Zhúzhāi shīyú 竹齋詩餘
Bamboo-Studio Verse-Remainder by 黃機 (撰)
About the work
The Zhúzhāi shīyú 竹齋詩餘 is the surviving cí collection of the Southern-Sòng poet Huáng Jī 黃機 (zì Jǐzhòng 幾仲, hào Zhúzhāi 竹齋), preserved in one juǎn. Stylistically the work belongs to the Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾–Yuè-loyalist line of háofàng cí: melancholy, brooding on dynastic loss, often in the long-line màncí 慢詞 form, dense with yùnshì allusion to the Northern-Sòng frontier and the lost lands beyond the Huái. It is the textual partner of Yuè Kē 岳珂’s circle of song-exchanges from the early 13th century.
Tiyao
Zhúzhāi shīyú, one juǎn, by Huáng Jī of the Sòng. Jī’s zì was Jǐzhòng (one source says Jǐshū), a man of Dōngyáng. His career cannot be examined in detail; but the piece in this collection annotated with the phrase “at the time I was about to take office at Yǒngxīng” 永興 shows that he did serve in office, only it is not known in what post. His travels were largely in the WúChǔ region; with Yuè Zǒnggàn 岳總幹 he was particularly prolific in long-tune exchanges. Zǒnggàn is the grandson of Yuè Fēi, Yuè Kē 岳珂, then concurrently serving as Zǒnglǐng and Zhìzhìshǐ of Huáidōng. The Yuè are a house of loyalty-and-righteousness; hence Huáng Jī’s pieces sent to them are all deep, brooding, and stern, with none of the “grass-frail and flower-fragrant” idiom. His second Rǔyànfēi 乳燕飛 piece is set to the rhymes of Xú Sīyuǎn’s 徐斯逺 cí sent to Xīn Qìjí, to which Xīn likewise composed a response; the world’s transmitted text has the rhyme-character fù 賦 repeated twice. Examining Huáng’s cí now, we see that the rhyme used in the first half-stanza was originally fù 付 — proof of a vulgar mis-engraving in current editions. Again, the tune of his piece is Hè xīnláng 賀新郎, called here Rǔyànfēi 乳燕飛: because Sū Shì’s 蘇軾 Hè xīnláng piece contained the words “Rǔyàn fēi jīnwū 乳燕飛金屋”, later hands renamed the tune accordingly — it is in fact the same tune. At the end of the volume Máo Jìn’s 毛晉 colophon laments that the Cǎotáng shīyú KR4j0070 failed to record a single piece by Huáng. The Cǎotáng shīyú was however compiled by Southern-Sòng booksellers, of no discrimination whatever, transmitted only for its antiquity. Thus Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 declared its compiler “had no eye”; what it takes and what it omits is no measure of Huáng Jī’s stature. — Qiánlóng 46 / 1781, 11th month.
Abstract
Huáng Jī’s dates can only be inferred. His circle of song-exchanges with Yuè Kē (1183–1234) places his floruit in the early-to-middle decades of the 13th century, c. 1200–1230. The collection is transmitted exclusively through Máo Jìn’s late-Míng Jígǔ gé Liùshí jiā cí 六十家詞, which is the basis for the WYG edition. The Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì records the title; later song-anthologies (Huācǎo cuìbiān KR4j0073, Quán Sòng cí) draw additional pieces from miscellaneous sources. The most significant feature is the Hè xīnláng / Rǔyànfēi exchanges with Xīn Qìjí and Xú Sīyuǎn (preserved in the surrounding song-cluster of the early-13th century háofàng school) — these set the basic critical placement of Huáng as a late-Xīn-Qìjí cí-poet. Modern editions follow Táng Guīzhāng’s Quán Sòng cí.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Huáng Jī is a minor figure; treatment in standard surveys is limited to brief notices (Yè Jiā-yíng, James J. Y. Liu, Stuart Sargent — see general references in KR4j0001).