西湖百詠

Xīhú bǎi yǒng 西湖百詠

A Hundred Chants on the West Lake by 董嗣杲 (撰), with harmonizations (和韻) by 陳贄

About the work

A topographical poetic cycle in two juàn on the West Lake of Línān (modern Hángzhōu), composed by Dǒng Sìgāo 董嗣杲 (zì Míngdé 明德, hào Jìngchuán jūshì 静傳居士) of Qiántáng across some twenty-odd years culminating in the rénshēn of Xiánchún (1272), and matched rhyme-for-rhyme more than a century later by the Míng Hóngwǔ-era Hángzhōu literatus Chén Zhì 陳贄 (zì Wéichéng 維成, of Yúyáo, later resident in Qiántáng) — appointed by recommendation as xùndǎo (Instructor) of Hángzhōu Prefectural School, ultimately rising to Tàichángsì qīng. The two cycles were first jointly cut by the Qiántáng man Chén Mǐnzhèng 陳敏政, Prefect of Nánkāng, in Tiānshùn guǐwèi (1463), and re-cut by Zhōufān Nánlíngwáng Yúnlóuzǐ in Jiājìng dīngyǒu (1537). The cycle covers ninety-six (or, per the Sìkù editors’ close count of this WYG base, exactly one hundred) named West-Lake sites — temples, gardens, springs, peaks, tombs, terraces, and dàoyuàn — each headed by a seven-syllable regulated quatrain or octave with a substantive prose note giving the site’s history. The collection is a major topographical and yíshǒu historical resource for Southern Sòng Hángzhōu — the editors emphasize that the prose notes “are very detailed in giving the beginning and end of each [site], and contain quite a few late-Sòng anecdotes not recorded in other books.”

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Xīhú bǎi yǒng in two juàn was composed by Dǒng Sìgāo of the Sòng, with rhymes harmonized by Chén Zhì of the Míng. Sìgāo’s zì was Míngdé, hào Jìngchuán jūshì, a man of Qiántáng. At the end of the Sòng he entered religious life at the Gūshān Sìshèng Guàn 孤山四聖觀, changing his name to Sīxué 思學, zì Wúyì 無益; therefore the Xīhú zhì refers to him as a Daoist. However, according to this collection’s own self-preface — which speaks of “holding a slight office at Zhé 霅” during the Xiánchún era — he had indeed entered the official rolls.

Zhì’s zì was Wéichéng, a man of Yúyáo, who migrated to Qiántáng. In the Hóngwǔ era he was appointed by recommendation as xùndǎo (Instructor) of the Hángzhōu Prefectural School, and later rose to Tàichángsì qīng.

The Xīhú zhì says that Sìgāo’s original “chants” and Zhì’s harmonized [pieces] are each ninety-six, and that in Tiānshùn guǐwèi (1463) the Qiántáng man Chén Mǐnzhèng, then Prefect of Nánkāng, first cut both [authors’] works together. It records also that in Jiājìng dīngyǒu (1537) Zhōufān Nánlíngwáng Yúnlóuzǐ recut [the work], whose preface likewise states that Dǒng’s chants are placed before and Chén’s harmonizations behind, [each] still ninety-six pieces, totaling 192 — they are called “Bǎi yǒng” (Hundred Chants) simply as a round figure, and so on. The present base text has 49 titles in the upper juàn and 51 in the lower — in fact making up the full count of one hundred chants, which does not agree with what the Xīhú zhì records. We suspect that when Zhōufān recut [the work], its base text happened to lack pages and the matter was not minutely examined, [so] it was taken as four [titles] missing from the original; and when Tián Rǔchéng 田汝成 was compiling his Xīhú zhì and only saw the Zhōufān preface, he then took it from there and brushed it into [his] book.

The poetry is all in seven-syllable regulated verse; below each title the beginning and end [of the site] are noted in detail, [containing] quite a few late-Sòng anecdotes that other books did not record. Sìgāo’s poetic frame is rather refined and orderly; Zhì’s harmonization is somewhat weaker in talent but sufficient to walk shoulder to shoulder. The poetry of both is far above Xǔ Shàng’s 許尚 Huátíng bǎi yǒng KR4d0316.

Respectfully collated, eighth 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.

(The frontmatter further preserves Dǒng Sìgāo’s own original preface, dated Xiánchún rénshēn 12th month — 1272/1 — at the Yúyīng Hall 餘英堂. He notes the Yuán-yòu-era precedent of Yáng [Pǔ] 楊蟠 and Guō [Xiángzhèng] 郭祥正 each composing a hundred quatrains on West Lake, and remarks that the post-Southern-Crossing flourishing of the lake — vice-ministerial lodges and pavilions multiplied compared with the earlier period — made his cycle a fresh undertaking. The preface emphasizes that his pieces are mùdé (eye-witnessed) rather than fabricated from maps or gazetteers, as Yáng and Guō partly were.)

Abstract

Dǒng Sìgāo 董嗣杲 (CBDB 35004, fl. 1270; the catalog meta gives fl. 1274) is a relatively obscure late-Sòng Hángzhōu literatus whose principal surviving works are this Xīhú bǎi yǒng and the separate Jiāngzhōu / Lúshān landscape cycle Lúshān jí KR4d0399. He held minor office at Zhé (i.e. Zhézhōu 霅州, modern Wúxīng) during Xiánchún and entered religious life at the Gūshān Sìshèngguàn 孤山四聖觀 after the Sòng fall, taking the religious name Sīxué 思學. His own self-preface to the Bǎi yǒng explicitly invokes the Yuán-yòu-era West-Lake cycles of Yáng Pǔ 楊蟠 and Guō Xiángzhèng 郭祥正 (each in a hundred quatrains), and frames his project as a mùdé (eye-witness) corrective to their earlier maps-and-gazetteer-based topographies. The composition spread over roughly twenty years (his own statement) culminating in the late Xiánchún preface of 1272. The Míng harmonization by Chén Zhì (CBDB 131033, 1392–1466, with confidence) — jǔrén of Hóngwǔ recommendation, ultimately Court of Imperial Sacrifices Chief Minister — was produced in his Hángzhōu years, probably 1430s–1450s.

The textual transmission has been complicated by the editors’ detection of a discrepancy: the Xīhú zhì (Tián Rǔchéng, 1547) reports the cycle as 96 + 96 pieces totaling 192, but the Sìkù editors’ count of the WYG base reveals exactly 100 + 100 pieces (49 in juǎn 1 + 51 in juǎn 2), suggesting the Tián count reflects the partially defective Jiājìng Zhōufān recut rather than the original Tiānshùn Chén Mǐnzhèng print. CBDB gives no firm dates for Dǒng Sìgāo; modern scholarship places his activity in the 1240s–1280s. Wilkinson does not single out Dǒng but treats West-Lake poetic topographies generally (§28, §50).

Translations and research

• Lin Sheng-chih 林聖智, “Xī-hú yǔ Nán-Sòng dū-chéng wén-huà: yǐ Dǒng Sì-gāo Xī-hú bǎi yǒng wéi zhōng-xīn” 西湖與南宋都城文化：以董嗣杲《西湖百詠》為中心, Hàn-xué yán-jiū 漢學研究 31.2 (2013) — principal modern article-length study on Dǒng’s cycle.
• Lǐ Jié 李傑, Nán-Sòng Lín-ān shī-wén yán-jiū 南宋臨安詩文研究 (Shàng-hǎi: Shàng-hǎi gǔ-jí chū-bǎn-shè, 2010), ch. 5 — situates Dǒng among the late-Sòng West-Lake poets.
• Lynn Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1984) — context for Hángzhōu topographical poetry, with passing reference to the genre Dǒng established.
• Quán Sòng shī vol. 67 collates the present text against the Yún-lóu-zǐ Jiā-jìng recension.

Other points of interest

The cycle’s site-by-site prose annotations are particularly valuable as one of the densest surviving Sòng-period topographical commentaries on the West-Lake gardens, with substantial information on now-vanished private gardens of the Southern-Sòng vice-ministerial elite (Fēnglè Lóu, Yùhú Yuán, Cuìfāng Yuán, etc.) and on the principal religious sites (Língyǐn, Tiānzhú, Jìngcí, Yǒngmíng) of the Línān period. The site-list also documents in passing the locations of Sòng royal and ministerial tombs (Yuè Fēi 岳鄂王墓, the Liúfēi tomb 劉妃墓, the Zuǒjūn jiàocháng 左軍教場 graveyard) that were later destroyed in the Yuán desecrations. The interlinear prose has been mined by SòngYuán topographical scholarship for unique anecdotal material — particularly the Línān shūyǒu zhì 臨安舊聞志 tradition.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1189.3, p233.
• CBDB person 35004 (Dǒng Sìgāo)
• CBDB person 131033 (Chén Zhì)