Yùtái xīnyǒng kǎoyì 玉臺新詠考異
Variant-Readings Investigation of the Yùtái xīnyǒng by 紀容舒
About the work
This 10-juǎn collation of Xú Líng’s 徐陵 Yùtái xīnyǒng 玉臺新詠 (KR4h0005) is the work of Jì Róngshū 紀容舒 (1686–1764), Prefect of Yáo’ān 姚安 in Yúnnán and father of the Sìkù editor-in-chief Jì Yún 紀昀. Composed in retirement (the dated preface is Qiánlóng dīngchǒu 丁丑 2/21 = 21 February 1757), it collates the Sòng Jiādìng 嘉定 yǐhài 乙亥 (1215) Chén Yùfǔ 陳玉父 of Yǒngjiā 永嘉 print — preserved by Zhào Yízé 趙宦光 (Hánshān 寒山) and Féng Shǔ 馮舒 (Mòān 默庵) — against the various Wànlì-era Míng prints of Zhāng Sìxiū 張嗣修 and Máo Guójǐn 茅國縉 (which had freely interpolated and rearranged the text). Jì models his apparatus on Hán Yú’s Kǎoyì tradition: where two readings are both defensible he prints both; where neither is defensible he leaves a lacuna; where a Míng reading is semantically defensible but lacks ancient witness he appends it as an annotation.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Yùtái xīnyǒng kǎoyì in ten juǎn was composed by the present-dynasty Jì Róngshū 紀容舒; his Sūnshì Tángyùn kǎo is already catalogued. The work was prompted by the fact that, since the Míng, no two imprints of Xú Líng’s Yùtái xīnyǒng agree — not only in single characters but even in the poems included. The Wànlì Zhāng Sìxiū 張嗣修 edition added much; the Máo Guójǐn 茅國縉 edition further rearranged the order; the integrity of the original was progressively lost. Only the Hánshān 寒山 transmission of Zhào Yízé 趙宦光, derived from the Jiādìng yǐhài (1215) Yǒngjiā Chén Yùfǔ exemplar, stands closest to antiquity; Féng Shǔ’s recent collation, drawing on it, achieved a tolerable cleanness, though he wrongly maintained certain Sòng-print errors as not errors — e.g. Zhāng Héng’s Tóngshēng gē 同聲歌 reading kǒng lì 恐慄 corrupt to kǒng piào 恐瞟, guǎn ruò 莞蒻 corrupt to yuàn ruò 苑蒻 — defending them by jiǎjiè 假借 arguments that strain credibility. He also marked unaltered Sòng readings as corrupt when they were not — e.g. supplying an arbitrary title “Liúbié qī” 留别妻 to the un-titled Sū Wǔ poem. And in some places he corrected one Sòng error with a worse one — e.g. reassigning the Tángshàng xíng 塘上行 to WèiWǔdì on the strength of the Sòngshū music-treatise. Jì Róngshū took up the project with all the above in view, consulted multiple sources, applied the HánWén kǎoyì 韓文考異 model — both-acceptable readings retained, irreducible readings left blank; Míng readings semantically defensible but undocumented appended; each annotation carefully justified at the line below the verse, with abundant citation. Cases include: the four interpretations of Tángshàng xíng; the three interpretations of the Liú Xūn-wife poem; the Sū Bóyù-wife poem mistakenly assigned to Fù Yuán 傅玄; the Wúxīng yāoshén shī mistakenly assigned to a “Jiāotóng”; the Xú Bèi poem mistaken for his wife’s; her poem mistaken for his; Liáng Wǔdì’s poem mistaken for a gǔ gē; Xú Gàn’s Shì sī given as six pieces (in fact correct as six); Yáng Fāng’s Héhuān in fact five pieces; the principle of the inconsistent single-character titles in Wáng Róng 王融 and Xú Líng; Xiāo Tǒng’s omission [from the Wén xuǎn] of Liáng-dynasty emperors in the poet sequence; etc. — these matters are also adequately investigated. While not every original reading of Xú Líng can be recovered, the work is incomparably better grounded than the random-emendation Míng texts. Reverently submitted, seventh month of Qiánlóng 45 (1780). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Collator Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Jì Róngshū’s autograph preface, dated 1757, provides the most candid account of the book: the Yùtái xīnyǒng survives only the second of the two great pre-Tang anthologies, narrowly transmitted through one Sòng witness. The Chén Yùfǔ 1215 print is itself flawed — its colophon admits chuánxiě chuǎnbó 傳寫踳駁 (textual disarray in transmission) and the supplementary use of a “Shíshì lù běn” 石氏錄本 to fill gaps and emend losses — so even the Sòng “root edition” is half-corrected, half-corrupting. The Chóng-zhēn-era guǐyǒu 崇禎癸酉 (1633) was a century and more in the past; Jì had assumed the book lost, but stumbled upon a copy in Chángshú in rénshēn 1752 at the home of one of his Yúnnán pupils. The ink was fresh, the paper intact — but errors remained. (As Féng Dùnyín 馮鈍吟 had noted, the Sòng print is a Mǎshā 麻沙 cottage cutting, hence imperfect.) In yǐhài 6th month (1755), Jì retired from Yúnnán on family-care grounds, returned home, and in idle hours began revising — four months’ fine collation in red and yellow ink. Jì’s apologia for spending his autumn years on qǐluó zhīfěn 綺羅脂粉 verse — i.e. love poetry — is gentle: “Even the fēng of Zhèng and Wèi did the Sage not exclude; the Yùtái too can show, in its way, the wēnróu dūnhòu 溫柔敦厚 ideal.” This is the standard work for collating the Yùtái xīnyǒng; modern critical editions (Wú Zhàoyí 吳兆宜, Chéng Yǎn 程琰, Yùtái xīnyǒng jiānzhù 玉臺新詠箋注 [Zhōnghuá, 1985]) build on its apparatus.
Translations and research
- Liú Yùruò 劉躍進, Yùtái xīnyǒng yánjiū 玉臺新詠研究 (Zhōnghuá, 2003), with extensive use of Jì’s variant-readings.
- Wú Zhàoyí 吳兆宜 ed., Chéng Yǎn 程琰 corr., Yùtái xīnyǒng jiān-zhù 玉臺新詠箋注 (Zhōnghuá, 1985 — modern critical reedition).
- Anne Birrell, New Songs from a Jade Terrace (Penguin, 1986), preface and apparatus discussion.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
- ctext