Luòyáng mǔdān jì 洛陽牡丹記
Records of the Tree-Peonies of Luòyáng by 歐陽修 (Ōuyáng Xiū, 撰)
About the work
The foundational Chinese monograph on the mǔdān 牡丹 (tree-peony, Paeonia suffruticosa) — the queen of Chinese flowers and the principal floral motif of the SòngYuánMíngQīng cultural elite. A short one-juàn Northern-Sòng work in three piān by Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修, the foundational figure of the Sòng gǔwén movement. Composed in Ōuyáng’s youth (c. 1031–1034) during his service at Luòyáng as a liúshǒu tuīguān 留守推官 (auxiliary-officer of the Luòyáng vice-regency under Qián Wéiyǎn 錢惟演); presented later to Cài Xiāng 蔡襄 蔡襄, who engraved and printed it as a rubbing-edition.
The three piān: (1) Huāpǐn 花品 (Varieties), listing twenty-four named cultivars in ranked order from the supreme Yáohuáng 姚黃 (Yáo-yellow) and Wèizǐ 魏紫 (Wèi-purple) downward; (2) Huā shìmíng 花釋名 (Explanations of Flower-Names), narrating the origin-story behind each name; (3) Fēngsú jì 風俗記 (Customs), describing the Luòyáng peony-viewing festival, the tribute-presentation, and the methods of grafting, propagation, and cultivation.
Tiyao
The tíyào combining this work with KR3i0030 is in this file. The portion concerning the Luòyáng mǔdān jì (translated): We submit that the Luòyáng mǔdān jì is in one juàn by Ōuyáng Xiū of the Sòng. Xiū has the Shī běnyì and other works separately catalogued. This Record is in three piān*: First,* Huāpǐn — enumerating in all twenty-four varieties. Second, Huā shìmíng — narrating the origin of the flower-names. Third, Fēngsú jì — briefly narrating the excursion-banquets and tribute-flowers; the remainder all concerning grafting, planting, and watering. The literary style is most ancient-cultivated and methodical. Cài Xiāng once wrote-and-engraved this work for his own household, and presented Xiū a rubbing-copy; Xiū wrote his own postface to it, which has been included in the Wénzhōng quánjí*. The present is the separately-circulating recension. Zhōu Bìdà 周必大 composing his* Ōují kǎoyì says: At that time, gentlemen’s households had Xiū’s Mǔdān pǔ printed copies, beginning with Huāpǐn Preface and the named-varieties, the first two piān roughly matching this; thereafter it has ” shùshì (narration)” — Palace inside, Honourable households, Buddhist-and-Daoist monasteries, Government offices, YuánBái poetry, Mocking-criticism, Wú-and-Shǔ poetry-collections, Strange records, Miscellaneous notes, Our-Dynasty’s two-headed flower, Tribute-presentation, DīngJìngōng’s continued flower-treatise — in all sixteen sections, ten-thousand+ words. With a Méi Yáochén postface — its forgery especially severe — apparently a pseudepigraph. On this basis, the Sòng had another recension; hence the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì lists it as Mǔdān pǔ (not as Mǔdān jì). After Bìdà’s correction, that book began to die out. We see clearly that the shop-printed false editions have been around for a long time.
[The remaining portion concerns KR3i0030 Yángzhōu sháoyào pǔ.]
Abstract
The work is the foundational Chinese monograph on the tree-peony and one of the most influential of Ōuyáng Xiū’s many works of cultural-historical inquiry. The tree-peony, as Ōuyáng documents, had emerged in the Tang as the supreme aesthetic flower — surpassing the earlier-favored plum and orchid — and was cultivated at imperial-tribute level in Luòyáng, the principal Tang and Northern-Sòng cultural capital. The Luòyáng peony-viewing season (shǎnghuā) was the great annual social event of the city, attended by all classes.
The work’s twenty-four varieties are the standard Sòng nomenclature: Yáohuáng (named for the Yáo family of southwest Luòyáng who originated it), Wèizǐ (named for the family of Wèi Rénpǔ 魏仁溥, a Five-Dynasties official who naturalized it), Yùbǎnbái 玉版白 (Jade-Tablet White), Hèlíng hóng 鶴翎紅, etc. — each variety named with brief origin-narration in piān 2.
The compositional date is set by Ōuyáng’s Luòyáng residence as liúshǒu tuīguān (a junior auxiliary post under the vice-regent Qián Wéiyǎn 錢惟演) during Tiānshèng 9 (1031) – Jǐngyòu 1 (1034). The work was probably drafted during these years and given a final polish later.
The work attracted immediate forgery: as Zhōu Bìdà 周必大 (1126–1204) documented in his careful editing of Ōuyáng’s collected works, by the mid-Sòng there was circulating a much-expanded Mǔdān pǔ claiming Ōuyáng’s authorship, sixteen sections and over ten-thousand words, with a forged Méi Yáochén postface. The Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì lists this expanded forgery rather than the genuine three-piān work. The authentic Luòyáng mǔdān jì is preserved in Ōuyáng’s authoritative Wénzhōng quánjí and reaches the Sìkù through that channel.
The work is also the origin-document of the huāpǔ (flower-treatise) sub-genre of the pǔlù tradition — the parallel of Cài Xiāng’s Lìzhī pǔ (KR3i0038) and Lù Yǔ’s Chájīng (KR3i0019) for the realm of ornamental flowers. Subsequent peony-monographs include Lù Yóu 陸游’s Tiānpéng mǔdān pǔ (1178, on the Sìchuān Tiānpéng peony), and many late-imperial works.
Translations and research
- Egan, Ronald. 2006. The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP. Chapter-length treatment of Ōuyáng Xiū’s Mǔdān jì.
- Liú Zǐjiàn 劉子健 (James T. C. Liu). 1967. Ou-yang Hsiu: An Eleventh-Century Neo-Confucianist. Stanford UP. The standard English-language biography.
- Wáng Lìpíng 王利平. 2010. Sòng-dài huā-pǔ wén-xiàn yán-jiū 宋代花譜文獻研究. Shàng-hǎi gǔjí chū-bǎn-shè.
- Itō Ihachirō 伊藤伊八郎. 1955. Chūgoku bujutsushi: botan no chōka 中國武術史: 牡丹的長華. Tokyo.
Other points of interest
The Luòyáng peony — and Ōuyáng’s Mǔdān jì — would become a defining cultural reference for Sòng-and-later China, with the famous Bái Jūyì 白居易 saying “the city of Cháng’ān goes drunk after the peony” updated by Sòng usage to specify Luòyáng. The work’s account of the Yáohuáng / Wèizǐ dichotomy — gold-yellow versus purple-red as the two supreme colours — became canonical for Chinese floral aesthetics. The annual Luòyáng peony-festival continues today, with the city’s modern tourist economy explicitly building on Ōuyáng’s foundational work.