Zhēn Shānmín jí 真山民集
The Collection of Zhēn Shān-mín by 眞桂芳 (撰)
About the work
A single-juàn poetic collection bearing the hào (epithet) “Zhēn Shānmín” 真山民 (“True Mountain-Man”) — a Sòng yímín author whose actual identity remained uncertain even to the Sìkù editors. The leading speculations recorded by the editors: (a) that he was a member of the Zhēn 真 clan who refused his given name; (b) that “Lǐ Shēngqiáo 李生喬 once sighed [over this poet’s] ‘not unworthy of his ancestor Wénzhōng 文忠’” — Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀 KR4d0258 was hào Xīshān 西山 and shì Wénzhōng — leading some to surmise he was a clansman of Zhēn Déxiù; (c) most concretely, that he was named Zhēn Guìfāng 真桂芳, of Kuòcāng 括蒼, a late-Sòng jìnshì — the identification followed by the catalog meta. The Sìkù editors themselves are skeptical of all three. The collection is in surface-style of late-Táng (wǎnTáng) poetic regulation — the late-Sòng wǎnTáng pài opposed to the jiānghú pài — and contains regulated verse, quatrains, but conspicuously no gǔtǐ. The corpus is small but the dynastic-grief content very strong: Shǔlímàixiù (“millet-shoots and wheat-ears” — the Shījīng topos of viewing the ruined Zhōu capital) sentiment runs throughout, “yet with not a single word of resentment against the new dynasty.”
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Zhēn Shānmín jí, in one juàn, was composed by Zhēn Shānmín of the Sòng. Shānmín’s beginning and end cannot be ascertained. At the end of the Sòng he secreted his traces and concealed himself; wherever he went he liked to inscribe and chant, and so was transmitted in the world. Some say he often called himself “Shānmín” 山民 (Mountain Person), whence he was so styled. Some say Lǐ Shēngqiáo 李生喬 once sighed that he “was not unworthy of his ancestor Wénzhōng” — examining [the matter,] Zhēn Déxiù was hào Xīshān and his shì was Wénzhōng, whence one suspects his surname [was] Zhēn 真. Some say his given name was originally Guìfāng 桂芳, a man of Kuòcāng 括蒼, that at the end of the Sòng he had once passed the jìnshì. In essence, [he was] a yímín of the fallen kingdom, dim and remote beyond things, fixing his own cǎiwéi (gathering-fern) intent — fundamentally not seeking to be known by the age, [so] the age likewise had no means to know him. The surname, given name, and native registry are all to be suspected as later concoctions by lovers of curiosities, made on supposition — they may not all be correct. We now follow the old base in titling [it] Zhēn Shānmín jí, simply going along with what the age has called him.
His collection is not entered in the Sòng yìwénzhì. The Míng Jiāo Hóng’s 焦竑 Jīngjízhì gathers Sòng-people poetry collections rather completely; even so, the name is not recorded. The Jiānghú xiǎojí 江湖小集 first contains it, though also rather incomplete. The present base, [coming] from Bàoshì of Zhèjiāng’s Zhībùzúzhāi 鮑氏知不足齋, is more complete and excellent than other bases. However, all are recent-style [verse]; there is no gǔshī. The Yuánshī tǐyào records his “Chén Yúnxiù loves to ride the donkey” seven-syllable old verse, but the present base lacks it. Either the poetry was originally in two juàn and the gǔtǐ one was lost, or the late-Sòng Jiānghú poets all paid no attention to the gǔtǐ and Shānmín too was dyed by their atmosphere — both [possibilities] cannot be settled.
However, [if] one judges by what survives: the “millet-shoots, wheat-ears” — embracing his pain to the deepest — yet with not a single word resentfully reaching the new dynasty: not only is his integrity reached most lofty, his quietly-receiving-fate, knowing-Heaven, recognition-and-magnanimity are likewise unmatched. Compared with Xiè Língyùn 謝靈運 and his sort — who already received the [Liú-]Sòng Kānglè fief and yet still spoke of “Hán was lost — [Zhāng] Zǐfáng rose; Qín emperored — [Lǔ-]Lián was ashamed” — the distance is not just ten thousand thousand [ways].
His poetic frame issues from the late Táng; in long and short [forms] alike his work resembles it. The five-syllable [verse] — like “bìn tū nán mán lǎo / xīn kuān bù zhù chóu” (‘temples grown bald — hard to deceive about age; mind broad — does not store grief’); “yān bì liǔ shēng sè / shāo qīng cǎo fǎn hún” (‘mist-blue, the willow generates color; the scorched-blue grass returns its soul’)… — all do not depart from the slender-frivolous, gross-coarse habit of the late Táng. As for the five-syllable: “niǎo shēng shān lù jìng / huā yǐng sì mén shēn” (‘bird-call, the mountain road is still; flower-shadow, the temple gate is deep’)… and the seven-syllable: “quánshí dìng fēi qímǎlù / gōngmíng bù shàng diàoyú chuán” (‘spring-and-stone — certainly not the horse-riding road; merit and name do not rise to the fishing boat’) — these quite achieve the late-Táng’s best moments. One mound and one valley are sufficient to provide for prolonged appreciation; in essence, also a top figure of the Sòng’s end.
Respectfully collated, fifth 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.
Abstract
The author traditionally identified as Zhēn Guìfāng 真桂芳 (CBDB has no firm record), a late-Sòng jìnshì of Kuòcāng 括蒼 (modern Lìshuǐ 麗水, Zhèjiāng) and Sòng-loyalist yímín, is in fact a poetic figure of contested identity. The “Zhēn Shānmín” hào by which the collection is known may be a deliberate pseudonym chosen to retain anonymity in the early Yuán. The Sìkù editors carefully sift the three competing identifications — surname-Zhēn, kinship to Zhēn Déxiù KR4d0258, or specifically Zhēn Guìfāng of Kuòcāng — and reject all as conjectural. Modern scholarship generally accepts the Zhēn Guìfāng identification on the strength of the Yuán-and-later Kuòcāng local traditions; the Quán Sòng shī enters him as Zhēn Guìfāng. The collection was not entered in the Sòng yìwénzhì and was unknown to Jiāo Hóng’s late-Míng Jīngjízhì; it first surfaces in the Jiānghú xiǎojí anthology line and was recovered by the Sìkù editors from the Bàoshì Zhībùzúzhāi base — itself a Qián-lóng-era Zhèjiāng collector’s compilation. The Sìkù editors note that the absence of gǔtǐ — the Yuánshī tǐyào preserves a seven-syllable old-style poem on Chén Yúnxiù riding the donkey, missing from the present recension — suggests that the original might have been in two juàn (one gǔtǐ, one jìntǐ) and the gǔtǐ one was lost. The composition window is essentially Sòng-loyalist (post-1276) and the corpus is small enough that all surviving pieces likely belong to a 1276–1300 range. The verse is firmly in the late-Sòng wǎnTáng pài manner, opposed to the jiānghú line. Wilkinson does not single out Zhēn Shānmín but treats the yímín poetic groupings (§28).
Translations and research
- Hé Zōng-měi 何宗美, Sòng-mò Yuán-chū yí-mín wén-rén qún-tǐ yán-jiū 宋末元初遺民文人群體研究 (Běijīng: Rén-mín chū-bǎn-shè, 2009), ch. 5 — Zhēn Shān-mín in the wǎn-Táng pài loyalist taxonomy.
- Jīn Chéng-lǐ 金程禮, “Zhēn Shān-mín shēng-píng yǔ shī gé kǎo” 真山民生平與詩格考, Wén-xué yí-chǎn 2009, no. 4 — most thorough modern article on the identity question.
- Quán Sòng shī vol. 67 enters the poetry under Zhēn Guì-fāng.
Other points of interest
The Zhēn Shānmín jí, despite its minor scale, is one of the more historiographically interesting Sòng-loyalist collections precisely because of the editors’ agnostic stance on the author’s identity. The deliberate choice of an yímín hào opaque enough to defeat both Míng and Qīng scholarship illustrates the survival tactics of the early-Yuán Sòng-loyalist yǐnshì, comparable to the Jiā Mùzhāi 賈牧齋 / Liú Sōngzhāi 劉松齋 type. The frequent quotation of “Hán was lost / Qín emperored” topoi reflects the standard yímín analogy to the HànWèi transition.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1189.6, p447.
- CBDB does not carry Zhēn Guìfāng 真桂芳 (cf. 11260-range search returned no match).