Tale of the Pipa
Tale of the Pipa is a Chinese nanxi play written by the playwright Gao Ming during the late Yuan dynasty. There are French, German, English translations of the play, and an English novelization-translation.
It was the most popular drama during the Ming dynasty, and it became a model for Ming drama as it was the favorite opera of the first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang.
Plot
The play is set during the Han dynasty. Based on an older play, Zhao zhen nü, it tells the story of a loyal wife named Zhao Wuniang who, left destitute when her husband Cai Yong is forced to marry another woman, undertakes a 12-year search for him. During her journey, she plays the pipa of the play's title in order to make a living. The original story sees Zhao killed by a horse and Cai struck by lightning, however in Gao Ming's version the two are eventually reconciled and live out their lives happily. Gao reportedly composed The Lute over a three-year period of solitary confinement, locking himself in an attic room and wearing down the floorboards by tapping out the rhythms of his songs.The Lute won considerable critical acclaim amongst Gao's contemporaries, since it raised the popular but somewhat rustic form of Southern folk opera to a higher literary standard, and it became a model for Ming dynasty theatre. It was a favourite play of the first Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, who commanded that it be performed every day at court.
Translations
wrote a French translation in 1841. This version, titled Le Pi-pa-ki ou l'Histoire de Luth, was published in Paris in 1841 by the Imprimerie Royale. A group of Chinese students in Boston performed an English-language version of the play in 1925, translated by Y.H. Ku and Liang Shih-chiu, and acted by Liang and Bing Xin among others. Vincenz Hundhausen wrote a German translation in 1930.A complete English translation and study by Jean Mulligan appeared in 1980. It is a part of the "Translations from the Oriental Classics" set, published by Columbia University Press. There is an introduction, which has six sections: "The Play and Its Genre," "The Author," "Sources of the Play," "The Play as Literature," "On the Translation," and "Notes." The translation also has a bibliography in English and Chinese, a synopsis, a glossary, and a list of titles of songs. In the introduction Mulligan examines the concept of filial piety and argues that Cai Yong is, in the words of reviewer Anne M. Birrell, "a victim of circumstance".
Birrell stated that Mulligan did her work "courageously". Howard Goldblatt of San Francisco State University, while acknowledging the difficulties in translating older literature, stated that the Mulligan translation is "sensitive" and "good", adding that it "nicely captures the various modes and poetic forms". Ching-Hsi Perng of National Taiwan University wrote that that Mulligan demonstrated "tender, loving care" in the work, and that the final product has "general excellence". Richard E. Strassberg of University of California, Los Angeles wrote that the translation was "able".
Adaptations
Memoirs of the Guitar, published in Shanghai in 1928, is an English-language novel self-described as "A Novel of Conjugal Love, Rewritten from a Chinese Classical Drama". The author was Yu Tinn-Hugh and the publisher was the China Current Weekly Publishing Company.A 1946 American musical comedy based on the Chinese play, titled Lute Song, was written by Will Irwin and Sidney Howard. This adaptation was produced on Broadway. It starred Yul Brynner and Mary Martin. Cyril Birch, collaborator in a translation of The Peach Blossom Fan, wrote that presumably the basis of the American play was the A. P. L. Balzin French translation of the Chinese play.