Lǎnkū cí 孏窟詞
Lyrics of the Lazy-Den by 侯寘 (撰)
About the work
The Lǎnkū cí 孏窟詞 is the one-juǎn Sìkù cí collection of Hóu Zhì 侯寘 (fl. Shàoxīng through Qiándào / Chúnxī, c. 1141–1180; zì Yànzhōu 彥周, hào Lǎnkū jūshì 孏窟居士), of Dōngwǔ 東武 (modern Zhūchéng, Shāndōng). Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí records him as having served under Shàoxīng as Zhí xuéshì Prefect of Jiànkāng, but the Tíyào shows from internal-evidence that Hóu lived on through Qiándào and Chúnxī: the Rénwǔ yuándàn one cí must be from Rénwǔ / Shàoxīng 32 / 1162 (the year before Lóngxīng / Xiàozōng’s reign-name change); his cí for Zhāng Jìngfū 張敬夫 (Zhāng Shì 張栻) and the Mid-Autumn cí to Liú Gōngfù 劉恭甫 both refer to Xiào-zōng-era figures. Hóu was the nephew of Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之; the family had preserved the literary heritage of the Yuányòu old houses, and the volume’s social network — its chángchóu with high-tier Southern-Sòng officials — reflects that pedigree. The Tíyào notes a Yǎn ér méi · Xiào Yìān tǐ 眼兒媚·效易安體 — one of the earliest documented self-conscious imitations of the Yìāntǐ 易安體 of Lǐ Qīngzhào 李清照 in the cí tradition.
Tiyao
Lǎnkū cí, one juǎn, by Hóu Zhì of the Sòng. Per Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí: Zhì, zì Yànzhōu, a man of Dōngwǔ; in Shàoxīng, as Zhí xuéshì he governed Jiànkāng. The collection has Xì yòng Hè Fānghuí (Hè Zhù) yùn jiànbié Zhū Shǎozhāng — so the man is early-Southern-Sòng. The Yǎn ér méi · Xiào Yìān tǐ — Yìān is Lǐ Qīngzhào’s hào, also an early-Shàoxīng person; Hóu already calls it “imitating” — somewhat like the Xiào Shěn Xiàxián tǐ of Dù Mù and Lǐ Shāngyǐn. He has also a Shòu cí for Zhí gé Zhāng Jìngfū, a Mid-Autumn cí to Shèrén Liú Gōngfù — both Xiào-zōng-era figures; and a Rénwǔ yuándàn cí — Rénwǔ / Shàoxīng 32 / 1162, the year before Xiàozōng’s accession — so Hóu was still alive between Qiándào and Chúnxī. Chén Zhènsūn merely names his official-year. Hóu was Cháo’s nephew, retaining the Yuányòu old-family currents; hence his associates are all leading men, and his cí is gracefully refined, no wine-shop-and-music-hall zānxì lángjí manner. Though his name is not loud, among Southern-Sòng houses he must be counted a zuòzhě. The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo records one juǎn, agreeing with the present. Máo Jìn 毛晉 cut it among the Liùshí jiā cí, with very loose proof-reading. The worst: Qínlóu yuè is Yì Qíné — from Lǐ Bái’s cí line Qíné mèng duàn Qínlóu yuè, later it was renamed; the form is properly two-stanza (shuāngdiào); Jìn’s cut drops a dí character from the end of the front-half and joins it to the back-half, making the tune appear to have a variant form — a clear error. Other instances of word-confusion (Shuǐdiào gētóu’s qīng should not be flat; Qīngyù àn’s mù repeats rhyme with the prior stanza; rǎnrǎn nián yuán — yuán makes no sense): also miscut. The Yáo tiān fèng cuìhuá yǐn one cí especially full of errors, almost unreadable. No other text to collate against: corrections where possible, others left as is. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 44 / 1779, 10th month.
Abstract
The transmitted Lǎnkū cí descends through Máo Jìn’s cutting. Modern editions: the Quán Sòng cí of Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋 preserves around 91 cí. Hóu Zhì’s biographical record is fragmentary: nephew of Cháo Bǔzhī (matrilineal Cháo connection); Shàoxīng prefectship of Jiànkāng; the chángchóu network includes Zhāng Shì 張栻 (zì Jìngfū), Liú Gōngfù 劉恭甫, and Zhū Shǎozhāng. The collection is best read as a useful mid-Southern-Sòng witness — refined private-friendship cí in a register continuous with the late-Northern-Sòng Yuányòu tradition the Cháo family preserved. The self-conscious Yǎn ér méi · Xiào Yìān tǐ is historically valuable as one of the earliest cí explicitly invoking Lǐ Qīngzhào’s manner as a category.
Translations and research
- 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.
- Wáng Zhào-péng 王兆鵬, Sòng dài cí-rén nián-pǔ — Hóu Zhì chronology.
Other points of interest
The early formal-imitation of Yìān tǐ documented in this collection is one of the foundational moments of Lǐ Qīngzhào’s canonization within Sòng literary culture: the xiào 效 (imitate) gesture was reserved for forms recognized as having their own distinctive prosodic-rhetorical identity, and that Hóu Zhì applied it to Lǐ within a generation of her death testifies to the speed of her recognition.