The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions

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Notes

1 Corrected versions have appeared in works edited by Sui Shusen 隋樹森 (1959), Zheng Qian 鄭騫 (1962), Xu Qinjun 徐沁君 (1980), Ning Xiyuan 寧希元 (1988), and Wang Jisi 王季思 (1999).

2 For instance, Aoki Makaru 青木正兒 (1887–1964) and Yoshikawa Kōjirō吉川幸次郎 (1904–1980) both took the Yuan printings into account when they wrote on Yuan zaju and two of their books have been translated into Chinese: Aoki's Yuanren zaju xushuo 元人雜劇序說 (Introduction to Yuan zaju), Sui Shusen 隋樹森, tr. (Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1941) and Yoshikawa's Yuan zaju yanjiu 元雜劇研究 (Studies on Yuan zaju), Zheng Qingmao 鄭清茂, tr. (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1981).

3 For an introduction to this group of researchers and their project see http://www.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kyodokenkyu/research28.htm (accessed August 30, 2016). To date they have published three volumes under the title Genkan zatsugeki no kenkyū 元刋雜劇の研究 (Research on the Yuan printings of zaju; Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 2007–2014) that collectively contain annotated translations of seven of the plays. For an example of their work published in article form, see http://portal.dl.saga-u.ac.jp/handle/123456789/117769 (accessed August 30, 2016).

4 West and Idema first published a translation of a Yuan printing of a zaju play in 1982 and then published more in their more recent anthologies.

5 West and Idema have this to say about the state of the texts in Thirty Yuan Plays: “‘wrong’ characters often turn out to be homophones (baizi 白字), simple phonetic prompts to the correct pronunciation of a word or term. In that context they are perfectly understandable. Difficult orthography turns out to be conventional; missing dialogue would be about well-known stories or plots; and different arrangement or length point to a differing sensibility or strictures onstage” (p. 40).

6 These introductory phrases are included in the table of contents of The Earliest Known Versions and make claims about time or place of publication, e.g., “Newly Printed” (xinkan 新刊 [the second character is sometimes translated by West and Idema as “printed” and sometimes as “cut” [referring to the cutting of the woodblocks for the printing]; place of publication, when indicated, is given as either Dadu 大都 [The Great Capital] or Gu Hang 古杭 [Ancient Hangzhou]), or about the content of the edition of a play, e.g., “With Plot Prompts” (guanmu 關目). Reproductions of all the individual plays, under their short titles, are available in the Zhongguo suwen ku 中國俗文庫 database.

7 The four plays are numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5. The later versions for the first three come from Yuanqu xuan; that for the last is a “Ming manuscript edition” (see end of the translation, p. 318, for the date the manuscript was copied).

8 See pp. 1a and 2b of the Yuan printing. There are, of course, places when they do not translate so literally. For instance, Yunyang 雲陽 is translated as “execution ground” (p. 57) and kunwu 錕鋙 as “saber” (p. 69), when the first is actually the name of a specific place where executions happened and the latter is the name of a specific bladed-weapon. In Wai-yee Li's translation (for which Idema was one of the consultants), she translated the first as “Yunyang execution ground” and the second as “Kunwu sword.” See C. T. Hsia, Wai-yee Li, and George Kao, eds., The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), pp. 56 and 65, respectively. These two words appear on pp. 1a and 3b, respectively, of the original Yuan printing.

9 See p. 7a of the Yuan printing. In the “corrected” edition of the Yuan printings by Xu Qinjun 徐沁君, Xinjiao Yuankan zaju sanshi zhong 新校元刋雜劇三十種 (Newly collated Thirty Yuan printings of zaju; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), jitu is changed to jichu (p. 582) and the change is noted and explained (p. 283 n 11; the justification given is that two other plays in Thirty Yuan Plays mention jichu in their final acts). Ning Xiyuan 寧希元, Yuankan zaju sanshi zhong xinjiao 元刋雜劇三十種新校 (Thirty Yuan printings of zaju, newly collated; Lanzhou: Lanzhou daxue, 1988), like West and Idema, just gives the text as jichu with no discussion.

10 See Li Xueqin 李學勤 et al. eds., Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan zhushu (Xigong-Chenggong) 春秋公羊傳注疏 (僖公－成公) (Commentary and sub-commentary to the Gongyang Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals [reigns from Duke Xi to Duke Cheng]; Taipei: Taiwan guji, 2001), p. 311.