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as in this case, fictional material to real persons. Their original personality image as given in the texts is therefore often obscured by a veil of conventional and sometimes even interchangeable topoi.17
The second example concerns a Yüan Dynasty play, the Sha-kou ch'üan-fu “To Kill a Dog in order to Admonish the Husband”. It could be shown that the plot of this play goes back to Near Eastern folk tale motif, that of the two brothers and the testing of their friendship. Also in this play the whole background is entirely Chinese, and at least one of the persons on the stage was a historical figure, a famous judge of the Sung Dynasty. But the similarity between the plot of the play and the Near Eastern folk tale (which also spread to Europe) is so close that allogeny, to use this term here, is ruled out. We may therefore assume that the story itself somehow found its way to China in Sung or Yüan times, and was adapted to a play.18 It is not impossible that other plays of the Yüan period will show similar influences in subject matter, but it would be premature to say anything definite because the study of Yüan plays has hardly begun in the West.
Turning away from the more popular literature written in colloquial language to the traditional literary genres in the written language, we can be very brief. The literary activities of non-Chinese under the Yüan have long ago been studied by Ch'en Yüan who published his researches in 1923 and 1927, and Professor L. C. Goodrich has recently dealt with this problem, taking into account the pioneer work by Ch'en Yüan.19 Under the Yüan many writers of non-Chinese origin distinguished themselves as poets in Chinese and authors of Chinese works in general. This applies not only to Mongols, Uighurs and other Central Asians but also to Near Eastern Mohammedans and Christians. We have, under the Yüan, authors by the name of Sa’d-ad-daula, of Ya-ku (Jacob), of Shams, of Sadr and many others. In other cases the foreign names had been replaced by Chinese family names. One example is the case of Ting Hao-nien (1335-1424), who adopted the Chinese clan name Ting which sounded similar to the frequent Islamic appellation ad-Dīn “of the Faith” (e.g., Saif ad-Din, “Sword of the Faith”). One Nestorian Christian family called itself Ma which might be an approximate rendering of Syriac Mar, Master. They were of Turkish origin, coming from the Önggüt tribe that
64
HERBERT FRANKE
as in this case, fictional material to real persons. Their original personality image as given in the texts is therefore often obscured by a veil of conventional and sometimes even interchangeable topoi.17
The second example concerns a Yüan Dynasty play, the Sha- kou ch'üan-fu “To Kill a Dog in order to Admonish the Husband”. It could be shown that the plot of this play goes back to Near Eastern folk tale motif, that of the two brothers and the testing of their friendship. Also in this play the whole background is entirely Chinese, and at least one of the persons on the stage was a historical figure, a famous judge of the Sung Dynasty. But the similarity between the plot of the play and the Near Eastern folk tale (which also spread to Europe) is so close that allogeny, to use this term here, is ruled out. We may therefore assume that the story itself somehow found its way to China in Sung or Yüan times, and was adapted to a play.18 It is not impossible that other plays of the Yuan period will show similar influences in subject matter, but it would be premature to say anything definite because the study of Yüan plays has hardly begun in the West.
Turning away from the more popular literature written in colloquial language to the traditional literary genres in the written language, we can be very brief. The literary activities of non- Chinese under the Yüan have long ago been studied by Ch'en Yüan who published his researches in 1923 and 1927, and Pro- fessor L. C. Goodrich has recently dealt with this problem, taking into account the pioneer work by Ch'en Yüan.19 Under the Yuan many writers of non-Chinese origin distinguished themselves as poets in Chinese and authors of Chinese works in general. This applies not only to Mongols, Uighurs and other Central Asians but also to Near Eastern Mohammedans and Christians. We have, under the Yüan, authors by the name of Sa’d-ad-daula, of Ya-ku (Jacob), of Shams, of Sadr and many others. In other cases the foreign names had been replaced by Chinese family names. One example is the case of Ting Hao-nien (1335-1424), who adopted the Chinese clan name Ting which sounded similar to the frequent Islamic appelation ad-Dīn “of the Faith" (e.g., Saif ad-Din, “Sword of the Faith"). One Nestorian Christian family called itself Ma which might be an approximate rendering of Syriac Mar, Master. They were of Turkish origin, coming from the Önggüt tribe that
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