where she is asked to sing by two clowns who pretend to be mandarins.
The long series of misfortunes that has followed her consistently does
not forsake her at this point—the two clowns simply make sport of her
and pay her nothing. After her disappointment she unrolls the pictures
of her parents-in-law to render homage before them and to pray to Heaven
that she may find her husband. At this very moment Tsai-yung enters to
pray for a safe journey for his parents. The bonze asks Wu-niang to
leave and to make room for the great man. She forgets the pictures in
her haste, and Tsai-yung carries off the scroll without having looked at
it closely. But Wu-niang recognizes him and makes inquiries in regard to
his residence. In this whole scene there is, as in many Chinese plays,
a great deal of satire on Buddhist priests. One priest while saying a
prayer is corrected by the abbot for mispronouncing one of the Sanskrit
names for Buddha, Po-lo-t’ang instead of Po-lo-mi. The ignorant priest
retorts, “Well, ‘_t’ang_’ is sugar and ‘_mi_’ is honey; both are sweet,
so what difference does it make?” An Occidental parallel for this scene
would be the medieval priest who baptized, “In nomine patriae, filiae, et
spiritus sanctae.”
Wu-niang goes to her husband’s house as a mendicant nun and meets
Niu-hsi. In a scene which the Chinese commentators consider the best
in the play she gradually tells her story and reveals her identity to
her husband’s second wife. Niu-hsi is touched by the filial piety of
Wu-niang, calls her sister, and asks her to live with them. First she
advises her how to reveal herself to her husband, namely by writing
him a letter and placing it on his table in the library where he will
be sure to find it. When Tsai-yung comes home he reads in the “Book of
Annals”, a collection of historical illustrations selected by Confucius
to give point to his moral teachings. In every passage he finds a rebuke
for his lack of filial piety, and when he finds Wu-niang’s letter with
the picture of his parents in their famished condition this means to
him a greater reproof still. He begins to suspect that the messenger
with the letter from his father had been an impostor. His wife’s letter
contains nothing but hidden allusions to his actions. Among ancient
examples quoted there is mention of one man to whom an emperor had
offered his daughter but who had refused to degrade his wife to the
rank of a concubine, and of another who had under similar circumstances
repudiated his wife. Niu-hsi asks him whose conduct he approves of and he
says the former’s, of course. Then she asks whether, if his first wife
were to step before him now clad in rags, he would not blush with shame
and repudiate her? He answers that he would not, that he considers his
marriage indissoluble. When Wu-niang appears and tells him her story he
feels deep shame because an ironic fate had led him to serve his emperor
but to neglect his parents. Since his parents have died Chinese etiquette
demands that he give up his office for a number of years and mourn for
the death of his father and mother. Tsai-yung with his two wives sets out
to make a pilgrimage to the ancestral tomb to offer proper worship to the
deceased. The emperor is going to give posthumous honors to his parents
because of Wu-niang’s faithfulness, and the historians will keep ever
fresh the memory of the daughter-in-law’s filial piety.
Even after the death of his parents the son must put their interests (or
supposed interests) above his own by a three-year period of mourning,
a space of time which is simply lost out of his life. In his “Chinese
Characteristics”, Doctor Arthur H. Smith points out the one-sidedness of
the matter of filial piety—the Chinese ethical code mentions no duties
of the parents toward their children. His summary of the subject, given
in the chapter on Filial Piety, seems most apropos of the action of this
play:
“Every son has performed his filial duties to his father, and demands the
same from his own son. That is what children are for. Upon this point
the popular mind is explicit. ‘Trees are raised for shade, children are
reared for old age.’ Neither parents nor children are under any illusions
upon this subject. ‘If you have no children to foul the bed, you will
have no one to burn paper at the grave.’ Each generation pays the debt
which is exacted of it by the generation which preceded it, and in turn
requires from the generation which comes after full payment to the
uttermost farthing. Thus is filial piety perpetuated from generation to
generation, and from age to age.”
Of course, this is as the matter appears to the Occidental from the
outside. But for the Chinese, who has grown up in a deep veneration of
Confucius, filial piety is the most laudable institution in existence.
Confucius laid it down as a principle that in the relations of ruler and
subject, husband and wife, father and son, elder brother and younger
brother, there must be rule on one side and submission on the other.
Moreover, the “Book of Filial Piety” condemns sharply “selfish attachment
to wife and children”; in other words, if the claims of father and
wife clash, the son must neglect his wife to serve his father. These
things are among the bases of Chinese society on which it has outlived
the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman and other civilizations; it
is small wonder therefore that they seem good to the Chinese. The
other extreme perhaps is found in Anglo-Saxon countries where a son,
on becoming of age, goes where he likes and does what he likes without
feeling any responsibility toward his parents. To quote Doctor Smith
once more, “To the Chinese such customs must appear like the behaviour
of a well-grown calf or colt to the cow and the mare, suitable enough
for animals, but by no means conformable to _li_ (ethical standards)
as applied to human beings. An attentive consideration of the matter
from a Chinese standpoint will show that there is abundant room in our
own social practice for improvement, and that most of us really live in
glass houses, and would do well not to throw stones recklessly.” To both
the Westerner and the Chinese the practice of the other seems inferior,
and neither can express an impartial opinion as to which is the better
system. But the Westerner who wishes to understand the Chinese point of
view can gain an insight into many things from reading “The Story of a
Lute.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DRAMA UNDER THE MANCHUS AND THE REPUBLIC—1644 TO THE PRESENT DAY
In 1644 the last of the Ming emperors committed suicide when a rebel army
entered his capital. But the rebel did not become the next emperor; the
throne went to a Manchu leader who, in characteristically Chinese manner,
had been called in by the Ming ruler to help put down the rebellion. The
Manchus soon established themselves as firm rulers of the land and forced
all Chinese to adopt the queue. China became under their rule a strong
and united empire; in fact, many writers believe that the reigns of K’ang
Hsi (1662-1723) and of Ch’ien Lung (1736-1795) were the most glorious
in all Chinese history. Both of these rulers were great warriors and
administrators, as well as patrons of literature and the arts. The drama,
too, flourished; a recently published catalogue of Chinese dramas records
eight hundred and fifteen plays of some literary merit from the Ch’ing
Dynasty.
Among these the critics assign the first places to two historical
tragedies written about the beginning of the eighteenth century: “The
Blood-Stained Fan” (T’ao Hua Shan) by Kung Shang-jen and “The Palace of
Eternal Life” (Ch’ang Shan Tien) by Hung Sen. The former deals with the
last days of the Ming Dynasty. The author presents the struggles of the
various parties and the dissensions among the generals in the face of
a tottering throne. In the foreground of the revolutionary scene stand
two lovers. The hero, a courageous young literary man, is forced to flee
before his political enemies, and the heroine is likewise threatened.
Since she prefers death to disgrace she attempts suicide. The play
takes its name from the fact that some of her blood stained the fan her
lover had presented to her. An artist, coming across this fan, painted
the bloodstains into peach blossoms so cleverly as to deceive every
one. After years of civil war, in the course of which the dynasty is
overthrown, the lovers meet again. They feel that love has no place in
a broken and disrupted fatherland; patriotism is higher than love—such
seems to be the author’s meaning.
The other play, “The Palace of Eternal Life”, goes back to a much earlier
period, that of the T’ang Dynasty. It has for hero and heroine the
emperor Ming Huang, traditional founder of the Chinese theater, and his
capricious concubine, Yang Kuei-fei. The Palace of Eternal Life was the
name they had given to the pleasure dome where the famous lovers gave
themselves up to idyllic and voluptuous amusements.[16] This story is
full of romantic and dramatic elements; there are said to be more than
fifty plays that have Yang Kuei-fei for heroine. Versions by ballad
singers have been well translated by George Carter Stent,[17] a Britisher
who secured unprinted popular ballads by having street singers come to
his house to recite them while his teacher wrote them down verbatim.
Since Yang Kuei-fei and her lover play such an important part in the
Chinese drama, it might be well to quote two of the numerous ballads
about her.
AN IMPERIAL LOVER
Tang Ming-kuang loved Yang Kuei-fei—
Living for her, in her, with her,—
Walking by her, hither, thither—
In the pleasant summer weather,
Strolling hand in hand together.
Side by side with Yang Kuei-fei,
Listening to the play of fountains—
Climbing up the mimic mountains—
Through romantic scenery
Of hill and lake, rock, dell and tree.
“If I had not Yang Kuei-fei,
What were all my Empire worth?
With her, earth is heaven to me,—
This is paradise on earth.”
Mid-day in the lakelet found them,
Lotus leaves and blossoms round them;
Disporting gaily in the water,
(Daily to this place he brought her).
Now an avenue they tread,
Where the trees arch overhead,—
Saving just enough of space
To catch a glimpse of heaven’s face,
Showing its intensest blue,
Peering down upon the two.
“If I had not Yang Kuei-fei,
What were all this lovely scene?
With her, walking thus by me,—
This is heaven, and she its queen.”
On the sward beneath their feet,
Flowers of every hue were springing;
Bright plumed birds with voices sweet
Their passage here and there were winging.
Sheltered here from mid-day heat,
She taught to them the art of singing.[18]
Now is heard from every tree
Leafy voices, softly uttering
Whispers, which sound mysteriously—
Like wings of angels, gently fluttering.
“If I had not Yang Kuei-fei,
What were all my empire worth?
With her, sitting thus by me,—
This is paradise on earth.”
Streaks of light through foliage glancing—
Mixing, blending, interlacing—
Now retreating—now advancing—
Sunbeams after shadows racing,
Flinging on the sward a net-work
Of embroidered golden fret-work—
Quaintly beautifully grotesque,
As of _flickering_ arabesque
Sculpt’d from sunbeams, light and shade,
Its ground the green enameled glade.
“If I had not Yang Kuei-fei,
What were all this lovely scene?
With her, sitting thus by me,—
This is heaven, and she its queen.”
THE DEATH OF YANG KUEI-FEI
In silence unbroken,
They sat side by side;
Not a word had been spoken:—
They both of them tried
The dread that was o’er them
Of what lay before them
In their bosoms to hide.
What is that? In the distance a murmur is heard,
Is’t the wail of the night wind—the surge of the sea?
As nearer it floats it takes form in a word—
And that word, Oh, God! is the name Yang Kuei-fei!
They listen, but speak not—though _both_ know full well
Those murmuring sounds are for _one_ a death-knell.
Nearer,—still nearer
Those hoarse murmurs came:
Now they sound clearer,
They shout out a name.
’Tis Yang-fei’s name they call!
Break her accursed thrall!
Too long we have borne it—
This night, we have sworn it—
Her life pays for all!
Where is she,—your minion,—frail Yang Kuei-fei?
Drag her forth—the vile traitress! our daggers would see
If in her fair body the blood flows more pure
Than in those of your subjects who have had to endure
Wrongs, which her arts have heaped on them for years:[19]
Whose bread has been moistened by blood, sweat and tears!
Whose sons have been slaughtered—whose daughters defiled!
Whose homes have been pillaged—whose fields made a wild!
’Tis she is the cause of rebellion and strife,[20]
We fight not your foes till we’ve taken her life!
“Nought but the blood
Of Yang Kuei-fei
Can stem this flood
Of anarchy!”
“Oh! bitter destiny!
Oh! dire necessity!
Must I pronounce your doom?
Consign you to the tomb?
“Alas! my Yang Kuei-fei,
I’m powerless to save!
My life—throne—empire—all I’d give
Had I the power to bid you live—
To snatch you from the grave.
Yet they have willed it thus—and I
Who’d die to save you, bid you die.”
“See I am calm,—it is not death I fear,
It is their savage mode of death I dread;
Say could you bear to see me lying here,
Weltering in blood, by ruthless butchers shed?
“Fancy their bloody hands wreathed in my hair—
That silken hair you used so much to prize;
Dragged—struck—faint—bleeding!—could you bear
To see all this before your very eyes?
“Pierced by a hundred knives, my life-blood flows
In purple streams—could you look on and see,
Unmoved—my murderers watch my dying throes—
With hungry eyes gloat on my agony?
“I have been vile, but let my penitence
In these last moments that to me are given,
Make some atonement for my great offence,
And Oh! ‘forgive me as you’d be forgiven!’
“One last entreaty—let me die alone—
Let no one enter—none but you stand by
To watch my death;—the act, too, be my own;
Let not the ignoble rabble see me die.
“The means are here; I have but to unloose
This silken girdle from my slender waist;
I knot it thus, and thus, and form a noose,
This by my own hand round my neck is placed.
“With my own hands the ends are tightly drawn,
And I die thus”—scarce had the words been said—
A few brief struggles, and Yang-fei had gone
“With all her inperfections on her head.”
“Hide her from my sight!
Let me not see
That face so ghastly white—
Those eyes so wildly bright
Glaring at me!
“They follow mine everywhere,
Look where I may—
On the earth—in the air,
Still the same glassy stare.
Take them away!
“Place her gently in the grave
E’en as she fell;
Here, where the willows wave,
Near this old well.
“Lightly cover her with earth—
Oh! Yang Kuei-fei!
What is all my empire worth
Now I’ve lost thee!”
During the Ch’ing Dynasty the native music was gradually superseded by a
much cruder, less melodious product imported from barbarian lands. With
the old style of music went many of the better plays; in many cases they
were replaced by the so-called “military plays”, that is to say acrobatic
exhibitions of stage fighting to the accompaniment of crashing orchestral
pandemonium. Toward the end of the Ch’ing Dynasty the Yuan drama had
almost entirely vanished from the Peking stage. In a later chapter will
be found a fuller discussion of the newer types of music.
But the chief innovation in the drama under the Manchu rule came through
the influence of popular novels. Episodes from the famous novels read
by everybody were brought on the stage in ever-increasing numbers. The
novel, like the drama, is a literary form despised by the pundits and
it too began to flourish during the Mongol Dynasty when the literary
examinations were suppressed. Many novels are of unknown authorship,
because their authors considered such works as beneath their dignity.
But for the very reason that the authors did not employ the literary
language the great masses of the people were able to enjoy these stories.
Let it be remarked in passing that the novel is now coming into its own
and is receiving its just share of attention from scholars, at least
from the progressive ones. Doctor Hu Shih, of the National University,
Peking, has pointed out that it is the novel written in the vernacular
that has given to spoken Chinese such unity as it possesses, and that it
is through works in the popular language that a common speech for all
China may ultimately be achieved. To-day, of course, natives of Peking,
Shanghai, and Canton speak languages differing as widely as do those of
Berlin, Amsterdam, and London, or Rome, Paris, and Madrid. Due to the
crystallization of the written language, however, students from the three
Chinese centers can read one another’s letters, although, as I have often
observed in laboratories or on the playground, when they converse they
have recourse to English. It is due to their linguistic and literary
importance that Doctor Hu Shih has edited critical editions of about a
dozen famous Chinese novels.
Among the novels, “The Story of the Three Kingdoms” (San Kuo Ch’i) is
by far the most popular. It was written in the Yuan Dynasty and deals
with the period of romantic chivalry, 221-265 A.D., when three dynasties
ruled in three separate capitals. In it appear the cruel Tsao Tsao and
the resourceful Chu Ko-liang, together with many another brave warrior.
Every educated Chinese has read it, and the illiterate coolies have hired
readers, that they too may learn of the stirring adventures of their
more or less mythical heroes. The enthusiasm for this book is simply
unbounded, as the following instance may serve to illustrate. Friends
of mine in Peking, a young architect and his wife, were continually
annoyed during hot August evenings by a fairly loud voice with a
monotonous rising and falling inflection that kept coming over the wall
of the adjoining courtyard from eight o’clock until midnight. It cast a
shadow over conversation, it distracted attention from reading, and it
effectually prevented peaceful sleep. My friends began by setting their
victrola on their side of the wall to playing “Over There!” for an hour
or two on end; next they sent out the house boy to buy firecrackers
and ordered him to set off package after package under a tin pail; and
finally they allowed a bottle of asafetida to trickle over the wall—but
all to no avail. They recovered neither their peace of mind nor their
slumber until the _shuo-shu-te_ had read to his coolie audience the last
chapter of “The Three Kingdoms”, a novel as long as the whole Bible.
An endless number of plays are based on this book of romantic history,
which deserves to be called the national epic of the Chinese. A long list
of “military plays” derive their plots from the “Shui Hu Chuan” (Story
of the River Bank), a novel based upon the doings of a band of brigands
who terrorized a number of provinces early in the twelfth century. Some
of the swashbucklers in this story had Robin Hood’s habit of giving to
the poor what they had stolen from the rich and corrupt officials. From
the “Liao Chai” (translated by Mr. Giles, “Strange Stories from a Chinese
Studio”) come many plays dealing with fairies and other supernatural
beings. The novel that might be considered a possible rival in popularity
to the story of “The Three Kingdoms”, is “The Dream of the Red Chamber”
(Hung Lou Meng), the story of the love of a young idler for his two
pretty cousins, and the decay of an old and wealthy family. Poetic love
stories from this novel were brought on the stage only in recent years by
Mei Lan-fang, the actor who is responsible for many innovations in the
Peking theater. The play, “Burying the Flowers”, mentioned in the chapter
on Mei Lan-fang, is one example of a dramatization of an episode from
this book.
In his “Geschichte der chinesischen Litteratur” the German scholar
Wilhelm Grube, who knew the Chinese character well, remarks in discussing
the novel that a ruse or a sly calculation on the part of a warrior seems
to appeal to the Chinese much more than actual bravery on the battle
field. A number of plays taken from the story of “The Three Kingdoms”
bear out this point by reason of their perennial popularity. No play
perhaps is oftener acted than “The Ruse of the Empty City” (Kung Chuan
Chi). The famous hero Chu Ko-liang is in a city stripped of all its
defenders when suddenly a strong enemy force arrives. He orders the
gates to be opened wide as though peace were reigning throughout the
country, and seats himself on the wall above the gate. When the advance
guard of the enemy arrives it finds the commander, who more than any
other is known for his resourcefulness and his stratagems, calmly reading
a book in the face of the threatening attack. Naturally enough the enemy
fears an ambush of some sort and withdraws. By his calm Chu Ko-liang has
saved a city; his bluff has won.
[Illustration: WARRIOR ACROBATS]
Another “peculiar” (as Bret Harte would put it) play from the same
source is “Hsü Mu Ma Tsao” (Hsü’s Mother Curses Tsao Tsao). The famous
general Tsao Tsao found that he was being defeated continually through
the clever stratagems suggested to his opponent by a certain Hsü Su. He
therefore plotted to get this clever adviser into his hands in order
that he might profit by his knowledge of strategy. For this purpose he
kidnaped Hsü Su’s mother and sent a forged letter asking the son to
come to her. Filial piety demanded that Hsü Su obey and therefore he
came into Tsao Tsao’s camp only to be forced into the service of his
enemy. When Hsü Su’s mother heard how her son had been tricked she went
to Tsao Tsao’s tent, called him a man without honor, a traitor, and a
wretched deceiver. This scene, when the tottering old lady scolds in a
shrill voice, as only a Chinese woman can ma, is of course the _pièce de
résistance_ of the play. When she has spoken out her mind she returns to
her own tent and commits suicide. Although Tsao Tsao continued to hold
Hsü Su, yet the latter never offered a single stratagem to the general,
an outstanding piece of bravery according to the Chinese view. The very
favorite play from this novel is “Ch’un Yin Hui” (The Meeting of Many
Heroes). When this play is staged with the parts of the great heroes of
the novel filled by stars, the Chinese theater lovers feel that such an
ensemble offers about the finest thing possible. The plot again turns
chiefly upon a ruse by Chu Ko-liang. His side is facing tremendous odds
in the huge fleet of wooden vessels under the control of the enemy, and
therefore his commander decides to attack them with fiery arrows. Chu
Ko-liang is commissioned to procure 100,000 arrows, and is given for
this task five days, which he himself cuts down to three. Two and a half
days he spends in calm meditation, doing nothing about the arrows. When
one of his comrades discovers him sitting under a tree he is very much
alarmed at the waste of time and suggests that the only thing left for
his friend is to commit suicide. But our hero is undaunted. He places
a number of straw men in the prows of a few boats and sails toward the
position of the enemy. Owing to the dense fog the enemy commander is
unable to ascertain the size of the attacking force, but he orders his
archers to shoot as fast as they can. The arrows strike the straw men and
pierce them without doing any harm. When 100,000 arrows have been caught
up in his decoys, Chu Ko-liang orders his boats to retreat, and thus is
able to deliver the required number of arrows to his commander on time.
The manner in which the play is staged, with two or three arrows flitting
across the scene, provides, at least for the Westerner, a distinct
anticlimax.