Jiāngyuè sōngfēng jí 江月松風集
Collection of River-Moon and Pine-Wind by 錢惟善 (撰)
About the work
A twelve-juǎn poetry collection by Qián Wéishàn 錢惟善 (style-name Sīfù 思復), a Hángzhōu literatus who passed the 1341 Yuán provincial examination, declined service under Zhāng Shìchéng 張士誠, and died in the early Hóngwǔ era. The collection is one of the most striking transmission cases in late-Yuán literature: the original was Qián’s own holograph, kept in the Lù family of Liànchuān, then passed to the Jiāxīng book-collector Cáo Róng 曹溶 (1613–1685); in the Kāngxī era the bibliophile Jīn Kǎn 金侃 copied it from Cáo’s library and cross-checked it with the Xǔ family of Fǔlǐ’s copy, producing the present recension. Gù Sìlì’s Yuán shī xuǎn drew on this same JīnKǎn recension. Apart from Zhèng Yuányòu’s parallel Wújiāng/Sūzhōu liúyù group (see KR4d0545) this is one of the few Hángzhōu-anchored late-Yuán collections to come down in something approaching a complete form.
Tiyao
Jiāngyuè sōngfēng jí, 12 juǎn. By Qián Wéishàn of the Yuán. Wéishàn, style-name Sīfù, self-styled Xīnbái dàorén, was a man of Qiántáng. He took the Zhìzhèng xīnsì (1341) provincial selection and rose to fù tíjǔ. When Zhāng Shìchéng occupied Wú he retired into seclusion at Wújiāng, then moved to Huátíng. He died in the early Hóngwǔ. Wéishàn was broadly learned and of fierce memory. When he first sat the provincial examination the topic was Luóchà jiāng fù; of the three thousand in the locked compound none knew the source. Wéishàn alone cited Méi Shèng’s Qīfā, identifying the Qiántáng Qūjiāng as the Luóchà jiāng. (Note: Méi Shèng calls Guǎnglíng zhī Qūjiāng — i.e. the tide-viewing should be at Yángzhōu. Later men, on the ground that Guǎnglíng in Hàn times had wide territory, assigned this to the Qiántáng tide — quite a forced equation. Wéishàn’s fù in fact perpetuated the slip and is no firm authority. We append this correction here.) The chief examiner greatly praised him, and he became famous on that basis. His collection was not much in evidence in the Míng — Jiāo Hóng’s Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì gathers Yuán poetry collections quite copiously but does not record Wéishàn’s. What had transmitted to the world was only the nine poems collected in the Liáng Dàyǎ jí of [Lài]. The present version was Wéishàn’s own holograph, kept in the Lù family of Liànchuān; later it passed to Cáo Róng of Jiāxīng. In the Kāngxī era Jīn Kǎn copied from Cáo’s library and cross-collated against the Fǔlǐ Xǔshì copy; only then was this volume in clean form put into circulation. Gù Sìlì’s Yuán shī xuǎn relies on this collection for its excerpts. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng forty-second (1777), fifth month. Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; head proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Jiāngyuè sōngfēng jí is the survival of Qián Wéishàn’s verse output by an unusual route — through holograph transmission and an early-Qīng collector’s salvage by Cáo Róng → Jīn Kǎn rather than through Míng printing. As such, the text is also a useful documentary case for early-Qīng bibliographic culture: the Sìkù compilers explicitly cite their reliance on the late-17th-century Jīn Kǎn copy, and credit the Cáo Róng library. Composition window: from the Zhìzhèng xīnsì (1341) examination through to Qián’s death in the early Hóngwǔ era; the catalog gives no precise dates. The fù on the Luóchà jiāng — Qián’s signature piece — is unfortunately built on a textual misidentification that the Sìkù compilers correct in their àn parenthesis. The collection is also a major witness to the literary circle around Yáng Wéizhēn and the Zhèng Yuányòu Wújiāng cohort in the late-Yuán Hángzhōu / Sūzhōu axis.
Translations and research
- Treated in studies of late-Yuán Hángzhōu / Sūzhōu literary culture; rarely the subject of dedicated monographs.
- Late-imperial bibliographic studies routinely cite this case for the Cáo Róng → Jīn Kǎn → Sìkù recovery route.
Other points of interest
- The Sìkù compilers’ parenthetical correction of Qián’s geographic identification (Luóchà jiāng = Hàn Guǎnglíng Qūjiāng not Qiántáng) is a small but notable instance of the tíyào correcting an author cited approvingly within the same entry.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1217.11, p795.