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謝宣城集

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Text ID
KR4b0012
Date
1158–1158
Dynasty
南齊

Xiè Xuānchéng jí 謝宣城集

Collected Works of Xiè Tiǎo, Governor of Xuānchéng by 謝朓 (撰)

About the work

Xiè Xuānchéng jí 謝宣城集 in five juǎn preserves the fù, yuèfǔ, and shī of Xiè Tiǎo 謝朓 (464–499), known by his zì Xuánhuī 玄暉, the Southern Qí poet whose innovative tonal-prosodic xīn tǐ shī 新體詩 (“new style poetry”) in the wake of Shěn Yuē’s 沈約 sì shēng 四聲 / bā bìng 八病 rules made him the immediate ancestor of Táng jìntǐ shī 近體詩 (regulated verse). The conventional title comes from his post as Xuānchéng tàishǒu 宣城太守 (modern eastern Ānhuī). The five-juǎn recension preserved here is the Southern-Sòng Shàoxīng wùyín (1158) print prepared by Lóu Zhào 樓炤 — the Sìkù compilers’ preferred base. Lóu’s print had originally also a second five juǎn of Xiè’s prose (memorial / political documents), but Lóu cut these on the judgment that they were “matters of a declining age, not worth preserving”; Lóu’s surviving five juǎn are fù and shī only.

(Note: the catalog meta gives Xiè’s death year as 494 and writes his name 謝眺 with a graphic substitution; standard scholarship and CBDB give 464–499 and the canonical name Xiè Tiǎo 謝朓 — a typographical slip in the catalog flagged here.)

Tiyao

By Xiè Tiǎo of the [Southern] Qí. Tiǎo, zì Xuánhuī 玄暉, of Chénjùn Yángxià 陳郡陽夏. His career is in his Nán Qí shū biography. Tiǎo went out from zhōngshūláng 中書郎 to Xuānchéng tàishǒu 宣城太守; was recalled to zhōngshūláng; went out again as Jìnān Wáng zhènběi zīyì Nán Dōnghǎi tàishǒu xíng Nán Xúzhōu shì; returned as Shàngshū lìbù láng 尚書吏部郎; then was killed. His offices in fact extend well beyond Xuānchéng tàishǒu, but the poetic tradition still calls him Xiè Xuānchéng — probably because his Běilóu 北樓 poems (composed at the Xuānchéng prefectural North Tower) became the most popularly transmitted of his works.

According to Chén Zhènsūn’s Shū lù jiě tí 書錄解題, Tiǎo’s collection was originally ten juǎn; Lóu Zhào 樓炤, when zhī Xuānzhōu 知宣州, printed only the upper five juǎn of fù and shī; the lower five juǎn were all yìng yòng zhī wén 應用之文 (functional/political prose) — “matters of a declining age,” what is worth preserving had already entered the Nán Qí shū biography and the Wén xuǎn; the rest is poorer than the shī and need not be transmitted. Examining Zhōng Róng’s Shī pǐn: “Tiǎo would discuss poetry with me — his stirring/cutting [of words] surpassed his prose”; so Chén’s verdict is sound. Zhāng Pǔ’s Bǎi sān jiā jí 百三家集 cuts Tiǎo’s five-juǎn of fù and shī into one juǎn. The present five-juǎn edition is exactly Lóu Zhào’s Shàoxīng 28 (= 1158) print, with Lóu’s preface — still a fine Southern Sòng text.

The biography says Tiǎo was strong at five-character poetry; Shěn Yuē had said: “Two hundred years have not produced this kind of poetry.” Zhōng Róng’s Shī pǐn says: “[Tiǎo] is somewhat marred by close-knit detail, departing from the (proper) classification; within a single piece there is genuine jade and some stone; he is excellent at openings but his closings often stumble.” Both excessive disparagement and excessive praise miss the truth. Zhào Zǐzhī’s 趙紫芝 line — “Fǔsì’s 輔嗣 Yì 易 progresses without Hàn learning; Yuánhuī’s poetry has changed and bears Táng风” — strikes the right balance between substance and ornament’s rise and fall.

(Translated from Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào edition; the WYG 000.txt is missing in this corpus and the SBCK 000.txt only gives the table of contents.)

Abstract

Xiè Tiǎo (464–499), one of the Yǒngmíng tǐ 永明體 poets associated with the salon of Crown Prince Wénhuì 文惠太子 (Xiāo Chángmào) and Xiāo Zǐliáng 蕭子良, Jìnglíng Wáng 竟陵王, was the central poetic talent of the Bā yǒu 八友 (“Eight Friends of Jìnglíng”). With Shěn Yuē 沈約 he developed the prosodic principles (sì shēng bā bìng 四聲八病) that would mature in Táng regulated verse. Lǐ Bái’s famous “中間小謝又清發” (in the Xuānzhōu Xiè Tiǎo lóu jiànbié Jiàoshū Shū Yún 宣州謝朓樓餞別校書叔雲) cements Xiè’s reputation as the one Six-Dynasties poet whom every Táng master continually invoked.

The transmitted collection had two phases: an original ten-juǎn recension (Chén Zhènsūn’s Shū lù jiě tí describes it: 5 juǎn of fù and shī + 5 juǎn of political-functional prose); and Lóu Zhào’s 樓炤 selection, printed at Xuānzhōu in Shàoxīng wùyín (1158), which retained only the 5 fù-and-shī juǎn. Lóu’s edition is the Sìkù-WYG and SBCK ancestor. The Sìkù compilers note that Lóu’s editorial judgment — discarding the yìng yòng zhī wén (functional prose) as “matters of a declining age” — may have lost recoverable Qí-period administrative writing, but accept the cut on the precedent that whatever was first-rate had already entered the Nán Qí shū biography and the Wén xuǎn.

The signature works are the Tóng Xiè Zīyì yǒng tóngquè tái 同謝諮議詠銅爵臺, the Yù jiē yuàn 玉階怨, the Wǎn dēng Sānshān huán wàng Jīngyì 晚登三山還望京邑 (with its line “yú dài bǔ jīng huá 餘霞布錦霞” / “evening haze spreads brocade-red,” variously transmitted), and especially the Xuānchéng poems: Zhī xuān chéng jùn chū xīn lín pǔ xiàng Bǎn qiáo 之宣城郡出新林浦向板橋, Yóu Jìngtíng shān 遊敬亭山. His five-character yuèfǔ and the Yǒngjiā gē 永嘉歌 (court anniversary celebration sequences) demonstrate his prosodic innovations. Xiè was framed in 499 by political enemies on a charge of conspiring against the Qí Dōnghūnhóu and starved to death in prison at age 36 sui.

Translations and research

  • Cynthia L. Chennault. 1981. The Poetry of Hsieh T’iao (464–499). PhD diss., U. of California, Berkeley. The principal English-language monograph.
  • Cynthia L. Chennault. 2003. “Hsieh T’iao.” Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, vol. 2.
  • Richard Mather. 1968. The Poet Shen Yüeh (441–513): The Reticent Marquis. Princeton UP — frames Xiè within the Yǒng-míng salon.
  • Stephen Owen. 2018. “From the Han through the Tang,” in The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature.
  • Cáo Róng-nán 曹融南, ed. 1991. Xiè Xuān-chéng jí jiào zhù 謝宣城集校註. Shànghǎi gǔjí — the principal modern critical edition.
  • Hóng Shùn-lóng 洪順隆, ed. 1969. Xiè Xuān-chéng shī jí jiào zhù 謝宣城詩集校註. Tāiwān shāngwù.
  • David R. Knechtges, tr. 1996. Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 3. Princeton UP — translates Xiè’s pieces in the Wén xuǎn.

Other points of interest

The textual fact that Lóu Zhào cut the second five juǎn of Xiè’s prose in 1158 is a case study in the canon-formation power of Sòng provincial printing: the yìng yòng zhī wén lost in Lóu’s selection are gone for good. Modern Chinese scholarship periodically attempts to reconstruct fragments from lèishū and the Yìwén lèi jù, but the bulk is irrecoverable. The Lóu Zhào print is also a useful witness to the standard graphic Tiǎo 朓 (with the moon-radical 月) — the catalog meta’s Tiǎo 眺 (with the eye-radical 目) is a graphic substitution found in some later transmissions and reflected in the Kanripo metadata.

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