Chinese literature · Confucius
~ACT FOURTH~
_Enter Emperor, with an attendant_. EMPEROR. Since the princess was yielded to the Tartars, we have not held an audience. The lonely silence of night but increases our melancholy! We take the picture of that fair one and suspend it here, as some small solace to our griefs, [_To the attendant_] Keeper of the yellow gate, behold, the incense in yonder vase is burnt out: hasten then to add some more. Though we cannot see her, we may at least retain this shadow; and, while life remains, betoken our regard. But oppressed and weary, we would fain take a little repose. [_Lies down to sleep. The Princess appears before him in a vision_.] [1] PRINCESS. Delivered over as a captive to appease the barbarians, they would have conveyed me to their Northern country: but I took an occasion to elude them and have escaped back. Is not this the Emperor, my sovereign? Sir, behold me again restored. [_A Tartar soldier appears in the vision_.] SOLDIER. While I chanced to sleep, the lady, our captive, has made her escape, and returned home. In eager pursuit of her, I have reached the imperial palace.--Is not this she? [_Carries her off. The Emperor starts from his sleep_.] EMPEROR. We just saw the Princess returned--but alas, how quickly has she vanished! In bright day she answered not to our call--but when morning dawned on our troubled sleep, a vision presented her in this spot. [_Hears the wild fowl's [2] cry_] Hark, the passing fowl screamed twice or thrice!--Can it know there is no one so desolate as I? [_Cries repeated_] Perhaps worn out and weak, hungry and emaciated, they bewail at once the broad nets of the South and the tough bows of the North. [_Cries repeated_] The screams of those water-birds but increase our melancholy.
ATTENDANT. Let your Majesty cease this sorrow, and have some regard to your sacred [3] person. EMPEROR. My sorrows are beyond control. Cease to upbraid this excess of feeling, since ye are all subject to the same. Yon doleful cry is not the note of the swallow on the carved rafters, nor the song of the variegated bird upon the blossoming tree. The princess has abandoned her home! Know ye in what place she grieves, listening like me to the screams of the wild bird? _Enter President_. PRESIDENT. This day after the close of the morning council, a foreign envoy appeared, bringing with him the fettered traitor Maouyenshow. He announces that the renegade, by deserting his allegiance, led to the breach of truce, and occasioned all these calamities. The princess is no more! and the K'han wishes for peace and friendship between the two nations. The envoy attends, with reverence, your imperial decision. EMPEROR. Then strike off the traitor's head, and be it presented as an offering to the shade of the princess! Let a fit banquet be got ready for the envoy, preparatory to his return. _[Recites these verses_. At the fall of the leaf, when the wild-fowl's cry was heard in the recesses of the palace. Sad dreams returned to our lonely pillow; we thought of her through the night: Her verdant tomb remains--but where shall we seek her self? The perfidious painter's head shall atone for the beauty which he wronged.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.