The Tale of Pipa 琵琶记 is one of the most famous Southern folk opera nanxi/南戏. It is about a scholar Cai Baojie who goes to the capital to take the imperial exams. After finding great success, he abandons his wife Zhao Wuniang and his family, marrying the daughter of a Prime Minister (yups same plot but ML's father in Legend of Magnate). His wife continues to care for his parents until they die. Then she seeks justice and endures immense suffering as she travels to the capital in disguise, playing a pipa to fund her journey. When she finds her husband, he refuses to acknowledge her and has her trampled to death by a horse. Heaven punishes him and lightning strikes him dead. The end. The play powerfully voices the immense sorrow and suffering of the wronged Wuniang. This play belongs to the broader “scholar who abandons his wife” (负心书生) tradition of early southern drama.

I have only watched 6 episodes so I don't have a good sense of what else the play hints about the drama plot but there are two versions of the opera - the original has a sad ending as discussed above and the later version has a happy ending with redemption arc for Cai Baojie and Zhao Wuniang. Since this drama is set in Southern Song, the version they should be playing in this drama is the early version with the sad ending*. But it goes to show you the drama is not well researched - the lines of the play quoted are from the later version of the play which was written 100-150 years later! So I am not suggesting that Spring of the Blade ends sadly as it looks like this is more Xie Qingyuan's parents story. But Qingyuan has taken on what her mother can't do it for herself, so Qingyuan is the one who is endures immense suffering (playing the pipa all the way to the capital in disguise) to demand some kind of justice from the Xies. It probably foreshadows that her father in the capital will not be kind to her but will eventually be struck dead by lightning or face some other kind of justice from the heavens.

I am going on holiday soon and don't plan to finish watching this drama after I return from my trip so I will leave it to others to add to/correct this post if need be as the plot unfolds.

*This play also appears in Against the Current but since that is set in Ming dynasty, that version of the play should have a happy ending.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_the_Pipa

Wow so interesting ! 👍 I think you should post in the comment section as well.

Badgal1995:

Wow so interesting ! 👍 I think you should post in the comment section as well.

I did drop a link in the comment section when I posted it.😅

Peach, thanks, I will enjoy the show. one of my favourite outings is going to the Opera here in the UK and have had the pleasure of watching opera in Austria but I am equally fascinated by your Chinese Opera though I have never seen a complete one.

🤩🤩🤩

Thanks and happy holidays

What u wrote is also told later in the story. Qingyuan's parents story is also the same. What's interesting is that Qingyuan's mother was performing the "The tale of Pipa" and she caught the attention of Xie Shu( Qingyuan's father). From there everything is just sad story. It's like what Qingyuan's mother performed became her reality of life.

whoissilmoy:

Those lines belong to a completely different nanxi: Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan (张协状元 / Top Graduate Zhang Xie)

This is called stating the obvious - it tells you from the very first line the opening play performed is 张协状元 / Top Graduate Zhang Xie!But that is not what this post is about.🤦🏻‍♀️

I think you misunderstood my post and have dived down the wrong rabbit hole. The play I am talking about that the plot is based on is the one the FL is staging in the prologue where she says something along the lines of let the play begin. Which seemed to me after 6 episodes is based on The Tale of Pipa 琵琶记. It is arguably the most famous play that is part of the genre that was inspired by 张协状元 / Top Graduate Zhang Xie, which was written hundreds of years earlier. If you know anything about the play 张协状元 / Top Graduate Zhang Xie, beyond the broad outlines of a scholar abandoning his wife - basically the FL's mother's story - you would know it is not relevant at all to the drama plot. That is why I skipped over it to avoid confusing the two plays. At the risk of stating the obvious, the drama plot is the FL's story and a revenge plot. In any case, it was just speculation on my part that the drama plot is inspired by The Tale of Pipa 琵琶记, which is why I summarized the play plot in my post and the different versions of it - so that viewers planning to complete the drama would have some idea of how the plot could unfold. I am happy to be wrong about whether the plot is influenced by The Tale of Pipa 琵琶记, it was just plot speculation on my part. But I am absolutely sure it has even less to do with 张协状元 / Top Graduate Zhang Xie.

As for the time error, you could be right about that and it is my bad. I could have sworn I recognized some lines from The Tale of Pipa 琵琶记, which is a play I had to study in depth in my Chinese lessons. But I was watching two dramas at the time so I could be mistaken and picked up the lines somewhere else. I am not interested enough in Spring of the Blade to waste time going back to search for it.

Sorry you seem to have burned quite a bit of time and a bunch of tokens on a mistaken premise/prompt but I think it is manifestly clear from the title what this post is about. Maybe you didn't read it. 😅