Guītáng āinǎi jí 圭塘欸乃集
Songs from the Jade-Tablet Pond by 許有壬
About the work
A 2-juǎn family poetry-anthology preserving the mutual-harmonising verse of the late-Yuán jiāān 家庵 yǒnghé (familial harmonising) of Xǔ Yǒurén (許有壬, 1287–1364), his younger brother Xǔ Yǒufú 許有孚, and his son Xǔ Zhēn 許楨 — together with their literary retainer Mǎ Xī 馬熙. After Xǔ Yǒurén’s retirement in Zhìzhèng 8 (1348), with an imperial-grant gold-payment he purchased the abandoned Kāng-family park in the west of Xiàngchéng 相城 (Xiàngzhōu, Héběi), cut a pond in the form of the Huánguī 桓圭 jade ceremonial-tablet, and named the resulting estate Guītáng 圭塘. With friends, brother, sons, and guests, daily shāngyǒng (cup-and-chant) — the resulting accumulation became the Guītáng āinǎi jí (“āinǎi” = the song of boatmen, a metonym for casual yǒngtàn).
The collection: 219 poems + 66 yuèfǔ (cí); 10 of the yuèfǔ are by Xǔ’s guest Mǎ Xī, the rest by Xǔ Yǒurén, Yǒufú, and Zhēn. After the original assembly, Xǔ Zhēn carried the manuscript to the capital and showed it to Mǎ Xī, who then composed 78 harmonising shī and 8 harmonising cí — published separately under the title 圭塘補和 Guītáng bǔhé (“Guītáng Supplementary Harmonising”), appended to the main collection. Zhōu Bóqí 周伯琦 supplies the preface; eight colophons by Duàn Tiānyòu 段天祐 and others, plus Zhào Héng 趙恒 and Lù Huànrán 陸煥然’s verses, are appended — all dated to the gēngyín (1350), xīnmǎo (1351), jiǎchén (1364), bǐngwǔ (1366) cyclic years.
Final colophon mystery solved. The last colophon is signed “Huánbīn” 洹濵 without name — recording: “This collection — its jiānghú friend personally transcribed and decorated it; 28 years after [the original], I returned south, opened to read — all else was bēicuì (broken); after the war, what remained was only this recension; I rallied my strength to repair-and-mend, leaving it to my sons-and-grandsons.” Dated Shàngzhāng tūntān 4th month (= gēngshēn, Hóngwǔ 13 of Míng = 1380). The “Dīng Wénshēng 丁文昇” colophon mentions Huánbīnyùshǐ received-and-returned-to-have-transcribed — confirming that “Huánbīn” is Xǔ Yǒufú’s sobriquet, and that the original “jiānghú friend” was Dīng Wénshēng.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Guītáng āinǎi jí in 2 juǎn — the Yuán Xǔ Yǒurén and his younger brother Yǒufú, son Zhēn, mutual-harmonising poetry. Yǒurén’s Zhìzhèng jí and Guītáng xiǎogǎo are already on record (see KR4d0508, KR4d0509). In Zhìzhèng 8 (1348) Yǒurén had already retired-and-returned, used imperial-bestowed gold to obtain the Kāng-family ruined park west of Xiàngchéng; cut a pond in the middle, shaped like a Huánguī jade-tablet, hence named “Guītáng”. Daily he led guests and family in shāngyǒng (cup-and-chanting). Accumulated into a big volume, named it the Guītáng āinǎi jí. Total 219 poems + 66 yuèfǔ. Within the yuèfǔ, 10 are made by his guest Mǎ Xī; the rest are all Yǒurén, Yǒufú, and Zhēn’s. Subsequently Zhēn came to the capital, showed the recension to Mǎ Xī. Xī took it and harmonised it in full — total 78 shī, 8 cí — separately titled Guītáng bǔhé, appended at the end. The poetry has many yīshí shìxìng (one-time inspired) pieces — not all of them carefully wrought. But within a single house, father-son and brother mutually teaching and befriending, the prosperity of fēngliú wényǎ (refined-cultivated grace) is still capable of being imagined.
The front of the collection has Zhōu Bóqí’s preface; the back has Duàn Tiānyòu et al.’s 8 colophons, plus Zhào Héng and Lù Huànrán’s title-poems, one each — all signed Zhìzhèng gēngyín, xīnmǎo, jiǎchén, bǐngwǔ years. Only the final has a single colophon by Huánbīn, not bearing name or zì, saying: “This collection — jiānghú yǒurén personally transcribed and bound; 28 years later, returning south to open to read — all else broke-up; after the war what remained was only this recension; I rallied strength to repair-and-mend, leaving it to my sons-and-grandsons” etc. The back signed Shàngzhāng tūntān 4th month. Examining: Shàngzhāng tūntān is gēngshēn, the 13th year of Míng Hóngwǔ (1380). Dīng Wénshēng’s colophon also has “from Huánbīnyùshǐ received-back-and-transcribed” wording — so Huánbīn is Yǒufú’s biéhào (sobriquet); and the so-called jiānghú yǒurén is precisely Wénshēng.
Reverently submitted, eighth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date. The constituent poems were composed in Zhìzhèng 8 onward (1348–1364) at the Guītáng estate near Xiàngchéng. The transmitted text was assembled in c. 1364 (Yǒurén’s death); the Guītáng bǔhé added by Mǎ Xī during Xǔ Zhēn’s stay in the capital around the same period. The unique manuscript was rescued from the YuánMíng war devastation by Xǔ Yǒufú (sobriquet Huánbīn) and re-assembled in Hóngwǔ 13 (1380).
Significance. (1) Family-anthology format. Like the KR4h0068 Cháishì sìyǐn jí, the Guītáng āinǎi jí is a family-poetry anthology — but unlike the Cháishì it documents the leisure of a Yuán cáogé (court official) on retirement rather than loyalist hermitage. The two represent the two principal Yuán-period family-anthology types.
(2) Pre- and post-conquest contrast. The poems date from the last quiet decade of the Yuán (1348–1364); the post-war salvage gives the collection its melancholy frame. Xǔ Yǒufú’s 1380 colophon is one of the most poignant late-Yuán yímín salvage-records: 28 years of social network and material splendour reduced to a battered manuscript.
(3) Mǎ Xī as commensal-poet. The collection is unusually informative on the bīnkè (guest-and-friend) institution of late-imperial elite households — Mǎ Xī appears here as a professional literary companion of the Xǔfǔménxià (Xǔ family dependants) tradition.
Translations and research
- Hok-lam Chan, on Yuán official-elite literary culture.
- 楊鎌 Yáng Lián, Yuán-shī shǐ — for the late-Yuán cí-bù group.
- 蕭啟慶 Xiāo Qǐ-qìng, Yuán-dài Hàn-rén jí-tuán yán-jiū — Yuán-period Han elite-networks.
Other points of interest
The pond’s shape — Huánguī (a ceremonial jade tablet) — is double-coded: it is at once the Xǔ family’s heraldic emblem (Xǔ Yǒurén’s prior Guītáng xiǎogǎo used the same name) and a classical reference to the Huánguī held by the Sāngōng (Three Excellencies) in pre-Qín ritual. The choice for a retired Yuán Zhōngshū zuǒchéng is appropriately memorialising of his career.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4.
- ctext