夢蝶劈棺

莊子求道返家途中，見一寡婦搧墳，得知寡婦急於改嫁，卻礙於答應過先夫要待墳土乾後始能再婚，無奈之下只好以扇搧墳。莊子感其真誠，遂用道法助其令墳土盡乾。莊子回到家中，見妻子田氏打扮嫣然，頓想起搧墳求嫁的小寡婦，心悟人情常變，無永久恆堅之理，遂假死化身為俊秀的王孫來試探妻子的忠誠。

田氏心靈高潔，她所追求的是精神的愛，與小寡婦的生活所需截然不同。她敬莊周之學高質潔，莊子死了，她拒絕媒婆的提親，準備孤獨終老，卻被莊子假扮的王孫以情花打動，為救病危的王孫，甘於去劈開莊子的棺材取出莊子的腦漿來作藥引，這時莊子突然出現譏笑妻子難守誓盟，證明萬物無常的自然法則。田氏得知被試探後，羞愧交加，憤然離去。

A Dream of Butterfly and Exhumation / Dreaming of a Butterfly and Breaking the Coffin

On his way home from seeking enlightenment, Zhuang Zi sees a widow fanning a tomb. Zhuang learns that the woman is doing so because she is eager to remarry, but she is unwilling to break her promise to her late husband that she will wait to remarry until the earth of his tomb is dry. Touched by her faithfulness,Zhuang dries the tomb thoroughly with Taoist sorcery. Back home, Zhuang’s beautifully dressed wife Tian reminds him of the young widow and it occurs to him that love is fickle and nothing is eternal. The husband feigns death and turns into a handsome young man to test his wife for her loyalty.

Unlike the young widow, Tian is noble-minded and adheres to spiritual love. She respects Zhuang for his knowledge and upright character. Now that her husband is dead, she closes the door to all matchmakers and makes ready for a life of solitude. However, she soon falls in love with Zhuang, who disguises himself as a young man. In order to save the young man from a serious illness, Tian is told she must break her husband’s coffin and remove his brains as an enhancing substance to the remedy. When she is about to do so, Zhuang appears and ridicules her inconstancy as a proof of the Natural Law of Change. Knowing that he has made a fool of her, she leaves in shame, sorrow and indignation.