Chinese folklore abounds in tales of fox spirits who seduce men by shapeshifting into beautiful women. Japan and Korea have their own variants of such tales.

Japanese Fox Spirits

The title graphic shows two views of a Japanese fox spirit (creative commons images of Chinese fox spirits were not available)

(1) On the left is Suushi Yakō 野狐 from the Hyakkai Zukan 百怪図巻 “The Illustrated Volume of a Hundred Demons”, PD image [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyakkai_Zukan]

(2) On the right is Kuzunoha 葛の葉, a fox spirit whose appearance resembles the one in the Dog Lantern. Notice how she appears human, but the shadow she casts on the sleeping man reveals her true self [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuzunoha]

Transliteration and Translation of “The Dog Lantern”

(Detailed explanations will follow in the comments below)

Classical Chinese is exceedingly terse. Here is the unpunctuated text of “ The Dog Lantern”:

韓光祿大千之僕夜宿廈間見樓上有燈如明星未幾熒熒飄落及地化為犬睨之轉舍後去急起潛尾之入園中化為女子心知其狐還臥故所俄女子自後來僕陽寐以觀其變女俯而撼之僕偽作醒狀問其為誰女不答僕曰樓上燈光非子也耶女曰既知之何問焉遂共宿止晝別宵會以為常主人知之使二人夾僕臥二人既醒則身臥床下亦不知墮自何時

The original story only takes up a few lines (141 characters), and yet the English translation expands to a quite respectable 15 lines (251 words). Below is my own sentence-by-sentence translation of the elegant 文言文 (Classical Chinese) original, part of a projected Introduction to Classical Chinese, a course I am slowly compiling.

For the time being, I am posting the Chinese text, transcription in GR Tonal Spelling and a fluent (not word-for-word) translation. More details about grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation will appear in the comments below. I would very much appreciate any comments or corrections!