秋堂集

Qiūtáng jí 秋堂集

The Autumn-Hall Collection by 柴望 (撰)

About the work

The surviving biéjí in two juàn of Chái Wàng 柴望 (1212–1280), Sòng-loyalist poet of Jiāngshān 江山 and author of the notorious memorial-treatise Bǐngdīng guījiàn 丙丁龜鑑. The collection as preserved in the WYG Sìkù is a recompilation by later hands from the wreckage of three larger poetry-collections (Dàozhōu Táiyī jí 道州台衣集, Yǒngshǐ shī 詠史詩, Xīliáng gǔchuī 西涼鼓吹) that had perished by the Qiānlóng era. The poetic interest of the collection — and of Chái Wàng as a figure — lies in the shǔlí màixiù 黍離麥秀 quality of post-conquest grief, comparable to Xiè Áo 謝翺 and the other late-Sòng loyalist poets.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Qiūtáng jí, in two juàn, was composed by Chái Wàng of the Sòng. Wàng’s Bǐngdīng guījiàn 丙丁龜鑑 is already catalogued [in the zǐbù]. His verse comprised the Dàozhōu Táiyī jí 道州台衣集, Yǒngshǐ shī 詠史詩, and Xīliáng gǔchuī 西涼鼓吹 — all of which are lost and do not survive. The present text is a miscellany scraped together by later hands. At the end of the poems there is still preserved the Preface to the Dàozhōu Táiyī jí; the eleven juéjù from “Dreaming of Fù Yuè” 夢傅説 onward we suspect to be pieces from within the Yǒngshǐ shī.

Wàng, in the bǐngwǔ of the Chúnyòu reign (淳祐丙午, 1246), submitted the Bǐngdīng guījiàn and gained his name. But the proper duty of a yīngzhào (responsive-to-imperial-call) memorial is to point out the realities of human affairs and discuss the merits and faults of court government; instead, Wàng drew in chènwěi 讖緯 prognostication and gānzhī yearly cycles to deduce calamity and fortune, with strained associations, far-fetched, prolix, and disconnected. His heart indeed came from sincere loyalty, but his words verged on the demonic and the wild. On his release from prison and return home, the shìdàfū even went out beyond the Yǒngjīn 湧金 gate to see him off, composing poems of gǎnkǎi (impassioned indignation) — moving everyone for a time. Wáng Yīnglín 王應麟 in Kùnxué jìwén 困學紀聞 still records the words of Chái’s memorial as a jiāhuà 佳話 (fine episode). The frothy display of late-Sòng shìqì (literati-spirit) reached its extreme here. We have separately preserved the title and entered a correction beneath the corresponding entry.

As for the man himself, after the fall of the Sòng he hid his tracks in the deep mountains; in Zhìyuán 17 (1280) he died. His unfettered high-minded conduct followed in the steps of Tao Qián’s “East Hedge” (Dōnglí 東籬). His verse, though close in mold to the Late Táng and not in itself lofty or commanding, on the “millet-falling and wheat-tasselling” theme of dynastic mourning lodges its pain very deep; its mournful tones are particularly desolate and stirring. It may stand alongside the works of Xiè Áo 謝翺 (the Sìkù text has the variant Xiè Xiáng 謝翔, a typographical slip for 翺) and others, and pass to later ages undecayed. That is why these broken pieces and fragmentary chapters can still circulate today.

Respectfully collated, seventh 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.

Abstract

Chái Wàng (1212–1280), zì Zhòng Shān 仲山, hào Qiūtáng 秋堂, was a Sòng jìnshì of Jiāngshān 江山 (Qúzhōu 衢州), one of the so-called “Four Recluses of the Chái Clan” (Cháishì sìyǐn 柴氏四隱) along with his brothers Chái Suì 柴隨, Chái Yuánhéng 柴元亨 (Sòng records vary on the brothers’ names) and one other. His celebrity in his own time was earned by the 1246 Bǐngdīng guījiàn memorial, which used the bǐngdīng coordinates of the gānzhī cycle to predict dynastic calamity for the Sòng house; the memorial brought him a brief imprisonment, and on his release he received a hero’s farewell from the shìdàfū at Hángzhōu’s Yǒngjīn Gate. After the Sòng fell in 1276 he withdrew into deep retirement and died in 1280 (Yuán Zhìyuán 17) at the age of 68 — securely the latest possible compilation date for the collection. CBDB 43215 gives 1212–1280, consistent with the Sìkù tiyao. The collection is best read as a fragmentary witness to a once-much-larger output and as a major prosopographic anchor for late-Sòng loyalist verse; the eleven yǒngshǐ (history-chanting) quatrains preserved at the end of the biéjí are the chief surviving evidence of the lost Yǒngshǐ shī collection. The Sìkù editors’ acerbic verdict on the Bǐngdīng guījiàn (sincere in motive, fantastical in argument) is itself an interesting Qīng-era response to late-Sòng chènwěi exegesis.

Translations and research

• Hé Zhōngdá 何忠達, “Chái Wàng Bǐng-dīng guī-jiàn yǔ Sòng-mò chèn-wěi sī-cháo” 柴望《丙丁龜鑑》與宋末讖緯思潮, Shǐ-xué yuè-kān 史學月刊 (2007, no. 6), pp. 56–63.
• Wú Yīhán 吳一寒, “Chái-shì sì-yǐn yǔ Sòng-mò Qúzhōu wén-rén shī-wén yán-jiū” 柴氏四隱與宋末衢州文人詩文研究, MA thesis, Zhèjiāng shī-fàn dà-xué, 2013.
• Zhōu Mì-zhuàn 周泌篆, “Chái Wàng Qiūtáng jí xié-jiào” 柴望《秋堂集》校證, Tú-shū-guǎn lùn-tán 圖書館論壇 (2017, no. 3).
• Surviving poems are collected in Quán Sòng shī 全宋詩, vol. 59 (Běijīng dà-xué).

Other points of interest

The Sìkù tiyao’s reference to “Xiè Xiáng 謝翔” is a typographical slip in the WYG text for Xiè Áo 謝翺 (1249–1295), the famous Sòng-loyalist elegist of Wén Tiānxiáng; the parallel between Chái Wàng’s and Xiè Áo’s mourning verse is one of the standard pairings in late-Sòng literary historiography. (Typographical slip preserved here per project convention.)

Links

• WYG SKQS V1187.6, p475.
• CBDB person 43215 (Chái Wàng)
• Wikidata, Chai Wang