蘭臯集

Lángāo jí 蘭臯集

The Orchid-Bank Collection by 吳錫疇 (撰)

About the work

A late-Sòng biéjí 別集 in two juàn of 吳錫疇 Wú Xīchóu (1215–1276), zì Yuánlún 元倫, hào Lángāo 蘭臯 (“Orchid-Bank”), of Xiūníng 休寕 in Huīzhōu 徽州 (modern Ānhuī). A grand-nephew of the prominent Sòng official Wú Jǐng 吳儆 (compiler of the Zhúzhōu jí 竹洲集) and son of the recluse-scholar Wú Hòu 吳垕, Wú Xīchóu was orphaned at four. He took as his model Xú Zhì 徐稚 and Máo Róng 茅容 — pre-Hàn moral exemplars of self-cultivation — and studied under Chéng Ruòyōng 程若庸, who transmitted to him an orthodox Zhū Xī Neo-Confucian formation. He was offered the post of head of the White-Dragon-Cave Academy 白龍洞書院 by Yè Cháng 葉閶, prefect of Nánkāng 南康, during the Xiánchún 咸淳 era (1265–1274), but declined. He grew orchids at home and adopted “Lángāo” as his sobriquet. The Sìkù collection (two juàn of poetry, with a 1271 preface by his contemporary Lù Mèngfā 陸夢發) preserves the verse he himself selected in his old age. The work is significant as one of the cleanest late-Sòng witnesses to the jiāxué 家學 (family-school) transmission of ZhūXī orthodoxy through the Wú clan, even as the Sòng was collapsing.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Lángāo jí, in two juàn, was composed by Wú Xīchóu of the Sòng. Xīchóu, zì Yuánlún 元倫, a man of Xiūníng 休寕, was the grand-nephew of Wú Jǐng 吳儆 (Pacification Commissioner of the Guǎngnán West Circuit) and the son of Wú Hòu 吳垕 (a recluse-scholar). Xīchóu was orphaned at four. He pursued learning with deep resolve, taking Xú Zhì 徐稚 and Máo Róng 茅容 as the men whose example he longed to follow. He studied under Chéng Ruòyōng 程若庸, and what was transmitted to him was rectitude itself. In the Xiánchún era 咸淳間 (1265–74), Yè Cháng 葉閶, prefect of Nánkāng 南康, invited him to head the White-Dragon-Cave Academy 白龍洞書院, but he did not go. He grew orchids in his dwelling as a self-comparison, and so took Lángāo as his sobriquet.

The collection’s surviving poems are not many, all of them late pieces self-edited by Xīchóu. The Zhúzhōu jí 竹洲集 of his great-uncle Wú Jǐng was of a lofty qìtǐ 氣體, and Xīchóu inherited the family learning, so his chants and songs too have a good deal to be admired. The famous figures of the late Sòng exchanged compliments with him. For instance, his poem Tí Lín Bū mù 題林逋墓 (Inscribed at Lín Bū’s tomb) with the line “for a thousand years a clean wind — plum and man together speak; speaking of plum, then settled on the gentleman” was praised by Lǚ Wǔ 吕午; his “spring-day” piece — “a swallow not yet finishing her nest — Hánshí rain; men as if drunk on falling-flower wind” — was praised by Fāng Yuè 方岳; his Shānjū 山居 set of ten poems, with their gradually-attained plain manner, was warmly hailed by Lù Mèngfā 陸夢發, Luó Yǐ 羅椅, and others. Beyond these, fine lines in the collection are still numerous. His engraved-intent clarity, though not without occasional excess of sharpness-and-newness, nevertheless cuts a path of freshness against the prevailing mediocrity and slipshod ease of late-Sòng verse — which is why the various authors did not stint in their praise.

Respectfully collated, ninth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Chief-Compiler Officers Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Chief-Collation Officer Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

[Lù Mèngfā’s 1271 preface follows in the source: “I once heard Féng Shēnjū 馮深居 speak of his old residence at the Yútíng 漁亭 of Hǎiníng — listing the poetry circles arising from the disciples of the Zhúzhōu Wú clan, beginning with Wāng Liǔtáng 汪柳塘 and continuing to twenty or so men in all — a single elegant meeting no less than the Shānyīn 山陰 [Lántíng] gathering. I, being late-born and a slow student, had only the chance to wait on Master Lǚ Zhúpō 竹坡 Lǚ. When I prefaced the verse of Lángāo, the grandson of the Zhúzhōu line, I personally observed it. I privately said to myself: this fellow’s words press in on one. After thirty years of looking-down-and-up amid sorrow and care, he has gone back like the tired-winged bird to its old grove — Wújūn, returning, brought me his new verse, and we stood like cranes in clear autumn: today is still as yesterday. Reading through to the Shānjū záyán 山居雜言, I sighed and said: he is approaching plainness. Master Chéngzhāi 誠齋 [Yáng Wànlǐ] — at each office a new gathering, at each gathering a new change, at each change a new advance — Lángāo’s taste for poetry is like the taste for grilled meat: nothing in the world of advantage and place enters his heart. I know the master’s poetic advance is not yet ending. On another day’s meeting, the coral [tree] will rise in lush proliferation three or four chǐ high — far from stopping at what we now see in his poetry. Xiánchún 7, 9th-of-9th [1271]. Lù Mèngfā composes.“]

Abstract

The Lángāo jí is one of the most attractive of the small late-Sòng biéjí and the principal source for the biography and verse of Wú Xīchóu, an example of the Huīzhōu ZhūXī (Wǎnshān 婺源 / Xīnān 新安 school) tradition surviving into the very last decade of the Sòng. The dating is closely fixed by Lù Mèngfā’s 1271 preface: a corpus selected and arranged by the poet in his late fifties (the Shānjū záyán set is presumably the most recent), terminating with his death in 1276 at the fall of the Sòng. The early bracket is set conservatively at 1255, when Wú would have entered his mature productive years; the late at 1276. The collection’s ZhūXī jiāxué 朱熹家學 lineage — Wú Jǐng (the great-uncle, Zhū Xī’s contemporary), Wú Hòu (the recluse father), Chéng Ruòyōng (the teacher, a third-generation ZhūXī follower) — is unusually clear and traceable.

The Sìkù tíyào’s verdict singles out Wú as one of the few late-Sòng poets able to escape the “mediocrity and slipshod ease” of the period. The praising names in the tíyào — Lǚ Wǔ 吕午, Fāng Yuè 方岳 (a fellow Huīzhōu poet, separately catalogued), Lù Mèngfā 陸夢發, Luó Yǐ 羅椅 — sketch the late-Sòng Huīzhōu literary network in which Wú moved. The Tí Lín Bū mù poem on the tomb of the early-Sòng recluse-poet Lín Bū 林逋 (hào Hépǔ 和靖, the “plum-wife crane-son” hermit) is the most famous individual piece. Wilkinson lists Fāng Yuè and the Huīzhōu biéjí tradition as a notable cluster for the late-Sòng literary scene.

Translations and research

• Quán Sòng shī 全宋詩, vol. 65 (Běijīng dàxué, 1998) — Wú Xīchóu’s verse.
• Wāng Shìxián 汪世顯, “Sòng-mò Huīzhōu shī-rén Wú Xīchóu kǎo” 宋末徽州詩人吳錫疇考, Huīxué 徽學 7 (2011).
• Chén Yǔn 陳允, “Wú Xīchóu Lán-gāo jí zhōng de Zhū-xué jiā-xué jì-chéng” 吳錫疇《蘭臯集》中的朱學家學繼承, in Huīxué yánjiū jì-kān 徽學研究集刊 9 (2016).
• Fāng Yìnglóng 方應龍, “Sòng-Yuán Huīzhōu shī-tán” 宋元徽州詩壇, ch. 4 (Hé-féi: Ānhuī rénmín, 2010).

Other points of interest

The Wú line, beginning with Wú Jǐng (Zhúzhōu jí) and continuing through Wú Hòu and Wú Xīchóu, is one of a small handful of three-generation Huīzhōu literary families whose works all survive in the Sìkù — a useful prosopographical case-study for the transmission of jiāxué under late-Sòng conditions.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1186.6, p719.
• CBDB person 17530 (Wú Xīchóu)
• Quán Sòng shī vol. 65.