Dù gōngbù niánpǔ 杜工部年譜
Annal-Biography of Dù [Fǔ], Director of Works by 趙子櫟 (撰)
About the work
A single-juàn annal-biography (niánpǔ 年譜) of the Táng poet Dù Fǔ 杜甫 (712–770), prepared by Zhào Zǐlì 趙子櫟 (zì Mèngshòu 夢授, jìnshì of Yuányòu 6 = 1091, d. 1137), a sixth-generation descendant of Sòng Tàizǔ. Together with Lǔ Yín’s 魯訔 Dù gōngbù shī niánpǔ 杜工部詩年譜 (KR2g0008), Cài Xìngzōng’s 蔡興宗 and Huáng Hè’s 黃鶴 lost compilations, and the originator Lǚ Dàfáng’s 呂大防 jígōng 汲公 niánpǔ, it is among the earliest surviving Sòng niánpǔ of Dù Fǔ — a sub-genre that flourished in the Sòng under the impetus of Wáng Zhū’s 王洙 reorganized edition of the poems. Zhào Zǐlì’s distinctive position is to argue, against the consensus of Lǚ Dàfáng, Lǔ Yín, Cài Xìngzōng, and Huáng Hè (all of whom take Dù Fǔ to have died in Dàlì 5 = gēngxū 庚戌 = 770 at age 59), that the poet died in Dàlì 6 = xīnhài 辛亥 = 771 — a position the Sìkù editors find untenable.
Tiyao
Dù gōngbù niánpǔ, in one juàn, by Zhào Zǐlì of the Sòng. Zǐlì, courtesy name Mèngshòu, was a sixth-generation descendant of Sòng Tàizǔ. He took the jìnshì in Yuányòu 6 (1091); under Shàoxīng, he rose to Bǎowéngé zhí xuéshì. Zǐlì and Lǔ Yín are both Shàoxīng-period figures, but at the time he composed this niánpǔ he appears not yet to have seen Lǔ Yín’s; thus the chapter only refutes Lǚ Dàfáng’s notion that Dù Fǔ was born in Xiāntiān 1 (712) — sic: this should read “born in Xiāntiān 1,” and the text is correct on that — and does not engage Lǔ. Among the Sòng, apart from Lǚ Dàfáng and Lǔ Yín, two other names — Cài Xìngzōng 蔡興宗 and Huáng Hè 黃鶴 — also place Dù Fǔ’s death at age 59 in Dàlì gēngxū (770). Zǐlì alone dissents, holding that Dù Fǔ died in the winter of xīnhài (771) — but if he died in xīnhài, Dù Fǔ would have been sixty, not fifty-nine. Furthermore, Zǐlì takes Dù Fǔ’s “Sending off Lǐshíèr at the Long River” of late autumn gēngxū (770) as the poet’s final verse; yet Dù wrote ceaselessly, and if he died in the winter of 771 of sudden illness, why is there no surviving poem in the entire intervening year? — another evidence that his thesis is incorrect. The citations Zǐlì draws on are sketchy and lack the detail of Lǔ Yín’s pǔ; we preserve it because of its antiquity, that it may be consulted alongside. Reverently presented in the sixth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Zhào Zǐlì (CBDB id 43643, d. 1137; the catalog meta gives only “Sòng” with no birth-date) was a member of the Sòng imperial clan and a Shàoxīng-era official, ending as Bǎowéngé zhíxuéshì. The catalog meta records “date: ‘1091’” for the work — but 1091 is Zhào’s jìnshì year, not the date of compilation; the niánpǔ itself must date from his Shàoxīng period of office, i.e. 1131 onward, before his death in 1137. The work is brief, idiosyncratic, and the Sìkù editors include it strictly as an early witness alongside the more substantial Lǔ Yín niánpǔ. Its principal scholarly interest is as an instance of the Sòng niánpǔ genre’s controversies over the dating of Dù Fǔ’s death (gēngxū 770 vs. xīnhài 771), and as a marker of the early divergence within Sòng Du-studies. The catalog correctly notes that Lǐngzhèng 領証 and other independent witnesses confirm the 770 date. Standard modern Du-studies (William Hung, Stephen Owen) follow the consensus 770 dating.
Translations and research
- The work is briefly noted in William Hung, Tu Fu: China’s Greatest Poet (HUP, 1952), and in Stephen Owen, The Poetry of Du Fu (De Gruyter, 2016), introduction.
- Mò Lì-fēng 莫礪鋒, Dù Fǔ shī xué tōng-lùn 杜甫詩學通論 (Shanghai, 2002), surveys the Sòng niánpǔ tradition.
Other points of interest
Among the four Sòng niánpǔ of Dù Fǔ that survive in the Sìkù (Lǚ Dàfáng’s lost; Zhào Zǐlì’s [this entry]; Lǔ Yín’s KR2g0008; the rest by Cài Xìngzōng and Huáng Hè embedded in commentaries on Dù’s poems), this is the most idiosyncratic. The Sìkù editors’ preservation of it strictly for antiquarian-collation reasons is itself a typical Sìkù editorial gesture.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49 (biographies and niánpǔ).
- CBDB person id 43643 (Zhào Zǐlì 趙子櫟).