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姑溪詞

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Text ID
KR4j0012
Date
1085–1117
Dynasty
宋

Gūxī cí 姑溪詞

Lyrics of Gū-xī by 李之儀 (撰)

About the work

The Gūxī cí 姑溪詞 is the one-juǎn Sìkù cí collection of Lǐ Zhīyí 李之儀 (fl. 1085–ca. 1117; zì Duānshū 端叔, hào Gūxī jūshì 姑溪居士), a Sū Shì 蘇軾 follower best known in his lifetime for his chǐdú 尺牘 (letters). His cí — gathered by Máo Jìn 毛晉 into forty tune-titles and eighty-eight cí — are placed by the Tíyào “nearly equal to Qín Guān 秦觀” in the xiǎolìng register, qīngwǎn qiàoqiàn 清婉峭蒨 (clear-restrained, sharply-bright). The collection’s unusual editorial trait is that Lǐ’s matching-cí with Chén Guàn 陳瓘, Hè Zhù 賀鑄, and Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 place the original cí of the dedicatee first and Lǐ’s matching piece second — a practice borrowed (per the Tíyào) from the Xiè Tiǎo jí’s incorporation of Wáng Róng 王融’s poems, and a useful resource for cross-collation.

Tiyao

Gūxī cí, one juǎn, by Lǐ Zhīyí of the Sòng. Zhīyí has the Gūxī jí separately catalogued. The Shūlù jiětí records Zhīyí’s Gūxī cí in one juǎn. The present text was cut by Máo Jìn: forty tune-titles, eighty-eight cí in total. Zhīyí is renowned for his chǐdú, and his cí are also fine, especially his xiǎolìng — clear-restrained, sharp and bright, scarcely below Qín Guān. Jìn’s colophon says: “Huáng Shēng 黃昇’s Huāān cí xuǎn KR4j0066 did not pick him up — there is the lament of the abandoned pearl.” But Huáng’s selections are all of men after the southern crossing — hence “Marvellous cí since the Zhōngxīng” KR4j0067; Zhīyí’s period is earlier; Jìn did not check. As for the lines Jìn quotes — yuānqīn bàn yōng kōngchuáng yuè 鴛衾半擁空床月, bù lǎn qià xún chuángwò 步懶恰尋床卧, kàn yóusī dào dì cháng 看遊絲到地長, shíshí jìn shǒu xīntóu yùn, shòu jìn wúrén zhī chù liáng 時時浸手心頭熨，受盡無人知處凉 — these still do not exhaust his strengths. His matching-cí for Chén Guàn, Hè Zhù, Huáng Tíngjiān: the original is given first, his own piece second; songs paired in mutual address — the example is from the Xiè Tiǎo jí’s appended Wáng Róng poems — letting the matching of feeling on both sides be seen; the cí-arrangement and intent thus becomes far better explained than in collections that omit it. The Huáng Tíngjiān Hǎo shì jìn 好事近 here closes fù shífēn jiāoyè 負十分蕉葉; today’s Shāngǔ cí KR4j0006 mis-prints 蕉 as 金 — a cross-verification asset.

Abstract

The transmitted Gūxī cí descends through Máo Jìn 毛晉’s Jígǔgé one-juǎn cutting, agreeing with Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s catalog form. Modern editions: the Quán Sòng cí of Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋 gives a corpus of around 92 cí. The collection contains Lǐ’s most famous piece, Bǔ suàn zǐ · Wǒ zhù Chángjiāng tóu 卜算子·我住長江頭 — wǒ zhù Chángjiāng tóu, jūn zhù Chángjiāng wěi, rìrì sī jūn bù jiàn jūn, gòng yǐn Chángjiāng shuǐ 我住長江頭，君住長江尾，日日思君不見君，共飲長江水 (“I live at the head of the great river, you at its tail; day-on-day I long for you and do not see you, but we drink the same river-water”) — composed for his second wife Yáng Shūyǔ 楊姝, a singing-girl whom Lǐ married at Tàipíngzhōu when banished there in the Chóngníng period; this cí, with its echo of the Yuèfǔ tradition, has remained the most-cited xiǎolìng of the early Sòng. Lǐ’s cí divide neatly between the Biànjīng matching-cí with the Sū mén circle (the matching pieces to Chén Guàn, Hè Zhù, Huáng Tíngjiān documented above) and the southern exile period at Tàipíngzhōu.

Translations and research

  • Wú Cháo-sī 吳曹思, Lǐ Zhī-yí Gū-xī cí jiào-zhù 李之儀姑溪詞校注 (various reprints).
  • Liú Yáng-zhōng 劉揚忠, Sòng cí xuǎn jí, with full discussion of Bǔ suàn zǐ · Wǒ zhù Cháng-jiāng tóu.
  • Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999), vol. 1.
  • Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry from Late T’ang to Northern Sung (Princeton, 1980).

Other points of interest

The Sìkù compilers’ note that Lǐ’s matching-cí arrangement preserves the textual basis for cross-collating Huáng Tíngjiān’s Hǎo shì jìn — proving jiāo 蕉 against the corrupted jīn 金 — is a classic of the cí-philology that emerged in the late Qiánlóng Sìkù phase. The popular reception of Bǔ suàn zǐ · Wǒ zhù Chángjiāng tóu — set to song by countless modern composers — has made Lǐ the most universally-known of the secondary Northern-Sòng cí-writers.

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