Tǎnān cí 坦菴詞
Lyrics of the Plain Hermitage by 趙師使 (撰)
About the work
The Tǎnān cí 坦菴詞 is the one-juǎn Sìkù cí collection of Zhào Shīshǐ 趙師使 (also given as Zhào Shīxiá 趙師侠; zì Jièzhī 介之, hào Tǎnān jūshì 坦菴居士), seventh-generation descendant of Yānwáng Zhào Dézhāo 趙德昭 (the eldest son of Sòng Tàizǔ). The name is given variously as Shīshǐ 師使 (in the Máo Jìn 毛晉 cutting) and Shīxiá 師侠 (in Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí and Chén Jǐngyí 陳景沂’s Quán fāng bèi zǔ); the Tíyào leaves the question open. Yǐn Jué 尹覺 (Lǐzhōng’s pupil)‘s preface calls Zhào’s cí “like a spring issuing without choosing its ground,” in a xiāoshū dànyuǎn 蕭踈淡遠 (“plain-sparse, distant-light”) manner that refuses the cut-flower decorative cí. Zhào’s career is reconstructed from the cyclical-date self-annotations in the cí themselves — beginning in Dīnghài (Qiándào 3 / 1167) and ending in Jǐsì (likely Jiātài jǐsì / 1209) — across Yìyáng, Yùzhāng, Liǔzhōu, Yíchūn, Xìnfēng, XiāoXiāng, Héngyáng, Púzhōng, and Chángshā postings; specific ranks are not recoverable.
Tiyao
Tǎnān cí, one juǎn, by Zhào Shīshǐ of the Sòng. Shīshǐ, zì Jièzhī, seventh-generation descendant of Prince Yān, Dézhāo. The collection contains cí matching Yè Mèngdé 葉夢得 and Xú Fǔ — clearly an early-Southern-Sòng man. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records Tǎnān chángduǎnjù in one juǎn under Zhào Shīxiá; Chén Jǐngyí’s Quán fāng bèi zǔ records a five-character plum-blossom quatrain also under Shīxiá — at odds with this text. Cannot determine which is right: the two characters are graphically close, like Tián Kěn / Tián Xiāo in the histories, both versions stand. Máo Jìn’s cutting says Shīshǐ also had the name Shīxiá — but a man does not have two names; this is not fact. The collection is preceded by his pupil Yǐn Jué’s preface: “Tǎnān composes prose as a spring issues without choosing ground; his cí and prose are mere overflow; his portraiture of things and states though most cunning, all derives from natural feeling.” Examining the collection: “plain-sparse, distant-light, refusing red-cut, green-incised diction” — this is indeed a high register among cí; but slightly impaired by an over-quick brush — that is his bias. Shīshǐ took the jìnshì; his official travels are annotated with cyclical dates in cí footnotes — beginning Dīnghài, ending Jǐsì; place-names Yìyáng, Yùzhāng, Liǔzhōu, Yíchūn, Xìnfēng, XiāoXiāng, Héngyáng, Púzhōng, Chángshā; the precise rank-ladder is not now recoverable. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 9th month.
Abstract
The transmitted Tǎnān cí descends through Máo Jìn’s late-Míng cutting; the Quán Sòng cí of Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋 preserves around 152 cí. Modern scholarship has confirmed the Shīxiá form is the correct reading (matching Sòng-clan registers and the Quán fāng bèi zǔ); the Shīshǐ form is a SòngYuán graphic corruption that Máo Jìn perpetuated. The collection is one of the most extensively self-dated cí-corpora in the Sòng: more than half its pieces carry cyclical-date footnotes locating them in specific postings, which makes Zhào a model case for cí biography reconstruction. The chángchóu network — Yè Mèngdé and Xú Fǔ in the older generation, and various junior contemporaries — places him squarely in the Qiándào–Jiātài literary world.
Translations and research
- Wáng Zhào-péng 王兆鵬, Sòng dài cí-rén nián-pǔ 宋代詞人年譜 — Zhào Shī-shǐ / Shī-xiá chronology.
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999), vol. 3 — collated corpus.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù compilers’ open verdict on the name — “Shīshǐ” vs “Shīxiá” — is one of the most explicit Sìkù statements of suspending judgment: cf. their parallel handling of Tián Kěn / Tián Xiāo in the early-Hàn material. The cí’s biographical self-annotation, by cyclical date, makes the collection an important source for the Southern-Sòng chángyì (regular-bureau) civilian-official career path in the southern circuits.