Xiǎoshān cí 小山詞
Lyrics of [Yàn] Xiǎo-shān by 晏幾道 (撰)
About the work
The Xiǎoshān cí 小山詞 is the one-juǎn cí collection of Yàn Jǐdào 晏幾道 (ca. 1030–ca. 1106; zì Shūyuán 叔原, hào Xiǎoshān 小山), youngest son of Yàn Shū 晏殊 and, by consensus of the cí-critical tradition, the supreme master of the xiǎolìng 小令. The collection is the foundational corpus of the xiǎoshān cí 小山詞 manner — a deeply melancholic, sensually-precise, often dream-traversing register of love-and-memory lyrics that Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅’s original preface (lost in the present cutting, but recorded by Mǎ Duānlín 馬端臨) called “the dàyǎ of the streets and alleys, the marching-music of the gallant shì”: at his best in the Gāotáng / Luòshén grand-erotic line of Sòng Yù 宋玉 and Cáo Zhí 曹植, at his lowest no less than 桃葉團扇 (“Peach-leaf and Round-fan” — palace-lady ballads).
Tiyao
Xiǎoshān cí, one juǎn, by Yàn Jǐdào of the Sòng. Jǐdào, zì Shūyuán, hào Xiǎoshān, the youngest son of Yàn Shū 晏殊, administered the Yǐngchāng Xǔtián zhèn. During Xīníng (1068–1077), Zhèng Xiá 鄭俠 submitted a memorial and was imprisoned; everyone of standing during the Zhìpíng (1064–1067) period whom he had been friendly with was investigated. Jǐdào too was among them; the shī he had presented to Xiá’s household were searched out, and Shénzōng (Yùlíng) praised them, ordering Jǐdào released. The matter is recorded in the Hóuqīng lù 侯鯖録. Huáng Tíngjiān’s preface to the Xiǎoshān jí runs: “His yuèfǔ may be called the Dàyǎ of the lanes and alleys, the marching-music of the gallant shì. At his height the Gāotáng and Luòshén are his peers; at his lowest Táoyè and Tuánshàn are not below him.” Again, Gǔjīn cíhuà records Chéng Shūwēi: “Yīchuān 伊川 (i.e. Chéng Yí 程頤) heard someone chant Shūyuán’s cí: mèng hún guàn dé wú jūjiǎn 夢魂慣得無拘檢, again tà yánghuā guò Xiè qiáo 踏楊花過謝橋 — he said, ‘devil-talk,’ but in fact appreciated it.” So Jǐdào’s cí was much esteemed at the time. Mǎ Duānlín’s Jīngjí kǎo records Xiǎoshān cí in one juǎn and reproduces Huáng Tíngjiān’s full preface. The present text has lost the Huáng preface and preserves only an anonymous closing colophon, which says Jǐdào’s cí was originally titled Bǔ wáng 補亡 (“supplying what was lost”) — that is, supplying the lost yuèfǔ. Solitary witness, we dare not change; we keep the old title. As for the old text’s verbal slips: in Fàn qīngbō zhāi biàn 泛清波摘遍 the line àn xī guāngyīn hèn duōshǎo 暗惜光隂恨多少 — this cutting has wrongly added 花 above 光, expanding it into an 8-character line; the Cí huì 詞滙 then changed 陰 to 飲, redoubling the error and producing àn xī huā guāng yǐn hèn duōshǎo. Such cases truly lose the original. We have corrected them. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 5th month, by Zǒngzuǎnguān 紀昀, 陸錫熊, 孫士毅; Zǒngjiàoguān 陸費墀.
Abstract
The transmitted Xiǎoshān cí is the Sìkù form of a one-juǎn descent through Máo Jìn 毛晉 in the late Míng. Modern critical editions (Lóng Yúshēng 龍榆生, Yàn Jǐdào cí 晏幾道詞 in the Sòng liùshí jiā cí xuǎn; Xià Chéngtāo 夏承燾 and Zhāng Zhāng 張璋 JīnYuán MíngQīng cí xuǎn with extensive Yàn Jǐdào commentary; and the Quán Sòng cí of Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋) reconstruct a corpus of around 258 cí. Modern research (Pān Bóyīng 潘伯鷹, Yàn Jǐdào cí 晏幾道詞 annotation; Ronald Egan, The Burden of Female Talent, ch. on Yàn Jǐdào) date the bulk of Yàn Jǐdào’s cí to the post-Xīníng years (mid-1070s onward), after his father’s death and his own political eclipse following the Zhèng Xiá affair. He outlived his entire generation, dying ca. 1106 in straitened circumstances. His self-preface (preserved separately) names the four singing-girls of his old friends Shěn 沈, Chén 陳, Yáng 楊, Wú 吳 — Lián 蓮, Hóng 鴻, Píng 蘋, Yún 雲 — who are the addressees of his canonical love-cí. The Northern-Sòng Xiǎoshān cí established the “lyric of memory” 追憶 type as the supreme variety of xiǎolìng, and the Línjiāng xiān · mèng hòu lóu tái 臨江仙·夢後樓臺高鎖 (“after the dream, the tower’s high-locked”) — with its couplet jìdé Xiǎo Píng chū jiàn, liǎngchóng xīn zì luóyī 記得小蘋初見，兩重心字羅衣 (“I remember Xiǎo Píng on our first meeting, her gauze gown lined with the heart-character”) — is by common reckoning one of the supreme single cí of Sòng literature.
Translations and research
- Ronald Egan, The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China (Harvard, 2014) — includes substantial discussion of Yàn Jǐ-dào.
- Lóng Yú-shēng 龍榆生, Yàn Jǐ-dào cí 晏幾道詞 (Shàng-hǎi gǔ-jí, 1958; reissued).
- Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry from Late T’ang to Northern Sung (Princeton, 1980) — extensive chapter on Yàn Jǐ-dào as the supreme Sòng xiǎo-lìng writer.
- James J.Y. Liu, Major Lyricists of the Northern Sung (Princeton, 1974) — chapter on Yàn Jǐ-dào.
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999) — collated corpus.
Other points of interest
The original Huáng Tíngjiān preface to the Xiǎoshān cí, lost in the Máo Jìn cutting but recorded by Mǎ Duānlín, is among the earliest sustained pieces of cí criticism in Sòng literature; it elevates the cí form into the Chǔcí / Wén xuǎn genealogy of Sòng Yù and Cáo Zhí. The Chéng Yí anecdote about tà yánghuā guò Xiè qiáo — that the great Neo-Confucian, on hearing the line chanted, called it “devil-talk” but secretly enjoyed it — is the locus classicus of the Sòng dao-xué attitude to cí.
Links
- Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Yàn Jǐdào)
- Wikipedia 晏幾道
- Wikidata Q716178