蕭氷厓詩集拾遺

Xiāo Bīngyá shī jí shíyí 蕭氷厓詩集拾遺

Recovered Poems from the Collection of Xiāo Bīngyá by 蕭立之 (撰)

About the work

A late-Sòng biéjí 別集 of three juàn preserving the recovered poems of Xiāo Lìzhī 蕭立之 (b. 1203, fl. Bǎoyòu 1259, alive into the early Yuán), better known by his sobriquet Bīngyá 冰厓 (“Ice-Cliff”). The work survives only because the Míng Chénghuà 8 (1472) editor — Xiāo Yífèng 蕭儀鳳, a descendant — gathered the yí 遺 (“leftover”) texts from a Sòng edition burned in war and recommissioned the woodblocks, securing a preface from the zhuàngyuán and Hànlín compiler Luó Lún 羅倫 (1431–1478). The catalog meta records the author’s name as the apparently truncated “蕭立 (等撰)”; this reflects the title page of the Sìbù cóngkān 四部叢刊 photo-reproduction of the Míng edition (where “等” 等 is a misread or marginal note appended to the surname), and the standard scholarly identification with Xiāo Lìzhī of Níngdū 寧都, Jiāngxī, is followed here. The collection is the principal source for Xiāo’s poetry, his contacts with Jiāngxī-school poets, and the political tone of late-Sòng loyalist verse in southern Jiāngxī after 1276.

Prefaces

This work is in the Sìbù cóngkān 四部叢刊 (not WYG) and carries no Sìkù tíyào — in its place is the original Míng Chénghuà preface by Luó Lún translated below.

Preface to the Poetry Collection of Master Xiāo Bīngyá (羅倫, 1472)

Poetry is not made for the sake of being transmitted to the world. Rooted in the nature and the affections, brought to rest within ritual and right, it cannot help but be transmitted. Take the three-hundred-and-five pieces [of the Shījīng 詩經]: this was the flowering of the Zhōu, and the Guófēng 國風 poems come for the most part from the mouths of the field-labourer and the inner-chamber wife — yet the depth of their words and meaning, the rectitude of their tones and metre, were such that they could be set to strings and song and serve as model for the realm. How can this have been by learning? It was rather that the teaching of the former kings in benevolence, right, ritual and music passed from the family chambers into the realm of the state, from the court down into the lanes and alleys, gradually impregnating the heart and intent, taking form in the four limbs, harmonising the voice, issuing forth in writing — until the people themselves did not know how it had flourished so.

The royal traces extinguished, the way of the Fēng and Yǎ perished. Mighty talents and great-built scholars hammered at phrasing and chiselled at the character; their thought is not unrefined, their effort is not unstrenuous — yet in the end it is no different from optical flowers dazzling the eye, or a fine sound that has overshot the ear. Could it be a matter of talent at remove? It is that the teaching by which they were transformed had no root.

Yet the cycle of the Great Ultimate (Tàijí 太極) does not cease, and so the Heaven within the human heart does not perish. For this reason heroes from time to time spring up amid such ages, and they are not unworthy of the ancients. The grieving fury of Língjūn 靈均 (Qū Yuán 屈原), the loyal indignation of [Dù Fǔ of] Dùlíng 杜陵, the bracing limpidity of Táo of Péngzé 陶彭澤 (Táo Yuānmíng 陶淵明) — all are rooted in the truth of the nature and affections; they come close to the rectitude of ritual and right; they bear on the great norms of human ethics and natural things. To compare them to the Fēng and Yǎ — who can say what the comparison amounts to? How then could one assess them on the standard of “later-age poetry”?

The Sòng possessed the realm for over three hundred years. The cultivation of its governance and teaching far exceeded Hàn and Táng. The beauty of its way-learning (dàoxué 道學) directly inherited Kǒng and Mèng. After the southward crossing the territory grew narrower by the day, the literary spirit grew baser by the day — and yet scholars of virtue and loyalty came on one after another in the southeast. Of those who made their name through poetry and song, the strictness of their format and metric did not reach the Táng, but their compass-and-set-square never overstepped the great barrier of ritual and right; they cannot be spoken of in the same breath as those who merely lingered over scenery.

Of such, Master Xiāo Bīngyá is one. His given name was Lì[zhī] (the SBCK reading “立等” appears to be corrupt: read 立之), of Xiāotián, Níngdū 寧都. He passed the jìnshì examination and held office up to tōngshǒu 通守 (assistant prefect). When he met the troubles of the age, before he could rise [in office], he gave himself over to poetry. When the mood was upon him, his style had the strength of mountains and horses, the soaring of cloud-cranes, the seductiveness of peach and plum in a spring garden, the toughness of pine and bamboo on a winter ridge. As against the three masters [Qū Yuán, Dù Fǔ, Táo Qián] above, how is one to compare him? He too is among the high products of the post-Nándù 南渡 age.

His poetry was of the Jiāngxī school: he was attached to Jiànquánlǎo 澗泉老 (Zhào Fán 趙蕃) and Zhāngquán 章泉 (Hán Bū 韓淲), and he was admired by Jiàngǔ 澗谷 Luógōng 羅公 (Luó Yánjiē 羅願?). To have been so known by Jiàngǔ is enough to know his poetry. In the same age, his confidant in virtue was Cǎolú Wúgōng 草廬呉公 (Wú Chéng 吳澄); his confidant in loyalty was Diéshān Xiègōng 疊山謝公 (Xiè Fāngdé 謝枋得) — and through these connections we may know his character. His son Xiāo Shìyún 蕭士贇 annotated the Lǐ Tàibái 李太白 poetry-collection, current in our age.

The old blocks of the Master’s collection were burnt in war. His descendant Yífèng 儀鳳 wished to perpetuate the prior worth of his line and to renew the printing in mulberry-wood. He requested a preface from me. I had long deplored the way the examination-curriculum, the craft of cífù 詞賦, was hurting the learning of the realm — I wished to change it but could not. I have therefore written this preface to transmit the Master, taking pleasure in the fact that he approached the root and did not engage in useless empty words.

The fifteenth day of the eighth month, autumn, rénchén of Chénghuà 成化 (= 1472), respectfully presented.

By Luó Lún 羅倫 of West-Lake Jí 吉, jìnshì-and-laureate, Hànlín Editor (修撰).

Abstract

The Xiāo Bīngyá shī jí shíyí presents Xiāo Lìzhī 蕭立之 (CBDB 35544; b. 1203, jìnshì of Chúnyòu 19 / Bǎoyòu 7 = 1259 per the Jiāngxī tōngzhì; alive at the fall of the Sòng in 1276 and remembered as a Yuán-era yímín 遺民 recluse) as a Jiāngxī-school late-Sòng poet of southern Jiāngxī (Níngdū, near Gānzhōu 贛州). The collection is “recovered” (shíyí 拾遺) in two distinct senses: the original Sòng printing was destroyed by warfare around the Yuán conquest, and the Míng descendant Xiāo Yífèng 蕭儀鳳 in 1472 reassembled whatever could be salvaged. Luó Lún’s preface — written from the jìnshì-laureate’s perspective just before his own death in 1478 — situates the work in a yímín-loyalist framework: Xiāo is one of the southeastern scholars whose verse, though not formally equal to high Táng, kept faith with the ethical core of the Sòng curriculum, and his social network (Wú Chéng 吳澄, Xiè Fāngdé 謝枋得, Luó Yuàn 羅願, Hán Bū 韓淲, Zhào Fán 趙蕃) places him squarely within the Yuán-resistance scholarly circle in Jiāngxī. The dating of the actual composition is therefore Sòng-late-to-early-Yuán; the received recension is the Míng Chénghuà (1472) edition, photo-reproduced in Sìbù cóngkān xùbiān 四部叢刊續編.

The catalog meta gives the author’s name as “蕭立” with function 等撰 — likely a misreading of either “蕭立之 撰” or “蕭立[之] 等撰” — and the Sòng Lìzhī alone is the only person attested in the source. The catalog appellation is preserved in the wikilink for fidelity, but the canonical identification follows the CBDB 35544 entry and the consensus of Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù (KR4d branch) and Quán Sòng shī 全宋詩 for 蕭立之 / Bīngyá 冰厓 (the SBCK title uses the variant graph 氷 for 冰).

Three juàn arranged by form: juàn shàng (seven-character ancient style, five-character ancient style), juàn zhōng (five-character regulated verse, seven-character quatrains), juàn xià (seven-character regulated verse). The seven-character ancient style segment is the largest and most distinctively Jiāngxī-influenced, often constructed through poem-exchange cycles (送錦雞, 紅椒, 鍾乳粉 etc. — formal cí-of-verse for routine social gifts). The seven-character quatrains include short yǒngwù 詠物 series on insects, riddles, and rare objects that read as exercises in the Jiāng-hú-school 江湖派 manner.

A noted citation: “讀文山詩” 讀文山詩 (Reading Wén Tiānxiáng’s 文天祥 poetry) — a seven-character regulated piece in juàn xià — is among the most discussed of Xiāo’s poems, frequently anthologised as evidence of his yímín-loyalist orientation.

Translations and research

• Quán Sòng shī 全宋詩, vol. 65 (Běijīng dàxué, 1998) collects Xiāo Lìzhī’s verse; the Bīngyá shī jí base text is the SBCK Míng-Chénghuà printing reproduced here.
• Lì Liǎo 李寮, “Xiāo Lìzhī yǔ Sòng-mò Jiāngxī shī-tán” 蕭立之與宋末江西詩壇, in Jiāngxī shīpài yánjiū 江西詩派研究 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2007).
• Sòng-shī jì-shì 宋詩紀事 (Lì È 厲鶚 ed.) and its bǔyí 補遺 cite Xiāo Lìzhī under 冰厓 with biographical fragments.
• Sòng-rén zhuàn-jì zī-liào suǒ-yǐn 宋人傳記資料索引 (Wáng Déyì 王德毅 et al., Taipei, 1974–86), s.v. 蕭立之.
• The Lǐ Tàibái shī jí fēnlèi bǔ-zhù 李太白詩集分類補注 by Xiāo’s son Xiāo Shìyún 蕭士贇 is the principal scholarly residue of the family line and is preserved in Sì-kù quán-shū (KR4h class).

Other points of interest

The Yùyán 御選 SòngJīnYuánMíng sìcháo shī (Imperially-selected Poems of Four Dynasties), commissioned under Kāngxī, includes Xiāo’s verse and treats him as a major Sòng yímín poet. The textual oddity of the SBCK title-page reading “蕭立” — without 之 — has caused intermittent confusion in Sì-kù-derived catalogues; the Quán Sòng shī and Sòngrén zhuànjì zīliào suǒyǐn settle the identification.

Links

• SBCK xùbiān, books 0444–0445.
• CBDB person 35544 (蕭立之)
• Quán Sòng shī vol. 65.