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龍川詞

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Text ID
KR4j0039
Date
1170–1194
Dynasty
宋

Lóngchuān cí 龍川詞

Lyrics of [Chén] Lóng-chuān by 陳亮 (撰)

About the work

The Lóngchuān cí 龍川詞 is the Sìkù cí collection (one juǎn + bǔ yí supplement) of Chén Liàng 陳亮 (1143–1194; zì Tóngfǔ 同甫, hào Lóngchuān 龍川), the foremost Southern-Sòng yǒngshǐ / jīngshì (statecraft-historian) thinker, founder of the Yǒngjiā utility-school 永嘉學派 alongside Yè Shì 葉適, and the closest literary friend of Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾. Chén’s Lóngchuān jí (separately catalogued) preserves his thirty cí in his author’s order; the present text was extracted by Máo Jìn 毛晉 from a jiācáng jiùkè (family-archive old cutting) and rearranged by tune-class. The seven-piece bǔ yí supplement comes from Huáng Shēng 黃昇’s Huāān cí xuǎn KR4j0066, but their style is sharply different from the main collection’s háofàng register — clear, refined, decorative cí unlike Chén’s signature voice. The Tíyào offers Máo Jìn’s plausible solution: Huáng anthologized only the qǐyàn (silken-floral) pieces, while Chén’s son Chén Shěn 陳沈, in editing the main collection, emphasized his father’s lěiluò gǔgàn (rugged-spirited) register — hence the apparent split.

Tiyao

Lóngchuān cí, one juǎn, bǔ yí one juǎn, by Chén Liàng of the Sòng. Liàng has the Lóngchuān jí separately catalogued. The Sòng shǐ Yìwénzhì records his cí in four juǎn; today not transmitted. This collection has thirty cí in total, already entered in the parent collection but not arranged in any clear order; Máo Jìn 毛晉 cut it tune-class arranged. The closing colophon says: based on a family-archive old cutting, an zhāichū biéháng (extract for separate circulation). The bǔ yí seven pieces are extracted from Huáng Shēng 黃昇’s Huāān cí xuǎn KR4j0066. The cí are mostly delicate-floral, sharply different from the present collection; some suspect a forgery. Máo Jìn’s colophon says: Huáng Shēng and Chén Liàng were both post-southern-crossing men; surely no error to that degree; perhaps Huáng selected only the silken-floral type, while Liàng’s son Shěn, in editing the present collection, specifically marked his father’s rugged-spirited backbone; hence the two appear as if from different hands — the reasoning is plausible. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 10th month.

Abstract

The transmitted Lóngchuān cí descends through Máo Jìn’s late-Míng cutting, derived from a Lóngchuān jí family-archive Sòng cutting. Modern editions: Dèng Guǎngmíng 鄧廣銘, Chén Liàng jí 陳亮集 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, rev. 1987) is the standard critical edition, with collation against the SBCK Lóngchuān jí. The transmitted cí-corpus is around 74 pieces, including the supplement. Chén’s biography (Sòng shǐ 436, Rúlínzhuàn) anchors the dating: jìnshì of Shàoxī 4 / 1193 (placed first, by Guāngzōng’s personal verdict, in a famous reversal of Chén’s prior disqualifications); died less than a year later in Shàoxī 5 / 1194. The XīnChén friendship is the principal context: Chén’s three meeting-and-matching cí with Xīn Qìjí (in particular the Hè xīn láng · Sòng Xìn Yòuān and the Hè xīn láng · Tóng fù shǎn jiā chí cí), composed during the famous Éhú zhī huì 鵝湖之會 (“Goose-Lake Meeting”) of Chúnxī 15 / 1188, are the supreme document of háofàng friendship-cí in the Sòng. The seven-piece bǔ yí supplement of more qǐyàn pieces is now generally accepted (after Dèng Guǎngmíng’s collation) as authentic Chén Liàng, with the SìkùMáo Jìn split-author hypothesis confirmed.

Translations and research

  • Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Utilitarian Confucianism: Chen Liang’s Challenge to Chu Hsi (Harvard, 1982) — the standard English-language critical study; covers Chén’s cí.
  • Dèng Guǎng-míng 鄧廣銘, Chén Liàng jí 陳亮集 (Zhōng-huá shū-jú, rev. 1987) — the standard modern critical edition.
  • Hoyt C. Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (Hawaii, 1992) — extended treatment of the Chén Liàng / Zhū Xī controversy.
  • 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

Chén’s Hè xīn láng · Tóng fù shǎn jiā chí cí, composed at Goose Lake in Chúnxī 15 / 1188 as a matching reply to Xīn Qìjí, is the canonical document of the XīnChén friendship and one of the supreme háofàng cí of the Sòng. The piece’s central image — xiāng tóng tā nián xíngzōu yìngyǎo, dàn yīrán jiàoyuán hèyuè qī jiā shǒu 想同他年行邹应窈，但依然鸺鹫鹤月凄寒 — encodes the recognition between two figures with no political success but supreme intellectual-moral standing.

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