The Orphan of Zhao

Introduction

Ji Junxiang's Yuan zaju of Cheng Ying's sacrifice for the Zhao orphan, the first Chinese play in a European language

The Orphan of Zhao, also called The Great Revenge of the Orphan of Zhao, is a Yuan zaju by Ji Junxiang set in the state of Jin during the Spring and Autumn period. It draws on the fall of the Zhao clan as told in the Zuo Commentary and the Records of the Grand Historian, though it changes the people and events a great deal. The minister Tu'an Gu destroys the Zhao family, the retainer Cheng Ying smuggles the newborn heir out of the palace, and the general Han Jue lets them pass before taking his own life. To save the child, Cheng Ying gives up his own son in the orphan's place and the old minister Gongsun Chujiu dies with the boy; twenty years later the orphan learns who he is and takes his revenge. The Yuan printed text and the Ming anthology text differ widely, and the fifth act appears only in the Ming version. In 1731 the Jesuit Joseph de Prémare translated its dialogue into French, published by Du Halde in 1735 as the first Chinese play in a European language, and Voltaire's adaptation, The Orphan of China, opened in Paris in 1755.