A Dream under the Southern Bough

A Dream Under The Southern Bough, written in 1600, is a representative work of Tang Xianzu, a distinguished playwright of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and this unabridged version is the first to be published in English. The play revolves around a dream and along with three other plays - The Peony Pavilion, The Dream on the Handan Road, and The Anecdote of the Purple Hairpin - are known as 'the four dreams', given that dreams play a vital part in the development of all four plots. A Dream Under The Southern Bough, sees hero Chunyu Fen, a discharged army officer, dream that he enters an ant hole and eventually marries the daughter of the king of the ants. The king appoints Chunyu Fen to a high position and for some 20 years, he pursues an illustrious career. However, following the death of his wife, Chunyu Fen's downfall is engineered by a political rival and the king has Chunyu Fen arrested and expelled from the realm.