南邨詩集

Náncūn shījí 南邨詩集

The South-Village Verse Collection by 陶宗儀 (撰)

About the work

Náncūn shījí 南邨詩集 in four juǎn is the verse collection of Táo Zōngyí 陶宗儀 (1329–1409, per CBDB id 29854), zì Jiǔchéng 九成, hào Náncūn 南邨, native of Huángyán 黃岩 (Tāizhōu, Zhèjiāng), resident at Sōngjiāng 松江 (now Shànghǎi). Táo’s principal fame rests on his vast YuánMíng bǐjì compendia (Chuògēng lù 輟耕錄, Shuōfú 説郛 — see other catalog sections) rather than this verse collection. Máo Jìn 毛晉 in the Míng Shí Yuánrén jí 十元人集 catalogued Táo as a Yuán figure, but the Sìkù editors correct this: the present collection contains a 1398 (Hóngwǔ 31) poem celebrating the accession of Huáng tàisūn (Jiànwén emperor), and a 1396 (Hóngwǔ 29) sequence describing Táo’s leading students to the Lǐbù examinations in Nánjīng — clear evidence that he served the Míng. The collection is structured around the alias Náncūn (South Village, Táo’s residence in Sōngjiāng), under which Táo also wrote his Chuògēng lù.

Tiyao

The Náncūn shījí in four juǎn — by Táo Zōngyí of the Míng. Zōngyí has the Guófēng zūnjīng 國風尊經, already entered in the catalog. This compilation was once cut by Máo Jìn into the Shí Yuánrén jí. Liú Tǐrén 劉體仁’s Qīsòngtáng jí 七頌堂集 has a letter to Zhāng Shíshuǐ 張實水 which says: “Reading the shǐ, Táo Náncūn is not recorded; I privately consider this gentleman a Jìngjié (Táo Yuānmíng) class of man.” Now in the Shí Yuánrén jí — figures like Ní Zàn 倪瓚 and Gù Āyīng 顧阿瑛 also personally saw the new dynasty. Yet Zàn fled and hid on rivers and lakes, and Āyīng followed his son into banishment-exile — neither received Míng lù. So they may be classed after the Zhūzǐ Gāngmù’s precedent of Táo Yuānmíng’s recorded place under Jìn. But Zōngyí — his person was already in office under the Míng. Sūn Zuò 孫作 (KR4e0031) Cāngluó jí’s Táo Jiǔchéng xiǎozhuàn can verify it. For Jìn to still rank him among Yuán-people is not factual. Looking at the collection: the Hóngwǔ 31 (1398) Huáng tàisūn jíwèi shī 皇太孫即位詩 says: “The old subject, dancing in joy at Náncūn, laughs at his children and grandchildren — both temples white as frost” — so Zōngyí, as a Míng official, did not originally hide it. And the collection contains the Sānyuè shuòrì zhì dūmén 三月朔日至都門 (third-month’s first day, reached the capital gates), Èrrì zǎocháo 二日早朝 (second day, morning audience), Sānrì lǜ zhūshēng fù Lǐbù kǎoshì 三日率諸生赴禮部考試 (third day, leading the students to the Lǐbù examinations), Shírì jǐshǎng 十日給賞 (tenth day, given rewards), Shíyī rì xièēn 十一日謝恩 (eleventh day, thanked the favour) poems — what is recorded in the Míng shǐ běnzhuàn as the Hóngwǔ 29 (1396) leading-the-students-to-the-Lǐ-bù-examination. Is this then something the Dōnglí cǎijú man [Táo Yuānmíng plucking chrysanthemums at the eastern hedge] would deign to do? And what need to twist and turn to make him correspond to Lìlǐ [Táo Yuānmíng’s native village]? This collection — we do not know by whom it was edited. Examining its title years and the meaning in the verse, nine-tenths of the works are from after the Míng founding; only the Náogē gǔchuī qǔ 鐃歌鼓吹曲 pieces seem to be Yuán-period works. The chronological arrangement is quite without thread; probably they collected dispersed manuscripts and recorded them without time for sequencing. Furthermore, the Chénghuáilóu qīlǜ 澂懐樓七律 one piece and Sòng Shū shàngrén qīlǜ 送殊上人七律 one piece — recorded in Gù Āyīng’s Yùshān cǎotáng yǎjí 玉山草堂雅集 — are not collected here. So this is not Zōngyí’s own edition. Máo Jìn’s assessment of his verse as “shū lín zǎo qiū” (sparse woods, early autumn) is not particularly apt — but his gélì (style-power) is firm and strong, truly the strong succession of Yú [Jí], Yáng [Wéizhēn], Fàn [Pèng], Jiē [Xīsī] — not the mǐmǐ (drooping) sound of late Yuán. In the early Míng he was a gērán yī jùshǒu (towering, a giant hand). Compiled and presented respectfully in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778).

Abstract

Táo Zōngyí’s lifedates 1329–1409 are confirmed by CBDB (id 29854). The Sìkù editors’ historiographical insistence that Táo is a Míng figure, not a Yuán yìmín — against the long-standing Shí Yuánrén jí tradition initiated by Máo Jìn — is the principal contribution of this Tíyào. The argument is grounded in two concrete pieces of internal evidence: the 1398 Huáng tàisūn jíwèi shī (welcoming Jiànwén’s accession), and the 1396 Nánjīng sequence describing Táo’s official duty as head of a contingent of zhūshēng (state-school students) taking the Lǐbù examinations. Together these show Táo holding a substantive Míng post (likely as a private educator under prefectural commission, though Míng shǐ fragments do not specify the exact appointment).

The Sìkù editors’ contemporary contrast with Ní Zàn 倪瓚 and Gù Āyīng 顧阿瑛 — both genuinely refused to serve the Míng — is a careful piece of literary-political historiography. The collection itself is structurally chaotic (collected from dispersed manuscripts without chronological sequencing) and incomplete (the Yùshān cǎotáng yǎjí preserves two of Táo’s verses not in this collection). Wilkinson, Chinese History, §28.4, places Táo’s verse among the firmer voices of the YuánMíng transition.

The Hóng-zhèng-era critic Liú Tǐrén 劉體仁 had cast Táo as a Jìngjié (Táo Yuānmíng / Táo Qián) figure — a yìmín in spirit. The Sìkù editors briskly dispatch this conceit: Táo’s actual Hóngwǔ service-record is incompatible with a Jìngjié model.

Translations and research

• L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Entry on Táo Zōngyí (vol. 2, pp. 1268–1272).
• Hok-lam Chan. Control of Publishing in China, Past and Present. Canberra: ANU Press, 1983. On the Shuō-fú and Táo’s compendia.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §35.2 (Chuò-gēng lù and Yuán-Míng bǐ-jì); §28.4 (Míng bié-jí).

Other points of interest

The 1398 (Hóngwǔ 31) verse celebrating Jiànwén’s accession — “Lǎochén biànwǔ Náncūn dǐ, xiào duì érsūn liǎngbìn shuāng” (The old subject, dancing in joy at Náncūn, laughs at his children and grandchildren — both temples white as frost) — is one of the very few surviving documentary verses welcoming Jiànwén’s brief reign before the Jǐngnán rebellion of 1399–1402 ended it. Most such verses were destroyed under the Yǒnglè regime; Táo’s survival in the present collection is a textual rarity.

Links

• Tao Zongyi (Wikipedia, Chinese)
• Sìkù tíyào, Kyoto Zinbun digital edition
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí); §35.2 (Táo Zōngyí’s bǐjì).