松陵集

Sōnglíng jí 松陵集

Sōnglíng Collection by 皮日休

About the work

The single most ambitious late-Táng chànghé jí 唱和集 (mutual-rhyme exchange collection): ten juǎn of poems exchanged between Pí Rìxiū 皮日休 and Lù Guīméng 陸龜蒙 (the “Pí–Lù 皮陸” pairing) during Pí’s tenure (869–870) as staff-officer to Cuī Pú 崔璞, prefect of Sūzhōu. Lù Guīméng, then a jìnshì aspirant in Sūzhōu, presented his work to Cuī Pú and was thereby drawn into Pí Rìxiū’s circle. Over roughly one year the two men produced 93 ancient-style ⫶ 193 regulated-style ⫶ 38 mixed-style poems each (i.e., 324 × 2 = 648), plus 18 linked-verse and question-answer pieces and miscellaneous contributions by Yán Xuān 顏萱, Zhāng Bēn 張賁, Zhèng Bì 鄭璧, Sīmǎ Dōu 司馬都, Lǐ Hú 李縠, Cuī Lù 崔璐, Wèi Pǔ 魏朴, Yáng Zhāoyè 羊昭業, and Cuī Pú himself. The preface gives the total as 685, the WYG count as 698; the discrepancy is attributed by the SKQS editors to copyist error in the original preface. Pí Rìxiū wrote the preface; Lù Guīméng named the collection — “Sōnglíng” being the literary name of the Wújiāng 吳江 region.

Tiyao

Your servants respectfully submit: the Sōnglíng jí in ten juǎn gathers entirely the poems exchanged between Pí Rìxiū and Lù Guīméng of the Táng. The juǎn-end preface by Pí indicates that the compiler was Lù Guīméng and the namer was Pí himself. The practice of rhyme-matching exchange began with Wáng Sù 王肅 and his wife under the Northern Wèi, flourished under Yuán Zhěn and Bái Jūyì in the Táng, and reached its peak with Pí and Lù. At that time Cuī Pú 崔璞 (jiànyì dàifū) was Sūzhōu prefect; he summoned Pí Rìxiū as cóngshì; Lù Guīméng happened to present his work to Cuī and so came into exchange with Pí. Their contemporaries — the jìnshì Yán Xuān, the former Guǎngwén bóshì Zhāng Bēn, the jìnshì Zhèng Bì, the Zhèdōng guānchá tuīguān Sīmǎ Dōu, the former jìnshì Lǐ Hú, Cuī Lù, the recluses Wèi Pǔ and Yáng Zhāoyè — also took part. Pí’s preface says: 685 poems; the present count gives Pí and Lù 93 ancient-style poems, 193 regulated-style, 38 mixed-style, plus 18 linked-verse and question-answer pieces; Yán Xuān 3, Zhāng Bēn 14, Zhèng Bì 4, Sīmǎ Dōu 2, Lǐ Hú 3, Cuī Lù / Wèi Pǔ / Yáng Zhāoyè 1 each, Cuī Pú 2; old pieces by the Qīngyuǎn dàoshì, Yán Zhēnqīng, Lǐ Déyù and Yōudújūn added (5 in total) for context, for a grand total of 698 — at variance with the preface’s 685; the preface number is probably corrupted in transmission. In Hóngzhì rénxū (1502), the Wújiāng magistrate Liú Jìmín 劉濟民 of Jǐnán reprinted from an old book; Dū Mù 都穆 wrote the colophon. Time made the printing dim; Máo Jìn 毛晉 later got a Sòng-block and re-edited it — the current circulating text is Máo’s. Of the three Táng chànghé anthologies — the Duànjīn jí, the Hànshàng tíjīn jí, and the Sōnglíng jí — only this one survives. To read it is still to feel the literary brilliance of that one year. Reverently submitted, third month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Date: pinned by Pí Rìxiū’s preface — “in Xiántōng 7 (866), when the Bīngbù lángzhōng Línghúyuánwài was in Huáinán… in 10 (869) the Dà sījiàn Cuī of Qīnghé went out as prefect of Wú; Pí Rìxiū was his bù cóngshì; in a month a jìnshì, one Lù Guīméng zì Lǔwàng, came to call.” Hence the project covers ca. late-869 through late-870.

The Sōnglíng jí is foundational for three reasons: (1) it is the most fully preserved Táng-period mutual-rhyme exchange anthology — the other two named in the tíyào are lost. (2) It is the principal documentary witness to the Pí–Lù literary partnership, the Pí half of which (Pí’s frame collection is the Pízǐ wénsǒu KR4c0088) is among the most important late-Táng prose corpuses; the Lù half (KR4c0089, KR4c0090) is harder to date independently. (3) Its technically demanding linked-verse experiments — including chain rhymes, palindromes, and the long zátǐ sequences — established the technical limits of late-Táng prosody and were a major model for the Sòng-era fùgǔ prose-poet circles around Sū Shì and Huáng Tíngjiān.

Yán Zhēnqīng’s interpolated piece is of independent interest as one of the few non-Pí, non-Lù long poems preserved here — incorporated by Pí Rìxiū “as antecedent practice” in Sūzhōu literary culture (Yán having served as Húzhōu prefect a century earlier).

Translations and research

• Hofmann, Reading the Sōnglíng jí (forthcoming dissertation cycle in the Stephen Owen / Anna Shields lineage). See also:
• Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (Harvard Asia Center, 2006), ch. on Pí and Lù.
• William H. Nienhauser, “The Sōng-líng Collection of Pí Rì-xiū and Lù Guī-méng,” in Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Bloomington, 1986).
• Xiāo Dílì 蕭滌非, Píng Pí Rì-xiū jí 評皮日休集 — older critical edition.
• Lǐ Fāng 李芳, Sōnglíng jí jiào jiān 松陵集校箋 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 2011).

Other points of interest

The 18 liánjù 聯句 (linked-verse) pieces are among the principal experimental works of the late-Táng prosodic tradition. The form is consciously archaicising — Pí Rìxiū frames it as continuing the Dàozǐ (Bái Jūyì) and Liǔzōngyuán practice, but at far greater length.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
• ctext
• Wikipedia, “Pi Rixiu”