Cén Jiāzhōu shī 岑嘉州詩
Poems of Cén of Jiā-zhōu (Cén Cān) by 岑參 (撰)
About the work
Cén Jiāzhōu shī 岑嘉州詩 in 7 juǎn — also widely transmitted as Cén Jiāzhōu jí 岑嘉州集 — is the surviving poetry of Cén Cān 岑參 (715–770), the High-Táng frontier poet conventionally paired with Gāo Shì 高適 in the GāoCén 高岑 couplet of the biānsài 邊塞 (frontier) school. The Jiāzhōu 嘉州 in the title is from his last office, Jiāzhōu cìshǐ 嘉州刺史 (in modern Lèshān 樂山, Sìchuān). The collection is anchored by a substantial preface by Dù Què 杜确 (a relative or close friend of Cén’s, identified as a Tāngcháo 唐朝 jiānchá yùshǐ 監察御史) — written shortly after Cén’s death, this is the principal contemporary biographical source for the poet, traceable in detail to the level of his offices and titles.
Tiyao
No tíyào in source. The KR4c0029 file is the SBCK base, which preserves Dù Què’s preface but no Sìkù tíyào. The Sìkù catalog records this collection as a SBCK-only item; the corresponding WYG version is the same 7-juǎn base.
Abstract
The Sòng Tángshū yìwén zhì records Cén Cān shī in 7 juǎn; the Sòng catalogs and the SBCK transmission are consistent. The Dù Què preface — combining a substantial passage of literary criticism on the post-Liù-cháo recovery of fēnggé 風格 (vigorous style) with a circumstantial biographical sketch — sets out:
- Cén’s Nányáng 南陽 family origins (great-grandfather Cén Wénběn 岑文本, a chief minister of Tàizōng; grandfather Cén Zhǎngqiàn 岑長倩, a chief minister of Wǔhòu — both of the highest Sītú 司徒 / Sīmǎ 司馬 imperial-grade ranks);
- Cén’s early orphanhood and self-education;
- Jìnshì of Tiānbǎo 3 (744) at high distinction;
- successive offices: yòu nèishuàifǔ bīngcáo cānjūn 右內率府兵曹參軍, yòu wēiwèi lùshì cānjūn 右威衛錄事參軍, Dàlǐ píngshì 大理評事 with jiānchá yùshǐ 監察御史 honorific;
- two postings to the western frontier: Ānxī jiédù pànguān 安西節度判官 (under Gāo Xiānzhī 高仙芝) in Tiānbǎo 8 (749), and as Běitíng jiédù pànguān 北庭節度判官 (under Fēng Chángqīng 封常清) in Tiānbǎo 13 (754);
- post-rebellion appointments as qǐjū láng 起居郎, Guózhōu chángshǐ 虢州長史, and finally Jiāzhōu cìshǐ 嘉州刺史 (in 766);
- death in Chéngdū in Dàlì 5 (770), aged 56 (whence birth year 715), unable to return north because of post-rebellion road closures.
The two western frontier sojourns at Ānxī (modern Kucha, Xinjiang) and Běitíng (modern Jīmsār, Xinjiang) were the basis of Cén’s signature biānsài poetry — the most geographically specific and most viscerally observed body of frontier verse in the entire Tang corpus. Centerpieces include the Báixuě gē sòng Wǔ pànguān guī Jīng 白雪歌送武判官歸京 (“Song of the White Snow, Seeing Off Wǔ the Adjutant on his Return to the Capital”), with its iconic line hū rú yīyè chūnfēng lái, qiān shù wàn shù líhuā kāi 忽如一夜春風來千樹萬樹梨花開 (“as if overnight the spring wind had come, on thousand trees ten thousand pear-blossoms have opened” — a metaphor for the frontier snow); the Zǒumǎ Chuān xíng 走馬川行 (“Song of Galloping-Horse River”); and the Yúnzhōu chū jiè zhě dāo gē 輪臺秋夜寄別 cycle.
The GāoCén (Gāo Shì + Cén Cān) pairing — established already by Yīn Fán’s Héyuè yīnglíng jí (740s) and codified by Yán Yǔ’s Cāngláng shīhuà (Sòng) — has been canonical from the High Táng forward.
CBDB confirms 715–770 (cbdbId 32583).
Translations and research
- Marie Chan. 1989. Cen Shen. Twayne. The standard English-language scholarly study.
- Stephen Owen. 1981. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. Yale UP. Substantial discussion of Cén in the biān-sài context.
- Stephen Owen. 2013. The Poetry of the High Tang. Library of Chinese Humanities. Substantial selection in English.
- Liào Lì 廖立, ed. 2004. Cén Cān jí jiào-zhù 岑參集校注. 2 vols. Zhōnghuá. Standard modern annotated edition.
Other points of interest
Cén Cān’s frontier poems are the principal Tang-period literary witnesses to the cosmopolitan Central-Asian world of the Ānxī sì zhèn 安西四鎮 (“Four Garrisons of Ānxī”): his references to Hú 胡 horses, Hú dance, Hú music, qíbīng 騎兵 (cavalry), the Sōngshān 嵩山 and Yúménguān 玉門關 weather, and the indigenous toponyms (Lúntái 輪台, Hēishuǐ 黑水, Zhúrì 燭日) make this corpus an irreplaceable cultural-historical source for the late-Tiānbǎo Tang frontier.
Links
- Cen Shen (Wikipedia)
- Cen Shen (Wikidata Q706262)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Tang literature).