 8 (1978). The Pig-Head Purchase', a translation of chapters 9-11 of 5an-hsia 叩心叭， will appear in Renditions in 1987. A complete 'The Nine-Heads' Murder Case', is included in Appendix A of my dissertation. According to the evidence we have at present, 5仰甸的ia ωu-yi derives from two previous written versions: Lung-t'u erh-lu 龍圖再錄， a version written down by a listener who heard the story being told by Shih Yü去'un 石玉崑， (as evidenced by the title 一'The Aural Record of Pao Lung-t'u, Magistrate Pao'), as the tradition has it (all sung parts were removed from this version); and Chung-lieh hsia-yichuan 忠烈俠義傳 (A Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Men) by Wen-chu Chu-jen 問竹主人 (Master of Questioning Bamboo, a Taoist name). This version was printed in 1879, but the Lung-t'u erh-lu saw print only as late as 1982 in Shanghai by the Ku-chi 古籍 Publishing Company. In 1889 the novel was again revised and shortened by the Ch'ìng scholar Yü Yüeh 俞槌(1821-1907) and retitled Ch'i-hsia ωu-yi 七俠丘義 (Seven Heroes and Five Gallants). 5an-hsia 切必阱， as we know it today, ìs essentially the Chung-lieh hs旬-yi chuan. For more details, see my dissertation. 153 Susan Blader The subject of this study is the episode 'Yen Ch'a-san Thrice Tested' (San shih Yen Ch'a-san 三試顏查散)， which spans chapters thirty-two to thirty-nine of San-hsia ωu-yi. This episode introduces Yen Ch'a-san, a young scholar who eventually replaces Magistrate Pao (Pao-kung 包泣， named Cheng 拯， an historical magistrate who lived from 999-1072 A.D.) in his role in the novel as arbiter of justice. Consisting of two parts the testing of a hero and a courtroom case 一 it combines the two themes that are central to the narrative: knight-errantry and crime detection, activities that serve the cause of justice. It is because this episode is representative of the novel as a whole that it has been chosen for comparison with an oral version told by Chin Sheng-po 金聲伯， Soochow p'ing-hua 採州評話 (Soochow straight storytelling) artist. In March, 1982, when 1 was fortunate to meet Chin Sheng-po in Soochow, China, 1learned that 'Yen Ch'a-san Thrice Tested' was, after almost thirty years of telling San-hsia ωu-叭， his favorite specialty piece. Therefore, in spite of the fact that this episode was missing from the incomplete song-book manuscript 1had studied previously, 1requested that he perform, for the purpose of videotaping, his version of 'Yen Jenmin Thrice Tested'.4. The four and one half hour performance videotaped in Peking in May, 1982, by Kate Stevens will serve, therefore, as the basis of a new comparison, that between the printed novel version and a contemporary oral one.5 The discussion that follows will focus on the first part of this episode, which captures in an arresting way the conflict between the ideal way to maintain harmony among men, i.e. through man's inner spirituality, and the realistic way, through the implementation of externals, be they social norms or legal systems. Literature, whether it is oral or written, is a conveyer of values. \代，orks of literature that are fiχed in print can provide us with insight into the values of that period when the work became thus finalized. Works that exist in the oral tradition...

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