秦巨伯

干寶, 搜神記, 卷十六 (390).

夏志清 CT Hsia, Classic Chinese Novel (p.18).
quoted from Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang's (楊憲益, 戴乃迭) trs., The Man Who Sold a Ghost: Chinese Tales of 3rd--6th Cent.: `The Old Mand the Devils'.

Chin Chiu-Po of the principality of Langya was sixty. One night after drinking, as he passed Pengshan Temple, he saw his two grandsons comnig towards him.

瑯琊秦巨伯，年六十，嘗夜行飲酒，道經蓬山廟，忽見其兩孫迎之。

They took his arms and helped him along for about a hundred paces. Then they seized him by the neck and threw him to the ground.

`Old slave!' they swore. `You beat us up the other day, so today we are going to kill you.'

扶持百餘步，便捉伯頸著地，罵：「老奴！汝某日捶我，我今當殺汝。」

Rememering that he had indeed beaten the boys some days ago, he pretended to be dead, and they left him there. When he go home he decided to punish them.

伯思，惟某時信捶此孫。伯乃佯死，乃置伯去。 伯歸家，欲治兩孫。

Shocked and distressed they apololgized to him.
`How could your own grandsons do such a thing?' they protested. `Those must have been devils. Please make another test.'
He realized they were right.

兩孫驚惋，叩頭言： 「為子孫寧可有此？恐是鬼魅，乞更試之。」 伯意悟。

A few days later the old man pretended to be drunk and past the temple again. Once more the two devils came to take his arms, and this time he seized them so that they could not escape.

數日，乃詐醉，行此廟間，復見兩孫來扶持伯。 伯乃急持，鬼動作不得。

Reaching home, he put both devils on the fire, until their backs and bellies were scorched and cracked. He left them in the courtyard, and that night they escaped.

達家，乃是兩[偶]人也。 伯著火炙之，腹背俱焦坼，出著庭中，夜皆亡去。

Sorry that he had not killed them, about a month later the old man pretended to be drunk and went out at night again, taking a sword, unknown to his family.

伯恨不得殺之，後月餘，又佯酒醉夜行，懷刃以去，家不知也。

When he did not come back though it was very late, his grandsons feared the devils had caught him again. They went to look for him. And this time the old man hacked his own grandsons to death.

極夜不還，其孫恐又為此鬼所困，乃俱往迎伯，伯竟刺殺之。

*

夏志清按語 (p.19):

A discplinarian and self-righteous do-gooder, the old man is foolded the second time because he is too eager to punish and too much carried away by his sense of power.

His failure to tell appearance from reality indicates his moral condition, and in a sense the devils have picked him as their victim because they know it would appear to him quite normal that his grandsons should retaliate against his harshness.