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 Wú-Chǔ 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
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
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).