e, in which they state the name and
character they represent in the drama. They also indicate the place
where they are in the story, or the house which they have entered. Yet
the Chinese stage has many points in common with that of Ancient Greece.
It is supported and controlled by government, and has something of a
religious and national character, being particularly employed for
popular amusement in the celebration of religious festivals. Only two
actors are allowed to occupy the stage at the same time, and this is
another point in common with the early Greek drama. The plots or stories
of the Chinese plays are simple and effective, and Voltaire is known to
have taken the plot of a Chinese drama, as Moliere took a comedy of
Plautus, and applied it in writing a drama for the modern French stage.
"The Sorrows of Han" belongs to the famous collection entitled "The
Hundred Plays of the Yuen Dynasty." It is divided into acts and is made
up of alternate prose and verse. The movement of the drama is good, and
the denouement arranged with considerable skill.

E.W.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The following drama was selected from the "Hundred Plays of Yuen," which
has already supplied to Europe two specimens of the Chinese stage--the
first, called the "Orphan of Chaou," translated by Pere Premare; and the
second, entitled an "Heir in Old Age," by the author of the present
version. "The Sorrows of Han" is historical, and relates to one of the
most interesting periods of the Chinese annals, when the growing
effeminacy of the court, and consequent weakness of the government,
emboldened the Tartars in their aggressions, and first gave rise to the
temporizing and impolitic system of propitiating those barbarians by
tribute, which long after produced the downfall of the empire and the
establishment of the Mongol dominion.

The moral of the piece is evidently to expose the evil consequences of
luxury, effeminacy, and supineness in the sovereign.

"When love was all an easy monarch's care,
Seldom at council--never in a war."

The hero, or rather the chief personage, of the drama, came to the
throne very near the beginning of the Christian era, about B.C. 42. The
fate of the Lady Chaoukeun is a favorite incident in history, of which
painters, poets, and romancers frequently avail themselves; her "Verdant
Lamb" is said to exist at the present day, and to remain green all the
year round, while the vegetation of the desert in