Chángjiāng jí 長江集
The Cháng-jiāng [Subprefecture] Collection by 賈島 (撰)
About the work
Verse collection in 10 juǎn of the kǔyín poet Jiǎ Dǎo 賈島 賈島 (779–843, zì Làngxiān 閬仙), a Fànyáng 范陽 native who first took the tonsure under the dharma-name Wúběn 無本 (the period of Hán Yù’s Sòng Wúběn shī guī Fànyáng poem) and later returned to lay life. He failed the jìnshì repeatedly, was banished as Chángjiāng (Sìchuān) zhǔbù — hence the title — and ended his life as Pǔzhōu sīcāng cānjūn. Jiǎ Dǎo, alongside Mèng Jiāo (= KR4c0058) and as one of the four (later: Mèng Jiāo + Jiǎ Dǎo + Yáo Hé 姚合 + Lǐ Dòng) “kǔyín poets,” practiced an austere, image-pivoted, hard-won verse — the source of the famous tuīqiāo (推敲, “push-or-knock”) anecdote. The catalog gives 788–843; CBDB (id 94227) gives 779–843, used here, agreeing with Hán Yù’s Sòng Wúběn shī guī Fànyáng poem (Yuánhé 6 = 811, when Jiǎ would have been ~32, not 23). The transmitted 10-juǎn text contains 378 of an originally recorded 379 poems (Cháo Gōngwǔ’s count); the WYG copy uses an old recension in which the Jiànkè 劍客 quatrain reads shuí wèi bùpíng shì (誰爲不平事), preserving the original wèi against later Míng “improvements” to yǒu.
Tiyao
Chángjiāng jí in 10 juǎn — by Jiǎ Dǎo of the Táng. Dǎo, zì Làngxiān, of Fànyáng; first a monk (Wúběn); returned to lay life; failed the jìnshì; was demoted to Chángjiāng zhǔbù; died as Pǔzhōu sīcāng cānjūn. The Xīn Tángshū biography places his demotion in Wénzōng; Wáng Dìngbǎo’s Zhāiyán places it in Wǔzōng; Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says the Chángjiāng shrine has a Xuānzōng Dàzhōng 9 (855) ink-decree carved in stone; Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says the Suìníng recension carries this decree at the head — the latter two refute the first. The present collection in juǎn 2 has a poem to a Lìnghú xiànggōng without name; juǎn 5 a Sòng Lìnghú Táo xiànggōng (sending off Lìnghú Táo); juǎn 6 a Xiè Lìnghú Táo xiànggōng cì yī jiǔ shì and two Jì Lìnghú Táo xiànggōng — naming Lìnghú Táo. Lìnghú Táo became zǎixiàng in Dàzhōng 4 (850) — the date matching the stele decree. Yet Hán Yù’s Sòng Wúběn shī guī Fànyáng in his year-by-year is Yuánhé 6 (811); the biography says Jiǎ Dǎo died at 56. Counting back from Dàzhōng 9 to Yuánhé 6 gives 45 years — so Hán’s poem would put Jiǎ at 12; allowing for the Chángjiāng relegation moving him to Pǔzhōu later, when Hán wrote, Jiǎ would have been under 10. Implausible. Yet the present poems explicitly say “after Chángjiāng”; no clear evidence either way. The Sòng Lìnghú zòng poem reads Liángyuán qū jīngjié and shìrì róng yóu Biàn / dāngshí qiè wǎng Chén — events from his Hézhōng commandant days. Lìnghú Zòng never held that office; Jiǎ Dǎo could not have used such language to him. So the original collection had only Lìnghú xiànggōng — the Suìníng recension added “Zòng” to fit the Dàzhōng 9 decree. Once Cháo and Chén refuted the decree, later editors removed it but failed to revert the inserted Zòng in the poem-titles. Cháo’s count is 379; the present text 378 — close to original. The Tángyīn tǒngqiān records that the Sòng Wúkě shàngrén poem (“Alone walking, the pond-bottom shadow / breath-pause, the tree-edge body”) had a quatrain zìzhù: “two lines, three years to compose / one chant, both cheeks tear-streamed / if the ear hears not its sound / I’ll sleep among my old hills in autumn” — perhaps Cháo’s 379 count includes this self-note. The poem Jiànkè (Swordsman) — Míng anthologies all have jīnrì bǎ shì jūn / shuí yǒu bùpíng shì; only the old Cáidiào jí has shuí wèi bùpíng shì (wèi in oblique tone). The Féng Shū brothers argued yǒu was a later corruption. The present text reads shuí wèi — preserving the unaltered reading.
Abstract
Jiǎ Dǎo is the kǔyín canonical figure par excellence — the tuīqiāo anecdote (whether on his way to Chángān he should write seng tuī yuèxià mén “monk pushes gate beneath moon” or seng qiāo yuèxià mén “monk knocks gate beneath moon,” and Hán Yù’s intervention) is the defining commonplace of mid-Táng poetic kǔyín discipline. His verse, alongside that of Mèng Jiāo, constituted the obscurer counter-current to the YuánBái accessible style. The Chángjiāng title remembers his subprefectship in Sìchuān. The collection circulated in multiple Sòng recensions; the Suìníng edition with the apocryphal Dàzhōng 9 decree was discredited by Cháo Gōngwǔ and Chén Zhènsūn; the present 10-juǎn text is close to the Sòng original. Jiǎ Dǎo’s late patron was Lìnghú Táo 令狐綯 (zǎixiàng from 850); the long-running dispute about the date of the Chángjiāng relegation is a textual-archaeology lodestone of mid-Táng literary chronology. Catalog gives 788–843 (matching the Wáng Dìngbǎo Wǔzōng dating); CBDB and standard reference give 779–843; followed here.
Translations and research
- Owen, Stephen. 1981. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. Yale UP. With substantial discussion in The Late Tang (2006).
- Owen, Stephen. 2006. The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860). Harvard UP. Treats Jiǎ Dǎo as transitional figure.
- 黃鵬 Huáng Péng. 2002. Jiǎ Dǎo shī jí jiān-zhù 賈島詩集箋注. Bā-Shǔ shū-shè.
- 李嘉言 Lǐ Jiā-yán. 1947. Cháng-jiāng jí xīn-jiào 長江集新校. Zhōng-huá. Foundational philological edition.
Other points of interest
The Jiànkè (Swordsman) poem — “Ten years polishing one sword / its frosty blade still untested / today I draw it for you, sir / who will dare to act unjustly?” — is one of the most-quoted Táng quatrains in the late-imperial swordsman / xiáyì tradition; the tíyào’s defense of the original wèi against the Míng-era yǒu is a small philological monument.