Jiǔpǔ 酒譜
Treatise on Wine by 竇苹 (Dòu Píng, 撰)
About the work
A short one-juàn mid-Northern-Sòng bǐjì-style compilation of wine-anecdotes by Dòu Píng 竇苹 zì Zǐyě 子野 of Wènshàng, fl. late-Rén-zōng / early-Shén-zōng (c. 1050–1075). The work is the principal Sòng anecdotal-collection on wine, complementing Zhū Yìzhōng’s technical Beìshān jiǔjīng KR3i0026. The work begins with wine-names (jiǔmíng) — listing all the famous historical wines from antiquity to the Sòng — and ends with wine-toasts and games (jiǔlìng 酒令). The structure is sparse — the Sìkù editors note that it looks suspiciously like a fragmentary work with material missing — but the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì records it as one juàn, and internal evidence (the well-defined start-and-end structure) suggests that the surviving recension is essentially complete.
Tiyao
We submit that the Jiǔpǔ is by Dòu Píng of the Sòng. Píng, zì Zǐyě, was a man of Wènshàng. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì records that Píng had a Xīn Tang shū yīnxùn in four juàn, prior to Wú Zhěn — so he was a person of the Rénzōng period. Gōngwǔ praises his learning as jīngbó (refined-and-broad) — apparently also a lover-of-antiquities. Some recensions print the name as Dòu Gǒng, but examining his name-and-style — Píng taking its sense from the Lùmíng poem’s “yōuyōu lùmíng, shí yě zhī píng” — Píng is correct. The book miscellaneously narrates wine-anecdotes, only a few brief items — seemingly with some omissions. But the Sòng [Yìwén] zhì-recension indeed gives one juàn, and observing that the work begins with wine-names and ends with wine-toasts, the start-and-end being complete, we know the original was just this much. In general the work extracts novel-and-fresh quotations for use in elegant-composition, slightly different from the standard pǔlù form. Where he cites Dù Fǔ’s Shàonián xíng “Drunken, finally I fall beside the bamboo-root” passage and explains that “bamboo-root” here means a drinking-vessel — this is a point not covered in the Qiānjiā zhù (Thousand Houses Annotations) and is sufficient to broaden the reader’s knowledge. Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 10 (1781).
Abstract
The work belongs more to the bǐjì (notebook) genre than to the technical pǔlù tradition: rather than describing wine-making, it gathers classical-and-historical anecdotes about wine and famous drinkers — its function being to supply ornament to literary composition. The arrangement begins with wine-names (the historical roster of famous wines: Cāngwú jiǔ 蒼梧酒, Yídù jiǔ 宜都酒, Sīzhōu jiǔ 思州酒, Bārì jiǔ 八日酒, etc.) and proceeds through wine-related episodes from the Shǐjì, the Sānguózhì, the Shìshuō xīnyǔ, and the Tang sources, ending with the wine-game tradition (jiǔlìng, the rhyme-and-witticism games played at Tang-Sòng drinking parties).
The work’s principal scholarly contribution is the Dù Fǔ gloss noted in the tíyào: the Shàonián xíng couplet “zuìdào zhōngtóng wò zhúgēn” (“Drunk, I’ll fall finally beside the bamboo-root”) — usually read as a literal “fall beside the bamboo-stalks” — is glossed by Dòu Píng as a reference to the zhúgēn drinking-cup, a famously-knotty Tang wine-vessel made from a hollowed bamboo-root, the natural irregularities giving each vessel a distinctive shape. This zhúgēn gloss was not noticed by the standard Thousand-Houses-Commentaries on Dù Fǔ and remains a useful point of Tang material-culture history.
The dating is broad: the Xīn Tang shū yīnxùn and Jiǔpǔ are the only attested works of Dòu Píng, and the Xīn Tang shū itself was completed in 1060 — so Dòu’s yīnxùn commentary must postdate that. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s placement of him “before Wú Zhěn” sets the fl. range as c. 1060–1075. The Jiǔpǔ is probably from the same period.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The work is a useful supplement to the better-known technical Beìshān jiǔjīng (KR3i0026): where Zhū Yìzhōng treats wine as a manufacturing process, Dòu Píng treats wine as a cultural-and-literary object. The pair together represent the two complementary Sòng approaches to the pǔlù of wine — the technical-procedural and the literary-anecdotal. The pair was reprinted together in many MíngQīng compilations on the strength of this complementarity.