霽山文集

Jìshān wénjí 霽山文集

The Jìshān Collection by 林景熙 (撰), 章祖程 (注)

About the work

The collected works of Lín Jǐngxī 林景熙 (1242–1310), zì Déyáng 德陽, hào Jìshān 霽山 — late-Sòng Vice-Minister-rank official, Sòng-loyalist refuser, and one of the principal mourning-poets of the yímín generation, conventionally grouped with Xiè Áo 謝翺, Wāng Yuánliàng 汪元量 and Liú Chénwēng 劉辰翁 as the chief late-Sòng / early-Yuán elegists of the lost dynasty. The original Yuán-era corpus was the Báishí gǎo 白石藁 (Báishí Manuscripts) in ten juàn of prose plus the Báishí qiáochàng 白石樵唱 (Báishí Woodman’s Song) in six juàn of poetry. Most of the prose had been lost by the Míng; the present five-juàn recension was assembled by Lǚ Hóng 吕洪 in Tiānshùn 7 (1463) from what could be recovered (three juàn of poetry + two juàn of prose) and was printed in the Kāngxī period by Shěn Shìzūn 沈士尊 and Wāng Shìhóng 汪士鋐. The poetry is accompanied by the annotations of Zhāng Zǔchéng 章祖程 (also written 和父), composed under the Yuán in 1334 — one of the earliest substantial commentaries on a late-Sòng biéjí. Lín’s poetry is famous above all for the cycle commemorating the secret reburial of the violated Sòng imperial tombs at Shàoxīng 紹興 (the Mùlíng 穆陵 / Yǒngmù etc. tombs sacked by the Yuán monk Yáng Liǎnzhēnjiā 楊璉真伽).

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Jìshān wénjí, in five juàn, was composed by Lín Jǐngxī of the Sòng. Jǐngxī’s zì was Déyáng 德陽, hào Jìshān 霽山. He was a man of Píngyáng 平陽 in Wēnzhōu 溫州. In Xiánchún xīnwèi 咸淳辛未 (1271) he was admitted from the Tàixué [Imperial University] in the shìhè 釋褐 ceremony and appointed to a teaching-post in Quánzhōu 泉州. He passed through the lǐbù jiàgé 禮部架閣 office and was transferred to Cóngzhèngláng 從政郎. When the Sòng fell, he refused service. With Wáng Xiūzhú 王修竹, Zhèng Pǔwēng 鄭樸翁, Hú Jígǔ 胡汲古 and that circle, he formed the “Year-end Compact” (尋歲晏之盟), traveling about Wú and Yuè (Jiāngsū and Zhèjiāng).

What he wrote was the Báishí gǎo 白石藁 — miscellaneous prose, in ten juàn — and the Báishí qiáochàng 白石樵唱 — poetry, in six juàn. In the Tiānshùn 天順 era of the Míng (1457–1464), Lǚ Hóng 吕洪 succeeded in obtaining the Báishí qiáochàng text, and from the Yuányīn 元音 anthology obtained the single poem “On reading the collection of [Wén] Wénshān” 讀文山集. But the Báishí gǎo by then had losses — only jì (records), xù (prefaces), fù (rhapsodies), míng (inscriptions), and so on — a small number of pieces could be obtained, and these were divided into three juàn of poetry and two juàn of prose. Today the Báishí qiáochàng circulates separately in the world in a single-volume edition, while the prose is not generally seen; this [present text] was woodblock-printed in the Kāngxī period by Shěn Shìzūn 沈士尊 and Wāng Shìhóng 汪士鋐 — in fact the recension fixed by Lǚ Hóng.

In Jǐngxī’s later years his vigorous spirit was bent and broken, and he set his mind on rectifying the fēngjié 風節 (moral integrity). His poetry and prose all bring forth the xìngqíng (nature-feelings) but base themselves consistently on zhōngxiào (loyalty and filial piety). On the whole the work is not merely yínxiào fēngyuè (the chanted breath of wind and moon) and nothing more.

Respectfully collated, eleventh month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). 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.

(The WYG front-matter also preserves the major paratexts: (1) Lǚ Hóng’s original 1463 preface (Tiānshùn 7), giving the famous account of the secret reburial of the violated Sòng imperial tombs — Lín and Zhèng Pǔwēng pretending to gather medicinal herbs, picked up the bones into grass-sacks, sealed them into two boxes labeled “Buddhist sūtras”, and re-interred them in the Yuèshān 越山, planting an evergreen 冬青 over the spot — and recounting the editorial recovery. (2) Fāng Féngchén’s 方逢辰 preface to the Báishí qiáochàng — Fāng was the Sòng zhuàngyuán of 1250 — praising Lín’s poetry as the heir of the “liùyì” tradition. (3) Zhāng Zǔchéng’s own tící and dated note: Yuántǒng jiǎxū 元統甲戌 (1334), explaining his annotation work — that Lín’s verse is rooted in Táo Qián and Dù Fǔ, the two great poets of dynastic remorse. (4) Zhèng Xī’s 鄭僖 colophon, dated Zhìyuán yǐhài 至元乙亥 (1335), praising Zhāng’s annotation.)

Abstract

Lín Jǐngxī (1242–1310) is the most prominent loyalist poet of the late-Sòng Wēnzhōu region and is sometimes ranked alongside Wén Tiānxiáng 文天祥 and Xiè Áo 謝翺 in the foundational yímín canon. He passed the shìhè in 1271 from the Imperial University and held a Quánzhōu teaching post before transitioning to the Bureau of Rites’ archival office. After 1276 he refused all Yuán recruitment and spent the next thirty years between his native Píngyáng and the Hángzhōu / Shàoxīng region, in the company of Wáng Xiūzhú, Zhèng Pǔwēng, Hú Jígǔ, and Wāng Yuánliàng. The single most famous episode of his career was the secret recovery of the bones of the violated Sòng imperial dead from the desecrated Yǒngmùzhūlíng 永穆諸陵 in 1278 (the desecration was perpetrated by the Tibetan-Buddhist guóshī Yáng Liǎnzhēnjiā 楊璉真伽 under Kublai’s authorization); Lín and Zhèng disguised themselves as herb-gatherers, picked up the imperial bones, sealed them as supposed Buddhist sūtras, and re-buried them in the hills, planting an evergreen marker. The cycle of poems “Mournful Songs” 冬青行 (Dōngqīng xíng) commemorates this episode and is the most famous single document of late-Sòng loyalist verse.

CBDB 25055 records 1242–1310, in agreement with the catalog meta and the Lǚ Hóng preface (which gives Chúnyòu rényín 淳祐壬寅 = 1242 for his birth and Gēngxū 庚戌 = 1310 for his death at age 69). The composition window for the surviving prose and poetry is overwhelmingly post-1276 (the Sòng-loyalist phase); a small number of pre-1276 pieces survive. The Báishí qiáochàng poetry collection’s separate Míng recension (with Zhāng Zǔchéng’s commentary) circulated as an annotated xuǎnběn and overlapped substantially with the present collection.

Zhāng Zǔchéng’s 1334 commentary on Lín’s poetry is itself a significant document — one of the earliest sustained Yuán annotations of late-Sòng verse, and a counterpart to the Yuán-era annotations on Wén Tiānxiáng. Zhāng was a younger Yuán-period student from Kūnyáng 崐陽 (also in Wēnzhōu) who undertook the annotation as a labor of admiration; his Héfǔ 和父 zì is given on the colophon. No defensible CBDB identification can be made; the figure is known only from this commentary and a few Yuán correspondences. The Sìkù editors retain Zhāng’s notes in the WYG text. Wilkinson has no specific entry on Lín Jǐngxī.

Translations and research

• Jennifer W. Jay, A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1991), chapter on Lín Jǐngxī and the Dōng-qīng affair — the principal English-language treatment.
• Jennifer W. Jay, “Memoirs and Official Accounts: The Historiography of the Song Loyalists,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 50.2 (1990), pp. 589–612 — includes substantial discussion of Lín.
• Chén Zēng-jié 陳增傑 (ed.), Lín Jǐngxī jí jiào-zhù 林景熙集校注 (Hángzhōu: Zhèjiāng gǔjí chū-bǎn-shè, 1995; revised 2012) — the standard modern critical edition, integrating Zhāng Zǔchéng’s Yuán-era commentary, the Míng Lǚ Hóng recension, and the Qīng Shěn / Wāng printing.
• Yú Bì-xīn 余必信, Lín Jǐngxī yánjiū 林景熙研究 (Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 2008) — comprehensive biographical and literary monograph.
• Yáng Sī-fàn 楊思帆, “Lín Jǐngxī Dōng-qīng xíng yǔ Sòng-mò líng-mù shì-jiàn kǎo” 林景熙《冬青行》與宋末陵墓事件考, Wén-xué yí-chǎn 文學遺產 (2010, no. 4), pp. 65–78.
• Stephen Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature (New York: Norton, 1996), translates the “Cold Spring Pavilion” poem (“白石樵唱” selection); the Dōng-qīng xíng is partially translated in several English Chinese-literature anthologies.
• Paul W. Kroll, “On the Imagery of Some Late Sung Loyalist Poets,” in Studies in Chinese Poetry (Honolulu, 2003) — touches on Lín’s imagery.

Other points of interest

The desecration of the Sòng imperial tombs at Shàoxīng by Yáng Liǎnzhēnjiā 楊璉真伽 in 1278 — and Lín Jǐngxī’s covert reburial — is one of the most-mythologized events of the SòngYuán transition; the “winter-green tree” (冬青) Lín planted over the bones became one of the central emblems of Sòng-loyalist memory. The story is preserved chiefly in Lǚ Hóng’s 1463 preface to the present collection and in Tāo Zōngyí’s 陶宗儀 Chuògēng lù 輟耕錄, and the historicity of Lín’s role has occasionally been questioned but is generally accepted in modern scholarship. The “xúnsuìyànzhīméng” 尋歲晏之盟 (“year-end compact”) that Lín joined under Wáng Xiūzhú 王修竹’s leadership was a Sòng-loyalist circle that met annually at Shàoxīng on a fixed date to commemorate the fallen dynasty; it is the most famous of the early-Yuán yímín social organizations.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1188.7, p687.
• CBDB person 25055 (Lín Jǐngxī)
• Wikidata, Lin Jingxi