Orphan of the Cho family

A Chinese play from the Yuan dynasty. Four-volume set (acts). Written by Ji Junxiang (a person from the early Yuan dynasty). The military minister Tu'an Jia of Duke Ling of Jin kills the family of the rival civil minister Zhao Dun and searches for the whereabouts of the orphaned child. The doctor Cheng Ying hides the orphaned child in a medicine box and takes him away, but the guard Han Jue hates Tu's lawlessness and lets him go and commits suicide. Cheng entrusts his own child to Gongsun Qiyu and has Tu kill him, pretending that he is an orphan of the Zhao family, thus saving all the babies in the country from massacre. Ironically, the orphan is adopted by Tu, and when he grows up, he is shown a scroll by Cheng that depicts the truth, and captures and kills Tu, the enemy of his family. It was introduced to Europe in the 18th century and was adapted into "The Chinese Orphan" (Voltaire). It is included in "Thirty Types of Yuan Zaju" and "Selections of Yuan Opera" (a fifth volume was added later). Nanqu's "Records of the Orphan of Zhao" (the first work of the late Yuan Ming Dynasty, author unknown) is revised to have a more complicated plot, with the orphan reunited with his parents and a happy ending.

[Keiko Hiramatsu]

"The Orphan's Chronicle by Kojiro Yoshikawa (1979, Dohosha Publishing)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中国、元代の戯曲。四折(せつ)（幕）。紀君祥(きくんしょう)（元代前期の人）作。晋(しん)の霊公の武臣屠岸賈(とがんか)は、対立する文臣趙盾(ちょうとん)一族を殺害し、遺児の行方を追う。医者程嬰(ていえい)は遺児を薬箱に隠し連れ去るが、見張りの韓厥(かんけつ)は屠の無法を憎み、これを見逃して自害する。程は実子を公孫杵臼(しょきゅう)に預け、趙氏の孤児と偽り屠に殺させ、国中の嬰児(えいじ)を殺戮(さつりく)から救う。孤児は皮肉にも屠の養子となり、成長後、程から真相を描いた絵巻をみせられて一族の仇(あだ)屠を捕らえて討つ。18世紀ヨーロッパに伝わり『中国孤児』（ボルテール）に翻案された。『元雑劇三十種』、『元曲選』（後人が第五折を加える）所収。南曲の『趙氏孤児記』（元末明(みん)初の作品、作者不詳）は筋が複雑化し、孤児は父母と再会、幸せな結末に改編されている。

［平松圭子］

『吉川幸次郎解説『趙氏孤児記』（1979・同朋舎出版）』

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