Èrjiā gōngcí 二家宮詞
Palace Verse of Two Houses by 毛晉
About the work
A 2-juǎn anthology of Northern and Southern Sòng gōngcí in qīyán juéjù form, compiled by Máo Jìn (毛晉, 1599–1659). The “two houses” are (1) Sòng Huīzōng (徽宗趙佶, 1082–1135, the imperial-aesthete emperor of late Northern Sòng, who reigned 1100–1126 and died captive in Jīn territory) — 300 quatrains; and (2) Empress Yáng (楊皇后 of Sòng Níngzōng, zì Mèizǐ 妹子, 1162–1232) — 50 quatrains. The collection is a companion to Máo Jìn’s Sānjiā gōngcí 三家宮詞 KR4h0136 (Wáng Jiàn, Huāruǐ fūrén, Wáng Guī), and together the two compilations form Máo’s pre-modern repository of the gōngcí genre from Táng through Sòng. The Sìkù tíyào establishes — using diction-and-taboo arguments — that the colophon attributed to a Northern-Sòng dìjī chánggōngzhǔ 帝姬長公主 at the close of the Huīzōng juǎn is a Míng-period forgery (the term dìjī postdates Cài Jīng’s titulary reform; zhēn 禎 was Rénzōng’s personal-name taboo, which would have prevented a Northern-Sòng Zhāoyí lady from being named “Kǒng Zhēn”); and that the colophon “Qiánfū” 潛夫 at the close of the Empress-Yáng juǎn is almost certainly by Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 (zì Qiánfū) — the colophon dated guǐyǒu (Xiánchún 9 = 1273) is chronologically consistent. Máo Jìn himself was aware that the surviving texts had been repeatedly tampered with by commercial printers — his collation, including the 1627 acquisition of Hú Yīnglín’s 胡應麟 bìběn manuscript for the Empress-Yáng pieces, was an attempt to restore the texts.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Èrjiā gōngcí in 2 juǎn — compiled by the Míng Máo Jìn. Contains Sòng Huīzōng huángdì 300 pieces and Níngzōng Yáng huánghòu 50 pieces. At the end of the Huīzōng juǎn is a colophon by dìjī chánggōngzhǔ 帝姬長公主, stating: “From Jiànzhōng jìngguó 2 (1102) to Xuānhé 6 (1124), the Jíxī diàn preserved 300 imperially-composed gōngcí; the Zuǒ Zhāoyí Kǒng Zhēn 孔禎, together with pínyù Zhāng Ānkǎi 章安愷 and others, were ordered to gather and arrange them, completing the book.”
Examining: Cài Jīng changed gōngzhǔ to dìjī, each with their own enfeoffment title — yet here it says both dìjī and chánggōngzhǔ, not consistent with the system of that day. Also, the character 禎 is Rénzōng’s miàohuì (temple-name taboo) — at that time Wénzhēn (Fàn Zhòngyān’s posthumous title) was changed to Wénzhèng, Wèi Zhēng to Wèi Zhèng — taboo on similar names was observed quite strictly. How could a palace Zhāoyí dare to have zhēn as her name? This colophon is almost certainly pseudonymous (出於依託).
At the end of the Empress-Yáng juǎn is a colophon by “Qiánfū” — name not given. Máo Jìn says he does not know who. Examining: Liú Kèzhuāng is zì Qiánfū; the colophon dated guǐyǒu zhòngchūn is the second month of Sòng Dùzōng’s Xiánchún 9 (1273) — the dates also align. Could the colophon be Liú Kèzhuāng’s?
Máo Jìn’s own colophon at the end of the Huīzōng juǎn says: “Commercial prints have either 280 pieces, or 292, or 300, or somewhat over 300 — many vulgar-mixed forgeries. Later from Yúnjiān (Sōngjiāng) I obtained a Yuán original, lacking only 2 pieces.” So the book had already been repeatedly cuànluàn (corrupted), and what is called the Yúnjiān Yuán original is not necessarily the old state.
Máo Jìn’s own colophon at the end of the Empress-Yáng juǎn says: “The present recension has only 30 pieces; the remaining 20 I had not yet seen. In Tiānqǐ dīngmǎo (1627) I obtained Hú Yīnglín’s bìběn (secret-copy)” — also stating: “Yíngchūn yànzǐ wěi xiānxiān one piece, Luòxù méngméng lìxià tiān one piece, Zǐjìn xiānyú jiédàn lái one piece — formerly recorded as Táng-author; Lánjìng xiāngxiāo yùniǎn zōng one piece, Quēyuè liúguāng rù qǐshū one piece, Niǎnlù qīngtái yǔhòu shēn one piece — formerly recorded as Yuán-author; for now I follow the original recension.”
Examining further: in the collection, the piece Āzǐ xiénóng jìn Zǐwēi — Ruǐgōng chéngchǒng dòu fāngfēi — Xiùwéi dúzì cái xīnjǐn — pà kàn huājiān húdié fēi — also resembles Yáng Mèizǐ’s work, hence its opening line. The Shūshǐ huìyào calls Yáng Mèizǐ “her poetic diction touches sentimental feeling, and people sometimes criticised it” — perhaps this type. It should not come from Empress Yáng’s brush.
We suspect: of these 350 pieces, all are gathered by later hands — zhēnwèi cānbàn (authentic and false half-half) — not all reliable. For now we preserve them because liúchuán yǐ jiǔ (they have circulated for long). Reverently submitted, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date. Máo Jìn’s collation of the Empress-Yáng juǎn used the Hú Yīnglín secret-copy obtained in Tiānqǐ dīngmǎo (1627); the compilation is therefore no earlier than 1627. The terminus is Máo’s death in 1659.
Significance. (1) The Èrjiā gōngcí is the standard pre-modern collection of the Sòng-period gōngcí tradition — Sòng Huīzōng’s 300 quatrains (the most ambitious imperial gōngcí corpus) and Empress Yáng’s 50 quatrains. Together with KR4h0136 the Sānjiā gōngcí, the work completes Máo Jìn’s coverage of the genre from Táng through Sòng. (2) Both attributions are textually problematic: the Sìkù tíyào documents, via diction-and-taboo arguments, that the Huīzōng colophon is a Míng forgery and that significant portions of the Empress-Yáng material are misattributed pieces from Táng or Yuán hands. Máo Jìn himself was aware of the contamination but lacked the documentary basis to fully purify the text. The compilation is thus a diagnostic case of late-Míng anthological textual scholarship — careful collation against limited surviving witnesses, with the Sìkù editors using onomastic-taboo evidence to identify remaining inauthentic strata. (3) Empress Yáng (Yáng Mèizǐ, 1162–1232) is one of the few Sòng-period imperial women with significant surviving poetic output; her gōngcí are a principal source for Southern-Sòng court verse by women.
The Sòng Huīzōng case. The 300 gōngcí attributed to Sòng Huīzōng — whose imperial-aesthete reputation makes him the most plausible imperial gōngcí author in Chinese history — are reasonably (if not provably) authentic for at least a substantial core. Huīzōng’s documented activities as poet, painter (Shòujīn slim-gold calligraphy, huāniǎo bird-and-flower painting), and aesthete give the compilation strong prima facie plausibility. The accumulation of pieces over the long Northern Sòng / Yuán / Míng transmission, however, makes specific attributions uncertain.
Translations and research
- Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Emperor Huizong (Cambridge MA, 2014) — definitive English biography, includes treatment of Huī-zōng’s literary output.
- Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong (Seattle, 2008) — companion volume on Huī-zōng’s cultural-collecting project.
- Wilt L. Idema and Beata Grant, The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China (Cambridge MA, 2004) — treats Yáng Mèi-zǐ.
- 黃寬重 Huáng Kuān-zhòng, Sòng-dài de jiā-zú yǔ shè-huì 宋代的家族與社會 — Southern-Sòng court / family context.
Other points of interest
The companion volume to KR4h0136 forms a pair: Sānjiā gōngcí (TángWǔdàiBěiSòng) plus Èrjiā gōngcí (Sòng) supply Máo Jìn’s complete Táng-through-Sòng gōngcí repository in five authors. The Sìkù tíyào treats the two compilations as the standard pre-modern reference, even while flagging extensive textual problems in both — a balance characteristic of the Qiánlóng-period editors’ attitude to Máo Jìn’s substantial but imperfect editorial work.