Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/282

 270 CHINESE LITERATURE

family by killing the cruel Minister and utterly exter- minating his race.

From beginning to end of this and similar plays there is apparently no attempt whatever at passion or pathos in the language at any rate, not in the sense in which those terms are understood by us. Nor are there even rhetorical flowers to disguise the expression of common- place thought. The Chinese actor can do a great deal with such a text ; the translator, nothing. There is much, too, of a primitive character in the setting of the play. Explanatory prologues are common, and actors usually begin by announcing their own names and further clearing the way for the benefit of the audience. The following story will give a faint idea of the license conceded to the play-actor.

My attention was attracted on one occasion at Amoy by an unusually large crowd of Chinamen engaged in watch- ing the progress of an open-air theatrical performance. Roars of laughter resounded on all sides, and on looking to see what was the moving cause of this extraordinary explosion of merriment, I beheld to my astonishment a couple of rather seedy-looking foreigners occupying the stage, and apparently acting with such spirit as to bring the house down at every other word. A moment more and it was clear that these men of the West were not foreigners at all, but Chinamen dressed up for the purposes of the piece. The get-up, nevertheless, was re- markably good, if somewhat exaggerated, though doubt- less the intention was to caricature or burlesque rather than to reproduce an exact imitation. There was the billy- cock hat, and below it a florid face well supplied with red moustaches and whiskers, the short cut-away coat and

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