Gāoshì sānyàn shījí 高氏三宴詩集
The Gāo Family’s Three-Banquet Poetry Collection by 高正臣
About the work
A small late-7th-century Táng poetic anthology in 3 juǎn, with the Xiāngshān jiǔlǎo shī 香山九老詩 (“Poems of the Nine Elders of Xiāngshān”) appended in 1 juǎn. The work was assembled by Gāo Zhèngchén 高正臣 and preserves the yànjí 宴集 verse of three banquets held at his Luòyáng residence, attended in total by some twenty-one men — including the great early-Táng poet Chén Zǐ’áng 陳子昂. Each of the three juǎn opens with a preface: by Chén Zǐ’áng, Zhōu Yànhuī 周彥暉, and Chángsūn Zhèngyǐn 長孫正隱 respectively. The appended Jiǔlǎo poems are a separate ninth-century group composed by Bái Jūyì 白居易 and friends at Xiāngshān in Luòyáng.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Gāoshì sānyàn shījí in three juǎn, with the Xiāngshān jiǔlǎo shī in one juǎn appended, was compiled by Gāo Zhèngchén 高正臣 of the Táng. The poems in the work all derive from collaborative banquet-gatherings, set down to commemorate a moment of cultural flourishing. The juǎn are three, each with its own preface — by Chén Zǐ’áng 陳子昂, Zhōu Yànhuī 周彥暉, and Chángsūn Zhèngyǐn 長孫正隱 respectively. All three banquets were held at the Gāo residence, the participants twenty-one in number. Examining: three are listed in Xīn Táng shū — Chén Zǐ’áng, Láng Yúlìng 郎餘令, and Xiè Wǎn 解琬; one appears in another biography — Zhōu Sījūn 周思鈞; one appears in běnjì and shìxì biǎo — Zhāng Xī 張錫; five appear only in shìxì biǎo — Gāo Zhèngchén himself, Gāo Jǐn 高瑾, Wáng Màoshí 王茂時, Gāo Shào 高紹, and Gāo Qiáo 高嶠; the rest are not traceable. According to the genealogy-table, Zhèngchén served as cìshǐ of Xiāngzhōu and is not given as Wèiwèiqīng; the present text’s notice of Zhèngchén and Zhōu Sījūn is unusually detailed, with claims of intermarriage with the imperial Lǐ house and residence in Luòyáng — these agree with the prefaces and seem not baseless, but are certainly a later addition. Appended at the end is the Xiāngshān jiǔlǎo huì shī 香山九老會詩 in one juǎn, with “Yíbáitáng chóngdiāo 夷白堂重雕” at the end of the juǎn. Pào Shèntián 鮑慎田 (zì Qīnzhǐ 欽止) of the Sòng, a jìnshì of Yuányòu 6 (1091), wrote a Yíbáitáng jí and engraved many books — both Gāo’s three banquets and the Xiāngshān Nine Elders’ meetings took place in Luòyáng, and so he engraved them together; the Sòng prized old texts of this sort. The Jiǔlǎo poems are already appended to KR4d0143 Bái Xiāngshān shī jí 白香山詩集, but the Sānyàn title is absent from the dynastic bibliographies — making this truly a rare survival. The Sòng copy was transcribed in their time and is not without errors: e.g., Gāo Qiáo is given as “Sīfǔ lángzhōng” 司府郎中, but the TángBǎiguānzhì has no such office — it should be corrected by the shìxì biǎo to “Sīmén lángzhōng” 司門郎中; Zhāng Xī, appointed Tóng pínɡ-zhāngshì in the Jiǔshì 1 year (700) of Wǔhòu, native of Dōngwǔchéng in Bèizhōu — the poems mistakenly take his name as Xī Dōng, in clear error; Gōng Sìchū 弓嗣初, Gāo Jǐn, and Zhōu Yànhuī are described as “Xiánníng jìnshì” 咸寧進士, but the Táng had no Xiánníng reign — Gāozōng’s Xiánhēng 咸亨 is clearly intended, níng 寧 a copyist’s error for hēng 亨. All such have been corrected. Reverently submitted, eleventh month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
This is one of the very few surviving yànjí shī collections from the early Táng — a sub-genre intermediate between an individual’s biéjí and a general anthology. It is a primary witness for the early Táng gōngtǐ / yīngzhì literary culture transposed to private gentry gatherings in Luòyáng, just before the xiàoféng aesthetic of Chén Zǐ’áng’s reaction took hold. The dating is bracketed by Chén Zǐ’áng’s known floruit (ca. 661–702): the gatherings probably fell in the 670s–early 680s when Chén was an active member of the Luòyáng poetic circle. The mention of Xiánhēng (670–674) in the jìnshì-attainment notices supports a tāng date for the latest of the three banquets. The compilation itself may post-date Gāo Zhèngchén — the Sīménlángzhōng / Sīfǔlángzhōng confusion of the appended biographical note suggests a post-Táng editorial hand. The Sòng Yíbáitáng re-cutting that combines this with the Jiǔlǎo poems is the proximate ancestor of the surviving text.
Translations and research
- Stephen Owen, The Poetry of the Early T’ang (Yale, 1977), ch. 5 (early Tang banquet poetry).
- Pául W. Kroll, “Chén Zǐ’áng” in Knechtges and Chang, eds., Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
- ctext