The Peony Pavilion

Du Liniang falls asleep in the garden and dreams of a young man; she dies of longing, leaving a self-portrait, and the young man finds it, falls in love with her ghost and brings her back to life. The Peony Pavilion is the great Ming drama of love stronger than death. Its arias are among the most beautiful in Chinese, and it is still performed today. This is a complete new English translation, with names in modern pinyin and the text rendered as plain, readable English prose. Stage directions and role names are kept, and the sung arias are rendered as verse, so the play can be read like a script or imagined on the stage. Chinese drama mixes speech, song, comedy and spectacle; the plays were performed for centuries, and their stories are still known to every Chinese reader.