Dù gōngbù shī niánpǔ 杜工部詩年譜
Annal-Biography of Dù [Fǔ], Director of Works, Keyed to His Poems by 魯訔 (撰)
About the work
A single-juàn annal-biography (niánpǔ 年譜) of Dù Fǔ 杜甫, by Lǔ Yín 魯訔 (zì Jìqīn 季欽, 1100–1176), of Jiāxīng 嘉興. Lǔ Yín ended his career as Fújiàn tídiǎn xíngyù gōngshì 福建提點刑獄公事; his zhìyì 墓誌, by Zhōu Bìdà 周必大 in the Píngyuán jí 平園集, supplies an authoritative account of his career. Several other notices give him as zì Jìqīng 季卿, of Hǎiyán 海鹽, or as ending in office as Tàifǔqīng 大府卿; all are erroneous. The niánpǔ attached to Dù Fǔ’s collected poems was first arranged by Lǚ Dàfáng 呂大防 (the jígōng 汲公); Lǔ Yín’s pǔ follows Lǚ’s chronology in placing Dù Fǔ’s birth in Xiāntiān 1 (712, rénzǐ 壬子) and death in Dàlì 5 (770, gēngxū), age 59. The work is paired with Lǔ Yín’s lost annotations on Dù Fǔ’s poems and is the principal Sòng niánpǔ in the Du-studies tradition.
Tiyao
Dù gōngbù shī niánpǔ in one juàn, by Lǔ Yín of the Sòng. Yín, courtesy name Jìqīn, was a man of Jiāxīng. He rose to Fújiàn tídiǎn xíngyù gōngshì. Zhōu Bìdà’s Píngyuán jí contains his zhìyì, in which his official career is given in detail. The various works that say his courtesy name was Jìqīng, or that he was a man of Hǎiyán, or that he reached the office of Tàifǔqīng, are all wrong. Yín had previously annotated Dù’s poems; what survives is only this pǔ. The front of the book carries Yín’s Bian-cì Dù gōngbù shī xù 編次杜工部詩序; the end carries Wáng Shìzhēn’s 王士禛 colophon. The Dùfǔ niánpǔ originates with Lǚ Dàfáng. Yín takes Dù Fǔ to have been born in Xiāntiān 1 (rénzǐ, 712) under Ruìzōng 睿宗 and to have died in Dàlì 5 (gēngxū, 770) — that is, he follows Lǚ’s pǔ. The various works disagree on Dù Fǔ’s birth and death years. The Jiù Tángshū puts Dù’s death in Yǒngtài 2 — but Yǒngtài precedes Dàlì, and Dù has poems dated to Dàlì 3 onwards, so the Jiù Tángshū is wrong, as Wáng Guānguó 王觀國 already noted. Yet Guānguó says Dù was born in Xiāntiān 1 (guǐchǒu) and died in Dàlì 5 (xīnhài) — but guǐchǒu is Xiāntiān 2, the same as Kāiyuán 1; and xīnhài is Dàlì 6 — Guānguó too has not investigated carefully. Yuán Zhěn 元稹 in the zhìyì he wrote for Dù Fǔ gives his age at death as 59. Wáng Zhū’s 王洙 original preface to the annotated Dù collection states: “in Dàlì 5, Dù went down through Jiārù 夾入 to roam in Húnán, took up residence at Lěiyáng 耒陽, and in the summer of Dàlì 5 died after one night of intoxication.” Dàlì 5 is gēngxū; counting back to Xiāntiān 1 (rénzǐ) is exactly 59 years — so Dù was born in rénzǐ without doubt, and Yín’s pǔ, depending on Lǚ’s pǔ, is correct. Yáo Tóngshòu’s 姚桐壽 Lèjiāo sīyǔ 樂郊私語 says: “Dù Shǎolíng’s 杜少陵 collected works, from the Yóu Lóngmén 遊龍門 down to Guò Dòngtíng 過洞庭, the order of pieces was fixed by Jìqīng [Lǔ Yín]; it follows Shǎolíng’s career and one can see the fǎ of his poetry.” The recent annotations on Dù — those of Mr Zhāng of Fǔyáng 滏陽 and Mr Zhū of Wújiāng 吳江 — both broadly follow this pǔ and elaborate it. They are more meticulous than Zhào Zǐlì’s pǔ by far; though they sometimes engage in over-fitting, why should we let one blemish blot out the rest? Reverently presented in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Lǔ Yín (CBDB id 3628, 1100–1176), a Jiāxīng provincial official, served principally in Fújiàn (where he ended as Tídiǎn xíngyù gōngshì). His Dù gōngbù shī niánpǔ is the most rigorous of the surviving Sòng niánpǔ of Dù Fǔ and the foundation of the later annotated tradition (notably the SòngYuán annotators “Mr Zhāng of Fǔyáng” 滏陽張氏 and “Mr Zhū of Wújiāng” 吳江朱氏 named in the Sìkù tiyao); it follows the standard Lǚ Dàfáng dating (rénzǐ 712 birth, gēngxū 770 death, age 59) which has remained the consensus into modern scholarship. The composition date is unspecified in the work, but must fall within Lǔ Yín’s adult career, conventionally between c. 1140 and his death in 1176; some recent studies place the pǔ in the 1150s on the basis of internal cross-references. Together with Zhào Zǐlì’s Dù gōngbù niánpǔ (KR2g0007), it is the principal Sòng-period instance of the niánpǔ genre attached to a poet’s collected works.
Translations and research
- William Hung, Tu Fu: China’s Greatest Poet (HUP, 1952), drew on Lǔ Yín’s niánpǔ throughout for his English-language chronology.
- Stephen Owen, The Poetry of Du Fu (De Gruyter, 2016), introduction, briefly surveys the Sòng niánpǔ tradition.
- Mò Lì-fēng 莫礪鋒, Dù Fǔ shī-xué tōng-lùn 杜甫詩學通論 (Shanghai, 2002).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tiyao’s correction of the various biographical errors about Lǔ Yín himself (his courtesy name, native place, and final office) is a useful prosopographical note that supplements Zhōu Bìdà’s zhìyì.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.
- CBDB person id 3628 (Lǔ Yín 魯訔).