Shāngǔ cí 山谷詞
Lyrics of [Huáng] Shān-gǔ by 黃庭堅 (撰)
About the work
The Shāngǔ cí 山谷詞 is the separately-circulating one-juǎn cí collection of Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 (1045–1105; hào Shāngǔ dàorén 山谷道人 — “Daoist of the Mountain Vale”), the foremost of Sū Shì’s 蘇軾 disciples and founder of the Jiāngxī school of shī. Huáng’s cí are critically split: alongside refined xiǎolìng and beautifully turned occasional pieces sit a famous group of frankly demotic (“xièhùn 䙝諢”, lewd-burlesque) songs and self-revisions — the Tíyào lists no fewer than ten by tune-title — that mark him out as one of the most informally experimental Sòng cí-writers. The Tíyào preserves Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之’s contradictory verdicts on Huáng (recorded in Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí): in one place “the cí-hands of our age are only Qínqī (Qín Guān 秦觀) and Huángjiǔ; no one else matches them”; in another, “Lǔzhí now and then writes small cí, doubtless lofty and marvellous, but he is not a zhèngháng 當行 specialist — he is ‘putting tunes onto good poetry’.” A companion SBCK version is catalogued at KR4j0007 as Shāngǔ qínqù wàipiān 山谷琴趣外篇.
Tiyao
Shāngǔ cí, one juǎn, by Huáng Tíngjiān of the Sòng. Tíngjiān has a quánjí separately catalogued; this is the separately-circulating cí-only printing. The Sòng shǐ Yìwénzhì records Tíngjiān’s yuèfǔ in two juǎn; Mǎ Duānlín 馬端臨’s Jīngjí kǎo records Shāngǔ cí in one juǎn. There has long circulated a Qínqù wàipiān 琴趣外篇 in two juǎn, which must be this same one-juǎn text [in fact the SBCK Qínqù wàipiān is in 3 juǎn; the Tíyào’s figure may reflect a different Sòng witness]. Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí, in the Cháo Wújiù cí entry, quotes Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之: “the cí-hands of our age are only Qínqī and Huángjiǔ; no one else can match them”; in the Shāngǔ cí entry it quotes him again: “Lǔzhí does write small cí now and then, lofty and marvellous, but he is not a zhèngháng 當行 specialist — he is ‘setting tunes onto good poetry.‘” The two statements contradict each other. Examining his cí: Qìn yuán chūn · Wàng yuǎn xíng 沁園春·望遠行; Qiān qiū suì 千秋嵗 (second); Jiāng chéng zǐ 江城子 (second); Liǎng tóng xīn 兩同心 (second and third); Shàonián xīn 少年心 (first and second); Chǒu núér 醜奴兒 (second); Gǔdí lìng 鼓笛令 (fourth); Hǎoshì jìn 好事近 (third) — all are lewd-burlesque, beyond name. As for Gǔdí lìng 3rd’s character &KR0008; and 4th’s character 㞘 — neither appears in the dictionary, all the more inexplicable, not merely (Cháo Bǔzhī’s) “not a specialist.” But of the good ones: marvellous, the worn track left behind, the wit shining through. Look at Liǎng tóng xīn 2 and 3; Yùlóu chūn 玉樓春 1 and 2; Zuì pénglái 醉蓬萊 1 and 2 — both revised and original versions are entered together; clearly the compilers took everything in for his name’s sake. They must be read with discrimination. — Lù Yóu 陸游’s Lǎoxuéān bǐjì discriminates his Niànnú jiāo line Lǎozǐ píngshēng jiāngnán jiāngběi, ài tīng línfēng dí 老子平生江南江北愛聽臨風笛: vulgar prints, ignorant of his Shǔ dialect, alter 笛 dí to 曲 qū in order to rhyme with zhú; the present text retains 笛, so it is still the older un-tampered reading. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 44 / 1779, 3rd month, by Zǒngzuǎnguān 紀昀, 陸錫熊, 孫士毅; Zǒngjiàoguān 陸費墀.
Abstract
The transmitted Shāngǔ cí is the Sìkù form of a one-juǎn descent against which the SBCK Shāngǔ qínqù wàipiān 山谷琴趣外篇 KR4j0007 in three juǎn preserves the older Sòng-cut wording. Modern editions (Tánaka Kenji 田中謙二 and Saitō Mareshi 齋藤希史, Sangoku-shi etc.; the canonical Chinese editing is Liú Wénzhōng 劉文忠 and Mǎ Xìngróng 馬興榮, Huáng Tíngjiān cí jiàozhù 黃庭堅詞校注, Zhōnghuá shūjú 2003) reconstruct around 191 cí. The collection is divided in modern criticism between two registers: a refined-occasional register (especially the Niànnú jiāo, Shuǐdiào gētóu, Yú jiā ào 漁家傲 set of chán songs in imitation of Tōngchán 通禪) and a deliberately demotic-burlesque register attacked by the Sìkù compilers as xièhùn 䙝諢. The split has biographical anchoring: Huáng’s Yú jiā ào set of five (entered also under KR4j0007) belongs to his late Buddhist period after his Guìzhōu exile (1095–), while the burlesque pieces date mostly to the Biànjīng years before. The Sìkù editors’ insistence on retaining 笛 against the vulgar editorial cleanup of 曲 makes this an early example of dialect-philology applied to cí-redaction.
Translations and research
- Liú Wén-zhōng 劉文忠 and Mǎ Xìng-róng 馬興榮, Huáng Tíng-jiān cí jiào-zhù 黃庭堅詞校注 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 2003) — the standard modern critical edition.
- David Palumbo-Liu, The Poetics of Appropriation: The Literary Theory and Practice of Huang Tingjian (Stanford, 1993) — focused on the shī but indispensable for the unified reading.
- Adele Austin Rickett, ed., Chinese Approaches to Literature from Confucius to Liang Ch’i-ch’ao (Princeton, 1978) — discussion of Huáng’s cí poetics.
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999) — collated text in vol. 1.
Other points of interest
The famously “lewd-burlesque” pieces include the Gǔdí lìng set, regarded by scholars from Cháo Bǔzhī to Hú Shì 胡適 as anomalous in the canon. By contrast Huáng’s chán cí — five Yú jiā ào “in imitation of Tōngchán” — are the foundational corpus of Buddhist cí and were singled out by the Yuán-era Buddhist poets in the Chángbō jí tradition.
Links
- Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Huáng Tíngjiān)
- Wikipedia 黃庭堅
- Wikidata Q716050