九家集注杜詩

Jiǔjiā jízhù Dù shī 九家集注杜詩

Dù Fǔ’s Poetry, with the Collected Annotations of Nine Commentators by 杜甫 (撰), 郭知達 (集注)

About the work

Jiǔjiā jízhù Dù shī 九家集注杜詩 in 36 juǎn — also transmitted as Xīnkān jiàodìng jízhù Dù shī 新刊校定集注杜詩 — is the principal Sòng-period scholarly jízhù (collected-commentary) edition of Dù Fǔ’s 杜甫 poetry, compiled by Guō Zhīdá 郭知達 of Shǔ 蜀 in Chúnxī 8 (1181). The “nine commentators” (jiǔ jiā 九家) are: Wáng Zhū 王洙 (字源叔, the foundational Sòng editor of Dù Fǔ); Sòng Qí 宋祁 (字景文); Wáng Ānshí 王安石 (字文公); Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 (style Yùzhāng xiānshēng 豫章先生); Xuē Mèngfú 薛夢符; Dù Tián 杜田 (字時可); Bào Biāo 鮑彪 (字文虎); Shī Mínzhān 師民瞻 (named Yǐn 尹); and Zhào Yàncái 趙彥材 (named Cìgōng 次公). Guō’s editorial labor — emphatically endorsed by both Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 in his Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 and the Sìkù tíyào — was to strip out the apocryphal materials that had circulated in the Sòng (the so-called LǎoDù shìshí 老杜事實 forgeries) and to print only the substantive jízhù. The text was reprinted in Bǎoqìng 1 (1225) by Zēng È 曾噩, Guǎngdōng cáo sī 廣東漕司, at Wǔyáng 五羊 (Guǎngzhōu); the WYG version is a Qīng Wǔyīngdiàn 武英殿 reprint of this Sòng Bǎoqìng edition, recovered during the Sìkù compilation effort and inserted into the imperial Tiānlù línláng 天祿琳瑯 collection. Two yùzhì 御製 (Qiánlóng-imperial) poems memorializing the text’s recovery are preserved in the WYG file.

Tiyao

Jiǔjiā jízhù Dù shī in 36 juǎn — compiled by Guō Zhīdá of the Sòng. Zhīdá was a Shǔ man; his self-preface is dated Chúnxī 8 (1181). The collection has a re-printing preface by Zēng È of Bǎoqìng 1 (1225). According to Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí, È’s zì was Zǐsù 子肅 and he was a Mǐnqīng 閩清 man; per Líng Dízhī’s 凌迪知 Wànxìng tǒngpǔ, his zì was Èfǔ 噩甫 and he was a Mǐnxiàn 閩縣 man, who in Qìngyuán (1195–1200) was wèi 尉 of Shànggāo 上高 and later Guǎngdōng cáo sī. Chén Zhènsūn was Zēng’s contemporary and Líng Dízhī’s account agrees with the official titles in the preface; which is correct cannot be settled.

The Sòng critics loved Dù Fǔ but no good annotated edition existed. This work collects the commentaries of nine men — Wáng Zhū, Sòng Qí, Wáng Ānshí, Huáng Tíngjiān, Xuē Mèngfú, Dù Tián, Bào Biāo, Shī Mínzhān, Zhào Yàncái — and is reasonably concise. Zhīdá’s preface says he engaged two or three friends to follow him in selecting and rejecting; works of forged authorship and fabricated factual claims were all deleted. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says: “There is in circulation what is called the Dōngpō LǎoDù shìshí (the editorial note here corrects “Dōngpō” to “LǎoDù shìshí”), in which fictions are constructed event by event and forced to fit; nothing has its source given, the rhetoric is uniform from start to end — clearly the fabrication of a sham scholar to deceive the vulgar. The book-stalls inserted it into the jízhù, with disastrous effect on readers. The present edition alone has stripped this away” — agreeing with Zhīdá’s preface. Its editorial discretion is methodical.

Chén says Zēng’s print was at Wǔyáng (Guǎngzhōu); the colophon of the present juǎn says “Bǎoqìng yǐyǒu (1225) Guǎngdōng cáo sī qīnbǎn 廣東漕司鋟版”; Mǎ Duānlín’s 馬端臨 Wénxiàn tōngkǎo lists this print as a shànběn 善本 (“good edition”). The text remained in the Wǔyīngdiàn 武英殿 (palace printing-house) library for many years, unidentified as a Sòng print, until the Sìkù compilation effort identified it as such; the imperial verses transcribed at the front commemorate this discovery.

(Reverently collated and submitted in the eighth month of Qiánlóng 41 = 1776.)

Abstract

This is the principal surviving Sòng jízhù edition of Dù Fǔ’s poetry — predecessor to and a parent of the late-Sòng Qiānjiā zhù Dù gōngbù shī 千家註杜工部詩 (KR4c0018) and a key witness for the Sòng commentary tradition. Of the nine cited commentators, three (Wáng Ānshí, Sòng Qí, Huáng Tíngjiān) are known principally for their other works and contributed scattered remarks here; Wáng Zhū’s foundational Sòng recension (the Wángshì běn 王氏本) underlies the entire SòngYuán transmission of Dù Fǔ; Zhào Cìgōng’s annotation is the most extensive single contribution. Guō Zhīdá’s editorial achievement in stripping out the apocrypha (the LǎoDù shìshí and Wángshī yán 王氏言 forgeries) made this the cleanest and most reliable Sòng commentary edition.

The base text follows the SòngMǐnqiú / Wáng Zhū chronological arrangement of the 1,500-odd extant Dù Fǔ poems. The Sìkù compilers’ identification of the Wǔyīngdiàn copy as a Sòng Bǎoqìng print was a notable bibliographic coup, immortalized in the two yùzhì poems. The book is one of only a small handful of Sòng DùFǔ commentary editions to survive in print rather than in MS only.

Translations and research

• See KR4c0017 (Huáng Xī / Huáng Hè Bǔ-zhù Dù shī), KR4c0018 (Jí qiān-jiā zhù Dù gōng-bù shī jí), and KR4c0020 (Qiú Zhào-áo Dù shī xiáng-zhù) for parallel commentaries.
• Lin Jixin 林繼新, ed. 1981. Dù shī Sòng Yuán bǎn yán-jiū 杜詩宋元版研究. Important context for the Sòng print tradition.
• William Hung. 1952. Tu Fu, China’s Greatest Poet. Harvard. The foundational English-language biography.
• Stephen Owen, tr. 2016. The Poetry of Du Fu. 6 vols. De Gruyter. The complete annotated English translation; uses Qiū Zhào-áo’s text as base.
• Stephen Owen. 2003. “The Cultural Tang.” Cambridge History of Chinese Literature vol. 1, ch. 4 — discussion of Sòng reception of Dù Fǔ.

Other points of interest

The yùzhì (Qiánlóng imperial) poem at the front of the WYG file is one of the most direct expressions of the Qiánlóng emperor’s deep personal engagement with Dù Fǔ (“Píngshēng jiéxí zuì yú shī, LǎoDù zhēn kān zuò wǒ shī 平生結習最於詩老杜真堪作我師,” “My lifelong habit is most with poetry, and Old Dù truly deserves to be my teacher”). The fact that the Wǔyīngdiàn held an unidentified Sòng print for so long is also a useful commentary on the state of the imperial library before the Sìkù labor.

Links

• Du Fu (Wikipedia)
• Du Fu (Wikidata Q36014)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Tang literature).