繡襦記 An Embroidered Robe
繡襦記
秀才鄭元和出身仕宦之家。奉父命往長安應試，卻迷戀長安名妓李亞仙。不久把所帶金銀財物，連同隨身小廝都用盡、賣盡，被亞仙之母趕出家門。貧病交迫，淪落為歌郎。
其父母聽信傳言，以為兒子被謀財害命，死於他鄉。其後鄭父往長安述職。老僕宗祿在路上遇到鄭元和，把他拖去見父親。父親得知他如此墮落，盛怒之下，失手把他打死，命宗祿以草蓆包裹，棄屍荒郊。
掌管收容游民的卑田院甲長路過荒郊，發現鄭元和並未氣絕，救回卑田院療傷，並教以蓮花落。以後鄭唱蓮花落，沿門乞討。
一日，天寒地凍，乞討時巧遇李亞仙。亞仙立即以繡襦包裹，並加意護養，殷勤伴讀，期望鄭元和參加會試。鄭沉迷於亞仙美色，心猿意馬。亞仙憤而以剪刀自刺雙目。鄭元和被亞仙的深情所激勵，奮發向上，得中狀元，與亞仙結為夫婦。
An Embroidered Robe
The play opens with Zheng Yuan-he, a young man from a wealthy and prominent family, down and out at the end of his rope. His current miserable state is the product of his own spoilt and sybaritic life style, as he has squandered all his money and belongings on Li Yaxian, a stunning beauty, in a pleasure-house. Now penniless and turned out by the madam of the pleasure-house and his own family, Zheng Yuan-he has succumbed to being a common, homeless beggar. On this winter day of a violent snowstorm, he stumbles along in the neighborhood of the pleasure-house, begging while singing the Lotus Song, a tune sung by beggars pleading for pity and compassion.
It so happens that Yaxian, the loving demimonde who has genuinely fallen for Zheng Yuan-he, has heard the latest news that her lover had turned into a beggar. Quite upset over his misfortunes and alarmed by the severe weather on this day, Yaxian asks her confidante Yinzheng, another young woman in the pleasure-house, to go outside to find any beggar who might know the whereabouts of her darling. Sure enough, Yinzheng comes face to face with the fallen man. Yaxian is at once informed and the play ends with the two lovers reunited in relief and tearful joy.
The play poses as a morality drama to warn against debauchery and hedonism, which the play states can only lead to pain and destruction. In the aftermath of this episode — not performed this afternoon — Zheng Yuan-ho transforms himself into an upright and studious scholar and passes the imperial examination with the highest honor. He and Yaxian are married, and they live happily ever after.
