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樂郊私語

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Text ID
KR3l0083
Date
1352–1363
Dynasty
元

Lèjiāo sīyǔ 樂郊私語

Private Words from a Happy Suburb by 姚桐壽 (撰)

About the work

A one-juàn late-Yuán bǐjì by 姚桐壽 Yáo Tóngshòu 姚桐壽 (zì Lènián 樂年, self-styled Tóngjiāng diàosǒu 桐江釣叟 “Old Angler of the Tóng River”), a native of Mùzhōu (Tónglú 桐廬, modern Zhèjiāng) who, after serving as Yúgàn 餘干 professor in Hòuzhìyuán 5 (1339), withdrew in the late-Yuán turmoil to Hǎiyán 海鹽 (now part of Jiāxīng 嘉興, Zhèjiāng). The work — composed in his refuge at Fēngyáng 豐陽 on the Hǎiyán coast — records what he saw, heard, and experienced among the local literati, monks, and military men of the Zhìzhèng 至正 reign (1341–1368). The title — “Lèjiāo” 樂郊, the “happy suburb” of Shījīng odes — is bitterly ironic: as the Sìkù compilers later observed, “though it appears fortunate, it is in fact a lament about the chaos” (雖若幸之，實則傷亂之詞也). The author’s preface is dated spring of Zhìzhèng 23 guǐmǎo 癸卯, i.e., 1363. The work is the principal documentary witness to the early Hǎiyán qiāng 海鹽腔 — the southern-drama style that, in the Míng, would compete with Yúyáo qiāng 餘姚腔 and Yìyáng qiāng 弋陽腔 before being supplanted by Kūnqǔ 崑曲 — and on that ground has been treated as a foundational source by every historian of Chinese theatre from Wáng Guówéi 王國維 onward.

Tiyao

Lèjiāo sīyǔ in 1 juàn, by the Yuán Yáo Tóngshòu (Liǎnghuái Mǎyù 馬裕 family copy); placed in the zǐbù xiǎoshuōjiā category. Tóngshòu zì Lènián, of Mùzhōu; was Yúgàn professor; later took refuge in Hǎiyán. The book was made in the Zhìzhèng reign of the Yuán Shùndì 順帝. At the end of the Yuán, when warfare was constant, Tóngshòu took refuge at Hǎiyán, which had not yet been touched by the fighting; behind closed doors he was able to write at leisure and escape the disasters of war, and so titled the work Lèjiāo sīyǔ — though it appears fortunate, it is in fact a lament about the chaos. The book records lost reports and overlooked matter, much resembling the words of xiǎoshuōjiā; but the portions touching on local shǐshèng (history) are usefully consulted. The original end of the work carried a tomb-inscription written by Yáng Wéizhēn 楊維楨 for Tóngshòu’s elder brother Yáo Chūnshòu 姚椿壽 — the Sìkù compilers judged it “rather inappropriate” (頗為不倫) and excised it.

(The translation above paraphrases the standard Zǒngmù notice; readers requiring the verbatim Chinese should consult Yú Jiāxī 余嘉錫, Sìkù tíyào biànzhèng 四庫提要辨證, and Hú Yùjìn 胡玉縉, Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào bǔzhèng 四庫全書總目提要補正.)

Abstract

Yáo Tóngshòu’s exact dates are not recorded (CBDB id 35149 has him fl. 1339 only); the internal evidence of the work places his life clearly in the late Yuán — Hòuzhìyuán jǐmǎo 後至元己卯 (1339) Yúgàn professorship, Zhìzhèng jǐchǒu 至正己丑 (1349) the death of his Hǎiyán in-law Shěn Zhòngshí 沈仲實, Zhìzhèng rénchén 壬辰 (1352) the move to Hǎiyán, Zhìzhèng jiǎwǔ 甲午 (1354) the Jīnsù sì 金粟寺 incident with him already styling himself qián jiàoshòu Yúgàn “former Yúgàn professor,” and the preface dated Zhìzhèng guǐmǎo 癸卯 spring (1363). The composition window — for the work as a coherent bǐjì — is therefore c. 1352–1363, framed by the Hǎiyán refuge and the preface date.

The work’s central subject is the local culture, history, and turbulent political-military scene of Hǎiyán 海鹽 in the last decade of the Yuán. Among its most cited contents:

  • The earliest source on the Hǎiyán qiāng 海鹽腔. Under the entry beginning “zhōu shàonián duō shàn gē yuèfǔ” 州少年多善歌樂府, Yáo records that Hǎiyán’s young men sang yuèfǔ in a tradition passed down from the Gànchuān Yángshì 澉川楊氏 — the family of Yáng Zǐ 楊梓 (posthumously Kānghuì 康惠), a high Hǎiyán official under Khubilai’s regime — whose son-friendship with the famous Uyghur-line qǔ poet 貫雲石 Guàn Yúnshí 貫雲石 (1286–1324) brought the sǎntào 散套 style to the family. Yáng Zǐ himself, Yáo writes, composed three known zájù 雜劇 (Yùràng tūn tàn 豫讓吞炭, Huò Guāng guǐ jiàn 霍光鬼諫, Jìngdé bù fú lǎo 敬德不伏老) under suppressed authorship; his sons Yáng Guócái 楊國材 and Yáng Shàozhōng 楊少中 continued the line through friendship with Xiānyú Qùjīn 鮮于去矜, and the jiātóng (household servants) of the Yáng manor, “by a thousand fingers, none did not master southern and northern song-tunes” — whence the people of Hǎiyán became famous singers in Zhèyòu 浙右. Wáng Guówéi, in his SòngYuán xìqǔ kǎo 宋元戲曲考 (1913), drew on this passage to argue that the Hǎiyán qiāng of the Míng was a continuation of the Yuán Hǎiyán singing tradition; the identification has been the foundation of all subsequent scholarship.
  • Eye-witness reports on the late-Yuán military crisis. Yáo describes the 1356–1357 attacks on Jiāxīng by the Zhāngshì 張氏 (i.e., Zhāng Shìchéng 張士誠), the unsuccessful defence by Yáng Èlèzhé 楊諤勒哲 (Yáng Élèjié — the Wényuāngé spelling), the strategic considerations debated with him, and the fall of Píngjiāng 平江; under another entry he tells the well-known story of the Xuānchéng official Gòng Shītài 貢師泰 who, when Píngjiāng fell, escaped by changing his name to Duānmù 端木 and sheltering at Yúnjiān 雲間.
  • A first-person meeting with 劉基 Liú Jī 劉基 (Liú Bówēn 劉伯溫, 1311–1375). Yáo records that Liú, then Rúxué tíjǔ 儒學提舉, met him at Qiántáng and again ten years later, after Liú had resigned office, at Héngshān 横山 in Hǎiyán. Liú expounded his fēngshuǐ doctrine that the southern dìmài 地脈 (geomantic vein), descending from Kūnlún via Éméi, ends at Hǎiyán — a passage now standard in LiúJī biographies (Liú had not yet attached himself to Zhū Yuánzhāng).
  • A meeting with 趙孟頫 Zhào Mèngfǔ’s elder cousin Zhào Zǐgù 趙子固 (Zhào Mèngjiān 趙孟堅, 1199 – c. 1264), who had retreated to Hǎiyán’s Guǎngchénzhèn 廣陳鎮 with a boat-load of “qín, shū, zūnsháo”; the famous anecdote of Zǐgù refusing to admit Zǐáng (Zhào Mèngfǔ, who had served the Yuán) by the front door and then having his sitting-mat washed after his cousin left.
  • Material on Dàshèng yuè 大晟樂. Yáo reports a guǐmào (1354) personal inspection of the Hǎiyán prefectural school bells, comparing them with two Chóngníng Dàshèng bells (黃鐘 and dàlǚ wúyì) preserved in his own family collection; the school bells were a full pitch sharp, an empirical confirmation of the Sòngshǐ tradition that Wèi Hànjīn 魏漢津 made the Dàshèng bells from a measurement of Huīzōng’s middle finger.
  • Polemic re-attribution of an ancestor portrait. The Chángshì 常氏 of Hǎiyán treasured a “loyal-ancestor” portrait; Yáo, finding that the inscription was Fàn Chéngdà’s 范成大 Dài hè Qín tàishī huàxiàng qǐ 代賀秦太師畫像啟, concluded the portrait was in fact of Qín Huì 秦檜 himself and the family had been worshipping the destroyer of their lineage.

The work was preserved by the Sìkù from the Liǎnghuái Mǎyù 馬裕家本 copy. Beyond the WYG edition, it has been transmitted in Xù Bǎichuān xuéhǎi 續百川學海, Yányì zhìlín 鹽邑志林, Bǎoyántáng mìjí 寶顏堂秘笈, Shuōfú 說郛, and Xuéhǎi lèibiān 學海類編. The Sìkù compilers’ silent excision of the Yáng Wéizhēn epitaph for Yáo Chūnshòu — flagged in the Zǒngmù — is a documented case of Sìkù editorial intervention.

Standard modern edition: Lèjiāo sīyǔ in the Yuán Míng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān 元明史料筆記叢刊 series (Zhōnghuá Shūjú, collated against WYG and Xù Bǎichuān xuéhǎi); a punctuated digital text is also on Zhōnghuá diǎnzàng and Shídiǎn gǔjí.

Translations and research

  • Wáng Guówéi 王國維. Sòng-Yuán xì-qǔ kǎo 宋元戲曲考 (1913). Foundational use of Lèjiāo sīyǔ for the Hǎi-yán qiāng genealogy.
  • Liú Niàn-zī 劉念茲. Nán-xì xīn-zhèng 南戲新證 (Zhōnghuá, 1986). Builds on Yáo’s report of the Gàn-chuān Yáng family.
  • Sūn Chóng-tāo 孫崇濤. Nán-xì lùn-cóng 南戲論叢 (Zhōnghuá, 2001). Extended treatment of the Hǎi-yán qiāng materials.
  • Idema, Wilt L. Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period (Brill, 1974), and Idema & Stephen H. West, Chinese Theater, 1100–1450 (Steiner, 1982). The latter is the standard Western reference on Yuán zá-jù and qǔ; cites Yáo on the Gàn-chuān Yáng circle.
  • West, Stephen H. “Text and Ideology: Ming Editors and Northern Drama.” T’oung Pao 91 (2005). On the Yáng Zǐ zá-jù attribution problem.
  • Sieber, Patricia. Theaters of Desire (Palgrave, 2003). On Guàn Yún-shí and the Hǎi-yán Yáng circle as a key node of Yuán-court / Jiāng-nán qǔ networks.
  • Hú Yùjìn 胡玉縉, Sìkù quán-shū zǒng-mù tíyào bǔ-zhèng 四庫全書總目提要補正; Yú Jiāxī 余嘉錫, Sìkù tíyào biàn-zhèng 四庫提要辨證. Standard reference works on the Zǒng-mù entry.
  • No full European-language translation of Lèjiāo sīyǔ has been located; selected passages are translated in West & Idema.

Other points of interest

The Hǎiyán qiāng passage in Lèjiāo sīyǔ is one of the very few late-Yuán sources that ties a southern-drama vocal style to a specific aristocratic family (the Gànchuān Yáng) and a specific qǔ-poet patron (Guàn Yúnshí). Without this passage, the entire chain from Yuán-court sǎnqǔ to Míng Hǎiyán qiāng to Kūnqǔ would be missing one of its essential links. The history of Chinese theatre is therefore, in part, dependent on a single short bǐjì entry — a point Wáng Guówéi himself made when launching modern Chinese theatre history in 1913.

The work is also one of the better windows into the daily-life consequences of the Zhāng Shìchéng — Yuánshǐ military balance of 1356–1357 in coastal Zhèjiāng: the closed gates of Hǎiyán for “twenty days running,” townspeople “breaking up the eaves-pillars and benches for firewood,” and the inability of the Yuán commander Dá Shítiěmùér to anticipate Zhāng’s strategy. The Yuánshǐ compilers used this material; it appears, indirectly, in the Hǎiyán and Jiāxīng fortification histories.

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