月洞吟

Yuèdòng yín 月洞吟

Chants from the Moon Grotto by 王鎡 (撰)

About the work

A one-juàn collection of just over seventy poems by Wáng Zī 王鎡 (CBDB 22083, lifedates uncertain), zì Jièwēng 介翁, native of Kuòcāng 括蒼 (modern Lìshuǐ 麗水, Zhèjiāng), who once held office as County Constable (xiànwèi 縣尉) under the Sòng and after the dynasty’s fall abandoned the seal and retired to the West Lake (Húshān 湖山) region, naming his dwelling Yuèdòng 月洞 (Moon Grotto) and his poetry after it. The collection was first cut in Jiājìng rénzǐ (1552) by his clan-grandson Wáng Yǎngduān 王養端 (zì Màochéng 茂成, hào Huángzhào Shānrén 黄兆山人), with a preface by Wáng Yǎngduān (1552) and a second preface by Tāng Xiǎnzǔ 湯顯祖 (1550–1616) dated Jiājìng xīnchǒu — the famous Wànlì playwright (Mǔdān tíng etc.) — in which Tāng praises the verse as “wǎnTáng rén yǔ” (the language of late-Táng men) and “the late-Sòng [being] likewise the late-Táng.” The collection is wholly in the wǎnTáng pài manner, with no gǔtǐ: the seven-syllable lǜshī are slightly weaker than the seven-syllable juéjù; the five-syllable lǜshī most resemble the Jiǔsēng 九僧 (Nine Monks) of the early Northern Sòng WǎnTáng school. The Sìkù editors place him squarely on the late-Sòng wǎnTáng pài — opposed to the jiānghú pài — and prefer him to the late-period jiānghú dregs.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Yuèdòng yín, one juàn, was composed by Wáng Zī of the Sòng. Zī’s zì was Jièwēng, a man of Kuòcāng. He once held office as County Constable; after the Sòng’s fall he cast off his seal-cord and returned to retreat in Húshān (Lake-and-Mountain), naming his dwelling Yuèdòng (Moon Grotto), and so used [it] to name the poetry he composed. This base [comes from] Jiājìng rénzǐ (1552), [printed by] his clan-grandson Yǎngduān 養端 — only just over seventy poems. There is prefixed Yǎngduān’s preface, and also Tāng Xiǎnzǔ’s Jiājìng xīnchǒu (1541, sic — should be 1601 by reckoning, but the Sìkù gives Xīnchǒu) preface, picking out fine lines from the collection and praising in particular that his seven-syllable juéjù possesses “leisurely-relaxed qù” (interest).

Now observing his poetry: the seven-syllable lǜshī are weaker in poetic frame and force, not equal to the seven-syllable juéjù. His seven-syllable juéjù — like chūnfēng wúlì qíngsī ruǎn / bàn zhù yánghuā bù kěn fēi (“Spring wind, no force — fair-day filaments are soft / bound up against the willow-floss, they will not fly”)… and xiùlián bù gé túmí yuè / xiāng yǐng wú rén zì rù lóu (“Embroidered curtain does not screen the túmí moonlight / its fragrant shadow with no one [present] of itself enters the upper-room”)… and liángfēng XXX luò wútóng yè / piàn piàn fēi lái jǐn shì qiū (“Cool wind X knocks down paulownia leaves / flake by flake they come flying, every one autumn”) — also are often near to xiǎocí, not aiming at lofty tones.

Only the five-syllable lǜshī — chán shēng qiū àn shù / yàn yǐng xīyáng lóu (‘cicada sound in the autumn shore tree / wild-goose shadow in the sunset upper-story’); mǎ sī jīng zhàn dì / diāo rèn dǎwéi shān (‘horse neighs, passing the battle-ground; the carrion-eagle recognizes the hunt-mountain’); lǔ shēng héyè pǔ / yínghuǒ dòuhuā tián (‘oar-sound, lotus-leaf bank; firefly-fire, bean-flower field’); xiéyáng shài yúwǎng / shū zhú lù rénjiā (‘slanting-sun shines on fish-nets; sparse bamboo dews the household’); qíngxuě tiān yá pù / chūnyún zá xiǎoyān (‘fair-snow adds to the cliff-cascade; spring-cloud blends with dawn-mist’) — all possess in abundance the intent of the [early-Sòng] Jiǔsēng (Nine Monks).

Indeed, the late-Sòng poets had a jiānghú faction and a wǎnTáng faction; Zī was of the line continuing the wǎnTáng — therefore he frequently has fine lines but lacks lofty rhyme; nor does he have a single piece in gǔtǐ. However, compared with the jiānghú tail-end’s “cold-sour, slender-fragmented” works, he is certainly superior. Respectfully collated, tenth 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 frontmatter further preserves the Wáng Yǎngduān preface of 1552 — recording the family’s Sòng-dynasty service from the Xiángfú era; tracing the family ties through the Tàitiān Wùjiā Kuòcāng prefectural office, with the family transmitting twenty generations across six hundred years; and giving the most substantial biographical material on Jièwēng — that he had refused Yuán service after the Dì Bǐng exile (i.e. after Sòng’s collapse) and formed a poetry-society at Húshān with Yǐn Lǜpō 尹緑坡, Yú Jūnjí 虞君集, Yè Zhèshān 葉柘山. The Tāng Xiǎnzǔ preface, dated Jiājìng xīnchǒu — likely Xīnchǒu of Wànlì 29 (1601) — was composed during Tāng’s residency at Suìchāng 遂昌 magistracy in Pīngchāng 平昌, where he encountered Wáng Yǎngduān’s verse and through him the ancestor’s Yuèdòng yín.)

Abstract

Wáng Zī (CBDB 22083 — entry lifedates blank; other CBDB entries for 王鎡 are not the same person), zì Jièwēng, native of Kuòcāng (Lìshuǐ, Zhèjiāng), served briefly as Sòng xiànwèi (county constable) and after the Sòng’s fall in 1276 abandoned office and retired to the Lìshuǐ Húshān region, where he founded a Sòng-loyalist poetry society with Yǐn Lǜpō, Yú Jūnjí, and Yè Zhèshān (per the Wáng Yǎngduān preface). The collection was first cut by his sixteenth-generation descendant Wáng Yǎngduān in 1552 with only seventy-odd surviving poems, with a second preface by Tāng Xiǎnzǔ added probably in 1601. The verse is firmly in the late-Sòng wǎnTáng pài manner (continuous with the early-Sòng Jiǔsēng line), opposed to the jiānghú pài; no gǔtǐ survives. The most-quoted lines (shānhé gé jīngǔ / tiāndì lǎo yīngxióng “Mountain and river divide present from ancient / Heaven and earth grow old [over the] heroes”; jú bài qí nán zhuó / chóu duō jiǔ yì zhōng “The chessboard ruined, the [next] move hard to place; the grief abundant, in the wine easily struck”) are Sòngyímín topoi — wandering Tāng styles emphasized in Tāng Xiǎnzǔ’s preface. Composition window approximately 1276–1300. Wilkinson does not single out Wáng Zī.

Translations and research

• Niú Hǎi-róng 牛海蓉, Yuán-chū Sòng-jīn yí-mín cí-rén yán-jiū 元初宋金遺民詞人研究 (Běijīng: Zhōng-guó shè-huì kē-xué chū-bǎn-shè, 2007) — passing references to the Kuò-cāng Sòng-loyalist circle.
• Wáng Hài-yàn 王海燕, “Wáng Zī yǔ Yuè-dòng yín kǎo” 王鎡與《月洞吟》考, Wén-xué yí-chǎn 2014, no. 2.
• Quán Sòng shī vol. 68 collates Wáng Zī’s poetry from the 1552 Wáng Yǎng-duān edition base.

Other points of interest

Tāng Xiǎnzǔ’s signed preface to the Yuèdòng yín is one of the relatively few literary prefaces by the Mǔdān tíng playwright preserved in Sìkù paratext, and shows Tāng’s continuing engagement with late-Sòng yímín lyricism in his Suìchāng magistracy years. The preface’s central judgment — that “the late-Sòng was [itself] the late-Táng” — is a notable critical formulation, anticipating the modern WǎnTángtǐ typology.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1189.8, p489.
• CBDB person 22083 (Wáng Zī)