Interweaving a star-crossed romance with the decline and fall of the Ming dynasty in mid seventeenth-century China, The Peach Blossom Fan by Kong Shangren (1648-1718) is a masterpiece of world literature. This sweeping historical drama encompasses the pleasures and passions of courtesan culture, the allure and pitfalls of political idealism, the complex twists of court intrigues, and the horrors and trauma of war. While the play traces the fall of the Ming dynasty through the love story of its two main characters—Hou Fangyu, a young scholar, and a courtesan named Li Xiangjun (or,'Sovereign Fragrance')—its cast of characters also includes various scholars and military commanders; a villain who is also a playwright; an ambiguous mediator who is also a painter, a storyteller who becomes a fisherman; a singing teacher who becomes a woodcutter; an officer who becomes a Daoist; and a ritual master who is both onstage and a member of the audience. As the play takes the readers inside the