Dōngpǔ cí 東浦詞
Lyrics of East-Bank by 韓玉 (撰)
About the work
The Dōngpǔ cí 東浦詞 is the one-juǎn Sìkù cí collection of Hán Yù 韓玉 (zì Wēnfǔ 溫甫), a man of Běipíng who took office under the Jīn as Hànlín yìngfèng wénzì and later Fèngxiángfǔ pànguān. The catalog meta wrongly assigns him to the Sòng dynasty (and Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 preserves the work in his Sòng catalog) — but the Tíyào correctly identifies him as Jīn on the authority of Yuán Hǎowèn 元好問’s Zhōngzhōu jí 中州集. The work survives in Chinese-side hands because Hán composed many cí while still in Sòng territory, including birthday-cí for Zhāng Jùn (Wèigōng) 張浚 and Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾, and a Guǎngdōng cí matching Kāng Yǔzhī 康與之 (Bókě). The corpus is unique among Sòng-listed cí in preserving northern (Jīn) dialect rhyming features (yù 玉 / zhù 注 / nǚ 女 doubled in Hè xīn láng · Yǒng Shuǐxiān, xiè 謝 / shíyuè 食月 doubled in Bǔ suàn zǐ) that the Tíyào identifies as Hán’s northern speech, not editorial errors.
Tiyao
Dōngpǔ cí, one juǎn, old text-title ascribed to Hán Yù of the Sòng. Examining Yuán Hǎowèn’s Zhōngzhōu jí: Yù, zì Wēnfǔ, a man of Běipíng; served the Jīn as Hànlín yìngfèng wénzì, later Fèngxiángfǔ pànguān — so he ought to be assigned to the Jīn; the title’s “Sòng” is wrong. Yet Jīn-period writings are largely not catalogued by Sòng catalogers; Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records Dōngpǔ cí in one juǎn. Examining: the collection has Shuǐdiào gētóu for Zhāng Wèigōng’s birthday; for Xīn Yòuān’s 辛棄疾 birthday; one shuǐdiào about coming up from Guǎngzhōng past Lúlíng to present a singing-girl Duàn Yúnqīng; one Gǎn huángēn in Guǎngdōng matching Kāng Bókě 康伯可 — clearly Hán was first in Sòng and only later entered Jīn; this volume’s cí were composed while in Sòng and had circulated, so the Sòng catalogers recorded it. Máo Jìn 毛晉 cut it among Sòng authors and then disparaged it: “though he matched with Kāng Yǔzhī and Xīn Qìjí, he is more than ‘Zhǔluó vs Wúyán’ from them” (i.e. far inferior) — but looking at the cí, although the celebratory pieces are vulgar-tedious, the lines Jìn picked (qiě zuò lìng zhōng) are also close to the běiqǔ (northern-tune) style: certainly not fine work. But Sòng cí contain plenty of this kind; why single Hán out? And the Gǎn huángēn, Jiǎn zì mùlán huā, Hè xīn láng of his collection are not without clear-tender-and-turning quality. Why deprecate them and single out only the yuānjiā hé chù two phrases? This is the Míng-period habit of valuing south over north and putting Sòng inside, Jīn outside; Jìn used factional vision to disparage. He further proof-reads sloppily once he despises: Shuǐdiào gētóu 2nd front-half róngshì shàng zhōngzhōu — shì 飾 mis-cut as chì 飭; Qūjiāng qiū front-half qīliáng yáng zhōu — no missing character, but a fāngkòng (empty box for missing character) wrongly inserted; back-half xiāorán shāng — shāng should drop a character, yet no fāngkòng is marked; Yī jiǎn méi front-half zhǐ yuàn jiān zòng xiùān chén — yuàn by tune-rule should not be zè; Shàng Xīpíng diào (= Jīn rén pěng lù pán tune) front-half àn xī shuāngxuě — xī by rule should not be zè; back-half bù zhī zǎo — under zǎo a character is missing; Hè xīn láng 3rd back-half repeats lěng rhyme — clearly an error; Yī jiǎn méi huā misnamed as Zhú xiāng zǐ (which is a separate tune); the Shuǐdiào gētóu offered to Xīn Yòuān has the tóu dropped and is listed as a separate Shuǐdiào gē tune. Layered errors throughout. Of Jīn’s Liùshí jiā cí, only this collection’s colophon mentions friend-collation — perhaps Jìn himself knew its loose proof-reading. As to the Hè xīn láng · Yǒng Shuǐxiān using yù / zhù / nǚ doubled, and the Bǔ suàn zǐ using xiè with shíyuè doubled — these arise from Hán’s mixing in northern speech, as Línwài’s sǎo / suǒ rhyme, Huáng Tíngjiān’s 黃庭堅 dí / zhú rhyme — not proof-reading errors.
Abstract
The transmitted Dōngpǔ cí descends through Máo Jìn’s cutting. Modern editions: the Quán Jīn Yuán cí 全金元詞 of Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1979) preserves Hán Yù’s corpus, around 65 cí. The Tíyào’s reattribution of Hán to the Jīn on the basis of Yuán Hǎowèn — supported by the collection’s friendship with both Sòng and Jīn officials and by its dialect features — is the standard modern position; the WYG catalog placement under Sòng reflects only the Sòng-circulation history. Hán was likely born in the Jīn but spent extended years on the Sòng side as a fugitive or guest (the Tíyào infers from the Zhāng Jùn / Xīn Qìjí / Guǎngdōng connections that his Sòng period preceded his Jīn appointment). His cí belong primarily to the late twelfth century, with the Xīn Qìjí birthday-cí (Xīn 1140–1207, generally hosted such pieces from contemporaries from c. 1180 onward) anchoring the Cí’s composition window in Chúnxī through Jiātài.
Translations and research
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋, Quán Jīn Yuán cí 全金元詞 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 1979) — Hán Yù corpus.
- Hú Zhuàn-zhì 胡傳志, Jīn dài wén-xué yán-jiū 金代文學研究 (Ān-huī jiào-yù chū-bǎn-shè, 2000) — situates Hán within the Jīn literary milieu.
- Yuán Hǎo-wèn 元好問, Zhōng-zhōu jí 中州集 — the principal early-Yuán biographical record.
Other points of interest
Hán Yù is one of the few authors who appears in both the Sòng catalog tradition (Chén Zhènsūn) and the JīnYuán anthology tradition (Yuán Hǎowèn) under the same name and corpus — a textbook case of the post-1127 literary circulation across the SòngJīn border. The Tíyào’s critique of Máo Jìn’s “Míng habit of valuing south and disparaging north” is also a noteworthy moment of Sìkù self-positioning: under the Manchu Qīng court, asserting the parity of “northern” and “southern” cí fed directly into the new pan-empire literary historiography that the Sìkù project itself instantiated.