but to neglect his parents. Since his parents have died Chinese etiquette demands that he give up his office for a number of years and mourn for the death of his father and mother. Tsai-yung with his two wives sets out to make a pilgrimage to the ancestral tomb to offer proper worship to the deceased. The emperor is going to give posthumous honors to his parents because of Wu-niang’s faithfulness, and the historians will keep ever fresh the memory of the daughter-in-law’s filial piety. Even after the death of his parents the son must put their interests (or supposed interests) above his own by a three-year period of mourning, a space of time which is simply lost out of his life. In his “Chinese Characteristics”, Doctor Arthur H. Smith points out the one-sidedness of the matter of filial piety—the Chinese ethical code mentions no duties of the parents toward their children. His summary of the subject, given in the chapter on Filial Piety, seems most apropos of the action of this play: “Every son has performed his filial duties to his father, and demands the same from his own son. That is what children are for. Upon this point the popular mind is explicit. ‘Trees are raised for shade, children are reared for old age.’ Neither parents nor children are under any illusions upon this subject. ‘If you have no children to foul the bed, you will have no one to burn paper at the grave.’ Each generation pays the debt which is exacted of it by the generation which preceded it, and in turn requires from the generation which comes after full payment to the uttermost farthing. Thus is filial piety perpetuated from generation to generation, and from age to age.”