Jiǎyǐ jí 甲乙集
The Jiǎ-Yǐ (First-Second) Collection by 羅隱 (撰)
About the work
The Sìbù cóngkān SBCK ten-juǎn poetry collection of Luó Yǐn 羅隱 (833–909/910) — the foundational text-witness for Luó Yǐn as a poet (as distinct from his prose works Chánshū, Liǎngtóngshū, Huáihǎi yùyán, etc.). The title Jiǎyǐ — literally “First (jiǎ) and Second (yǐ)” — is the original organizational scheme of Luó’s lifetime poetic compilation: the “jiǎ” portion is the Cháng-shā-period work (his Húnán mùfǔ years), the “yǐ” portion the later Wú-Yuè-period work. The SBCK version preserves the Máo Jìn 毛晉 (1599–1659) Jígǔgé recension — the principal Míng-period transmission. Approximately 500 poems are preserved across the ten juǎn: pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic lǜshī, juéjù, and gǔfēng; the dominant mode is the seven-character lǜ with sharply political-satirical content directed at late-Táng governance.
The yù (the “table of contents” and bǔyí — supplementary materials) at the end of the SBCK volume preserves a list of poems organized by juǎn, indicating the poems’ addressees (Yáo Hé 姚合, Pí Rìxiū 皮日休, Sīkōng Tú 司空圖, Lú Guīméng 陸龜蒙, Fāng Gān 方干 方干, Sēng Guànxiū 釋貫休, Qián Liú 錢鏐 [as Qián shàngfù], etc.) — confirming that the Jiǎyǐ jí documents the central social-poetic network of late-Táng / WúYuè verse.
Prefaces
The base SBCK text opens directly with the Mùlù (table of contents); no separate Sòng or Míng preface is reproduced before the poems. The Bǔ (supplement) at the very end preserves the Jígǔgé editorial colophon material from Máo Jìn.
Abstract
The Jiǎyǐ jí is the principal poetic monument of late-Táng political-satirical verse. Where Bái Jūyì’s xīn yuèfǔ and Yuán Zhěn’s Liú gōng poems represent mid-Táng moral-didactic poetry, Luó Yǐn’s Jiǎyǐ represents its late-Táng heir: the poet displaced from court, writing from the mùfǔ periphery, whose loyalty is expressed precisely in the form of bitter critique. The poem Xúkòu nánbī gǎnshì xiàn Jiāngnán zhījǐ — composed during the Huáng Cháo rebellion (878–884) — is the canonical witness to late-Táng poetic loyalism; the four Jià xìng Shǔ (Imperial-Carriage’s Departure for Shǔ) pieces document Xīzōng’s flight to Shǔ in 881. The Mǎwéipō (poem on the Mǎwéi post-station, where Yáng Guìfēi was executed) reuses the post-An-Lushan poetic-historical site to comment on the late-Táng crisis.
The textual history of the Jiǎyǐ jí is itself a major piece of evidence for the literary history of the TángSòng transition. Lifetime: 20 juǎn (per Zhèng Qiáo Tōngzhì); by Sòng Shūlù jiětí of Chén Zhènsūn, only 10 juǎn survived; the Máo Jìn 1640s cutting (basis of the SBCK reprint) is the principal MíngQīng access. The companion text KR4c0106 Luó Zhāojiàn jí — the WYG eight-juǎn — is a Qīng-period reassembly of poetry plus prose, drawing from the Máo Jìn cutting plus the Jiāngdōng jí manuscript. The two together represent the surviving Luó Yǐn corpus.
CBDB id 33649: 833–910. Catalog meta gives no dates, but the SBCK title and the standard biographical sources confirm.
Translations and research
- 雍文華 Yōng Wén-huá. 1983. Luó Yǐn jí 羅隱集. Beijing: Zhōng-huá shū-jú. — Standard combined critical edition.
- 潘慧惠 Pān Huì-huì. Luó Yǐn jí jiào-zhù 羅隱集校注. Hangzhou: Zhè-jiāng gǔ-jí, 1995.
- Lǐ Dìng-guǎng 李定廣. 2008. Luó Yǐn nián-pǔ jiàn-zhèng.
- No substantial Western-language translation of the full corpus, though many individual poems appear in Stephen Owen, ed., An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (Norton, 1996) and similar collections.
Other points of interest
Luó’s most famous single poem from the Jiǎyǐ jí is the seven-character juéjù Zì qiǎn 自遣 (Solacing Myself):
得即高歌失即休，多愁多恨亦悠悠。今朝有酒今朝醉，明日愁來明日憂。
— “When I succeed I sing aloud; when I fail I rest. / Much sorrow, much regret — yet still endlessly so. / Today there is wine: today drink to drunkenness. / Tomorrow’s sorrow, tomorrow’s worry — leave it for tomorrow.”
This poem became proverbial in later Chinese culture as a model of the fēngliú (cultivated dissipation) attitude toward unsuccess.