包待制智赚灰栏记

包待制智赚灰栏记，或灰栏记，是元朝作家李潜夫创作的杂剧和公案故事，情节涉及到两个妇女为争夺一个孩子的抚养权，包拯断案时将孩子置于一个“灰栏”中，由两位妇女抢夺，孩子的生母不愿孩子受苦而放弃，最后被判为孩子的生母。

改编

1832年首次由法国汉学家儒莲在伦敦译为法文（Le Cercle de Craie）发表，后于1924年由德国诗人克拉邦德转译为德文（Der Kreidekreis）并改编发表，灰栏记因此而十分流行。亚历山大·冯·策姆林斯基为此发表歌剧《灰阑记》。克拉邦德版后又被詹姆斯·拉沃翻译为英文并于1929年在英国伦敦出版。伦敦的制作人巴齐尔·迪恩将其搬上了舞台，并找黄柳霜与劳伦斯·奥利维尔演出。1940年，贝托尔特·布莱希特又创作了《奥格斯堡灰阑记》，1944年创作了改编后的《高加索灰栏记》，上演后引起轰动。吉尔吉斯作家钦吉兹·艾特马托夫在创作1960年作品《红领巾》时也曾得到《灰阑记》的启发。

类似情节

类似情节也见于《希伯来圣经》中所罗门的审判故事。另外在《太平御览》361卷和639卷引用的《风俗通》逸文，也记载了西汉颍川郡太守黄霸通过让两个妇女争夺孩子，生母因不愿孩子痛苦而放弃，最终被判孩子归其所有。“颍川有富室，兄弟同居，两妇数月皆怀妊。长妇胎伤，因闭匿之，产期至，同到乳母舍。弟妇生男，夜因盗取之，争讼三年，州郡不能决。丞相黄霸出坐殿前，令卒抱儿，取两妇各十步，叱妇曰：‘自往取之。’长妇抱持甚急，儿大啼叫；弟妇恐伤害之，因乃放与而止，甚怆怆。长妇甚喜。霸曰：‘此弟子也。’责问乃伏。”此外，该故事还见于五代和凝父子的《疑狱集》、南宋郑克的《折狱龟鉴》和南宋桂万荣的《棠阴比事》以及日本大冈忠相的《大冈政谈》。

The Chalk Circle (sometimes translated The Circle of Chalk), by Li Qianfu, is a Yuan dynasty (1259–1368) Chinese classical zaju verse play and gong'an crime drama, in four acts with a prologue. It was preserved in a collection entitled Yuan-chu-po-cheng, or The Hundred Pieces. The Chinese language original is known for the beauty of its lyrical verse, and considered a Yuan masterpiece; a series of translations and revisions inspired several popular modern plays.

Plot

A beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, Hai-tang (also transliterated Hai-t'ang, Hi-tang, or Chang-hi-tang), is sold into a house of prostitution by her impoverished family, after her father's death. There she is befriended by Ma Chun-shing, a wealthy and childless tax collector, who takes her into his house as his second wife. She bears him a son, Shoulang, but earns the jealousy of his first wife, Ah-Siu. Ah-Siu accuses Hai-tang of adultery, poisons Ma, blaming Hai-tang for the crime, and claims to a court that Shoulang is her own child, so that she can inherit Ma's fortune. Hai-tang is arrested, and beaten until she confesses. As Hai-tang is about to be hanged, she is rescued by Bao Zheng in a scene similar to the Judgment of Solomon: Shoulang is placed in a circle of chalk between the two women, and each is ordered to pull the child toward her; as Hai-tang cannot bear to hurt her child, she gives up the attempt —and so is judged his true mother.

Adaptations

The play became first known in the Western world in a French language translation by Stanislas Julien, published in London in 1832 as Le Cercle de Craie. This was liberally re-translated into German by Klabund as Der Kreidekreis in 1924, which was very popular. In Klabund's version, the Emperor marries the heroine at the end of the play, while in the original she returns to live with her brother, who is now a court official. Based on Klabund's play, the Austrian composer Alexander von Zemlinsky adapted a libretto for his Der Kreidekreis, performed in Zurich in 1933.

Klabund's version was translated into English by James Laver as The Circle of Chalk, in five acts, published in London by William Heinemann in 1929. It was put on stage in March of that year, produced by Basil Dean, starring the American actress Anna May Wong, Australian actress Rose Quong, and British actor Laurence Olivier. As of 2008, this version is still being produced by various theatre groups.

In 1940, Bertolt Brecht wrote Der Augsburger Kreidekreis, a short story based on Der Kreidekreis, which reworks the story by omitting any Imperial intervention and making the first wife the biological mother, but having her abandon the child. The heroine is a serving girl who rescues and raises him, becoming the "real" mother. In 1944, he further reworked the story as the play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, moving the events to medieval Georgia, adding a prologue set in Soviet Georgia, and greatly elaborating the narrative. In 2000, The Caucasian Chalk Circle in turn was rewritten as Full Circle, or The Berlin Circle, by Charles L. Mee, set in 1989 East Germany after the fall of Communism.

The famous Kyrgyz author and novelist Chinghiz Aitmatov was also indirectly inspired from the Chalk Circle, while writing his 1960 book, The Red Scarf. He used some indirect elements from the tale very loosely. The plot of the 1977 Turkish film "Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım" was based on The Red Scarf. The movie is one of the best known films in Turkish cinema .

In 2018, Claire Conceison wrote and directed a play called The Chalk Cycle based on the original Yuan drama The Chalk Circle, the Brecht adaptation The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and the Custody battle for Anna Mae He.