The Ming Dynasty is known as a period of prosperity in which industry and commerce, as well as the arts of poetry and painting, flourished. It was also a great period for the drama. Over six hundred Ming dramas are still extant or are at least known by title, and many of them were written by well-known authors of high literary standing and great scholarship. The drama was so much appreciated at this time that many high officials and wealthy families had private troupes of actors, a large number of the dramas being specially written for these troupes. Since the audiences were composed of the élite, the language of the dramas could be of a highly literary character. A development took place at this time that altered considerably the form of the drama. Instead of the compact and unified three, four, or five-act plays of the Yuan period, playwrights began to produce dramas of thirty-two, forty, or even forty-eight acts. The name of this new form is _ch’an ch’i_ (literally “novel”) in distinction to the _tsa ch’i_ of the Yuan Dynasty. Doctor Hu Shih, writing to me about these two forms, suggests that one might call the former “play” and the latter “drama.” “Technically the new form seems to be a degradation,” he says, “but aside from the aspect of literary economy the Ming dramas were superior to the Yuan plays in many respects, viz. (1) profounder conception, (2) far better characterization, (3) more even distribution of parts among the characters. In the Yuan plays only one character had a ‘singing’ part and the others were completely subordinated; while in Ming dramas the rôles are more evenly balanced. In many cases the same theme was treated by Yuan and Ming dramatists, and in most cases the Ming version is far better.” In this chapter I am presenting an example of this new variety of drama, a 24-act piece called “Pi-Pa-Chi” (The Story of a Lute). Except for the fact that dialogue and stage directions are used the work might well be called a novel. Aside from the technical interest of the drama it is most significant as a presentation of Confucian ideals, a revival of which was typical likewise of the Ming Dynasty. Such ideals are embodied in the family system with the selfishness—as it appears to us—of old age. After reading about the adventures of the hero, Tsai Yung, the Westerner can understand why in Confucian writings along with widows and orphans there are enumerated “son-less fathers.” The conflict in the drama centers about the “higher” and the “lower” obedience—service to the state or to the family. But the problem is not a clear-cut one, as the son is to serve the state in the interest of the greater prosperity of his own family; nor can it be said that it is solved in any way. The drama, however, is full of Chinese moralizing along lines far removed from the thinking of the “practical” Westerner.