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With other poets this new phase of belief encouraged a contempt for life, and an uncertainty of all beyond it; and these during the first two centuries gave vent to their indifference in odes advocating the Epicurean philosophy, &ldquo;Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.&rdquo; Eight short dynasties, times of confusion and disorder, followed after the Han dynasties (206 B.C. to 221 A.D.) and then came the Tang dynasty (620–907), a period which is looked back upon as being the golden age of literature, as, indeed, it was in every field which marks a nation's greatness. It was during this epoch that imperial armies occupied Bokhara and Samarcand, that the Buddhist traveller Heuen-tsang made his way to India, and to every spot rendered sacred by the presence of Buddha, and that the softening influences of Christianity were introduced by the Nestorians into the very heart of the empire. It was a time of prosperity and peace. Literature flourished, and skill and art were employed to soften and add harmony to the national poetry. The four syllables, of which nearly all the lines in the Book of Odes were composed, were exchanged for five and seven. The subjects also partook of the change. Le Tai-pih, the greatest poet of his time, tuned his lyre to notes on the pleasures of wine and of beauty, which would have done honour to Anacreon. Evening feasts amid the parterres of gardens rich with the bloom of a thousand flowers furnished themes upon which he and his imitators were never tired of dilating. Such sonnets are sometimes pretty, and occasionally the ideas they contain are striking; but the disadvantages of the language and of education weigh heavily upon their authors, and they seldom rise beyond the level of the merest mediocrity. The following is taken from the writings of the poet just mentioned, and is translated lineatim et verbatim:—

A Solitary Carouse on a Day in Spring

Of epic poetry the Chinese know nothing, and this need not surprise us when we remember how entirely that style of writing was an importation from Greece into Western Europe; and Voltaire tells us that, when he was thinking of publishing the Henriade, he consulted a friend on the subject, who recommended him to give up the undertaking, &ldquo;for,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the French have not epic heads.&rdquo; Neither have the Chinese. A sustained effort of imagination is difficult to them, and the strict laws of rhyme and metre which hamper the poet would make a lengthened poem in Chinese the work of a lifetime. It is probably due to this cause that the literature shows no instance of real dramatic poetry. Their dramas abound with short lyrical pieces, which are introduced to break the monotony of the dialogue; but dramas in verse are unknown, except in the case of low plays written in vulgar rhythm. As, however, love for the drama is one of the most noticeable features of the Chinese character, every encouragement has been given to playwrights, and this branch of literature is therefore well supplied both as regards matter and bulk. The most celebrated plays are contained in a collection entitled The Hundred Plays of the Yuen Dynasty, many of which have been translated into European languages, and one of which, the Orphan of Chaou, served as the groundwork of Voltaire's tragedy, L'Orphelin de la Chine. Their dramas are divided in the playbooks into acts, generally four or five, but as there is an absence of all scenery, and as the dresses are never changed during the piece, the acting is as a rule continuous throughout without break or interval. The stage directions are given in their books as in ours, but not with the same minuteness. &ldquo;Enter&rdquo; and &ldquo;exit&rdquot; are expressed by &ldquo;ascend &rdquo; and &ldquo;descend,&rdquo; and &ldquo;aside,&rdquo; by &ldquo;turn the back and say.&rdquo; By the rules of the Chinese, as was the case also in the Greek drama, only two players are allowed to have possession of the stage at any one time. This, and the absence of all scenery, obliges the dramatists to put in the mouths of the actors long pieces of spoken narrative, much after the manner of the prologues in the plays of Euripides, which appear tame and heavy to a European spectator accustomed to have the plot and locality explained by dialogue and scenery. The plots are for the most part simple and well sustained. The unities, though sometimes observed, are more often disregarded, especially that of place, the characters being frequently sent to different parts of the country in the same act, and made to inform the audience of their whereabouts by the simple expedient of walking up and down the stage, and exclaiming, &ldquo;Now I am at such and such a place,&rdquo; or &ldquo;at such and such a house.&rdquo; The acting, generally speaking, is good. The Chinese are actors by nature, and are no doubt a good deal improved by their inherent cunning and want of sincerity, which make them quick of observation and fertile in resource, and in every-day life enable them easily to catch the tone of those with whom they associate, and on the stage to assume the characters they wish to represent.

The theatre is in China, as it was in Greece, national and religious. It is under the direct control of the law, and is closed by imperial edict during all periods of public mourning, while at the same time it plays a prominent part at all the yearly religious festivals. In order to give some idea of the substance and plot of a Chinese drama, we will quote from Sir John Davis's China an abstract of a play, which he has translated and published at full length, entitled The Heir in Old Age. This piece serves, as is observed by the translator, to illustrate the consequences which the Chinese attach to the due performance of the oblations at the tombs of departed ancestors, and also the true relation of the handmaid to the legitimate wife. The dramatis personæ are, he says, &ldquo;made up entirely of the members of a family in the middle class of life, consisting of a rich old man, his wife, a handmaid, his nephew, his son-in-law, and his daughter.&rdquo; The old man, having no son to console him in his age, and to perform the obsequies at his tomb, had, like the Jewish patriarch, taken a handmaid, whose pregnancy is announced at the opening of the play, in which, the old man commences with saying, &ldquo;I am a man of Tung-ping Foo,&rdquo; &c. In order to obtain from Heaven a son, instead of a daughter, he makes a sacrifice of sundry debts due to him, by burning the bonds, and this propitiatory holocaust serves at the same time to quiet some scruples of conscience as to the mode in which part of his money had been acquired. He then delivers over his affairs to his wife and his married daughter, dismissing his nephew (a deceased brother's son) with a hundred pieces of silver to seek his fortune, as he had been subjected at home to the persecution of the wife. This done, the old man sets out for his estate in the country, recommending the mother