Bào Róng shī jí 鮑溶詩集
The Verse Collection of Bào Róng by 鮑溶 (撰)
About the work
Verse collection in 6 juǎn + wàijí 1 juǎn of Bào Róng 鮑溶 鮑溶 (zì Déyuán 德源, jìnshì of Yuánhé 4 = 809; lifedates not securely fixed). Bào’s later reception was modest, but in his own day he was reckoned highly: Zhāng Wèi’s 張爲 Zhǔkè tú 主客圖 makes Bào the zhǔ (host / leader) of the bójiě hóngbá (broad-explanatory, generously-extracting) school, with Lǐ Qúnyù 李羣玉 (= KR4c0081) as shàng rùshì (top-ranked disciple). The collection’s transmission is troubled: the Sòng Shǐguǎn old recension (5 juǎn) misattributed it to Bào Fáng 鮑防; Zēng Gǒng 曾鞏 corrected the attribution against the Táng wéncuì and Táng shī lèixuǎn and added 33 pieces from Ōuyáng Xiū’s 歐陽修 holding, producing 233 pieces in 6 juǎn. Cháo Gōngwǔ saw 5 juǎn with only 193 pieces; the present text descends from the Yèyù 葉裕 manuscript copy of Zēng’s edition. Quán Táng shī preserves 16 more, against the present 145 in main collection — substantial subsequent loss.
Tiyao
Bào Róng shī jí in 6 juǎn, wàijí 1 — by Bào Róng of the Táng. Róng zì Déyuán; Yuánhé 4 jìnshì; career details unrecorded. His verse was not much-celebrated in later generations; yet Zhāng Wèi’s Zhǔkè tú made him Bójiě hóngbá zhǔ with Lǐ Qúnyù as top-ranked disciple, paired with Sīmǎ Tuìzhī as another rùshì example — so in his time he was highly valued. The Sòng Shǐguǎn old recension was 5 juǎn, mis-titled Bào Fáng. Zēng Gǒng corrected against Táng wéncuì and Táng shī lèixuǎn, then collated with Ōuyáng Xiū’s holding, adding 33 pieces — total 233 pieces, 6 juǎn. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì still 5 juǎn, only 193 surviving, the rest lost. The present text is the Yè family of Jiāngnán manuscript copy, with Zēng Gǒng’s correction-preface. The jíwài 1 juǎn matches Zēng’s added 33; the main collection is 1 juǎn longer than Zēng’s preface but only 145 pieces — old text damaged, transcribers split juǎn-divisions to match Zēng’s count, forgetting the wàijí was within the 6 juǎn. Quán Táng shī records 16 more than this; 2 more than Cháo’s; 39 fewer than Zēng’s — much of the collection is lost.
Abstract
Bào Róng is a borderline-canonical mid-Táng poet whose reputation has been more fragile than his quality warrants. His placement at the head of the bójiě hóngbá school in Zhāng Wèi’s Zhǔkè tú (a school-of-poetry typology composed around the late 9th century) suggests a period in which his work was the recognized standard of one of the Yuánhé sub-currents. The transmission is one of the more textually-troubled cases in KR4c: original Sòng misattribution, Zēng Gǒng’s mid-Sòng restoration, further loss between the Sòng and the Sìkù, and a present text in 6 juǎn with only ~145 main poems. CBDB id 94860.
Translations and research
- 范之麟 Fàn Zhī-lín. 1991. Bào Róng shī jí jiào-zhù 鮑溶詩集校注. (Annotated edition.)
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The Zēng Gǒng restoration is interesting in its own right as a Northern Sòng project of mid-Táng-poet recovery: Zēng was both correcting an attributional error (Bào Fáng → Bào Róng) and supplementing from anthological sources (the Táng wéncuì, Táng shī lèixuǎn, Ōuyáng Xiū’s holding). The combined philological-anthological approach is characteristic of the 11th-c. Northern-Sòng-poet revival around the ŌuSūWángZēng circle.