佩韋齋集

Pèiwéizhāi jí 佩韋齋集

The Pèi-wéi-zhāi (Leather-Belt Studio) Collection by 兪德鄰 (撰)

About the work

The collected works of Yú Délín 兪德鄰 (CBDB 28499, 1232–1293), a guǐyǒu-科 (1273) Sòng jìnshì and Sòng-loyalist who refused all service after 1276. The corpus combines two distinct works that were originally bibliographically separate but came to circulate as a unified twenty-juàn set: (1) sixteen juàn of Pèiwéizhāi jí proper — Yú’s shī in seven juàn (47 + 33 + 51 gǔshī, 69 + 56 + 55 lǜshī, 71 juéjù) and his wén in nine juàn (fù, zázhù, jì, xù, shuō, jìwén, biǎojiān, zhuàng, qǐ, zházǐ, shūbǎng) — and (2) four juàn of Pèiwéizhāi jíwén 佩韋齋輯聞 (separately catalogued at KR3i0026 in the zǐbù), a bǐjì of historical and Classical notes compiled in Yú’s old age and originally circulated as an independent work. The compilation of the jí in sixteen juàn was carried out by Yú’s son Yú Yōng 俞庸 from the surviving 522 (preface: 521) poems and prose pieces. The Sìkù editors flag this conflation: the present base text has the two works mechanically joined into a twenty-juàn whole by some later hand, which the editors restore to the original bibliographical separation. The hào “Pèiwéi” (literally “Wearing the leather belt”) alludes to the Hán Fēizǐ topos of Xī Ménbào belting himself with soft leather to remind himself of the need for restraint — fitting for a literatus of yímín temperament.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Pèiwéizhāi wénjí, in sixteen juàn, was composed by Yú Délín of the Sòng. Délín has the Pèiwéizhāi jíwén, already entered in the catalog. This collection’s original base text is in twenty juàn: in all, seven juàn of poetry, nine juàn of miscellaneous prose, and the four juàn of Jíwén at the end. However, an examination of the preface placed at the head of the collection — Xióng Hé’s [Sòng]-Huángqìng rénzǐ (1312) preface — states that throughout [Yú’s] lifetime, much of his poetry and prose was not preserved in manuscript; his son Yōng gathered them up and got only 522 pieces of poetry and prose, dividing these into sixteen juàn. Thus the Jí and the Jíwén were in their original form each separate volumes — this base text is what later persons appended together. We now still divide and enter them in the catalog [separately], following the original [arrangement].

Xióng Hé’s preface also states: “Zǐyáng Fānghóu (the Squire of Zǐyáng) was also famous for letters; he once prefaced [the] Master’s [Yú’s] collection, recording his deeds as though composing a biography, and submitted to him in heart for his ability to preserve his late-life integrity,” and so on. “Zǐyáng Fānghóu” is the Shèxiàn man Fāng Huí 方回 方回, who at the Sòng’s end was Prefect of Mùzhōu 睦州 [and] surrendered the prefecture to the Yuán, [who] elevated him to Director-General. This base text has dropped that preface; likely later persons [thought] that Délín’s lofty integrity was not inferior to Táo Qián’s, and would not have Fāng Huí’s preface defile it — so they struck it out and excised it.

Délín’s poetry is calm and detached, easy and self-possessed, deep and far-reaching — among the late-Sòng figures, particularly elevated and elegant. His prose too is concise and clean, possessing pure breath; in style and form it is above Fāng Huí’s Tóngjiāng jí KR4d0428. Indeed, literary art has its connection with scholarship and disposition; the height of shīpǐn and wénpǐn often follows the rénpǐn — this is one verification of that. Respectfully collated, fifth month of Qiánlóng 41 (1776). 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

Yú Délín 兪德鄰 (1232–1293), zì Zōngdà 宗大, hào Pèiwéizhāi 佩韋齋, native of Yǒngjiā 永嘉 (Wēnzhōu, Zhèjiāng), passed the jìnshì in the guǐyǒu group of Xiánchún 9 (1273), only three years before the Sòng surrender. He held a junior position when the dynasty fell and refused all Yuán recruitment, retiring to Jìngjiāng 京口 (Zhènjiāng) for the rest of his life. The Yuán-period preface by Xióng Hé 熊禾 熊禾 dated 1312 — the chief contemporary biographical source for the work — emphasizes Yú’s refusal in 1273 as a transitional moment: “When his person was held hostage in the Yuán camp, rank and emolument in front and the executioner’s pot behind, the gentleman alone did not bend nor flinch — coming and going with composure and sincerity, so as to preserve his self.” Xióng compares Yú to Táo Qián for the yǐnyì quality of the verse and to Dù Fǔ for the qiǎnhuái (banished-cares) prose. The Yuán-era preface by Fāng Huí (Zǐyáng) reportedly carried in earlier versions has been excised from the WYG base — the Sìkù editors speculate that later Yuán-or-later editors removed it on the grounds that Fāng Huí, who had himself surrendered Mùzhōu to the Yuán and then served as zǒngguǎn, was unsuited to write a foreword for a Sòng-loyalist’s collection. The Sìkù editors restore the original bibliographic separation between this work and the Jíwén 輯聞 KR3i0026.

CBDB 28499 gives lifedates 1232–1293, which align with the catalog meta and the Xióng Hé preface (which says Yú was a 1273 jìnshì; the Qīngguózhì 青囊志 of Wēnzhōu confirms 1232 for the birth). The composition window for the works in the collection is approximately 1273–1293; the final compilation in sixteen juàn was carried out by his son Yú Yōng in the early Yuán; Xióng Hé’s preface dates from 1312. Wilkinson (§28.1) cross-references Yú Délín as one of the principal Yǒng-jiā-school yímín.

Translations and research

• Cài Bīn-xiá 蔡賓霞, “Yú Dé-lín jí qí Pèi-wéi-zhāi jí yán-jiū” 俞德鄰及其《佩韋齋集》研究 (MA thesis, Hāng-zhōu shī-fàn dà-xué, 2011). Principal monographic treatment.
• Lǚ Zǐ-tóng 吕子同, “Sòng-mò Yǒng-jiā shī-rén Yú Dé-lín kǎo” 宋末永嘉詩人俞德鄰考, Wēn-zhōu dà-xué xué-bào 2010, no. 3.
• Quán Sòng shī vol. 67 collects Yú’s poetry; Quán Sòng wén vol. 359 his prose.
• Jennifer W. Jay, A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1991) — passing references to Yú in the Yǒng-jiā loyalist context.

Other points of interest

The conspicuous removal of Fāng Huí’s preface from the present base text — even though Fāng was a generation older, an established literary authority, and Yú’s friend — illustrates the strong Yuán-and-later normative pressure to keep collaborator and loyalist paratexts from appearing together. The Sìkù editors flag this as an editorial inflection rather than a true textual loss, and identify the lost preface as a substantive piece “recording his deeds as though composing a biography” — making its absence a real loss for the biographical record.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1189.1, p1.
• CBDB person 28499 (Yú Délín)
• Wikipedia, 俞德鄰