A CHINESE ARTIST’S CONCEPTION OF TWO PIOUS SOULS
The father calls on the son to state what he understands by filial piety. The son answers by quoting the “Book of Rites,” “It is the duty of the son to take every care that in summer as well as in winter his parents should enjoy all comforts of life. He must every evening himself arrange the bed on which they are to sleep; every morning at the first crowning of the cock he must inquire in affectionate terms about the state of their health; then, in the course of the day, he must ask repeatedly whether they are suffering from the cold or whether the heat incommodes them. The duty of the son is to watch over his parents wherever they go, to love those whom they love, honor those whom they honor; he must even love the horses and dogs whom his father loves.” And he adds from the “Sayings of Confucius”: “A son should not leave the home of his father and his mother so long as they are still living.”
To this the father retorts with a quotation from “The Book of Filial Piety”; “The first degree of filial piety consists in serving one’s parents; the second in serving one’s prince, and the third in seeking after honors.” The father persuades the son to go. His son will soon be a mandarin, he says, and then, “The three kinds of meat (beef, mutton and pork) and the rare foods which are offered up in the great sacrifices will be served to me three times a day in tripods of elegant form or in dishes of fine porcelain. That will be better than eating beans and drinking water.”
But the mother gives expression to her grief in a metaphor praised by Chinese commentators: “In a moment they will tear away the pearl I was holding in my hand.” Forebodings of evil fill her heart. “Go then, my son, but if during your absence your father and mother should die of hunger and cold, your honor will not therefore be smirched when you return in an embroidered robe.”
The second scene of the play transfers the action to Ch’ang An, the old capital. With the symmetry so characteristic of all Chinese art the action of the drama is divided almost equally between the scenes in Tsai-yung’s native village, and those in the imperial city. We are introduced into the palace of an imperial minister, a certain Niu, and here through the words of a maidservant we learn of the dull, tedious, joyless life in the women’s apartments. The author pictures the minister’s daughter, Niu-hsi, as the model young woman who prefers working at embroidery to playing in the open air. The servant girl on the other hand is sad because spring (used symbolically for love) is passing her by. In a beautiful allegory on spring and its manifestations she gives expression to her feelings, while her mistress cites in reply the ancient Chinese rule of conduct: “Women must not leave the interior apartments.” The scene seems to be a protest on the author’s part against this cruel stunting of the lives of his countrywomen.
Into Minister Niu’s house come two rival go-betweens who make offers of marriage for Niu’s daughter in the interest of two fathers of distinguished sons. But Niu refuses; he will accept for his daughter none but the scholar who has won the very highest honors at the examinations. The two women begin to quarrel and are driven off with blows by Niu’s orders, because by fighting in his house they offend against the rites. A marriage arranged by such wrangling old hags between young people who meet for the first time on the day of their wedding certainly does not offer much in the way of romance. An even more depressing picture of the life of the young girl one gains from the manner in which Niu takes his daughter to task for having walked in the garden. “Don’t you know of what the principal merit of a young woman consists? I have told you before, men are looking for women who don’t like to leave the women’s apartments.” Everywhere the ghost of Confucius giving precepts for the regulation of the private life down to the minutest details!
The play returns to Tsai-yung, who is now on the road to the capital in the company of three other candidates for the examination. Each in turn tells of the purpose of his studies. Tsai-yung outlines his principles as follows: