Mother-in-law: Rest assured that snow will fall for six months, and that a drought will afflict the country for three years. Now, Tou-E, let your soul reveal clearly the great injustice which is about to cause your death. (The executioner strikes off Tou-E’s head). The Judge (seized with terror): O Heavens! The snow is beginning to fall! This is surely a miracle! Executioner: I behead criminals every day and their blood always flows on the ground, but the blood of Tou-E has spotted the two banners of white silk and not a drop has fallen on the ground. There is something supernatural about this catastrophe. The Judge: This woman was truly innocent! The plays discussed in this chapter are sufficient to show that in the thirteenth century the Chinese possessed a theater of fair merit. To be sure, the technique is extremely crude; characters on their first appearance on the stage tell the audience their names followed by a conscientious account of their past lives and the part to be played by them in the drama; the motivation of the actions is very poor; many plays seem to be dramatized narratives rather than real dramas; there is a great paucity of invention as shown by the rather frequent repetition of dramatic devices and motives; the necessity of having a moral ending leads to numerous absurdities; and chance rules the playwright’s world from beginning to end, always in the interest of the good. Furthermore, there is lacking a real sense of the tragic; there are no sublime heroes overcome by the universal human limitations which they challenge, nor are there moral conflicts of an elevating nature in which poetic justice triumphs. The characters are in general types rather than individuals, and there is very little deep psychological insight displayed. And on the whole it must be said, the plays do not rise to a very high spiritual level. Yet there is great charm in this drama which brings on the stage characters of all sorts from emperors down to coolies, and displays in full the rich life in the Middle Kingdom of the days when Marco Polo described it. [Illustration] CHAPTER THREE THE MING DYNASTY—1368-1644 THE PI-PA-CHI The Yuan Dynasty of Mongol rulers was a very powerful one and extended the Chinese frontiers to include Korea, Yünnan, Annam, and Burma. The rulers proved themselves very tolerant of Chinese religions and institutions; the emperor Jen Tsung even reëstablished the Hanlin Academy and the official examinations. But though the government of these foreigners was fairly efficient yet it was by no means popular, and frequent rebellions occurred. Finally, the Chinese under the leadership of a former Buddhist monk, Chu Yuan-chang, drove the Mongols beyond the Great Wall and founded the Ming Dynasty. The ex-monk ascended the throne in 1368 and is known in history as Emperor Hung Wu.