夢窗稿

Mèngchuāng gǎo 夢窗稿

Drafts of Dream-Window by 吳文英 (撰)

About the work

The Mèngchuāng gǎo 夢窗稿 is the four-juǎn (+ supplement) Sìkù cí collection of Wú Wényīng 吳文英 (ca. 1200/12 – ca. 1260/72; zì Jūntè 君特, hào Mèngchuāng 夢窗 — “Dream-Window”), of Qìngyuán (Níngbō). Wú is the supreme master of the late-Southern-Sòng prosodic cí — the chief inheritor of Zhōu Bāngyàn 周邦彥’s gélǜ line, and one of the two Sòng cí-writers (with Jiāng Kuí 姜夔) who define the high-Bái-shí–Mèngchuāng prosodic standard against which all later Chinese cí is measured. The collection was originally divided into four jiǎyǐbǐngdīng 甲乙丙丁 sub-collections (the Tíyào notes Wú probably did not himself order them — Máo Jìn’s 毛晉 inheritance and consolidation produced the standard four-juǎn form). The juébǐ (last brush-stroke) Yīng tí xù 鶯啼序 — Wú’s longest single cí and one of the longest in the corpus (240 characters) — is partially preserved in the dīnggǎo and fully preserved in the yǐgǎo supplement. Wú’s career — never a jìnshì, surviving by patronage of the Wúshì of Sūzhōu and the Shǐshì of Sìmíng, with a long late patronage by Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道 — produced both his elite chángchóu network (Jiāng Kuí, Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾) and his most criticized late-life yìngzhì pieces for Jiǎ Sìdào. Critical reception is divided: Shěn Yìfù 沈義父’s Yuèfǔ zhǐmí (= Shěnshì Yuèfǔ zhǐmí KR4j0080) praised him as “deeply attaining the marvellousness of Qīngzhēn”; Zhāng Yán 張炎’s Yuèfǔ zhǐmí (Cí yuán) charged that his cí were “like a seven-jewelled tower dazzling the eye, but broken down piece-by-piece does not make a single coherent fragment.”

Tiyao

Mèngchuāng gǎo, four juǎn, bǔ yí one juǎn, by Wú Wényīng of the Sòng. Wényīng, zì Jūntè, Mèngchuāng his self-given hào, a man of Qìngyuán. His cí has jiǎyǐbǐngdīng four drafts. Máo Jìn 毛晉 first obtained the bǐng and dīng drafts and cut them in the fifth set of the Sòng-cí; further extracted the juébǐ one piece and yìcí nine pieces, appended at end; later obtained jiǎ and yǐ drafts and cut into the sixth set. The original Jìn colophon — this text is Jìn’s cut form, with the four drafts now merged into one collection — a later editorial action. The juébǐ Yīng tí xù one piece is missing over half; the full text in fact exists in the yǐgǎo bǔ yí. The Jiàng dū chūn one piece is also in the yǐgǎo; this text still leaves it duplicated — again proof of multi-step cutting and incomplete cross-check. The reason for the four-collection split is not entirely clear. Jìn’s colophon claims that after Wényīng’s death, his fellow travellers gathered the bǐngdīng two-year drafts and split them into two juǎn. Per Wényīng’s zú nián in Chúnyòu 11 xīnhài (1251 — Tíyào’s date; modern scholarship places death between 1260–72), he should not have cí only from bǐngdīng two years; and the bǐng gǎo has the Yǒngyù lè of yǐsì (1245), Mǎn jiāng hóng of jiǎchén (1244), but a jiǎwǔ yuándàn (1234) piece sits between them; the dīng gǎo has Sī jiākè of guǐmǎo (1243), Liù chǒu of rényín (1242), Fèng qī wú of jiǎchén (1244), and Xījiāng yuè of bǐngwǔ (1246) within; the bǐngdīng drafts are not assigned to bǐngdīng years. Moreover, jiǎgǎo has a guǐmǎo (1243) piece; yǐgǎo has Duānpíng bǐngshēn (1236) and Chúnyòu xīnhài (1251) pieces — no chronological order. Suspect Wú did not himself collect them; later compilers gathered drafts and each juǎn obtained one collection-title, using the ten heavenly stems as label — no relative dating intended. Wú lived among Jiāng Kuí 姜夔 and Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾 (— Tíyào anachronism: Xīn died 1207, before Wú’s birth; Sìkù compilers likely thinking of Jiāng and other late-Sòng masters); his exchanges are all in the collection; he also has birthday-cí for Jiǎ Sìdào — late-life slipping like Zhū Xīzhēn 朱希真 and Lù Yóu’s 陸游 Hán Tuōzhòu pieces. His cí nonetheless stands out as one great patriarch of the Southern Sòng. Shěn Tàijiā’s [Shěn Yìfù 沈義父’s] Yuèfǔ zhǐmí KR4j0080 praises him “deeply gets Qīngzhēn [Zhōu Bāngyàn 周邦彥]‘s marvellousness, but uses-allusion and lowers-language too obscurely; not easily known by people.” Zhāng Yán’s Yuèfǔ zhǐmí (= Cí yuán) also praises him “like a seven-jewelled tower dazzling the eye; broken down does not make a fragment” — both shortcomings and strengths fairly judged. His talent does not reach Zhōu Bāngyàn but his polishing-work exceeds Zhōu — among cí-writers Wú is like Lǐ Shāngyǐn among shī-writers. — The collection has many copying errors and slips throughout; the editors list specific cases — Yè fēi què’s missing character above qīngbīng rùn; Jiě yǔ huā’s rhyme-incompatible lěng yún huāng cuì; Sài wēng yín’s Wú nǚ yùn nóng — nǚ by tune-rule should be píng; Gāo shān liú shuǐ’s closure tuò bìchuāng pēn huāróng; Xī hóng yī’s bǔ Báishí diào (matching the Báishí tune) front-half short one character and one rhyme; Qí tiān yuè tail-line missing a character; Chuí sī diào front-half bōguāng yǎnyìng, zhúhuā àndàn — yǎn should not be rhymed nor a 4-character line; Rào Fógé · Jiù xiá yàn jǐn front-half Dōngfēng yáoyáng huā xù missing 3 characters; huā xù in fact the line-tail and rhyming character — so by prior phrase pà jiào chèdǎn hánguāng jiàn huáibào one infers the missing characters belong above huā xù. Máo’s cutting has not corrected any of these. — As to Yǐhài Chǒu núér màn — bǐnggǎo renames it Chóu chūn wèi xǐng — because Pān Yuánzhì 潘元質’s piece for this tune opens with Chóu chūn wèi xǐng; the post-editor again chased the old title — yet more confusion. — Compiled, Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 10th month.

Abstract

The transmitted Mèngchuāng gǎo descends through Máo Jìn’s twin cuttings consolidated into a four-juǎn form. Modern editions: Yáng Tiěfū 楊鐵夫, Wú Mèngchuāng cí jiān shì 吳夢窗詞箋釋 (Guǎngdōng rénmín, 1989); Tián Yùshēng 田玉生 and Liú Pèi-de 劉珮德, Mèngchuāng cí huì jiào jiǎnshì 夢窗詞彙校箋釋 (Húnán wényì, 1990s) for full critical text. Reconstructed corpus: approximately 340 cí. Wú’s life-dates are not precisely fixed; the Tíyào’s Chúnyòu xīnhài / 1251 death-date is now generally rejected — modern scholarship (Xià Chéngtāo 夏承燾, Wú Mèngchuāng xìnián) places death around 1260–72. His career was as a long-term retainer / mùbīn in the Wúshì of Sūzhōu and Shǐshì of Sìmíng households; he never held official rank. The patron-client chángchóu with Jiǎ Sìdào (the discredited late-Sòng chief councillor) accounts for the Tíyào’s critical comparison to Lù Yóu / Hán Tuōzhòu and Zhū Xīzhēn. Modern criticism — Lin Shuen-fu (1978) — places Wú as the Lǐ Shāngyǐn 李商隱 of the cí form: dense, opaque, exquisitely-crafted layered imagery; the supreme example of late-Southern-Sòng gélǜ refinement.

Translations and research

• Lin Shuen-fu, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tz’u Poetry (Princeton, 1978) — extended chapter on Wú.
• Yáng Tiě-fū 楊鐵夫, Wú Mèng-chuāng cí jiān shì 吳夢窗詞箋釋 (Guǎng-dōng rén-mín, 1989) — the standard modern annotation.
• Xià Chéng-tāo 夏承燾, Wú Mèng-chuāng xì-nián 吳夢窗繫年 (in Táng Sòng cí-rén nián-pǔ, Shàng-hǎi gǔ-jí, 1979).
• Zhāng Yán 張炎, Cí yuán 詞源 — locus of the “seven-jewelled tower” critique.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù-preserved Shěn Yìfù / Zhāng Yán dichotomy in evaluating Wú — Shěn “deeply gets Qīngzhēn’s marvellousness,” Zhāng “broken-down does not make a fragment” — has dominated every account of Wú’s cí since. The Wú = Lǐ Shāngyǐn analogy that the Sìkù compilers state explicitly is the foundational formula of modern Wú criticism.

Links

• Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Wú Wényīng)
• Wikipedia 吳文英
• Wikidata Q716223