Lion's Roar

黃州太守陳季常與妻子玉娥，及大學士蘇東坡同赴宋帝春宴，席間玉娥猜中燈謎獲宋帝賞賜碧玉錢，她即求轉贈季常。東坡不值季常懼內，欲邀他出外訪豔，玉娥向宋帝要求懲罰東坡，二人結怨。此時東坡遇不願入宮選秀的堂妹琴操，靈機一觸欲介紹她予季常作妾。季常獲東坡邀請往蘭亭賞春，遇琴操避雨。季常鍾情琴操美色，她即要求以碧玉錢訂情。玉娥得悉此事，大怒罰夫跪柳池邊靜思己過。季常經東坡煽動欲納琴操為妾，玉娥怒極命季常寫下休書，旋即以未犯七出之條為由往刑部控告二人。刑部尚書亦是懼內之人，季常唯望上金鑾殿求宋帝作主。宋帝御准季常納琴操為妾，玉娥寧吞砒霜亦不肯見夫棄己納妾。原來皇后早將砒霜換作白醋，季常與玉娥終復合團圓。

The Outburst of a Shrew

Chen Jichang, the prefect of the city of Hungzhou, and his wife, Yu’e, attend the Song emperor’s spring banquet in the company of Grand Secretary Su Dongpo. During the banquet, Yu’e solves a party riddle and the emperor rewards her with a green jade coin; she asks the emperor for permission to hand the coin over to Jichang.

Not knowing that Jichang is henpecked, Dongpo invites him on an excursion to a brothel. Yu’e asks the emperor to punish Dongpo for his mischief, creating some emnity. Dongpo then meets his cousin Qincao, an unwilling candidate for the emperor’s harem, and attempts to recommend her to Jichang as a concubine. At Dongpo‘s invitation, Jichang goes to the Orchid Pavilion for a view of the spring landscape and encounters Qincao seeking shelter from the rain. The prefect is fascinated by Qincao’s beauty; he obliges when she asks him to give her the green jade coin as a token of engagement.

Discovering the intrigue, Yu’e is so infuriated that she punishes her husband by ordering him to kneel by a willow-surrounded pond and repent. Urged on by Dongpo, however, Jichang still pursues the course of making Qincao as his concubine. Enraged, Yu’e asks her husband to write a letter of divorce and goes to the Ministry of Justice to show that she is not guilty of offending any of the seven conditions for a divorce. Since the Minister of Justice is also henpecked,Jichang can count on nobody but the emperor, who actually permits him to marry Qincao. Seeing that her husband is about to take a concubine,Yu’e attempts to swallow arsenic, but the empress has replaced the poison with white vinegar. Finally Jichang and Yu’e are reconciled and reunited.