The Ming and Qing Revisions of “The Peony Pavilion” — The Qing‑Era Revision by Bingsi Guan | Zhou Yude on “The Peony Pavilion”

  He formerly served as a researcher at the Chinese National Academy of Arts, president of the China Academy of Traditional Opera, vice president of the Chinese Society for the Study of Traditional Opera, and a member of the editorial committee of the “Encyclopedia of Chinese Traditional Opera.” He has been awarded the Outstanding Research Achievement Prize by the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese National Academy of Arts. For many years, he has engaged in the study and teaching of opera history and theory, participated in the compilation of numerous opera‑related dictionaries and historical works, and published such monographs as “Essays on Tang Xianzu,” “Chinese Opera and Chinese Religion,” “Chinese Opera Culture,” and “Kunqu Opera and Ming–Qing Society.” He has also edited and brought to print important opera texts, including “The Collected Dramas of Gubaitang” and “Xiaohan Xinyong.”
 

    During the Qianlong period, opera and fiction flourished. In the later years of Qianlong’s reign, class struggles took on new forms, and the activities of the White Lotus Sect began to emerge, attracting the attention of the highest ruling authorities. As cultural and ideological control was further deepened and intensified, the imperial elite placed great emphasis on regulating and censoring operas and novels. The “Veritable Records of the Qing Gaozong Emperor” in Volume 1,118 records an imperial edict issued on the day Yiyou in the eleventh month of the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780):

Formerly, all provinces were ordered to rigorously inspect and confiscate books containing objectionable words or passages, and to send them to the capital for destruction.

It is to be considered that even in theatrical scripts there may well be passages that are objectionable. For instance, books from the late Ming and early Qing periods that contain references to characters or phrases of the current dynasty should, of course, be subject to thorough examination. As for the Southern Song and Jin dynasties, their literary works and stage plays often depict events or figures in ways that, through excessive dramatization, depart from historical accuracy. Over time, such inaccuracies may be accepted by uninformed readers as fact; this matter is of considerable importance and likewise warrants careful scrutiny. Accordingly, instruct Yiling’a and Quande to exercise due diligence in their investigations. Wherever revisions, deletions, or abridgments are deemed necessary, they are to be carefully weighed and properly carried out. Furthermore, the original texts thus examined, together with the sections that have been revised or excised, are to be duly annotated and submitted to the capital for review. All this is to be done discreetly, without any hint of alarm or undue publicity.

Volume Five of the “Record of Yangzhou’s Painted Boats” also states:

In the Dingyou year of the Qianlong reign (1777), Imperial Inspector of Salt, Yiling’a, was ordered by imperial decree to establish an office in Yangzhou for revising and refining quju opera. The project spanned four years, passing through the terms of both Tuli’a and Lord Yi, and was finally brought to completion.

It is known that preparations for this undertaking had been made well in advance, with the actual work commencing in the year Gengzi (1780) and concluding in the year Renyin (1782). The Lyric‑Drama Bureau recruited a large contingent of scholars, including Huang Wenyang, Ling Tingkan, and others. Over the course of more than a year, they undertook both scrutiny and revision. This was an enormous‑scale review of theatrical works, with Tang Xianzu’s “Four Dreams of Linchuan” bearing the brunt of it.
 

The “Bingsi Guan” edition of The Peony Pavilion is a reprinted version based on Wang Jizhong’s annotated and revised edition of The Peony Pavilion, originally published in the Qinghui Pavilion. The first preface to this reissue states:

The legendary play “The Peony Pavilion” embodies the poet’s sincere and earnest spirit in its lyrical language, which is both refined and elegant. Every line is strikingly original, yet its meaning remains deeply graceful and unpretentious. Gao Dongjia is revered as the sage of opera, while Tang Yuming is hailed as its immortal; indeed, it stands as the very essence of the yuefu tradition. This edition adheres faithfully to the original print; should a few words or phrases appear to have been overlooked, we have scrupulously followed the revised version submitted in the forty-sixth year of the Qianlong reign (1781). Beyond this, we have dared not make any unauthorized additions or deletions—may those who appreciate it kindly bear this in mind.

Clearly, this represents a grave distortion of the ideological content of Tang Xianzu’s The Peony Pavilion. The play is distinguished by its powerful anti-feudal spirit; far from advocating a “simple and sincere moral lesson,” it proclaims something altogether different. From this preface as well, we can discern the anxieties of publishers at the time: even the slightest oversight in publication could invite serious trouble, which is why they proceeded with the utmost caution.

The original version of “The Peony Pavilion” at the Bingsi Theater omitted any passages that “alluded to” the Southern Song and Jin dynasties.

Although the original fifteenth scene, “The Spy of the Barbarians,” was omitted in the Zang‑revised, Feng‑revised, and Xu‑revised editions, such deletions were artistic abridgments—purging superfluous elements—unrelated to politics. By contrast, the Bingsiguan edition’s removal of this scene is explicitly marked as “omitted in accordance with the submitted revised version,” a decision motivated entirely by political considerations.

From that time onward, no Qing‑dynasty edition of The Peony Pavilion included the scene “The Lü Tie.” In the fifty-seventh year of the Qianlong reign, Ye Tang’s Nanshu Ying Si Meng Quan Pu likewise omitted the score for “The Lü Tie,” with a note stating: “This scene is not included, in accordance with the imperial manuscript submitted for review.”

The “Bingsi Pavilion” edition of the forty-seventh scene, “Wei Shi,” from The Peony Pavilion also “follows the imperial‑presented version with slight abridgments”—namely, the passage introducing the Jin‑state envoy has been excised. This differs from the omissions in the Shuoyuan revised edition, which were motivated by distinct considerations. Furthermore, this version alters Li Quan’s spoken line “You and I, the two of us, have committed such a great crime, relying entirely on the might of the Golden Demoness” to “Relying wholly on the might of the Northern Court.” It also revises the lines from the tunes “Farewell at the Riverbank” and “Previous Melody”—“It was perilous indeed, wounding the Song dynasty for the sake of the Jin house”—to “Regretfully slain, stirring up trouble across Jianghuai and wounding the Song dynasty.”

There are still many other changes of this kind.

With the release of “The She‑Wolf Thief,” Li Quan’s Northern “Dian Jiang Chun” verse—“The world is stirred by the stench of wind, a family legacy of mongrel stock”—was revised to read: “A murderous aura sweeps across the autumn, clouds surge at the head of the battle line.” Meanwhile, Li Quan’s opening poem, which once declared, “Han men learn the language of the Hu, yet they join in cursing the Han,” was altered to: “He accepts their ennoblement and obeys their commands, yet still counts himself a heartless, faithless traitor.”

When “Huai Police” was published, Li Quan’s poem—“The bandit‑hero is Li Quan, with a loyal heart and unwavering resolve toward the Hu barbarians. With the tip of his boot he tramples the mighty chasm of heaven, yet laughs at how fragile the soil of Jiangnan is”—was entirely excised.

This revised edition is extremely careful in its diction and choice of characters. Whenever a passage touches on ethnic relations, it is altered without exception. For example, in Ci Jie the tune originally titled "Recruiting Hu Soldiers" was changed to "Steamed Paste‑Cake"; in Dao Shang the line "the Jin invaders peered southward" was revised to "Li Quan incited a rebellion." Similar modifications appear in works such as Ming Pan, Shan Bei, Dan Shi, Yi Zhen, Yu Huai, Kou Jian, Zhe Kuai and Bang Xia — in more than twenty other instances.

This is a peculiar historical phenomenon, serving as evidence of the Qing Empire’s culturally authoritarian rule.

Excerpted from Zhou Yude’s “Revised Editions of Tang Xianzu’s Plays in the Ming and Qing Dynasties”

Originally published in “Wenxian,” No. 1, 1983.