元刊古今雜劇三十種の流傳

Abstract

The edition known as Yüan-k'an-pen ku-chin tsa-chu san-shih-chung 元刊雜劇三十種, published in facsimile edition by Kyoto University in 1914, and more recently in photo offset by the Publication Committee for Rare Dramatic Texts in Peking, is well known as the oldest extant text of Yuan dramas. The format of the edition is very crude, and in most cases only the texts of the songs alone are included, with very little dialogue. As the late Professor Kano 狩野直喜, when he was editor of the Kyoto University edition, demonstrated, the texts must originally have been in the nature of pamphlets distributed to the audiences of the time. A comparison of the edition with the Yüan-ch'ü-hsüan 元曲選, the most popular edition of Yüan drama, reveals many differences. Recently Professor Sun K'ai-ti 孫楷第 suggested that the original text of this edition was formerly owned by a famous Ming literateur named Li K'ai-hsien 李開先. Prof. Sun based this supposition on the evidence of book catalogues. The present author has endeavored to confirm this supposition by careful text criticism. The notes of the early Ch'ing scholar Ho Huang 何煌, which appear in the Mo-wang-kuan ch'ao-chiao-pen ku-chin tsa-chü 脈望館鈔校本古今雜劇, reveal that he compared later manuscripts with an early edition of four plays which he says was originally in the library of Li K'aihsien. The variant readings which he records prove that this early edition was none other than that reproduced by Kyoto University and the Peking committee for rare dramatic texts. After Ho Huang availed himself of this edition, it passed through the hands of a number of collectors such as Ku Jo-lin 顧若霖 and Huang P'ilieh 黃丕烈, until it was finally bought by Lo Chen-yü, 羅振玉 from whom Kyoto University borrowed it to make the reprint in 1914. Now it is preserved in the National Library of Peking.