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where can I download Scenes for Mandarins: The Elite Theater of the Ming (Translations from the Asian Classics) by Cyril Birch bookBook description
Book description
I have read other translations by Birch, specifically the very large and very good, Literature (?) in two volumes and Stories from a Ming collection, so I was very pleased when I found this book in the second hand bookshop across from the British Library. Birch is writing for scholars and non-specialists alike to give an overview of some of the themes and stories of drama popular in the Ming. The introduction is written as if by a Mandarin telling a foreigner what he’d see. It was a nice convention but I am glad he didn’t keep it up throughout the whole book. One of the first things that is mentioned is that unlike Europe during this time, (Ming years) the actors were both men and women. Indeed, some households (or individuals) employed all women troupes. Plays were performed in small exclusive performance for the elite as well as in temples and teashops and were popular across all levels of society (6). The plays were written by scholars, often-based on pre-existing works or themes, and were highly stylised. The Chunqi (romance) plays were very long, often requiring many hours or even days to perform, by the Qing it became more common to perform compilations, favourite scenes (or songs) from particular plays. In his book Birch attempts to familiarise his audience with some of the more popular plays. The plays he discusses are, The White Rabbit plays, The Girl Washing Silk, The Plantain Kerchief, The Peony Pavilion, The Green Peony, and The Swallow Letter. In ‘The White Rabbit’ plays he takes two different versions of the same play and analyses the differences behind them. Birch writes that the story has folk origins and compares the version he sees as closest to the original story written in the 13th or 14th century with a version written by Xie Tianyou, a late Ming dramatist. To start with the main character Sanniang, is a humble village girl who gets gentrified in later versions of the play (21). The most popular scene of this play, the central one that Birch discusses, is called “Baring the Babe”. Sanniang has been married to a young scholar who leaves her to go the capital to take the exams, she is left with her brother and sister in law, in the scene discussed she is heavily pregnant and having to turn the heavy millstone for them, the sister in law beats her for falling asleep at her task. Birch states that this is one of the saddest scenes in Ming drama, however, in the early version there are still examples of comedy, the sister-in-law is a clown character type who teases Sanniang for not being able to turn the millstone, stating that it is just a drum from the orchestra, and says her Buddhist rosary while beating the pregnant girl, both of which are missing from the later version. After discussing this scene Birch looks at the hero of the play, Liu Zhiyuan, (destined to become Emperor of China, of the short-fated later Han Dynasty ruling as Gaozu). He abandoned his wife for 16 year. He returned to his old village disguised as a thief and discusses her and the family’s misfortune with a shepherd boy, who in a humorous way tells of the woes of the family. Another difference between the earlier and later version is that of Liu’s two associates, in the earlier version they are portrayed as thugs, murdering innocents when getting into a temper, they are considerably more refined by the later version. This reminded me of similar discussions of Zhang Fei, Liu Bei and Guan Yu in the Three Kingdoms, who do similar cruel acts that, become more refined and less dangerous as time passes. The focus of the story remains the deserted wife, Birch notes that even in the Ming and the Qing the plight of an abandoned women, treated though she was chattel, is seen as a great tragedy and is immensely popular amongst even elite audiences. Birch states how the theme of the story was that “loyalty and integrity were due not only between friends, but also between husband and wife in the hierarchy of Confucian relationships” (37). It was an interesting, and moving, story however on a purely personal level I prefer stories with a more supernatural element. Next he looked at two different plays about the legendary beauty Xi Shi, The Girl Washing Silk, and The Plantain Kerchief. The first story set around 500 BCE is about a beautiful girl who is betrothed to a young man who decides that in order to save the kingdom she needs to be married off to the lecherous old king, the second is a story about the same girl set hundreds of yeas later after she has become an immortal, deceiving a young man into having sex with her so she will finally achieve true immortality. Birch translates several scenes from the first play, the one where the lover tells the girl her fate, the dancing lesson where the queen instructs her in the ways to seduce through dance, and gathering lotus where she laments her fate and has to submit to the passions of they tyrant. The play ends (in some versions) with her sailing off with her lover. The second play is much less tragic; Xi Shi disguises herself as a young man’s love in order to go to bed with him to steal his semen for her immortality pill. This leads to all sorts of confusion later when the lover thinks he actually has bedded his new wife before and she has no idea what is going on. It is a much lighter story and no real human drama, or lasting damage is done, thanks to the timely intervention of the go-between who is able to patch things up between the lovers. The next play he discusses is the Peony Pavilion. I have read a dual language version of this story before and it is one of my favourites. After reading this version I discovered that Birch has written a complete translation of the play and I have to get it. It is a wonderful story, it starts when the main character dies of lovesickness after meeting the hero of the story in a dream and being seduced by him. She is no longer able to live but pines away, painting a picture of herself before she dies, to be placed with her coffin. The story has everything, ghosts, a trip through the underworld, and digging up a corpse. I can’t help but compare it with Romeo and Juliet where there death is the end of the story; here death is just the beginning, one that happens before the characters have even met in the real world. It really is a great romance, and one I need to read properly. This is followed up with The Green Peony, which is another lighthearted tale. This one also has some resemblances to Shakespeare in that there is a bit of cross dressing and mistaken identity. Women are writing poetry for the men so they can win poetry competitions and marry the beautiful women. It is much more a comedy of manners than a proper romance, celebrating the literary nature of Chinese elite culture and the position of the bureaucracy. In the end the cheaters are unveiled, but it all ends happily. The last play is The Swallow Letter, which is another romance that involves the mix-up of painting of a beauty with that of Guan Yin. I have to say I do have a weakness for stories about beautiful maidens and scholars. And I greatly enjoyed the excerpts from these plays even if they weren’t as dramatic and moving as the Peony Pavilion. It was a very enjoyable book. It gave a good feeling for Ming drama, and has definitely made me want to read more.
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