The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama

INTRODUCTION

WAI-YEE LI

This volume is designed to introduce the reader to the first great flowering of drama in the Chinese tradition. The plays translated here are conventionally referred to as northern drama or Yuan drama, a period designation that ties them to the dynasty of Mongol rulers who conquered northern China (then under Jin, or Jurchen, rule) in 1234 and southern China (Southern Song) in 1276 and ruled until 1368. As is often the case, literary developments do not tally neatly with political turning points. Plays of this kind were already flourishing by the mid-thirteenth century (before Kublai Khan proclaimed the founding of the Great Yuan dynasty in 1271), and they continued to be written in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Many of the so-called Yuan plays are preserved in much later redactions, and one may legitimately ask whether changes introduced by fifteenth-, sixteenth-, and seventeenth-century editors permit us to still think of the resultant texts as being embedded in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Textual sedimentation forces us to go beyond a simple either-or stance in considering the issue of authenticity. Instead of dismissing a Ming edition of a Yuan text as inauthentic, it is probably more useful to think of it as a composite Yuan-Ming creation that contains both Yuan elements and Ming editorial changes.¹

Yuan drama is now recognized as one of the great achievements of Chinese vernacular literature. By turn lyrical and earthy (even vulgar), sentimental and ironic, Yuan drama commands an emotional and linguistic range that should earn it a rightful place in world theater and world literature. Combining sung arias, declaimed verses, doggerels, dialogues, mime, jokes, and probably acrobatic feats, it was a vital part of the culture of performance and entertainment in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.² It provides a repertoire of stories and themes that are continually reworked in later periods, including revival in different media in our own times. Its broad canvas presents characters ranging from high to low, encompassing immortals, gods, rulers, ministers, warriors, strategists, judges, scholars, merchants, beggars, wives, mothers, maids, servants, prostitutes, wastrels, monks, and nuns, to name only some examples. There are recurrent topoi, such as historical legends of vengeance and requital, romances of rulers and consorts, heroism and betrayal at moments of dynastic founding or political crisis, power struggles between historical personages, miscarriage of justice in the court rectified by sagacious judges, banished immortals or humans that attain enlightenment, recluses insistently uninterested in power, romantic encounters of young lovers who eventually overcome all odds, family conflicts that beg for resolution, or wastrels who learn their lessons. The sampling in this volume, though by no means exhaustive, introduces readers to some common story types.

Our plays are called zaju 雜劇 (literally, mixed performance or miscellaneous performance) in Chinese. The term appeared as early as the ninth century, but its usage seems not to have become common until the Song dynasty (960–1279), when it was applied to skits, mime, puppet theater, and other types of musical or acrobatic performance. A shared term is, of course, not evidence of genealogy. Literary historians believe, however, that the dramatic forms presented here have their origins and prehistory in various modes of storytelling, musical performance, and theatrical skits that flourished from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. Especially pertinent are the play texts (yuanben 院本) and narrative song suites called all keys and modes (zhu gongdiao 諸宮調) that developed in northern China when it was under Jurchen rule (1115–1234).³ Tao Zongyi 陶宗儀 (b. 1316) mentions in his miscellany Respite from Farming (Chuogeng lu 輟耕錄) that there are 690 play texts known by titles; unfortunately, none of these is extant. We do have one text in all keys and modes that has survived in its entirety: Dong Jieyuan’s 董解元 (ca. 1200) retelling of Yuan Zhen’s 元稹 (779–831) Yingying’s Story (Yingying zhuan 鶯鶯傳) in The Western Chamber by Master Dong (Dong Jieyuan Xixiang ji 董解元西廂記), which gives a happy ending to a love story that originally ended with abandonment.⁴ Dong’s text later spawned The Western Chamber (Xixiang ji 西廂記) by Wang Shifu 王實甫 (ca. 1250–1300), one of the most famous romantic plays in the Chinese tradition.⁵ The relationship between the texts by Dong and Wang gives us a tantalizing glimpse into what might have been vibrant interactions between musical storytelling and the theatrical stage.

There are musical differences between texts in all keys and modes and northern drama.⁶ Some of these divergences are observable in print, but the actual music of both is long lost. What remains is the music of the words, the rhythm, rhymes, and sonorous musicality of the arias, which we can still experience to a certain extent when we recite or chant them (even if we cannot sing them) in modern dialects. The Treatise on Singing (Changlun 唱論, ca. early fourteenth century) by Yannan Zhi’an 燕南芝庵 characterizes the mood associated with various modes; for example, xianlü mode 仙呂調, fresh and lingering; nanlü mode 南呂宮, lamenting and grieving; zhonglü mode 中呂宮, high and low notes chasing one another; huangzhong mode 黃鐘宮, lush and filled with longing; zheng mode 正宮, melancholy and heroic; double-tune mode 雙調, strong, brisk, and stirring; Yue tunes mode 越調, descriptive and cynical.⁷

The basic organizational component of each act in northern drama is the song suite, in which all arias follow one mode (gongdiao 宮調) and one rhyme. Thus xianlü mode Touching Up Red Lips (Dian Jiangchun 點絳唇) indicates "an aria in the xianlü mode to the tune ‘Touching Up Red Lips.’" The mode is mentioned only with the first aria; it is understood that all subsequent tunes in the same act follow the same mode. Although translations of the tune titles are provided in this volume, the correlation of their semantic meanings and musical properties is not well understood. In some specific cases, the tune titles indicate structural or sequential functions. Thus yao 么 (or yaopian 么篇) means same tune as above; shawei 煞尾 (or zhuansha 賺煞, zhuanshawei 賺煞尾, zhuanwei 賺尾, weisheng 尾聲, yuanyang sha 鴛鴦煞) indicates the last aria of the act, or coda; ersha 二煞 is the aria before the coda (penultimate coda); sansha 三煞 refers to the third to last coda; and gewei 隔尾 (coda for the turning point) has the same tune pattern as the coda but appears in the middle of the act where there is a change of mood or a plot twist.

The dialogues are secondary and probably improvisatory. In the earliest editions, the spoken parts are minimal and often indicated with the expression yunliao 云了 or yunzhu 云住 (after X has spoken)⁸ rather than spelled out, and there is no formal division into acts. A new song suite announces a new act, although the modes for song suites are not listed in these Yuan printings. The modern editors of Thirty Zaju Plays in Yuan Editions (Yuan kan zaju sanshi zhong 元刊雜劇三十種, hereafter Yuan Editions) have inserted the divisions into acts and the names of modes for song suites.⁹ Typically there are four acts. The five-act format in The Zhao Orphan is highly unusual (and the result of Ming editorial changes),¹⁰ and the five cycles of four acts each in The Western Chamber may be the only example of its kind.¹¹ Some plays have wedges (xiezi 楔子), usually placed at the beginning but sometimes also between two acts. The metaphor is derived from carpentry and refers to the small piece of wood that fills a gap as two or more pieces of wood are fitted together. Unlike the prologue (jiamen 家門, fumo kaichang 副末開場) in later southern chuanqi 傳奇drama, the wedge is not separate from the plot and does not summarize the play or present the playwright’s perspective; rather, it is a short scene setting up the premise of the plot or facilitating its transitions. Its brevity means that instead of an entire song suite, only one or two arias will be performed, sometimes by roles other than the lead.¹² The definition of the wedge was initially fluid. In the late fourteenth century, the first song was sometimes designated as the wedge, as in Zhu Quan’s 朱權 (1378–1448) A Formulary of Correct Sounds of an Era of Peace (Taihe zhengying pu 太和正音譜, hereafter Correct Sounds). Even as late as 1610, when Wang Jide 王驥德 (d. 1623) wrote Musical Principles (Qulü 曲律), the wedge was still defined in musical terms: A performer’s first song upon coming on stage is called the ‘wedge’ in the north and the ‘lead-in’ in the south.¹³ By the late Ming, however, the wedge was commonly accepted as the introductory or transitional short scene. Of the one hundred plays included in Zang Maoxun’s 臧懋循 (1550–1620) Anthology of Yuan Plays (Yuan qu xuan 元曲選, hereafter Anthology), sixty-nine have wedges. Yuan printings do not have the passages functioning as wedges marked as such; the designation seems to have begun in Ming editions of Yuan plays.¹⁴

The theatrical troupes performing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries sometimes consisted of members of the same family or of teacher and disciples. There were court troupes (gongting xiban 宮廷戲班), household entertainers kept by rich families (jiayue 家樂), and, most commonly, independent troupes that lived in pleasure quarters or, more literally, the courtyard of the entertainers’ guild (hangyuan 行院). Classified as debased (jian 賤), these professional performers were subject to sumptuary and other restrictions.¹⁵ Actors specialized in specific role types, although there were also performers who could play both male and female roles.¹⁶ Our translation of the role types follows the system that Wilt Idema and Stephen West devised for Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays (hereafter Monks).¹⁷ The most important role is that of the lead singer, the male lead (zhengmo 正末) or the female lead (zhengdan 正旦), who determines whether a text is called a male text (moben 末本) or female text (danben 旦本). One actor sings throughout (with some exceptions in the wedge), although he or she may play different characters in one play. For example, in The Zhao Orphan, the male lead plays successively Han Jue, Gongsun Chuqiu, and Cheng Bo (Zhao Wu). In Selling Rice in Chenzhou, the male lead plays both the victim Zhang Piegu and Judge Bao. Scholar Zhang Boils the Sea is unusual in having both a female lead (playing the dragon princess Qionglian and the Hairy Maiden) and a male lead (playing the abbot Fayun) sing, although in another edition it is the Fairy Mother (played by the female lead) rather than Fayun who shows Zhang Yu the way to the sea in act 3, thus preserving the gender unity of a female text. The lead singer is the emotional focus of the play; the arias plumb lyrical depths, explore conflicting thoughts and feelings, and allow narratives to unfold. The role type that plays the adversary to the lead singer is the comic (jing 淨), a villainous character who often also performs farcical routines and nonsensical doggerels. This means that evil is never momentous: a figure like Macbeth, Iago, or Richard III would not be imaginable in these plays. More purely comical but sometimes also malevolent is the clown (chou 丑), a role type found only in late-Ming editions of Yuan plays; it is not mentioned in Zhu Quan’s Correct Sounds.¹⁸ Modifiers like extra (wai 外), second (er 二), opening (chong 冲), painted (cha 搽), added (tie 貼), flowery (hua 花), and old (lao 老) are variously applied to male (mo 末), female (dan 旦), and comic types and define a host of supplementary characters; for example, the opening male, who usually heralds action, the added female, who often plays maids, the extra male, who plays supplementary characters, and so on. In addition, there are names or stock appellations that function like role types, such as Meixiang 梅香 for maid, Zhang Qian 張千 for a yamen clerk or guard, Doctor Lu’s Rival (Sai Lu yi 賽盧醫) for a quack doctor, or Xiao’er of the Inn (Dian Xiao’er 店小二) for an innkeeper. Some terms for characters seem specific to dialect of the period and northern drama, such as bu’er 卜兒 (old woman), lai’er 倈兒 (child), or gu 孤 (official).

Not much is known about the authors of these plays. Names of authors are not included in the extant Yuan printings, and the authorial attributions in Ming editions are sometimes questionable. A major source of information is Zhong Sicheng’s 鍾嗣成 (ca. 1279–1360) The Register of Ghosts (Lugui bu 錄鬼簿, prefaces dated 1355, 1360, and 1366), whose entries are typically short and cryptic.¹⁹ Zhong notes in his preface (1360) that most of the playwrights were of humble origins and did not hold high positions.²⁰ The activities of talented writers of writing clubs (shuhui cairen 書會才人) and joint efforts by a number of playwrights suggest collaboration that takes us beyond discrete textual boundaries and conventional notions of literati self-expression.²¹ Stephen West has noted that the categories of notable gentlemen (minggong 名公) and talented writers (cairen 才人) in The Register of Ghosts probably correspond to, respectively, literati writers and professional writers.²² The line between the two might in any case have been quite fluid. Although it is customary to assert that Yuan playwrights were far from the world of official power and privilege, we should note that some of them did hold office.²³ Taking our cue from The Register of Ghosts, we can discern a shift from north to south in the regional distribution of playwrights from the early thirteenth century to the early fourteenth century.²⁴

The Ming scholar Shen Defu 沈德符 (1578–1642) maintained that drama flourished during the Yuan because Mongol rulers used song writing to assess the merit of scholars (yi qu qushi 以曲取士) during examinations.²⁵ The same point is mentioned in Zang Maoxun’s preface to his Anthology.²⁶ This theory was disparaged during the Qing and definitively rejected in Wang Guowei’s 王國維 (1877–1927) History of Drama During the Song and Yuan Dynasties (Song Yuan xiqu shi 宋元戲曲史, 1915).²⁷ Also related to the civil service examination is the argument that its abeyance encouraged the literati to try their hand at writing plays. The civil service examination was not held from 1279 to 1314 and was again suspended from 1334 to 1340. When it was held, it was often merely local, open to abuses, and biased in favor of Mongols and Semu 色目(central and western Asians of the various categories). According to West, Altogether only sixteen central examinations were held in the years 1314 to 1368, promoting only 1,139 successful candidates for the bureaucracy.²⁸ Discontent and political disaffection as the impetus for writing is a wonted theme in the Chinese tradition. In this context, frustrations are often linked to political corruption and the sentiments of those who remained loyal to the fallen regimes of Jin and Song. Such is the view articulated in Zhu Jing’s 朱經 1364 preface to Xia Tingzhi’s 夏庭芝 Houses of Pleasure (Qinglou ji 青樓集).²⁹ According to Zhu, playwrights like Bai Pu 白樸 (b. 1226) and Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 (thirteenth century) were Jin loyalists who disdained participation in the Yuan political system, whose negative turn soon meant that scholars lost their vocation and their will was thwarted. Many literary histories rehearse the argument that Han Chinese literati, denied the venue for advancement, vented their frustration and disappointments by turning to the writing of plays. Twentieth-century studies tend to link such disaffection with pointed social critique; Yuan drama is often lauded for its fierce denunciation of flaws in the judicial system, official corruption, and other kinds of social injustice. Some members of the elite probably did feel deprived and humiliated in a discriminatory system, but did this cause them to turn to drama as the means for self-realization? If this causal connection did exist, did it also prompt heightened awareness of social ills?

These are possible but by no means inevitable logical leaps. Perhaps much more immediate and palpable is the symbiosis between literate men writing plays and the flourishing urban culture in which the theater claimed a central place. The extant Yuan editions advertise their compilation or printing in Dadu (present-day Beijing) and Hangzhou, pointing to the ties between theatrical culture and urban centers. This connection reached back as far as the Northern Song, as attested by the description of the stage and entertainment quarters of Kaifeng in Meng Yuanlao’s 孟元老 Dreaming of Splendors Past: The Eastern Capital (Dongjing menghua lu 東京夢華錄), completed in 1147 and published forty years later.³⁰ Recollections of thirteenth-century Hangzhou, such as Zhou Mi’s 周密 (1232–1298) The Bygone World of Hangzhou (Wulin jiushi 武林舊事, ca. 1290) and Wu Zimu’s 吳自牧 Record of Vain Dreams (Mengliang lu 夢梁錄, 1334), also depict a vibrant urban culture. The rich, sensuous texture of sights, sounds, and tastes of entertainment quarters and houses of pleasures is described in many thirteenth- and fourteenth-century songs and plays. In Du Renjie’s 杜仁傑 (thirteenth century) song suite The Country Bumpkin Does Not Know the Theater (Zhuangjia bushi goulan 莊家不識勾欄),³¹ the perspective of the country bumpkin defamiliarizes theatrical entertainment. In another instance, Gao Andao 高安道, in the voice of an official, superciliously mocks an inferior theatrical setup and performance in Songs and Performance in the Pleasure Quarters (Sang dan hangyuan 嗓淡行院) from the perch of social superiority.³² A few plays specifically dwell on the lure of the theatrical world. Immortals have a hard time convincing an actor to leave his troupe in the anonymous Zhongli of the Han Leads Lan Caihe to Enlightenment (Han Zhongli dutuo Lan Caihe 漢鍾離度脫藍采和, late thirteenth to early fourteenth century).³³ There are also plays about young men of good family so enthralled with the theater that they join theatrical troupes, as in Love in the Purple Cloud Pavilion (Zhugongdiao fengyue Ziyun ting 諸宮調風月紫雲亭), attributed to Shi Junbao 石君寶 (thirteenth century), and the southern play A Playboy from an Official Family Takes the Wrong Career (Huanmen zidi cuo lishen 宦門子弟錯立身) by A Talented Writer from Hangzhou (Gu Hang Cairen 古杭才人, thirteenth century).³⁴ F. M. Mote has concluded, "There is more reason to believe that they [writers of zaju] were drawn to the theater because it satisfyingly employed their talents than there is to believe that they were forced by demeaning circumstances to follow a lifestyle that they would otherwise have avoided."³⁵

Zhong Sicheng writes in the 1330 preface to The Register of Ghosts,

Alas! I too am a ghost. If I can turn the ghosts of the dead as well as the ghosts of the not yet dead into undying ghosts, so that their names can spread far, how fortunate I would be! As for the high-minded scholars and the learning about moral nature and principles, by whose standards I may be thought to have offended against the sages’ teachings, I can only, with those of like mind, eat clams and reserve my words for those who know the taste.

Ghosts are less than human and yet more than human; they become so through Zhong’s elevation of half-forgotten ghosts to the realm of literary immortality. By the same logic, clams satisfy a humble palate but may be tastier than more expensive foods—in any case the like-minded who share their appreciation are already on their way to redefine taste. Ghosts and clams are apt metaphors for Yuan playwrights and their plays. As it happens, Zhong does stand between oblivion and immortality for these writers. Clams symbolize the unorthodox tastiness of northern drama; it is precisely because they offend against the sages’ teachings that they claim a special place in Chinese literary history. Even with the damage control of Ming editors who turn Yuan plays into texts for reading, we can still sense the subversive potential: Kuai Tong lamenting the fate of loyal ministers betrayed by ruthless rulers (Tricking Kuai Tong [Zhuan Kuai Tong 賺蒯通]); Judge Bao reveling in trickery and buffoonery as he solves a crime case (Selling Rice in Chenzhou [Chenzhou tiaomi 陳州糶米]); Shanshouma justifying a symbolic patricide (The Tiger Head Plaque [Hutou pai 虎頭牌]); Luo Meiying asserting the principle of wifely authority (qigang 妻綱) (Qiu Hu Tries to Seduce His Wife [Qiu Hu xi qi 秋胡戲妻]); Zhao Pan’er cynically deconstructing high-flown romance (Rescuing a Sister [Jiu fengchen 救風塵]); and Li Qianjin berating her weak husband and unfeeling father-in-law (On Horseback and Over the Garden Wall [Qiangtou mashang 牆頭馬上]), to name but a few examples from this volume, all test the limits of decorum, sociopolitical boundaries, and conventional moral premises despite professed adherence to orthodox principles. Zhong’s defiant adoption of the oppositional stance is all the more remarkable when we consider the numerous contemporary and later arguments defending drama on account of its supposed articulation of orthodox virtues and potential for moral edification.³⁶

Two centuries later the Ming scholar He Liangjun 何良俊 (1506–1573) continues the taste metaphor as he compares Gao Ming’s 高明 (ca. 1306–1359) Story of the Lute (Pipa ji 琵琶記) with Yuan drama:

Ten thousand miles of endless sky is a fine poetic exposition; how can labels like lyrics or songs exhaust its merit! But since it is called a dramatic aria, it has to have garlic and cheese, and this aria has none of it. Just as in a feast of nobles and high officials, rich and elaborate food like camel hump or bear paws fills the space in front of them, and yet there are no vegetables, bamboo shoots, mussels, or clams. What is lacking is tastiness with character [fengwei 風味]!³⁷

He Liangjun also faults The Western Chamber and Story of the Lute for being totally effeminate (quan dai zhifen 全帶脂粉), in contrast to Yuan masters, whose natural and rough-hewn diction he characterizes as the original color or natural color (bense 本色) of the professional playwright (zuojia 作家).³⁸ Despite some passing resemblance, the garlic and cheese metaphor is quite different from the clam metaphor. Here tastiness is more a matter of stylistic register. It is in the same spirit that Zang Maoxun praises Yuan drama for achieving craft by being the opposite of crafted (bu gong er gong 不功而功), an implicit corrective of what Zang perceives as the overrefinement of contemporary southern drama. For Zang the criterion of evaluation is theatrical function (danghang 當行), the affective power of a play achieved through compelling role-playing.³⁹ As Yuan drama is assimilated into the great tradition, ideological challenges are tamed and transformed into (or at least understood as) aesthetic roughness or naturalness.

Naturalness (ziran 自然) is also upheld as the prime virtue of Yuan plays in the first modern Chinese academic study of drama, The History of Drama During the Song and Yuan Dynasties by Wang Guowei. Wang maintains that Yuan playwrights wrote by following where their inspiration took them—they did so to amuse themselves and others.

They just depicted the thoughts and feelings in their hearts and the ways things were in their era, and the truth of genuineness and conviction, as well as the spirit of beauty and distinction, often shone through. That is why it is not far off the mark to say that Yuan drama is the most natural literature in China. As for the naturalness of its language [wenzi 文字], that is just the inevitable consequence [of its spirit]—it is but a secondary point.⁴⁰

Wang argues that it is this naturalness that allows Yuan drama to transcend flaws of structure, characterization, and thought content (sixiang 思想). In other words, Wang is defining naturalness as a mode of uncensored and unmediated expression beyond considerations of ideology or style. In doing so he implicitly bypasses the dichotomy of form and content. By this logic it is emotional honesty that allows Yuan playwrights to go beyond the constraints of tradition or orthodoxy without deliberate ideological agenda or stylistic choice. It is also interesting that the defense of drama should be based on sincerity and genuineness, when the essence of acting is, after all, a kind of lying or make-believe.

According to extant sources, we know of the names of about 200 playwrights and the titles of about 737 plays.⁴¹ The number that actually existed must have been much larger; as late as the mid-sixteenth century the poet, playwright, and theater connoisseur Li Kaixian 李開先(1502–1568) still had the chance to peruse about 1,750 zaju.⁴² We now have 207 extant Yuan plays, of which 45 exist as fragments.⁴³ The quotation marks remind us that the category here includes a few early-Ming works and that these plays are, as mentioned, composite Yuan-Ming creations, although it is customary to refer to them as Yuan drama. Many anonymous plays cannot be dated with certainty, and some Ming plays might have masqueraded as Yuan plays by using their titles.⁴⁴

Most major extant collections of Yuan plays, some of which exist in multiple versions, are preserved in Plays in Early Editions (Guben xiqu congkan 古本戲曲叢刊), fourth series (1958).⁴⁵ The following list gives the names of collections, names of compilers (if known), and the number of extant plays:

1.  Thirty Zaju Plays in Yuan Editions (Yuan kan zaju sanshi zhong 元刊雜劇三十種),⁴⁶ 30

2.  Copied and Collated Zaju Plays Past and Present from the Maiwang Studio (Maiwang guan chao jiao gujin zaju 脈望館抄校古今雜劇), Zhao Qimei 趙琦美 (1563–1624), 242

3.  Zaju by Ancient Masters (Gu mingjia zaju 古名家雜劇, 1588), Yuyang Xianshi 玉陽仙史,⁴⁷ 10

4.  Ancient Zaju (Gu zaju 古雜劇, 1588), Guquzhai 顧曲齋 printing, Wang Jide, 20

5.  Anthology of Zaju (Zaju xuan 雜劇選, 1598), Xijizi 息機子, 11

6.  Refined Music (Yangchun zou 陽春奏, 1609), Huang Zhengwei 黃正位, 3

7.  Zaju from the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Yuan Ming zaju 元明雜劇), 4

8.  Anthology of Famous Plays Past and Present (Gujin mingju hexuan 古今名劇合選, comprising Libation to the River [Leijiang ji 酹江集, hereafter Libation] and Willow Branch [Liuzhi ji 柳枝集]), 1633, Meng Chengshun 孟稱舜 (seventeenth century), 56

The plays included in Yuan Editions are of different provenance, but they were already grouped together as a collection by the sixteenth century. The Maiwang Studio Collection, once larger, now includes 242 plays, of which 132 plays do not exist in other editions. It includes plays from printed editions, 54 from Zaju by Ancient Masters (hereafter Ancient Masters) and 15 from Anthology of Zaju (hereafter Xijizi). It also includes hand-copied manuscripts, 95 from the Ming imperial palace, 33 from the Ming book collector Yu Xiaogu 于小谷, and 44 of unknown provenance. This collection was in the possession of famous Qing collectors. Zheng Zhenduo 鄭振鐸 (1898–1958) discovered it in Shanghai in 1938.⁴⁸ Plays from Ancient Masters and Xijizi not included in the Maiwang Studio Collection are grouped by the editors of the 1958 series under the titles of no. 3 and no. 5.

The Ming editions not found in the 1958 series are Li Kaixian’s Revised Plays by Yuan Masters (Gaiding Yuan xian chuanqi 改訂元賢傳奇), Tong Yeyun’s 童野雲 Selections of Yuan Plays (Yuanren zaju xuan 元人雜劇選), and Zang Maoxun’s Anthology, which includes one hundred plays. Six Yuan plays revised by Li Kaixian (ca. 1566) are incorporated in the modern edition of Li’s collected writings.⁴⁹ Of the various Ming editions, the one that eventually became most influential is Zang Maoxun’s Anthology. Its ready availability explains its exclusion from the 1958 series. Zang’s editorial labor has invited criticism; both Wu Mei 吳梅 (1883–1939) and Zheng Zhenduo fault Zang for his cavalier corrections and quote with approval Ye Tang’s 葉堂 (eighteenth century) critique of him as a rash fellow (menglang han 孟浪漢). Sun Kaidi 孫楷第 (1902–1989) claims that Zang willfully followed his judgments and made too many corrections. Idema and West see Zang’s editorial effort as a deliberate Confucianization of Yuan plays.⁵⁰ However, Zang’s Anthology has never lacked admirers and ardent defenders.⁵¹ It is hard to judge the extent of Zang’s editorial intervention because there are so many gaps in the genealogies and transmission of Yuan plays. We believe that Zang’s Anthology deserves attention, not least because of its tremendous influence. In some cases, the version in Zang’s anthology is more interesting and coherent than versions in other Ming editions. Some plays exist only in Anthology, as is the case with three plays in this volume.⁵² For the past four centuries, Chinese readers have enjoyed Yuan plays through this anthology. In The Story of the Stone (The Dream of the Red Chamber [Honglou meng 紅樓夢]) (chapter 42), the prim and proper Xue Baochai, even as she warns Lin Daiyu of the dangers of reading plays, confesses to having secretly read the hundred Yuan plays (Yuanren bai zhong 元人百種) as a child. Through Zang’s Anthology, Yuan drama became an integral part of the Chinese literary tradition. It is also through this collection that Yuan plays were first introduced to the West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Liu Jung-en’s (1908–2001) Six Yuan Plays (1972) was based on Zang’s Anthology, but it was published more than forty years ago and leaves room for updating. By focusing its selection on Zang’s Anthology, this volume also complements recent endeavors in the translation of Yuan drama. Monks, for example, includes only one text from Anthology since Idema and West are more interested in using the earliest editions in order to reconstruct Yuan plays as scripts for performance. Zang Maoxun belonged to a generation of scholar-entrepreneurs who combined scholarly interests with business acumen. He edited the plays for reading with a view to making Anthology a profitable venture. We hope that these plays make for good reading for the general reader as well as students of Chinese literature.

In an early draft of this volume, all the translations were based on Zang’s Anthology. In our revisions, we chose to use another Ming edition as the base text only in the case of Rescuing a Sister: since there are two good published translations of the play based on Anthology, it may be useful to highlight the more biting sarcasm of the version from Ancient Masters. For the translations based on Anthology, we explain significant textual variations in the notes. For the purpose of comparison, we have translated The Zhao Orphan from the Yuan Editions. Although it is customary to translate Chinese poetry as blank verse, in our revisions we have increased the use of rhymes whenever feasible in order to better convey the pathos or the comic potential. For example, the verse a character recites when he or she comes on stage is more often doggerel than poetry, and its effectiveness relies on rhyme. (Textual variants cited in the notes are also often rhymed in the original, but we have focused on semantic difference in such cases and have not tried to preserve the rhyme.)

NOTES

1.  For Ming editorial changes in Yuan plays, see Idema, Why You Have Never Read a Yuan Drama; West, Text and Ideology.

2.  On theatrical culture in the period 1100–1450, see Idema and West, Chinese Theater.

3.  On Jurchen elements in Yuan drama, see the introduction to chap. 6, this volume, and Xu Shuofang, Xu Shuofang ji, 90–129.

4.  See Dong Jieyuan, Dong Jieyuan Xixiang ji; Ch’en Li-li, Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance. Another two texts in all keys and modes exist as fragments: one on Liu Zhiyuan, the founder of the Later Han (947–950), one on the Tianbao era and the An Lushan Rebellion. For more on this genre, see Idema, "Data on the Chu-kung-tiao; Idema, Satire and Allegory"; West, Vaudeville and Narrative.

5.  See Wang Shifu, Jiping jiaozhu Xixiang ji; Idema and West, Story of the Western Wing.

6.  See Xu Fuming, Yuandai zaju yishu, 7–8.

7.  Yannan Zhi’an, Changlun, anthologized in Wei Fei and Wu Yuhua, Gudian xiqu meixue ziliao ji, 73.

8.  This indicates that the lead has to wait for the speech of another character to finish.

9.  The version used in this volume is Xu Qinjun, Xin jiao Yuan kan zaju sanshi zhong.

10.  For other examples of zaju in five acts and in six acts, see Xu Fuming, Yuandai zaju yishu, 129.

11.  Journey to the West (Xiyou ji 西遊記) by Yang Jingxian 楊景賢 (ca. 1345–ca. 1421) consists of six cycles of four acts each and features multiple singers. However, scholars dispute the dating of this play; some claim that it is a late sixteenth-century work. The Story of Mistress and Maid (Jiao Hong ji 嬌紅記) by Liu Dui 劉兌 (printed 1435) is made up of two cycles. The male lead sings most of the arias, but the female lead also sings.

12.  For example, the opening male sings in the wedge in the plays presented in chap. 1 and chap. 3, this volume.

13.  Wang Jide, Wang Jide qulü, 41.

14.  Xu Fuming, Yuandai zaju yishu, 99–120.

15.  Ibid., 73–98; Idema and West, Monks, xvii.

16.  For example, several female performers in Houses of Pleasure (Qinglou ji 青樓集) are said to excel both as male and female leads (danmo shuangquan 旦末雙全); see Yu Weimin and Sun Rongrong, Lidai quhua huibian, 484, 485, 496.

17.  See Idema and West, Monks, xviii.

18.  The translation of the title follows Stephen West’s rendering in Literature from the Late Jin to the Early Ming, 624.

19.  Ibid., 621. The version of Lugui bu used in this volume is Zhong Sicheng, Jiaoding Lugui bu sanzhong (hereafter Lugui bu).

20.  Zhong Sicheng, Lugui bu, 55.

21.  For Yellow Millet Dream (Huangliang meng 黃粱夢), for example, Zhong Sicheng names a different playwright for each act (ibid., 13). Multiple versions of the same story also qualify our notion of original creation. On the designation of certain plays as later versions (ciben 次本) in Lugui bu, see Sun Kaidi, Sun Kaidi ji, 321–26.

22.  West translates minggong 名公 as famous noble (Literature from the Late Jin to the Early Ming, 621).

23.  Of the eighty-two zaju writers included in The Register of Ghosts, forty-three held office, but mostly in the lower echelons of the bureaucracy. See Tian Tongxu, Yuan zaju tonglun, 1:134–35.

24.  Wang Guowei, Song Yuan xiqu shi, 76–77.

25.  Shen Defu, Wanli yehuo bian 25.648.

26.  The edition used in this volume is Zang Maoxun, Yuan qu xuan jiaozhu (hereafter YQX).

27.  See Yong Rong et al., Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 199.4469; Wang Guowei, Song Yuan xiqu shi, 79. Wang’s book was completed in 1913 under the title A Study of Drama During the Song and Yuan Dynasties (Song Yuan xiqu kao 宋元戲曲考).

28.  West, Literature from the Late Jin to the Early Ming, 560.

29.  Zhu Jing, "Qinglou ji xu" 青樓集序, in Yu and Sun, Lidai quhua huibian, 466.

30.  See West, Interpretation of a Dream.

31.  Zhang Zhijiang, Zhang Qiang, and Jiang Jian, Wanjia sanqu, 7–10; for an English translation, see Idema and West, Monks, xii–xv.

32.  See Hu Ji, Song Jin zaju kao, 311–26.

33.  This play is translated in Idema and West, Monks, 283–313.

34.  For translations of this play, see William Dolby, Grandee’s Son Takes the Wrong Career, in Eight Chinese Plays; Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West, A Playboy from a Noble House Opts for the Wrong Career, in Idema and West, Chinese Theater.

35.  Mote, Imperial China, 282.

36.  For example, Zhou Deqing 周德清 (1277–1365) characterizes the themes of Yuan plays as loyalty and filial piety (preface to Phonetics of the Central Plains [Zhongyuan yinyun zixu 中原音韻自序]). Xia Tingzhi (fourteenth century) argues that while Jin play texts were merely farcical skits, Yuan zaju plays confirm normative human relationships and improve mores (preface to his Houses of Pleasure ["Qinglou ji xu" 青樓集序]). Zhu Youdun 朱有敦 (1379–1439) maintains that zaju, just like the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經), can arouse edifying emotions, yield insights into mores, form ties in communities, provide the venue for expressing discontent ("On the Autumn Scene in White Crane" [Baihezi yong qiujing xiaoyin 白鶴子詠秋景小引]). See Wei Fei and Wu Yuhua, Gudian xiqu meixue ziliao ji, 61–62, 65, 82–83.

37.  He Liangjun, Qu lun 曲論, in Wei Fei and Wu Yuhua, Gudian xiqu meixue ziliao ji, 98. Garlic and cheese are associated with northern or specifically Mongol taste; see Luo Sining, Yuan zaju he Yuandai minsu wenhua, 79.

38.  He Liangjun, Qu lun, in Wei Fei and Wu Yuhua, Gudian xiqu meixue ziliao ji, 87. He Liangjun said that he owned about three hundred Yuan plays in manuscript form. The term bense has multiple applications in different genres and also commands a wide semantic range in drama criticism. Gu Ying 顧瑛 (1310–1369) used it to mean semantic and musical precision; Xu Wei 徐渭 (1521–1593) linked it to language proper to the role. See Wei Fei and Wu Yuhua, Gudian xiqu meixue ziliao ji, 74, 102. See also Gong Pengcheng’s discussion of the term in Shishi, bense yu miaowu.

39.  Zang Maoxun, prefaces to Anthology, in YQX, 1:1, 11–12.

40.  Wang Guowei, Song Yuan xiqu shi, 101–2. It is also ironic that Wang’s opinion is based on the somewhat more polished diction of Anthology. Wang Guowei did get to know about the Yuan printings in the 1920s, but only after he had finished his book.

41.  See Fu Xihua, Yuandai zaju quanmu.

42.  Li Kaixian, Nanbei chake ci xu 南北插科詞序, in Li Kaixian quanji, 320.

43.  This number includes the plays found in Anthology; Sui Shusen, Extra Texts Not Included in the Anthology of Yuan Plays (Yuan qu xuan waibian); and Zhao Jingshen, Lost Fragments of Zaju Plays by Yuan Authors (Yuanren zaju gouchen). See Tian Tongxu, Yuan zaju tonglun, 1:170–72.

44.  See Yan Dunyi, Yuan ju zhen yi.

45.  See Ning Zongyi et al., Yuan zaju yanjiu gaishu, 325–34. Some of these titles also include Ming plays.

46.  These texts were already grouped together when they were in the possession of Li Kaixian, Huang Pilie 黃丕烈 (1763–1825), and Luo Zhenyu 羅振玉 (1866–1940). Scholars have suggested that these Yuan texts might have been meant for the use of the actors or the audience. Wilt Idema (Traditional Dramatic Literature) believes that these are role texts providing the male or female lead with their own songs, their own lines or cue lines. See also Luo Sining, Yuan zaju he Yuan dai minsu wenhua, 9–11.

47.  Yuyang Xianshi (Immortal Scribe of Yuyang) was the sobriquet of two Ming playwrights, Wang Jide (d. 1623) and Chen Yujiao 陳與郊 (1544–1611), and it is also possible that book merchants made up this attribution (Idema and West, Monks, xvii). A note at the end of one play in this collection is signed Woodcutter of the Western Mountain (Xishan Qiaozhe 西山樵者), and the publisher is identified as the Xu family of Longfeng; see Zheng Zhenduo, "Ba Maiwang guan," 373.

48.  On its discovery and significance, see Zheng Zhenduo, "Ba Maiwang guan."

49.  See Li Kaixian, Li Kaixian quanji, 3:1699–1808. Li’s Revised Plays of Yuan Masters (Gaiding Yuan xian chuanqi 改訂元賢傳奇) had included sixteen plays.

50.  See Ye Tang, Nashuying quhua zhengji 納書楹曲話正集, cited in Zhang Yuezhong, Yuan qu tong rong, 1157; Wu Mei, Gu qu zhu tan, 92; Zheng Zhenduo, Xidi shu ba, 197; Sun Kaidi, Yeshi yuan gujin zaju kao; Idema and West, Monks, xxviii–xxxi.

51.  Late-Ming connoisseurs of drama, including Wang Jide, Xu Fuzuo 徐復祚 (b. 1560), and Ling Mengchu 凌濛初 (1580–1644), praised Zang’s anthology. Meng Chengshun, in Anthology of Famous Plays Past and Present (Gujin mingju hexuan 古今名劇合選), includes fifty-seven comments explaining why he followed Zang’s version or deviated from it, conveying a mixture of approbation and criticism. Scholars like Wang Guowei, Wang Jilie 王季烈 (1873–1952), Aoki Masaru 青木正兒 (1887–1964), Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 (1904–1980), and Xu Shuofang (1924–2007) all upheld the merits of Zang’s anthology. See Tian Tongxu, Yuan zaju tonglun, 1:174–81; Xu Shuofang, Xu Shuofang ji, 3–64.

52.  Altogether there are fifteen plays that exist only in Anthology. See Xu Shuofang, Xu Shuofang ji, 1:33–34.

HISTORICAL PLAYS

1

THE ZHAO ORPHAN

BY JI JUNXIANG

TRANSLATED BY PI-TWAN HUANG AND WAI-YEE LI

INTRODUCTION

WAI-YEE LI

The earliest extant accounts of the historic Zhao lineage in Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan 左傳, ca. fourth century B.C.E), Discourses of the States (Guoyu 國語, ca. fourth century B.C.E.), Gongyang Tradition (Gongyang zhuan 公羊傳, ca. third to second centuries B.C.E.), and Guliang Tradition (Guliang zhuan 穀梁傳, ca. third to second centuries B.C.E.) make no mention of the massacre and revenge that constitute the harrowing story of this play.¹ Zuozhuan tells of the enmity between Lord Ling of Jin (r. 620–607 B.C.E.) and the Jin minister Zhao Dun (d. ca. 602), raises the question of Zhao Dun’s role in Lord Ling’s assassination, and chronicles the calamity that overtakes Zhao Dun’s brothers (583 B.C.E.) as a result of conflicts among them and power struggles between the Zhao and other ministerial lineages (Luan and Xi) in Jin.² The story of the Zhao clan’s victimization and rehabilitation is told in Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 (ca. 145–ca. 86 B.C.E.) Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji 史記): in this account Tu Angu 屠岸賈, as overseer of punishment (his title is marshal in the play),³ punishes the Zhao clan because of Zhao Dun’s role in Lord Ling’s murder and brings about its near extermination in the third year (597 B.C.E.) of the reign of Lord Jing of Jin (r. 599–581 B.C.E.), and the surviving Zhao heir achieves his revenge fifteen years later (584 B.C.E.).⁴ The heir’s escape and vengeance are achieved through the help of Han Jue and the sacrifice of an unnamed baby (not Cheng Ying’s son), Gongsun Chujiu, and Cheng Ying. Cheng commits suicide after the extermination of Tu Angu’s clan to repay the dead (xiabao 下報); that is, he has to die to demonstrate that he is not benefiting from Gongsun Chujiu’s martyrdom.

In The Great Revenge of the Zhao Orphan (Zhaoshi gu’er da baochou 趙氏孤兒大報仇),⁵ or, abbreviated, The Zhao Orphan (Zhaoshi gu’er), Ji Junxiang 紀君祥⁶ (ca. late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries) takes great liberties with the historical materials. He leaves out Lord Ling’s assassination and sets the whole play during Lord Ling’s reign. (The last act added in the Anthology takes place during the reign of Lord Dao [r. 573–558 B.C.E.]). He enlarges the role of the marshal Tu Angu as the archvillain and the mortal enemy of the minister Zhao Dun. Our play sharpens the contrast between Tu Angu’s heinous deeds and the heroism of friends and retainers loyal to the Zhao lineage, who commit various acts of supreme self-sacrifice so that its sole surviving heir may live. The keyword is bao 報, which means to pay back and includes both vengeance and requital. The wrong done one’s family must be avenged, but the unwitting adoption of the orphan by the very man who has sought to exterminate him provides an ironic twist in the plot. Thus filial ties form a subtheme running through the play—the ties between the orphan and his progenitors, the orphan and his savior and foster father Cheng Ying (who switches to calling the orphan Young Master after his identity is revealed), and the orphan and his putative father, who turns out to be the target of his revenge. Ultimately, vengeance as filial obligation trumps all other possible emotional ties (including filial affection), and the Zhao Orphan feels not the slightest compunction in turning against Tu Angu, who has raised him as a son. To the modern reader the absence of psychological conflict can seem jarring. The justice of the cause is never questioned, although the characters who are called upon to sacrifice their own or themselves under its aegis have moments of torment and self-doubt.

The moral equation defining the imperative of vengeance also urges requital for beneficence or trust. For a meal bestowed in kindness when he is starving, Ling Zhe performs superhuman feats of bravery to save Zhao Dun. Cheng Ying gives up his own son because of the extraordinary regard he enjoys as Zhao Dun’s retainer.⁷ Han Jue pays with his own life to let the Zhao Orphan go because Zhao Dun raised him to high office. Recognizing great merit or lamenting grave injustice can also prompt self-sacrifice, as in the case of Chu Ni, the assassin sent to kill Zhao Dun and who is moved to commit suicide instead, or that of Gongsun Chujiu, who gives up his own life because he accepts the orphan’s future revenge as the ultimate just cause. Agency as expressed in the will to embrace sacrifice and martyrdom is what prompts Wang Guowei in 1913 to describe this play and The Injustice Done to Dou E (Dou E yuan 竇娥冤) as having a tragic nature more than other Yuan plays because although these plays are interwoven with villains, the impetus to brave danger and death come from the will of the protagonists.

⁸

The Zhao Orphan is mentioned both in The Register of Ghosts and Zhu Quan’s Correct Sounds. The version of this play preserved in the Yuan Editions has four acts, two arias that would be turned into part of the wedge, and almost no spoken lines. The two extant Ming editions, one from Zang’s Anthology and one from Meng Chengshun’s Libation, contain five acts and a wedge, as distirict from the four-act format common to Yuan drama. (The two Ming editions are almost identical.) We are presenting here the versions from both the Anthology and the Yuan Editions.⁹ There are significant differences between these two versions. In the Yuan Editions, Tu Angu’s ambitions to usurp the Jin throne receive greater emphasis, and the Jin ruler is repeatedly excoriated for becoming a mere puppet of Tu’s. At the beginning of act 4, the Zhao Orphan, before his family history is revealed to him, declares his intention to assist his foster father, Tu Angu, in his plan to overthrow the Jin ruler. The Anthology edition tones down or deletes criticism of the Jin ruler and removes any suggestion that the Zhao Orphan, under other circumstances, could have become a usurper. The Yuan Editions version ends with the Zhao Orphan appealing to the Jin ruler for help, poised to undertake his revenge. The Anthology edition concludes with a fifth act, in which vengeance is accomplished and virtue is rewarded; order is restored through the Jin ruler’s edict and affirmed through the Zhao Orphan’s paean to the ruler’s justice. Wilt Idema has observed that whereas the earlier version dramatizes a tale of revenge and counter-revenge of feuding clans, the later edition stresses the exclusive power of the state to settle such conflicts, not only in its added fifth act but also throughout the play.¹⁰ One may add a slight qualification to this broadly accurate characterization: the arguably more raw energy of the Yuan version preserves the moral parameters of just vengeance, while the improved image of the Jin ruler does not quite suffice to contain the violence and logic of vengeance in the later play.

About the playwright Ji Junxiang we know very little beyond his provenance of Dadu. Six plays are listed under his name in The Register of Ghosts; The Zhao Orphan is the only extant one.¹¹ This play is the first piece of Chinese dramatic literature to be introduced to the Western world. It was translated into French in 1731 by a Jesuit missionary, Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare (1666–1736), who included only the prose dialogues and omitted all the arias. He explained that the arias contain too many allusions that are hard to understand. Prémare’s play enjoyed great success and was subsequently adapted into English, Italian, and German.¹² The best-known version is that of Voltaire (1694–1778), L’orphelin de la Chine, which was performed at the Comédie-Française and characterized as the morals of Confucius in five acts. The Ming chuanqi play Eight Righteous Ones (Ba yi ji 八義記) by Xu Yuan 徐元 (late sixteenth century), included in Mao Jin’s 毛晉 (1599–1659) Sixty Plays (Liushi zhong qu 六十種曲), is also based on the story of the Zhao Orphan’s revenge. Searching for the Orphan, Saving the Orphan (Sougu jiugu 搜孤救孤) continues to be one of the most popular set pieces on the stage of Beijing opera and other regional operatic traditions. This play was translated by Liu Jung-en in Six Yuan Plays (1972) and by Pi-twan Huang in Renditions (1978). We are presenting a revised version of Huang’s earlier translation.

THE ZHAO ORPHAN

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

WEDGE

(COMIC dressed as TU ANGU enters, leading a couple of SOLDIERS.)

TU ANGU (recites:)

Though the man intends no harm to the tiger,

The tiger against the man does conspire.

A battle that is not now properly won

Will yield troubles when all’s said and done.

I am Tu Angu, marshal of the domain of Jin. My master Lord Ling¹³ is on the throne, and among his thousand officials he trusted only one civil minister, Zhao Dun, and one military commander—myself. What with the rift we suffered, I have long wanted to get rid of Zhao but never had the chance to lay my hands on him. The son of that Zhao Dun is called Zhao Shuo, he is the lord’s son-in-law. I did send a brave man, Chu Ni, armed with a dagger, to climb over the wall of the Zhao residence to assassinate him—who would have guessed that he would instead die by smashing himself against a tree! It turned out that Zhao Dun, while speeding the plow¹⁴ in the countryside, had once seen a starving man on the verge of death under a mulberry tree. Zhao Dun gave him wine and food and let him eat his fill. The man then departed without taking leave. Sometime later the Western Rong tribe sent as tribute a hound called the Divine Ao,¹⁵ which Lord Ling in turn bestowed upon me. When I got the hound, a plan to finish off Zhao Dun came to mind. I had the hound locked up in an empty room and let him go without food for a few days. Then I had a straw man set up in the back garden, dressed exactly like Zhao Dun—purple robe, jade belt, a pair of black boots, and an ivory tablet¹⁶ in its hands. Inside the straw figure were hung some sheep viscera. I took the hound out, ripped open the purple robe, and let him eat his fill. Afterward, I locked the dog up in the empty room and again starved him for a few days. This time when I let him out, he immediately sprang at the straw man and started biting. I again cut open the robe and let the dog devour what was inside. After repeating this experiment for about a hundred days, I figured the hound could do the job. I then went to have an audience with the lord and told His Lordship that a disloyal and unfilial person was plotting treason. Hearing this, the lord was furious and asked me who this man was. I answered that the Divine Ao from the Western Rong was endowed with supernatural powers and could sniff out the traitor. The lord was very pleased. He said, "During the times of the sage-kings Yao and Shun, there was an animal called xiezhi that would attack with its horn any miscreant.¹⁷ Who would expect that we also have a Divine Ao among us! Where is the hound now?" So I led the hound in, and Zhao Dun was then standing beside the lord’s seat wearing a purple robe and a jade belt. As soon as the hound caught sight of him, it pounced upon him