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六一詞

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Text ID
KR4j0002
Date
1031–1072
Dynasty
宋

Liùyī cí 六一詞

Lyrics of the “One-of-Six” Master by 歐陽修 (撰)

About the work

The Liùyī cí 六一詞 is the cí collection of Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修 (1007–1072), one of the central literary, political, and scholarly figures of the Northern Sòng. The title alludes to Ōuyáng’s late self-styled hào Liùyī jūshì 六一居士 (“Recluse of the Six ‘Ones’”), referring to the six things in which he claimed to find his retirement: one collection of one thousand books, one collection of three-period bronzes and stones, one qín zither, one set of chess equipment, one hú of wine, and “this one old man” 一老翁 himself. The collection brings together the cí output of a lifetime — a wide-ranging body of xiǎolìng and a few màncí on banquet pleasures, parting, spring grief, and the famous Yǐngzhōu 潁州 retreat at Xīhú 西湖 — and it is preserved here in the 1-juǎn Sìkù form descending from the late-Míng Jígǔgé edition of Máo Jìn 毛晉. The text is famously unstable: pieces by Féng Yánsì 馮延巳, Méi Yáochén 梅堯臣 and even unknown hands have at various times wandered into the collection, and parts of Ōuyáng’s own cí have wandered out of it.

Tiyao

Liùyī cí, one juǎn, by Ōuyáng Xiū of the Sòng. Xiū has the Shī běnyì 詩本義 separately catalogued. Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 records the cí in one juǎn. The present text was cut by Máo Jìn 毛晉, also in one juǎn; but his Liùshí jiā cí 六十家詞 general index notes that the original was in three juǎn. The Lúlíng 廬陵 old edition contained the 樂語 (banquet pieces) and was divided into three juǎn; Jìn excised the yuèyǔ and merged the remainder into one juǎn. Zēng Zào 曾慥’s preface to the Yuèfǔ yǎcí 樂府雅詞 KR4j0065 says: “Duke Ōu is the great Confucian of his generation, the embodiment of refinement, and his cí is admired throughout the age; yet petty persons sometimes compose vulgar erotic tunes and falsely ascribe them to him.” Cài Tāo 蔡絛’s Xīqīng shīhuà 西清詩話 holds that those of Ōuyáng’s cí which are crude and shallow are forgeries by Liú Huī 劉煇. The Míngchén lù 名臣録 likewise records that when Xiū presided over the Gòngjǔ examinations, the failed candidate Liú Huī and others, in envy, used the Pénglái and Wàng jiāng nán tunes to slander him. So even by Sòng times, alien compositions had already entered Ōuyáng’s cí. Furthermore, in the Yuánfēng reign, Cuī Gōngdù 崔公度’s colophon to Féng Yánsì’s Yángchūn lù 陽春錄 noted that several of its entries had been mistakenly absorbed into the Liùyī cí — so Ōuyáng’s own cí had also leaked into other collections. Already in Sòng times the text was unfixed. Jìn’s edition has done much rectifying; nevertheless, in the various selectanea there is a Shàonián yóu 少年遊 (incipit lángān shíèr dú píng chūn 闌干十二獨凭春) which Wú Zēng 吳曾’s Nénggǎi zhāi mànlù 能改齋漫錄 alone assigns to Ōuyáng — saying “not only [Méi] Yáochén and [Lín] Jūnfù cannot match it, but it would be hard even to set it among Wēn [Tíngyún] and Lǐ [Shāngyǐn].” This cí should belong to Ōuyáng, but Jìn did not take it in; the collection therefore still has its gaps. Again, in the Yuèxī chūn 越溪春 closing lines chén shè bù shāo, jīn yā línglóng, yuè zhào lí huā 沈麝不燒，金鴨玲瓏，月照梨花 (six characters, two phrases): the collection still follows the corrupt commercial print in writing 玲 as 冷 and 瓏 as 籠, with the result that the line is mis-divided as seven characters and five characters — proof that the proof-reading too is not entirely free of error. Still, the edition is better than the others, and we follow it. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 45 / 1780, 9th month, by Zǒngzuǎnguān 紀昀, 陸錫熊, 孫士毅; Zǒngjiàoguān 陸費墀.

Abstract

The transmitted Liùyī cí descends from Máo Jìn’s Jígǔgé Liùshí jiā cí (Ming, c. 1620s–40s), which the Sìkù took as base; Máo had already collapsed the old three-juǎn Lúlíng edition (with its 樂語 banquet performance pieces) into a single juǎn. Modern editors (Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋, Quán Sòng cí 1; Liú Yángzhōng 劉揚忠, Ōuyáng Xiū cí jiàozhù, Zhōnghuá shūjú 1986) have re-collated Ōuyáng’s cí against the Yuèfǔ yǎcí of Zēng Zào (which is the most authoritative early witness, since Zēng was Ōuyáng’s near-junior contemporary), the Huācǎo cuìbiān KR4j0073, and other SòngYuán anthologies; the result is a corpus of approximately 240 cí, of which about 200 are reasonably secure and several dozen are doubtful or contested with Féng Yánsì, Yàn Shū 晏殊, Zhāng Xiān 張先, or anonymous hands. The text problem identified by the Tíyào — that Ōuyáng’s cí circulated both with intruders and with leakers from at least the late eleventh century — has never been fully resolved; the most-quoted contested piece is the Wàng jiāng nán 望江南 (Jiāng nán liǔ 江南柳) cited by the Míngchén lù anecdote.

Translations and research

  • Egan, Ronald C., The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (1007–1072) (Cambridge University Press, 1984) — the standard English-language monograph; discusses but does not translate the cí in detail. The companion monograph Egan, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Harvard, 2006) treats Ōuyáng’s aesthetic milieu.
  • Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., eds., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999) — collated text of Ōuyáng Xiū’s cí (vol. 1).
  • Liú Yáng-zhōng 劉揚忠, Ōuyáng Xiū cí jiào-zhù 歐陽修詞校注 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1986).
  • James J.Y. Liu, Major Lyricists of the Northern Sung (Princeton, 1974) — chapter on Ōuyáng Xiū.
  • Lin Shuen-fu, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tz’u Poetry (Princeton, 1978) — frames Ōuyáng’s place in the cí canon.

Other points of interest

The Liùyī cí contains the Cǎisāng zǐ 採桑子 set of ten xiǎolìng on the West Lake of Yǐngzhōu, composed during Ōuyáng’s late retirement (post-1067), which became a model for the meditative-retreat cí and were echoed throughout the Southern-Sòng cí. The “Six Ones” hào is the subject of Ōuyáng’s own famous self-account Liùyī jūshì zhuàn 六一居士傳, included in his biéjí Wénzhōng jí 文忠集 KR4d0068.

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