FOOTNOTES
[1] As I find the Revised Version, with a fuller understanding of Oriental life, prefers to phrase it.
[2] Commercial Press, Shanghai, 1915.—A small volume of about 200 pages. Not translated into a European language.—The same author has issued a “Dramatical Catalogue”, same publishers, 1917.
[3] Quoted by De Groot, “Religious Systems of China”, vol. VI, p. 1187.
[4] The chief reason why theatricals are given at the village temples to-day is that they are public buildings with convenient stages. Not only religious but also secular plays are performed, sometimes vulgar and immoral ones. On the whole the moral standard of the Chinese stage is very high and must be called a good influence for the largely illiterate population. The worship at Chinese temples in the course of the religious festivals has the general character of a carnival with money changers, booths for eating and drinking, acrobats, magicians, beggars, gambling devices, etc.
[5] See Sir William Ridgeway, “The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races in Special Reference to the Origin of Greek Tragedy,” Cambridge University Press, 1915.
[6] Professor Porter calls my attention to the fact that Doctor Hu Shih calls these court jesters “sophists.” They were the ones to make the shrewdest observations among all courtiers. The suggestion of the revolutionary element probably accounts for the death sentence.
[7] La Revue de Genève, January, 1921.
[8] Note by Professor Porter: Mr. Wang develops his argument very well, using evidence from the odd foreign names of countries, localities and places. At the period it is known that there was extensive intercourse between Western countries and China along the northern and southern caravan routes.
[9] Page 257.
[10] The difficulty in acquiring a reading knowledge of the classical Chinese (Wen Li) does not consist chiefly in learning to read five thousand or more ideograms—that is only a minor trouble—but in the retention in the memory of the texts of the classics to which constant allusion is made in a manner to confuse utterly the uninitiated. “The dragon has gone down to the sea” means “the emperor has died.” Or to translate the idea into English; the Bible says, “The words of the wise are as goads” (Ecclesiastes xii, II) and Shakespeare (Hamlet V, I). “There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners”; therefore the reader would have to know that “goads” stands for the words of the wise and “ancient gentlemen” for gardeners. But connoisseurs regard this classical language as the greatest monument of China, far finer than Sung pottery or the Temple of Heaven. Said a friend to me one day, picking up a copy of Omar at the verse:
O Thou, who man of baser earth didst make,
And didst with Paradise devise the snake,
For all the sin wherewith the face of man
Is blackened, man’s forgiveness give and take.
“Such is this wonderfully rich, poetic Wen Li, while in Pai Hua (the vernacular) this same thought would cover pages of dull, colorless prose.” Of course, the spoken language is still as poor a vehicle for poetic thought as Italian was before Dante, but its advocates hope for its growth and development.
[11] “Travels of Marco Polo”, Everyman Edition, Dutton and Company, page 186.
[12] The Chinese woman must as a child obey her father, as a wife her husband, and as a widow her son. The four wifely virtues are: (1) to honor and serve her mother-in-law; (2) to respect her husband; (3) to live in peace with her sisters-in-law; and (4) to have pity on the poor.
[13] See [Bibliography].
[14] The Chinese name for the instrument is chin. Chinese writers on music have set down seven conditions under which one should not play the instrument: when one has just heard the news of a death; when some one is playing the flute in the vicinity; when one is oppressed by business cares; when one has not purified his body; when one is not wearing the ceremonial cap and gown; when one has not lighted sweet-smelling incense; and when there is not present a friend who understands music. Chancellor Tsai Yuan-pei, until 1923 the head of the National University in Peking, was a believer in training in æsthetics, and considered a proper appreciation of the music of the chin a most desirable element in the mental equipment of a cultured man.
[15] Giles, “Chinese Literature”, page 155. “A poet should not dot his i’s. The Chinese reader likes to do that for himself, each according to his own fancy. Hence such a poem as the following, often quoted as a model in its own particular line:
“A tortoise I see
on a lotus-flower resting:
A bird mid the reeds
and the rushes is nesting;
A light skiff propelled
by some boatman’s fair daughter,
Whose song dies away
o’er the fast-flowing water.”
[16] A most readable biography in English has just been published by the Commercial Press, Shanghai: “Yang Kuei-fei”, by Mrs. Wu Lien-teh.—In the Mercure de France, beginning August, 1922, there appeared a fascinating series of articles: “La Passion de Yang Kuei-fei”, by Soulie, translations of songs by blind Chinese singers woven into the story of the greatest Chinese tale of love.
[17] “The Jade Chaplet, A Collection of Songs, Ballads, etc., from the Chinese.” Trübner and Company, London, 1874.
[18] The Chinese actually say that the birds imitated her voice in their notes.
[19] One of the many complaints against Yang Kuei-fei was her fancy for fresh Li-chihs. She was so fond of these, that she had them, when in season, brought from the South to Ch’ang An daily, a distance of three thousand li. This apparently simple fancy was the cause of immense suffering, distress, and injustice; the messengers carrying the luxury, presuming on the protection of their mistress, committed all manner of depredation and violence.
[20] Yang Kuei-fei had intrigued with a noble named An Lu-shan, who afterwards raised the standard of rebellion, it is said, with the hope of obtaining possession of her. Be that as it may, the Emperor assembled a large army, and accompanied by Yang Kuei-fei, went to meet him. On arriving at a place called Ma-kuei in Sze-chuen, the Emperor’s troops mutinied, declaring that Yang Kuei-fei was the cause of the rebellion, and demanding her life, otherwise they would not fight. The Emperor, having no alternative, was forced to comply. Some say he ordered her to be strangled, and that this was done by the soldiers; others again, that she strangled herself—the latter appears the correct version.
[21] For similar practices among the Romans, see Sumner, “Folkways”, page 445.
[22] See also [pages 91 and 92].
[23] See Bibliography, book by Arène, for examples.
[24] See outline, [page 105].
[25] About a year after the earthquake Tokio’s Imperial Theater was reopened, and the Japanese honored Mei Lan-fang by engaging him for this occasion.
[26] This popular figure, called also “big stomach” or “cloth sack” Buddha, is laughing in anticipation of the happiness to come. His image is found in practically all Buddhist temples and frequently among the bibelots collected by foreigners. In regard to the taste of collectors, Baron de Staël-Holstein, a Russian scholar versed in Buddhist lore, remarked to me one day, “The ugliest of all these figures is the one most sought after by Westerners.”
[27] See [page 83ff.]
[28] See Haigh, “The Tragic Drama of the Greeks”, Oxford University Press; Murray, “Ancient Greek Literature”, Appleton, etc.—So far as I know no scholar has suggested that the goat did the singing of the “goat songs.”
[29] See “Sacred Books of the East”, vol. XXVIII, pp. 92-131.
[30] This has now come to an end. In October, 1924, the deposed emperor was driven out of his palace by the “Christian” General Feng Yu-hsiang.
[31] Thorndyke, “Shakespeare’s Theater”, Macmillan Company, page 139.
[32] Ib., page 87.
[33] Page 76.
[34] Op. cit., page 394.
[35] See Taine’s description, Book II, chapter II, in his “History of English Literature.”
[36] Page 261.—According to my friend Ferdinand Lessing, a German sinologist, Giles has here made a mistake. In Lessing’s words, Chinese plays contain “faustdicke Zoten.”
[37] “Shakespeare’s England,” II, 308ff.
[38] Quoted from “Shakespeare’s England”, II, 246. See also Thorndyke’s “Shakespeare’s Theater”, page 372.
[39] Goethe, “Frauenrollen auf dem römischen Theater von Männern gespielt.”
[40] “Shakespeare’s England”, page 252ff.
[41] “Shakespeare’s England”, II, 241.
[42] Thorndyke, page 138, refers to this article, but takes no stock in Mr. Corbin’s arguments. He says that darkness was symbolized by lighted candles, etc., which is precisely the thing done on the Chinese stage.
[43] “Shakespeare’s England”, II, 301.
