孟姜女哭长城
Lady Meng Jiang cries down the Great Wall
Name: ________________ Date: ________
长城是用砖和石头修建的，非常结实。可是在中国的传说里，有一个女人，只用眼泪就把长城哭倒了一大段。她就是孟姜女。
据说，孟家在院子里种了一棵葫芦。葫芦藤越爬越长，一直爬过墙，到了隔壁的姜家，结出了一个大葫芦。两家人打开一看，里面竟然有一个可爱的女孩子！两家都很喜欢她，就给她取名叫孟姜女。
孟姜女长大以后，嫁给了一个读书人，叫范喜良。那时候，秦始皇正在修建长城，官兵到处把男人抓走，让他们去干活。结婚没几天，范喜良就被官兵抓走了。
一年过去了，范喜良还是一点儿消息也没有。冬天快到了，孟姜女想：“北方那么冷，他只有夏天的衣服，怎么受得了？”于是，她亲手做了一套厚厚的冬衣，一个人出发了。
她走了很远很远的路，翻过一座又一座山，脚都走破了，终于来到了长城下面。可是她找了很多人问，大家都摇头。最后，一个干活的老人告诉她：“范喜良早就累死了，就埋在长城里面。”
孟姜女抱着冬衣，坐在长城下面大哭起来。她哭了三天三夜，哭得天空都暗了。忽然，“轰”的一声，长城倒了一大段，露出了很多白骨。
可是这么多白骨，哪一个是她的丈夫呢？有一种说法是，她咬破手指，把血滴在骨头上。如果是亲人的骨头，血就会流进去。就这样，她终于找到了范喜良。
秦始皇听说了这件事，亲自来看。他一见孟姜女长得这么美，竟然想让她做自己的妃子。孟姜女说：“好，不过你要答应我三件事：第一，给我丈夫办一个隆重的葬礼；第二，你要亲自给他戴孝；第三，带我去海边看看。”
秦始皇都答应了。葬礼办完以后，他们来到海边。孟姜女看着大海，突然跳了进去，再也没有出来。
有意思的是，这个故事最早的样子，跟长城根本没有关系。两千五百多年前的古书里，只写了一位将军死在了战场上，他的夫人非常伤心。后来的故事说，她在城墙下哭了十天，把城墙哭倒了。又过了很多年，城墙才变成了长城，故事里的坏人也变成了秦始皇。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 院子 | yuànzi | courtyard; yard |
| 棵 | kē | classifier for trees, plants and vegetables |
| 干活 | gànhuó | to work; to do manual labor |
| 消息 | xiāoxi | news; word; information; message |
| 座 | zuò | constellation; zodiac sign (as in 巨蟹座) |
| 破 | pò | to break; to split; broken; damaged; torn |
| 抱 | bào | to hold in one's arms; to hug; to embrace |
| 夜 | yè | night; evening |
| 石头 | shítou | stone; rock |
| 修建 | xiūjiàn | to build; to construct |
| 传说 | chuánshuō | legend; folklore |
| 眼泪 | yǎnlèi | tears |
English (for the teacher)
The Great Wall is built of bricks and stone, and it is very solid. Yet in Chinese legend there is a woman who brought down a long stretch of it with nothing but her tears. She is Lady Meng Jiang.
The story goes that the Meng family planted a gourd vine in their courtyard. The vine grew longer and longer until it climbed over the wall into the Jiang family’s yard next door, where it bore one huge gourd. When the two families cut it open, they found, to their amazement, a lovely little girl inside! Both families adored her, so they named her Meng Jiang Nü.
When she grew up, Meng Jiang Nü married a scholar named Fan Xiliang. At that time the First Emperor of Qin was building the Great Wall, and soldiers were seizing men everywhere and making them work. Only a few days after the wedding, Fan Xiliang was dragged away by soldiers.
A year passed, and still there was no word at all from Fan Xiliang. Winter was coming, and Meng Jiang Nü thought: “It’s so cold in the north, and he only has summer clothes. How will he stand it?” So she made a thick set of winter clothes with her own hands and set off alone.
She walked a very long way, crossed one mountain after another until her feet were raw, and at last reached the foot of the Great Wall. But everyone she asked only shook their head. Finally an old labourer told her: “Fan Xiliang worked himself to death long ago. He’s buried inside the wall.”
Meng Jiang Nü sat at the foot of the wall holding the winter clothes and burst into tears. She cried for three days and three nights, until even the sky grew dark. Suddenly, with a great roar, a long stretch of the wall collapsed, revealing heaps of white bones.
But with so many bones, which were her husband’s? One version says she bit her finger and let her blood drip onto the bones. If the bones belonged to someone of her own family, the blood would sink in. In this way she finally found Fan Xiliang.
The First Emperor heard about it and came to see for himself. The moment he saw how beautiful Meng Jiang Nü was, he actually wanted to make her one of his consorts. Meng Jiang Nü said: “All right, but you must promise me three things: first, give my husband a grand funeral; second, wear mourning for him yourself; third, take me to see the sea.”
The emperor agreed to all of it. After the funeral they came to the seashore. Meng Jiang Nü looked at the sea, suddenly jumped in, and never came out again.
The interesting thing is that the oldest form of this story has nothing to do with the Great Wall. In an old book from more than 2,500 years ago, all it says is that a general died on the battlefield and his wife grieved deeply. A later story says she wept beneath a city wall for ten days until the wall fell. Many years after that, the city wall became the Great Wall, and the villain of the story became the First Emperor of Qin.