The Soul of the Great Bell
She hath spoken, and her words still resound in his ears.
HAO QIU ZHUAN: c.ix.
T HE WATER-CLOCK marks the hour in the Da Zhongsi—in the Tower of the Great Bell: now the mallet is lifted to smite the lips of the metal monster—the vast lips inscribed with Buddhist texts from the sacred Fahua jing ,from the chapters of the holy Lingyan jing! Hear the great bell responding! How mighty her voice, though tongueless! GE-AI! All the little dragons on the high-tilted eaves of the green roofs shiver to the tips of their gilded tails under that deep wave of sound; all the porcelain gargoyles tremble on their carven perches; all the hundred little bells of the pagodas quiver with desire to speak. GE-AI! All the green-and-gold tiles of the temple are vibrating; the wooden goldfish above them are writhing against the sky; the uplifted finger of Fo shakes high over the heads of the worshippers through the blue fog of incense! GE-AI! What a thunder tone was that! All the lacquered goblins on the palace cornices wriggle their fire-colored tongues! And after each huge shock, how wondrous the multiple echo and the great golden moan and, at last, the sudden sibilant sobbing in the ears when the immense tone faints away in broken whispers of silver—as though a woman should whisper, “ Xie! ” Even so the great bell hath sounded every day for well-nigh five hundred years— Ge-ai: first with stupendous clang, then with immeasurable moan of gold, then with silver murmuring of “Xie!” And there is not a child in all the many-colored ways of the old Chinese city who does not know the story of the great bell, who cannot tell you why the great bell says Ge-ai and Xie!
Now, this is the story of the great bell in the Da Zhongsi, as the same is related in the Baixiaodu shou, written by the learned Yu Baochen, of the City of Guanzhoufu.
Nearly five hundred years ago the Celestially August, the Son of Heaven, Yongluo, of the “Illustrious,” or Ming, dynasty, commanded the worthy official Guanyu that he should have a bell made of such size that the sound thereof might be heard for one hundred li. 19 And he further ordained that the voice of the bell should be strengthened with brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver; and that the face and the great lips of it should be graven with blessed sayings from the sacred books, and that it should be suspended in the center of the imperial capital, to sound through all the many-colored ways of the city of Beijing.
Therefore the worthy mandarin Guanyu assembled the master-molders and the renowned bellsmiths of the empire, and all men of great repute and cunning in foundry work; and they measured the materials for the alloy, and treated them skillfully, and prepared the molds, the fires, the instruments, and the monstrous melting-pot for fusing the metal. And they labored exceedingly, like giants—neglecting only rest and sleep and the comforts of life; toiling both night and day in obedience to Guanyu, and striving in all things to do the behest of the Son of Heaven.
But when the metal had been cast, and the earthen mold separated from the glowing casting, it was discovered that, despite their great labor and ceaseless care, the result was void of worth; for the metals had rebelled one against the other—the gold had scorned alliance with the brass, the silver would not mingle with the molten iron. Therefore the molds had to be once more prepared, and the fires rekindled, and the metal re-melted, and all the work tediously and toilsomely repeated. The Son of Heaven heard, and was angry, but spoke nothing.
A second time the bell was cast, and the result was even worse. Still the metals obstinately refused to blend one with the other; and there was no uniformity in the bell, and the sides of it were cracked and fissured, and the lips of it were slagged and split asunder; so that all the labor had to be repeated even a third
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