Yùchuānzǐ shī jí 玉川子詩集
The Verse Collection of Master Yù-chuān [Lú Tóng] by 盧仝 (撰)
About the work
The Sìbù cóngkān SBCK reprint of Lú Tóng’s 盧仝 盧仝 (?–835, zì unknown, hào Yùchuānzǐ 玉川子) verse collection in 2 juǎn. Lú was a Fànyáng 范陽 native, lived in seclusion at Shàoshì shān (Sōngshān region) and later at Luòyáng; he was a close associate of Hán Yù 韓愈 and Mèng Jiāo 孟郊. Hán wrote the celebrated Jì Lú Tóng poem; Lú’s most famous work is the Yuè shí shī 月蝕詩 (the Lunar Eclipse — composed Chángqìng 4 = 824 — preserved here as the opening piece of the SBCK collection) and the Cǎo táng huā shī 草堂花詩 (his qī tiē on tea, “The Seven Cups of Tea” — the founding chá poem of Chinese letters, much-cited in the Chájīng and Sòng tea-discourse). He died in the Gānlù zhī biàn 甘露之變 (the 835 court eunuch coup) — having been visiting Wáng Yá 王涯’s residence when Wáng was killed; Lú was rounded up with Wáng’s household and executed.
The Sìkù did not include this collection in WYG; the SBCK is the principal modern access.
Prefaces
The SBCK base text opens directly with juǎn 1 (古今詩), beginning with the Yuè shí shī — the long Chángqìng 4 (824) lunar-eclipse cosmology poem.
Abstract
Lú Tóng (?–835) is one of the more arrestingly strange voices of the Yuánhé generation: closely associated with Hán Yù and Mèng Jiāo, but with a verse style closer to Lǐ Hè’s guǐcái register than to Hán Yù’s gǔwén austerity. The Yuè shí shī is a 235-line cosmological-political extended gē — an attack on the Chángqìng-period eunuch power through the figure of the lunar eclipse (the moon-toad swallowing the moon read as eunuch consumption of imperial authority). The Qī wǎn chá gē 七碗茶歌 (Seven Cups of Tea Song) — properly the Zǒu bǐ xiè Mèng Jiànyì jì xīn chá 走筆謝孟諫議寄新茶 — is the canonical chá poem in Chinese culture and the fountainhead of all subsequent tea-poetry. CBDB id 33847 gives ?–835. Lú’s death in the Gānlù zhī biàn — the 835 eunuch counter-coup that destroyed Wénzōng’s anti-eunuch faction — gave him an inadvertent martyr’s status in late-Táng / Sòng critical reception.
Translations and research
- Owen, Stephen. 1975. The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yü. Yale UP. Treats Lú Tóng in the Hán Yù circle.
- 王亞偉 Wáng Yà-wěi. 2009. Lú Tóng yánjiū 盧仝研究. Hé-běi.
- No Western-language critical edition or full translation located.
Other points of interest
The Qī wǎn chá gē — describing the progressive effects of seven cups of tea, culminating in the Daoist immortal-flight after the seventh — is recited in the Chájīng-tradition tea-ceremony, taught universally in introductory Chinese-culture courses, and inscribed on countless late-imperial tea-related decorative objects. Its disproportionate cultural penetration (against Lú’s modest formal canonicity) makes him an unusual case of a poet better known by one poem than by his collected works.