【Abstract】People have neglected the Chinese classical drama translation for a long time. There are very few related research results about it. Thus， the author intends to take the skopos theory as the theoretical basis to make the comparative analysis of three English versions of The Peony Pavilion translated by Wang Rongpei， Zhang Guangqian and Cyril Birch respectively.
　　【Key words】Chinese classical drama translation; the skopos theory; The Peony Pavilion; translation strategies
　　【作者简介】黄志芳，张家骥，东华理工大学。
　　Chinese classical drama translation already has a history of 270 years. As early as 1736， Ji Junxiang’s The Orphan of Chao was first translated into English. Now， many translated works have aroused strong repercussions at home and abroad. This essay intends to take the skopos theory as the theoretical basis of the research and choose three English versions of The Peony Pavilion as materials to make the comparative study from the aspects of substitute words， numbers and appellation. These three English versions were separately translated by Cyril Birch， Zhang Guangqian and Wang Rongpei.
　　1. Numbers
　　The use of numbers is very unique in Chinese traditional culture. Usually， the numbers are used to express the fuzzy concepts， such words as“百”、“千”、“万” express the concept of being too many. For example， “百歲”represents longevity.
　　Example 2：The sentence from the 3rd scene：
　　爹娘万福，女孩儿无限欢娱。坐黄堂百岁春光，进美酒一家天禄。
　　Wang’s version：