Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/281

 thick volumes. It contains one hundred plays in all, with an illustration to each, according to the edition of 1615. ^ large proportion of these cannot be assigned to "any author, and are therefore marked " anony- mous." Even when the authors' names are given, they represent men altogether unknown in what the Chinese cgill literature, from which the drama is rigorously excluded.

The following is a brief outline of a very well known play in five acts by CHI CHUN-HSIANG, entitled "The Qrphan of the Chao family," and founded closely upon fact. It is the nearest approach which the Chinese have made to genuine tragedy :

A wicked Minister of the sixth century B.C. plotted the destruction of a rival named Chao Tun, and of all his family. He tells in the prologue how he had vainly trained a fierce dog to kill his rival, by keeping it for days without food and then setting it at a dummy, dressed to represent his intended victim, and stuffed with the heart and lights of a sheep. Ultimately, however, he had managed to get rid of all the male members of the family, to the number of three hundred, when he hears and at this point the play proper begins that the wife of the last representative has given birth to a son. He promptly sends to find the child, which had mean- while been carried away to a place of safety. Then a faithful servant of the family hid himself on the hills with another child, while an accomplice informed the Minister where the supposed orphan of the house of Chao was lying hidden. The child was accordingly slain, and by the hand of the Minister himself ; the servant committed suicide. But the real heir escaped, and when he grew up he avenged the wrongs of his

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