Li Kaixian’s Revised Plays by Yuan Masters (Gaiding Yuanxian chuanqi) and the Textual Transmission of Yuan Zaju as Seen in Two Plays by Ma Zhiyuan

LI KAIXIAN’S REVISED PLAYS BY YUAN MASTERS (GAIDING YUANXIAN CHUANQI) AND THE TEXTUAL TRANSMISSION OF YUAN ZAJU AS SEEN IN TWO PLAYS BY MA ZHIYUAN Wilt L. Idema (Harvard University) Act One One of the persistent enigmas in the study of Yuan drama during the last century has been the question of the whereabouts of the surviving volumes of Li Kaixian’s 李開先 Revised Plays by Yuan Masters (Gaiding Yuanxian chuanqi 改定元賢傳奇) of ca. 1560. For practically all of the twentieth century scholars had lost track of the remaining plays of this collection. Coming from the earliest known Ming dynasty anthology of Yuan drama, it was hoped that these plays could shed light on the vexing problems involved in the textual transmission of zaju 雜劇. Many publications from the PRC from the second half of the twentieth century claimed that the remaining plays from Revised Plays by Yuan Masters were kept in the Central (now National) Library in Taipei, which always denied having them. It turned out that the six plays had been stored all that time in the Nanjing Library (Nanjing tushuguan 南京圖書館).1 All six plays are now available both in a photographic reprint and in a typeset edition.2 Exciting as this discovery was, it was at the same time very disappointing, as the texts it provided turn out to be practically identical to the Wanli reign period (1573-1619) editions of the same plays. It would appear that these later editions have rather slavishly copied the texts as provided in Li Kaixian’s collection. However, since the title of the collection tells us that these texts have been “revised,” we may well want to have a second look at them. What exactly were the texts that were revised, and how were they revised? We know that Li Kaixian (1502-1568) was a great collector of drama texts—he claimed to own more than 1750 zaju.3 His collection included both Yuan 1 See Xie Yufeng 解玉峰, “Du Nantuguan cang Li Kaixian Gaiding yuanxian chuanqi” 讀南圖館藏李開先改 定元賢傳奇, Wenxian 文獻 2001.2: 158-69. 2 The six plays are Jiangzhou sima Qingshan lei 江州司馬青衫淚 and Xihuashan Chen Tuan gaowo 西華山陳 摶高臥 by Ma Zhiyuan 馬致遠; Tang Minghuang qiuye Wutong yu 唐明皇秋夜梧桐雨, by Bai Pu 白樸; Yuxiao nü liangshi yinyuan 玉簫女兩世姻緣 and Du Muzhi shijiu Yangzhou meng 杜牧之詩酒揚州夢 by Qiao Ji 喬吉; and Liu Chen Ruan Zhao wuru Tiantai 劉晨阮肇誤入天台 by Wang Ziyi 王子一. Ma Zhiyuan and Bai Pu both were active in the second half of the thirteenth century. Qiao Ji was a somewhat younger contemporary, but Wang Ziyi was active in the early decades of the Ming. For a photographic reprint see Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1995-99), vol. 1760 (jibu 集部, xiju lei 戲劇纇), pp. 109-88; for a modern type-set edition, see Bu Jian 卜鍵, ed., Li Kaixian quanji 李開先全集 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2004), vol. 3, pp. 1699-1808. 3 For a brief account of Li Kaixian’s life in English, see Lee Hwa-chou’s entry on him in L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 835-37. More detailed accounts are provided by Yagisawa Hajime 八木澤元, Mingdai juzuojia yanjiu 明代劇作家研究, Luo Jintang, tr. (Hong Kong: Longmen shuju, 1966), pp. 145-228; Iwaki CHINOPERL Papers No. 26©2006 by the Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. CHINOPERL Papers No. 26 dynasty printings of zaju, and texts (manuscripts?) which derived from the princely collections. These two types of editions are as far apart as one can imagine. Yuan dynasty editions of zaju in the best possible case provide us with the full role text of the singing role type. In this case, the text not only provides the full arias, but also the main prose lines for that role type and quite detailed stage directions, together with summary stage directions for the other actors (usually in the form of: wait until so-and-so has finished speaking/doing X), and the cue lines. But, as the plays presumably were printed for the purpose of helping members of the audience follow the words of the songs, some editions are strictly limited to the text of the arias.4 The great majority of extant zaju, however, were incorporated into the repertoire of the...