Sōuyù xiǎo jí 搜玉小集
A Small Anthology of Gathered Jades by 闕名 (anonymous Táng compiler)
About the work
A small one-juǎn early-Táng anthology of unknown compilation. The original table of contents lists 37 poets and 63 poems, but the received text — reprinted by Máo Jìn 毛晉 in his Jígǔgé (early 17th c.) — gives only 34 poets and 61 poems, three names having been dropped though only two poems are missing (so one of the remaining poets must be carrying a piece originally assigned to one of the dropped names). Zhèng Qiáo’s Tōngzhì yìwénlüè records the anthology — establishing that its origin is at latest the Northern Sòng — and the SKQS editors infer that the compilation must be Táng on internal evidence (no post-Táng poets appear). The collection is unusually disorderly: poems are arranged neither by author nor by sub-genre but in a heterodox sequence that the SKQS editors cannot reconstruct.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Sōuyù xiǎo jí in one juǎn, original text unattributed. Zhèng Qiáo’s Tōngzhì yìwénlüè already records it — so it is very old; certainly compiled by a Táng-period hand. The old table of contents lists 37 hands and 63 pieces; this version gives only 34 hands and 61 poems — Máo Jìn re-edited and re-set. The annotations and apparatus are careful, but Húhú 胡鵠 and two others (recorded in the old table but lacking poems) have been removed entirely — this is not the proper practice of “preserve doubt.” Three poets are missing but only two poems are short — one poem must have been mis-assigned to another poet, so the new arrangement is not certain either. The sequence has been disturbed by Máo Jìn and cannot be recovered: it does not order by author nor by sub-genre, the arrangement is varied, with duplicates and repetitions — the underlying editorial principle cannot be discerned. Since it originated in Táng times, we preserve the old text in this corpus as a tool for collation. Reverently submitted, second month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Sōuyù xiǎo jí is a textual oddity: it is the oldest Táng anthology in the SKQS jíbù that has no known compiler, no preface, and no clear organising principle. The included poets are Chū and ShèngTáng figures — Wáng Bó, Yáng Jiǒng, Lú Zhàolín, Luò Bīnwáng (the “Four Outstanding ChūTáng Poets”), Shěn Quánqī, Sòng Zhīwèn, Wáng Wéi, Mèng Hàorán, Cuī Hào, Wáng Chānglíng — i.e., the period 670–750. The collection therefore antedates the Héyuè yīnglíng jí KR4h0009 (753), making it potentially the oldest surviving Táng-period anthology of Táng verse, though the editorial disturbance by Máo Jìn has compromised the textual evidence.
The SKQS editors retain it as a witness to textual collation; the chief use of the anthology in modern scholarship is the alternative readings it preserves for ChūTáng and high-Táng poems. Fù Xuáncóng’s Tángrén xuǎn Tángshī xīn biān and the Quán Táng shī compilers draw on it for collation. The compilation is sometimes ascribed (without evidence) to the late ShèngTáng period as a kind of regional anthology; the SKQS editors decline to speculate.
Translations and research
- Fù Xuáncóng 傅璇琮, Táng-rén xuǎn Táng-shī xīn biān (Xī’ān: Shǎnxī rénmín, 1996) — with collated text and notes.
- Lú Yánxīn 盧燕新, “Sōuyù xiǎo jí tàn yuán” 搜玉小集探源, Wénxué yíchǎn 文學遺產 2008.6.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
- ctext