Yúntái biān 雲臺編
The Cloud-Terrace Compilation by 鄭谷 (撰)
About the work
Verse collection in 3 juǎn of Zhèng Gǔ 鄭谷 鄭谷 (ca. 851–910, zì Shǒuyú 守愚), of Yíchūn 宜春 (modern Jiāngxī), jìnshì of Guāngqǐ 3 (887), eventually Dūguān lángzhōng (Director of the Bureau of Receptions) under Qiánníng (894–898). Zhèng’s father had been Yǒngzhōu cìshǐ and a colleague of Sīkōng Tú 司空圖 (= KR4c0095, KR4c0096); Sīkōng on first meeting Zhèng prophesied he would be “yīdài fēngsāo zhǔ” (master of one generation’s fēngsāo).
Zhèng’s verse — celebrated and widely-circulated in his own lifetime — earned him the nickname Zhèng dūguān; his most famous individual poem, the Zhègū 鷓鴣 (Partridge), gave him the additional sobriquet Zhèng zhègū. The collection title Yúntái biān refers to Yúntái dàoshè (Cloud-Terrace Daoist Lodge) at Huázhōu, where Zhèng resided in Qiánníng 1 (894) when Zhāozōng fled to Sānfēng; Zhèng compiled the collection there during the imperial visit’s idle moments. The Sìkù tíyào finds his verse formally weak (gédiào bēixià) but acknowledges his late-Táng prominence.
Tiyao
Yúntái biān in 3 juǎn — by Zhèng Gǔ of the Táng. Gǔ zì Shǒuyú, of Yíchūn; Guāngqǐ 3 jìnshì; Qiánníng period rose to Dūguān lángzhōng. Gǔ’s father once was Yǒngzhōu cìshǐ, in the same office as Sīkōng Tú; Tú on seeing Gǔ marvelled, predicting he would be “master of one generation’s wind-and-saō.” His verse-fame flourished in late Tang; the world transmitted-and-recited him; called Zhèng dūguān. Shǐ did not establish a biography; his life-events are mostly in Jì Yǒugōng’s Táng shī jìshì.
Xīn Tángshū yìwénzhì records Gǔ’s writings as Yúntái biān 3 juǎn + Yíyáng jí 3 juǎn. Yíyáng jí now lost; only this transmits. Recorded ~300 poems. Yúntái biān — per Gǔ’s self-preface: Qiánníng 1 Zhāozōng visited Sānfēng; in attendance with much idleness, lodging at the Yúntái Daoist house, recorded and edited from there — at the time of Zhāozōng’s residence at Huázhōu.
Gǔ made his name with the Zhègū poem — the so-called Zhèng zhègū. But the verse’s gédiào is low; the 7th line “xiānghū xiānghuàn” repeats the character — even more crude. Kòu Zōngshì’s Běncǎo yǎnyì cites it as “xiānghū xiāngyìng” — slightly improved without flaw — but still not high quality. Fāng Huí’s Yíngkuí lǜsuí notes Gǔ’s verse uses seng (monk) over 40 times; Gǔ has a line “shī wú seng zì gé hái bēi” (verse without monk-character is even of low form) — this with Zhāng Duānyì’s Guìěr jí “verse with mei-hua two characters has clear feeling” — both are “sú zhōng zhī yǎ” (vulgar within the elegant), cannot serve as praise. But other works often have sīzhì (subtle thought) within the fēngdiào — sifting the shallow, picking the choice — Gǔ is indeed a jùbò (giant arm) of the late Táng.
Abstract
Zhèng Gǔ is a major late-Táng voice — second-tier in technical mastery but first-tier in contemporary fame and influence. His 300-poem corpus survives in this single collection, Yúntái biān, the title preserving the specific 894 Huázhōu setting of its compilation (during the Zhāozōng refugee court at Sānfēng). The lost Yíyáng jí would have contained another phase of his work. Zhèng is a key transitional figure between WǎnTáng and Wǔdài, contemporaneous with the political collapse of the Táng dynasty, his verse registering the cultural anxieties of the period (the seng — Buddhist monk — references that Fāng Huí counted are partly an index of the spreading withdrawal of literati into Buddhist or Daoist refuge). Catalog gives ca. 896; CBDB id 93832 gives birth as 851.
Translations and research
- 严寿澂 Yán Shòu-chéng. 1991. Zhèng Gǔ shī jí biān-nián jiào-zhù 鄭谷詩集編年校注. Huá-dōng shī-fàn dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè. The standard modern critical edition.
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The Zhègū poem — generating Zhèng’s nickname Zhèng zhègū — illustrates the late-Táng phenomenon of the single-poem celebrity: Zhèng was famous in his time precisely for one piece, with the rest of his collection serving as background to that signature work. The 40+ instances of the character seng (monk) noted by Fāng Huí is a small but vivid index of late-Táng literary-Buddhist saturation.