Shèngqiú cí 聖求詞
Lyrics of [Lǚ] Shèng-qiú by 呂濱老 (撰)
About the work
The Shèngqiú cí 聖求詞 is the one-juǎn Sìkù cí collection of Lǚ Bīnlǎo 呂濱老 (fl. late-Xuān-hé through Shàoxīng; zì Shèngqiú 聖求), of Jiāxīng 嘉興. The volume preserves Zhào Shīshàn 趙師㞧’s preface of Jiādìng rénshēn 嘉定壬申 (1212), which is the principal witness to Lǚ’s life: a shī-poet of high reputation in the late Northern Sòng who lived to see the SòngJīn dynastic break, whose yōuguó 憂國 (anxious-for-the-state) and tòngshāng 痛傷 (grief-bereft) shī — composed when Huīzōng and Qīnzōng were taken north — survive only as quotations, but whose cí still circulate. The Tíyào picks out a list of pieces — Wàng hǎi cháo, Zuì pénglái, Pū húdié jìn, Xī fēn chāi, Bó xìng, Xuǎn guānzǐ, Bǎi yí jiāo — that Yáng Shèn 楊慎’s Cí pǐn rates “not below Qín Shàoyóu 秦觀,” and adds Yáng’s view that Lǚ’s Dōng fēng dìyī zhī · Yǒng méi 東風第一枝·詠梅 was “not below Sū Shì’s Lǜmáo yāofèng.”
Tiyao
Shèngqiú cí, one juǎn, by Lǚ Bīnlǎo of the Sòng. Bīnlǎo, zì Shèngqiú, a man of Jiāxīng. Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí gives the name as 呂渭老; but Zhào Shīshàn’s Jiādìng rénshēn (1212) preface also writes Bīnlǎo 濱老 — Chén must be wrong. Chén records his cí in one juǎn, agreeing with the present text. Bīnlǎo at the end of Northern Sòng had considerable reputation in shī; Shīshàn praises his “anxious-for-the-state” shī in two couplets, his “grief-bereft” shī in two couplets, his “release-of-anger” shī in one couplet — all written during the captivity of Huīzōng and Qīnzōng. The “anxious-for-the-state” couplet shàngxǐ shānhé guī dìzǐ, kělián mílù rù wánggōng 尚喜山河歸帝子，可憐麋鹿入王宫 (“still happy that the rivers and mountains return to the imperial son; sad that the deer enter the royal palace”) shows he was still alive at the southern crossing. His shī in Shīshàn’s day was no longer in full extent; the cí is still transmitted. Yáng Shèn 楊慎’s Cí pǐn praises his Wàng hǎi cháo, Zuì pénglái, Pū húdié jìn, Xī fēn chāi, Bó xìng, Xuǎn guānzǐ, Bǎi yí jiāo — fine points not below Shàoyóu 秦觀; Dōng fēng dìyī zhī · Yǒng méi not below Dōngpō’s Lǜmáo yāofèng [Sū Shì on the bamboo-pheasant]. Today the yǒngméi cí is not in this collection, only appears in Máo Jìn 毛晉’s colophon; Jìn does not say his source — unclear. Jìn’s colophon also notes that the Xī fēn chāi closing line uses doubled characters, compared with Lù Yóu 陸游’s Chāi tóu fèng which uses tripled characters and has a separate rhyme; but Bīnlǎo was a man of Huīzōng’s time, Lù Yóu was a man of Níngzōng’s — the Chāi tóu fèng in fact derives from the older Xī fēn chāi tune, only changing the level rhyme to oblique rhymes; Jìn seems to make the present tune derive from Chāi tóu fèng, an oversight. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 10th month.
Abstract
The transmitted Shèngqiú cí descends through Máo Jìn’s 毛晉 cutting, derived from a Sòng-cut text carrying the 1212 Zhào Shīshàn preface. Modern editions: the Quán Sòng cí of Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋 preserves around 134 cí; the corpus is one of the most under-studied of the major late-Northern-Sòng cí collections, though Wáng Zhàopéng 王兆鵬’s Lǚ Bīnlǎo cí jiàozhù 呂濱老詞校注 (Zhōngzhōu gǔjí, 1999 ff.) gives a critical text. Modern scholarship (the chapter in Wáng Zhàopéng, Sòng cí shǐ 宋詞史) treats Lǚ as a key transitional figure whose cí link the late Qīngzhēn 周邦彥 style to the post-southern-crossing patriot-cí of Zhāng Yuángàn 張元幹 and Yuè Fēi 岳飛. The name confusion (Chén Zhènsūn’s Wèilǎo 渭老) recurs in modern scholarship; recent work follows the Tíyào and Shīshàn’s preface in standardizing the form as Bīnlǎo 濱老.
Translations and research
- Wáng Zhào-péng 王兆鵬, Lǚ Bīn-lǎo cí jiào-zhù 呂濱老詞校注 (Zhōng-zhōu gǔ-jí, late 1990s).
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999), vol. 2 — collated corpus.
- Yáng Shèn 楊慎, Cí pǐn 詞品 (Míng) — early sustained appraisal.
Other points of interest
The 1212 Zhào Shīshàn preface is one of the most informative single witnesses to a late-Northern-Sòng cí-writer in the canon: it both periodizes Lǚ’s career across the dynastic break and gives a sustained early reception-history of his shī by way of explaining why the shī is lost and the cí preserved. The piece is worth reading whole for the Xuānhé-Shàoxīng literary milieu it documents.