Táochán cí 逃禪詞
Lyrics of [the] Chán-Refugee by 楊无咎 (撰)
About the work
The Táochán cí 逃禪詞 is the one-juǎn Sìkù cí collection of Yáng Wújiù 楊无咎 (1097–1171; zì Bǔzhī 補之, hào Táochán lǎorén 逃禪老人 — “Old Man Who Fled to Chán” — and Qīngyí chángzhě 清夷長者), of Qīngjiāng 清江 in Línjiāngjūn. Yáng is celebrated chiefly as the supreme painter of mòméi 墨梅 (ink-plum) in the post-Sòng tradition — Mǐ Yǒurén’s heir, the master from whom every later mòméi school descends — but his cí are of high quality and independent value. Yáng refused to serve under Qín Guì 秦檜 and rejected repeated court summons; his cí are the work of a politically retired private gentleman in the 1140s–1160s. The Yáng/Cháo confusion (both with zì Bǔzhī) is the source of recurring misattribution: the Tíyào notes that Máo Jìn 毛晉’s colophon flags this and confirms the present attribution to Yáng. The collection’s textual problems include Máo Jìn’s miscut of Míngyuè zhào gūzhōu as Yè xíng chuán (in fact the same tune as the Yè xíng chuán / Yǔ zhōng huā), and his miscut of Xiāngjiàn huān (a Táng cavity-name) as Wū yè tí (a separate tune).
Tiyao
Táochán cí, one juǎn, by Yáng Wújiù of the Sòng. Wújiù, zì Bǔzhī, self-styled Táochán lǎorén, a man of Qīngjiāng. The other books write the surname Yáng 楊; per the Túhuì bǎojiàn, Wújiù’s ancestor was the Hàn-period Yáng Xióng 揚雄, whose surname follows 才 (the hand-radical) not 木; so writing 楊 is wrong. In Gāozōng’s reign, Qín Guì held power; Wújiù scorned to attach himself; was repeatedly summoned and would not rise; his personal character is high. His painting of ink-plum is treasured through the ages; technical art has obscured his writing. But his cí register is finely-made; in early Southern Sòng he is no shame to a zuòzhě. Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Shūlù jiětí records Táochán cí in one juǎn, agreeing with the present. Máo Jìn 毛晉’s colophon says: “some erroneously identify it as Cháo Bǔzhī’s 晁補之 cí; Cháo Wújiù was also zì Bǔzhī, both name-and-zì coinciding; hence the transmission-error.” The Míngyuè zhào gūzhōu 明月棹孤舟 four pieces — Jìn notes “previously erroneously Yè xíng chuán 夜行船, now corrected from the tune-rule”; but this tune is Yè xíng chuán, also Yǔ zhōng huā 雨中花; the various houses’ cí differ slightly but the prosody is unmistakably one tune; Yáng’s cí differs not in a single character from the Yè xíng chuán in the cí-collections of Zhào Chángqīng 趙長卿 and Wú Wényīng 吳文英. Jìn merely saw the Cí pǔ enter Huáng Zàixuān’s cí under the name Míngyuè zhào gūzhōu, not knowing Míngyuè zhào = Yè xíng, gūzhōu = chuán; Wàn Shù 萬樹’s recent Cí lǜ KR4j0087 disputes this; Jìn had not yet examined it. Again Xiāngjiàn huān 相見歡 is properly the Táng cavity, its proper name; Sòng writers call it Wū yè tí 烏夜啼 — different from the Jǐntáng chūn that is also called Wū yè tí: same name, different things; Jìn notes “previously Wū yè tí, mistake” — again over-confident. As to Diǎn jiàng chún originally noted as using Sū Shì’s 蘇軾 rhyme: its back-half closing rhyme was anciently guǒ; Jìn altered it to kè and supplied the kè-character gloss below — but Sū’s cí’s last-line is the pò rhyme; this is a doubled error (the guǒ and chéng both wrong, not only guǒ). Míng-period editors love to alter old texts by guess — typical of this. Following Jìn’s text but appending these corrections.
Abstract
The transmitted Táochán cí descends through Máo Jìn’s late-Míng cutting; modern editions (the Quán Sòng cí of Táng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋) preserve a corpus of around 73 cí. Yáng’s life-dates 1097–1171 are confirmed by the Wú Yī chángyǔ and SòngYuán painting catalogues; he was Tàixué shēng (Imperial Academy student) in the late Northern Sòng, refused to serve under Qín Guì, and retired permanently to Qīngjiāng (Línjiāngjūn) and later Yùzhāng. The mòméi line — the Liǔfù tú in the Palace Museum is by his hand — has him at the head of every painterly genealogy from the late Sòng on. Among his cí, the Liǔshāo qīng · Méihuā and the various Liǔzhī / Yángzhōu màn pieces on plum are the principal corpus, reading as a literary parallel to his ink-plum painting. The Yáng/Cháo Bǔzhī confusion has been the cause of repeated late-imperial misattribution; the Sìkù tíyào and Máo Jìn’s colophon together settle the question.
Translations and research
- Maggie Bickford, Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre (Cambridge University Press, 1996) — the standard English-language study of Yáng’s painting tradition, with extended treatment of his cí-and-painting relation.
- 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.
- Wáng Zhào-péng 王兆鵬, Sòng nán-dù cí-rén nián-pǔ — Yáng Wú-jiù chronology.
Other points of interest
Yáng Wújiù is one of the rare cases in Sòng literary history where a cí-master and an ink-painting-master are the same person — and the relation between his painted plum and his plum-cí makes this collection an important document for the late-imperial reception of the shūhuà / shīcí paragone debate. The Cháo Bǔzhī / Yáng Bǔzhī confusion the Tíyào unpicks is the locus classicus of homonym-resolution in the cí tradition.
Links
- Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Yáng Wújiù)
- Wikipedia 楊無咎
- Wikidata Q15920770