Yùnfǔ qúnyù 韻府群玉
Treasure-Store of Rhymes
by 陰勁弦 (Yīn Jìngxián, Yuán, 編); annotated by his brother 陰復春 (Yīn Fùchūn).
About the work
The earliest extant yùnfǔ (rhyme-treasury) reference work, in which historical gùshí and literary citations are organized under the píngshàngqùrù four-tone rhyme-class system. This is one of the principal reference works of the Yuán-and-Míng poetic tradition, the working source-book for poets needing to find allusions that fit a given rhyme. Compiled by Yīn Jìngxián 陰勁弦 (a.k.a. Yīn Shíyù 陰時遇, zì Shífū 時夫) of Fèngxīn 奉新 (Jiāngxī), with annotations by his elder brother Yīn Fùchūn 陰復春 (zì Zhōngfū 中夫). The Yīn brothers had passed the late-Southern-Sòng Bǎoyòu (1253–1258) jiǔjīng kē 九經科 examination and refused service under the Yuán, in the recluse pattern characteristic of yímín (Sòng loyalists). Composition is bracketed here from 1280 (late-Yuán, post-conquest withdrawal) to 1307 (Dàdé 11, the date of the earliest surviving edition).
The work organizes its material strictly by rhyme-class. For each character of each rhyme, the gùshí are listed under the character; the user finds an entry by knowing the rhyme they need to fill. The Sìkù editors note this organization as the work’s distinctive contribution — earlier lèishū had organized by topic, not by rhyme, so the Yùnfǔ qúnyù is the first yùnfǔ-format reference. Its predecessor was Yán Zhēnqīng’s 顏真卿 Yùnhǎi jìngyuán 韻海鏡源 (lost). The work’s success was such that successive editions (the Kāng-xī-period Xú Kěxiān’s wife Xiè Yīng 謝瑛’s Zēngshān yùnyù dìngběn 增刪韻玉定本) and the Qīng imperial Pèiwén yùnfǔ 佩文韻府 took it as a model.
Tiyao (abridged)
The Yùnfǔ qúnyù in 20 juan by Yīn Jìngxián of the Yuán; annotated by his younger brother Fùchūn. Per Huáng Yújì’s Qiānqǐng táng shūmù: “Yīn Jìngxián is also written Yīn Shíyù; zì Shífū, of Fèngxīn; lived several generations together as one family; passed the Sòng Bǎoyòu jiǔjīng kē and did not serve under the Yuán; his elder brother Zhōngfū is named Fùchūn.” So Shífū is Jìngxián’s zì, Zhōngfū is Shífū’s elder brother — different from common tradition; there must be a reason. The old printings carry the zì but the meaning is unclear.
Earlier, Yán Zhēnqīng compiled the Yùnhǎi jìngyuán as the first work organizing shì (factual matter) by rhyme — but the book is no longer extant. The Southern Sòng had many lèishū, but few followed his pattern. Only Wú Chéng’s 吳澄 Zhīyán jí preserves a preface for Zhāng Shòuwēng’s Shìyùn xiéyīng: “since Jīngguó (Wáng Ānshí), Dōngpō (Sū Shì), and Shāngǔ (Huáng Tíngjiān), use of yùnqíxiǎn (extraordinary-and-precarious rhymes) became the craft. They had thousands of books in their breasts to retrieve as needed; if a memoriser’s breadth does not reach the worthies of old, he cannot avoid lookup; hence the shīyùn (poetry-rhyme) works — but most are chénfǔ (stale-and-rotten)” — so works for rhyme-fitting flourished from late Sòng to early Yuán; Shífū’s compilation is from that period.
In Kāngxī, the wife of Xú Kěxiān (Magistrate of Héjiānfǔ), Xiè Yīng, took the book and re-edited it as Zēngshān yùnyù dìngběn; today book-shop printings are all Xiè’s edition. The present recension is the Dàdé (1297–1307) cut and is Shífū’s original.
Míng Chéngzǔ much liked the book — so Xiè Jìn’s Dàpáo xī fēngshì (memorial) says: “Your Majesty likes to consult the Yùnfǔ and miscellaneous books, copied and gathered, soiled and unkempt, devoid of wéncǎi (literary brilliance)“. Cáo Ān’s Lányán chángyǔ also says: “Yùnfǔ qúnyù is gathered broadly. But the most needed key entries are missed. The zú entry omits Guǎn Níng’s zhuózú; the zhà entry omits Qīngxī zhà (Sū Jùn’s attack on the Qīngxī palisade, where Biàn Hú resisted, and Gāo Jiǒng’s killing of Zhāng Lìhuá at the Qīngxī palisade — two characters lost). Other gaps may be imagined.” Today consulting the imperial Pèiwén yùnfǔ: Yīn’s omissions are not only these; Cáo’s examples are only one leaf, one flower — small pickings, not the full grove.
But of Yuán-period rhyme-works, none transmits today; this is the oldest. And today the yùn (rhyme) tradition is said to derive from Liú Yuān’s merger — but Liú’s book is lost too. The current rhyme-form circulates from this book. So the yùnfǔ and shīyùn traditions take this as their zhuīlún (crude wagon-wheel — the proto-form). To trace the end one must point to the beginning. This book cannot be lightly dismissed.
Respectfully revised and submitted, twelfth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The Yùnfǔ qúnyù is the foundational work of the yùnfǔ (rhyme-treasury) genre and the principal Yuán-period reference book for poetic composition. Compiled by the brothers Yīn Jìngxián and Yīn Fùchūn of Fèngxīn (Jiāngxī), late-Southern-Sòng Bǎoyòu jiǔjīng kē 九經科 examination passers who refused Yuán service and lived in eremitic retreat. Composition is bracketed here from the early Yuán (1280s) to the first surviving Yuán Dàdé edition (ca. 1297–1307). The work organizes thousands of literary and historical gùshí by the rhyme-class of the operative character — making it indispensable as a working tool for poets, who needed allusions that would fit specified rhymes in regulated verse.
The work’s influence extends through Míng Chéngzǔ (Yǒnglè emperor), who was an avid user; through Kāngxī when Xiè Yīng’s Zēngshān yùnyù dìngběn revised and re-published it; to the Qīng imperial Pèiwén yùnfǔ 佩文韻府, which took the Yùnfǔ qúnyù as one of its principal source-models. The work also preserves the Liú Yuān 劉淵 merger of rhyme-classes (now lost in original form) — so the modern Chinese rhyme tradition descends through this book.
For modern philological scholarship, the work is a key witness to the early-Yuán Chinese rhyme system and, secondarily, to the eremitic culture of Sòng-loyalist scholars in early-Yuán Jiāngxī.
Translations and research
- Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Yuán.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §6.2.1.6, on Pèi-wén yùn-fǔ and its predecessors (including the Yùn-fǔ qún-yù).
- Mathias Vigouroux, “Yùn-fǔ qún-yù and the Yuán rhyme system” (working article).
No European-language complete translation.
Other points of interest
Xú Yīng 謝瑛’s Kāng-xī-period re-edition of the Yùnfǔ qúnyù is one of the more notable cases of a Qīng woman scholar producing a major book-historical lèishū edition. The Sìkù editors mention her work for historical context but, characteristically, retained the Yuán Dàdé edition for the imperial set.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Yùnfǔ qúnyù entry.
- Wikidata: Q11074559.