Page 404 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

KEEN-LUNG.
420
according to one version of a romance which is variously
related, had been commissioned to bring her to the palace
on a report of her beauty reaching the Court, and she was
found by him to be of surpassing loveliness, the daughter of
but Her father refused to a sum
poor worthy parents. pay
demanded from him as a bribe by Mao Yen-Show, who, in
revenge, presented to the emperor a portrait so little like the
that his conceived no wish to see the new
original Majesty
addition to his seraglio, and she languished in oblivion for years,
until chance threw the emperor across her path, when he at
once became enamoured of her beauty. The faithless minister,
his wiles discovered, fled from Court, and took with the
refuge
Khan of the Hiung-nu, to whom he showed the real portrait
of Chao Kiin. The Khan, fired by the hope of obtaining
possession of so peerless a beauty, invaded China in irresistible
force, and only consented to retire beyond the wall when the
was surrendered to him. She her
lady accompanied savage
bathed in tears, until the banks of the Amur
captor, (Heh-lung
Kiang boundary) were reached, when, rather than go beyond the
fatal boundary, she plunged into the waters of the stream. Her
was interred on the banks of the river, and it is related
corpse
that the tumulus raised above her remained covered with
grave
undying verdure (whence the tomb is called Ts'ing Ch'ung).
The of Cho Kiin forms the basis of the drama translated
history
'
by Sir John Davis, with the title The Sorrows of Han.' The
actual historical fact, as narrated in the Kien
T'ung Kang Muh,
is that, in B.C. 33, the cemented an alliance with the
emperor
Khan of the him in
Hiung-nu by bestowing upon marriage,
on his the Court, the called Chao Kun, who, on
visiting lady
reaching the country of her adoption, became recognized as
queen, with the title of Ning Hu."
"
Nos. 728, 729. Two rose verte dishes, brown edges.
Diameter, 13| inches ; height, 2 inches. No mark. Here
the decoration is again marked off by five black lines. The
diapers are in green and pink, the reserves being partitioned
off at the sides by yellow bands ; this colour also appears in
the dresses, but is of a faint shade. The blue is over the glaze,
but takes more of a tint. Of there are three
purple greens
shades the old that we find on the famille verte a
proper,
yellow, and a thin bluish. In No. 729 the trunk of the tree is