Bǔzhù Dù shī 補注杜詩
Supplementary Annotated Dù Fǔ’s Poetry by 杜甫 (撰), 黃希 (原注), 黃鶴 (補注)
About the work
Bǔzhù Dù shī 補注杜詩 in 36 juǎn — original title Bǔ qiānjiā jízhù Dù gōngbù shī shǐ 補千家集註杜工部詩史 — is the major mid-Southern-Sòng commentary edition of Dù Fǔ’s poetry, the work of Huáng Xī 黃希 (zì Mèngdé 夢得, jìnshì, Yíhuáng xiàn lìng 永新令) and his son Huáng Hè 黃鶴 (zì Shūsì 叔似), of Yíhuáng 宜黃 (modern Yíhuáng xiàn in central Jiāngxī). Huáng Xī began the work as a suíwén bǔjí 隨文補緝 (“running supplementation”) to address the deficiencies of the existing Sòng jízhù tradition; he died before completing it. His son Huáng Hè took over, applied himself for thirty-odd years, and finished the work in Jiādìng 9 (1216 = bǐngzǐ).
The list of cited commentators in the front matter names 151 (the original title’s qiānjiā “thousand commentators” being the conventional Sòng jízhù exaggeration); the most heavily cited are Wáng Zhū 王洙, Zhào Cìgōng 趙次公, Shī Yǐn 師尹, Bào Biāo 鮑彪, Dù Xiūkě 杜修可, and Lǔ Yìn 魯訔. The Sūzhù 蘇註 (a body of forged annotations falsely attributed to Sū Shì 蘇軾 — the same as the LǎoDù shìshí fabrications that Guō Zhīdá 郭知達 in KR4c0015 had stripped out) is here uncritically incorporated. Original commentators are tagged “X yuē”; Huáng Xī’s additions tagged “Xī yuē” 希曰, Huáng Hè’s “Hè yuē” 鶴曰. The entire 1,500-poem corpus is arranged by year of composition, with a niánpǔ biànyí 年譜辨疑 (chronology with discussion) serving as the editorial spine and dates of composition annotated under each poem — a format that became the standard for SòngYuánMíng DùFǔ scholarship and that the Huáng family inherits and extends from Huáng Bósī 黃伯思 and Lǔ Yìn.
Tiyao
Bǔzhù Dù shī in 36 juǎn — the original by Huáng Xī of the Sòng, completed by his son Hè. Xī’s zì was Mèngdé, an Yíhuáng man, jìnshì, who rose to Yíhuáng xiàn lìng and built the Chūnfēngtáng 春風堂 at the magistracy; Yáng Wànlǐ 楊萬里 wrote a jì for it (preserved in his Chéngzhāi jí 誠齋集). Hè’s zì was Shūsì; his Běichuāng yùyán jí 北窗寓言集 is long lost. Xī found the older Dù annotations defective and incomplete; he undertook a running supplementary annotation but died before completing it. Hè took the printed jízhù version as base and finished his father’s draft, then added his own observations over thirty years; the work was completed in Jiādìng bǐngzǐ (1216).
The book’s original title is Bǔ qiānjiā jízhù Dù gōngbù shī shǐ 補千家集註杜工部詩史; the names of cited commentators in the front list to 151 — with Wáng Zhū, Zhào Cìgōng, Shī Yǐn, Bào Biāo, Dù Xiūkě, Lǔ Yìn most heavily cited; others rare. The so-called Sūzhù of the time are also incorporated. The book-stalls had a Qiānjiā zhù edition in circulation, and Hè built on this — hence the Bǔzhù title. Guō Zhīdá’s Jiǔjiā zhù (= KR4c0015) and Cài Mèngbì’s 蔡夢弼 Cǎotáng shī jiān 草堂詩箋 were both completed before Hè’s text (Guō’s in Chúnxī xīnchǒu = 1181, 30-odd years earlier; Cài’s in Jiātài jiǎzǐ = 1204, 12 years earlier), but neither is cited even once — they had not yet circulated widely enough for Hè to see them.
The original-source notes are tagged “X yuē” by commentator name; the XīHè additions tagged Xī yuē and Hè yuē respectively. The dispositive principle is ànnián biānshī 按年編詩 (arranging the poems by year of composition), with the niánpǔ biànyí serving as preamble and the date of each poem given underneath it — letting the reader see the chronological context. This editorial program traces back to Huáng Bósī 黃伯思 and was further developed by Lǔ Yìn; Hè and Xī push it furthest. Their gōujī biànzhèng 鈎稽辨證 (philological cross-checking) is genuinely careful work.
There are some inconsistencies. The Zèng Lǐ Bái 贈李白 poem is dated by Hè to Kāiyuán 24 (736, the QíZhào tour); but Dù Fǔ and Lǐ Bái did not in fact meet until Tiānbǎo 3–4 (744–745) in Luòyáng, after Lǐ’s expulsion from the imperial Hànlín. The Jì Lǐ Bái èrshí yùn 寄李白二十韻’s “qǐ guī yōuzhào xǔ, yù wǒ sù xīn qīn 乞歸優詔許遇我宿心親” makes the chronology clear. [further discussion of dating disputes]
(Reverently collated and submitted at… [signature line truncated in the WYG])
Abstract
Bǔzhù Dù shī is the second of the three pillars of the Sòng commentary tradition for Dù Fǔ — Guō Zhīdá’s Jiǔjiā jízhù KR4c0015 (1181) being the first, and Cài Mèngbì’s Cǎotáng shī jiān (1204) the third. The Yuán anthology Jí qiānjiā zhù Dù gōngbù shī jí KR4c0018 is a further consolidation built on top of these. Huáng Hè’s principal innovation is the rigor of the ànnián biānshī chronological arrangement and his contribution to the niánpǔ biànyí — both of which were inherited by the Qīng Qiū Zhàoáo 仇兆鰲 Dù shī xiángzhù KR4c0020, the standard pre-modern Dù Fǔ edition.
The Huáng Xī / Huáng Hè enterprise was conducted in Yíhuáng xiàn (Jiāngxī) over a period beginning in the late Chúnxī (1180s) and extending through the Jiātài, Kāixī, and Jiādìng reigns to 1216 — about thirty-five years of labor. The Sìkù editors print the work on the basis of a Sòng Jiādìng original or a near-Sòng manuscript; it is one of the more important survivals of the Jia-ding-period scholarly print culture.
Translations and research
- See KR4c0015, KR4c0018, KR4c0020 for parallel commentaries.
- Stephen Owen, tr. 2016. The Poetry of Du Fu. 6 vols. De Gruyter.
- Cài Zhì-mào 蔡志茂. 1991. Sòng dài Dù shī xué yán-jiū 宋代杜詩學研究. Wén-jīn. Comprehensive study of the Sòng commentary tradition.
- William Hung. 1952. Tu Fu, China’s Greatest Poet. Harvard.
Other points of interest
The 36-juǎn arrangement of Bǔzhù Dù shī matches the Jiǔjiā jízhù (= KR4c0015) and so the WYG print presents the two principal Sòng commentary streams in identical pagination — a Sìkù editorial choice, not a Sòng one, but useful for parallel reading.
Links
- Du Fu (Wikipedia)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Tang literature).