Méixī cí 梅溪詞
Plum-Brook Lyrics by 史達祖 (撰)
About the work
The Méixī cí 梅溪詞 is the surviving cí collection of Shǐ Dázǔ 史達祖 (zì Bāngqīng 邦卿, hào Méixī), private secretary (Tánglì) and effective right hand of the powerful Southern-Sòng chancellor Hán Tuōzhòu 韓侂胄. One juǎn in the Sìkù arrangement, the collection preserves about 110 cí. Critically it is one of the great Southern-Sòng cí-bodies — paired in the canonical Zhèjiāng-school account with Jiāng Kuí 姜夔 姜夔 and Wú Wényīng 吳文英 吳文英 — yet the historical biography of its author (a Tánglì who ran the chancery for an unpopular war-faction chancellor, and was disgraced when his patron was assassinated in 1207) has always sat uncomfortably alongside the elegant surface of the verse. The volume opens with Zhāng Zī 張鎡’s preface of Jiātài 1 / 1201, in which Shǐ is set higher than Liǔ Yǒng 柳永 (the “Sānbiàn” 三變 of the Tíyào) and on a par with Zhōu Bāngyàn 周邦彥 and Hè Zhù.
Tiyao
Méixī cí, one juǎn, by Shǐ Dázǔ of the Sòng. Dázǔ’s zì was Bāngqīng, hào Méixī, of Biàn 汴. Tián Rǔchéng’s Xīhú zhìyú says that Hán Tuōzhòu’s Tánglì, Shǐ Dázǔ, abused his master’s power, and that this man’s name is identical with the poet’s. Now examination of this volume’s Qítiānyuè 齊天樂 5 (annotated “Mid-autumn, lodged at Zhēndìng station”), Mǎnjiānghóng 滿江紅 2 (annotated “9th month, day 21: at Dōngjīng remembering antiquity”), Shuǐlóng yín 水龍吟 3 (annotated “Accompanying the mission, parting from fellow-students of the shè”), Zhègūtiān 鷓鴣天 4 (annotated “On the road through Wèixiàn”), and Xī huánghuā 惜黄花 1 (annotated “9th month, day 7: on the road through Dìngxīng”) — the contents and tone of which can only match the period when Lǐ Bì was sent on embassy to the Jīn, with Hán Tuōzhòu sending Dázǔ along to spy out the country; hence these pieces. We thus know that the author of this collection was indeed the same Shǐ Dázǔ Hán Tuōzhòu employed. Furthermore Zhōu Mì’s 周密 Qídōng yěyǔ 齊東野語 records the affair of the Yùjīn yuán 玉津園: Zhāng Zī 張鎡, although a party to the plot, was in fact one of Tuōzhòu’s drinking-companions, and so was able on the birthday of Tuōzhòu’s favorite concubine Mǎntóuhuā 滿頭花 to move kitchen and orchestra to her palace. The present book has Zhāng Zī’s preface, which is itself proof that Shǐ was of Tuōzhòu’s party; the preface’s closing remark that “men were got along several paths — not only the seekers of beauty in the Hàn nor the [Sān-]biàn faction” further proves him a clerical inferior, and certainly not a second man. The preface is dated Jiātài 1 / 1201 xīnyǒu, but the collection contains a Lìchūn piece dated rénxū (1202); the preface remarks that the man only just made his acquaintance, presenting a notebook of cí, but the collection includes two pieces exchanged with Zhāng — so this is a later expansion, not the volume Zhāng prefaced. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says the text also bore a preface by Jiāng Kuí 姜夔; that has dropped out of this cutting. Dázǔ the man is not worth speaking of, but his cí is highly accomplished; Zhāng’s praise that he “ranged level with Qīngzhēn (Zhōu Bāngyàn) and looked down on Fānghuí (Hè Zhù), so that one need not stoop to count Sānbiàn (Liǔ Yǒng) and his fellows” is somewhat over-fond, but the clear lines and pretty phrases in the dying days of the Sòng are indeed remarkable; one need not let the man bury his writing.
(The same Sìkù tíyào fascicle continues with the Sànhuāān cí 散花菴詞 of Huáng Shēng 黃昇 — see KR4j0056.)
Abstract
The Méixī cí survives in two layers of recension. The preface by Zhāng Zī, dated Jiātài xīnyǒu (1201) at Yuè Kē’s 岳珂 Yùzhào táng 玉照堂, attests an initial draft already known by that year; the inclusion in the current text of two exchange-pieces with Zhāng (and at least one piece dated 1202) shows that the volume as preserved is a slightly later compilation than what Zhāng saw. Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí attests a now-lost preface by Jiāng Kuí. The line of transmission runs through Máo Jìn 毛晉’s Jígǔ gé Liùshí jiā cí, the basis of the WYG edition. Modern editions (Wú Xiónghé 吳熊和; Táng Guīzhāng Quán Sòng cí) preserve approximately 110 pieces. The Sìkù editors’ frank acknowledgement that the Méixī cí author is the same Shǐ Dázǔ who served Hán Tuōzhòu is now the standard scholarly view; the older “two Shǐ Dázǔs” thesis (advanced to rescue the poetry from the politics) is no longer maintained. The assumed composition window 1195–1207 reflects Shǐ’s working span under Hán’s chancellorship (Hán’s regime fell with his assassination in Kāixǐ 3 / 1207).
Translations and research
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., eds., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999) — collated text of Shǐ Dá-zǔ’s surviving cí.
- Lin Shuen-fu, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tz’u Poetry (Princeton, 1978) — situates Shǐ Dá-zǔ vis-à-vis Jiāng Kuí.
- Yè Jiā-yíng 葉嘉瑩, Jiā-líng tán cí and related essays — substantial close readings of Méi-xī pieces.
- Stuart Sargent, “Tz’u,” in Victor H. Mair, ed., The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (Columbia, 2001), 314–336 — survey including Shǐ Dá-zǔ.
Other points of interest
The Shuāngshuāng yàn 雙雙燕 (“Pair of Pair of Swallows”) of this collection has been the single most-imitated yǒngwù 詠物 piece in the cí tradition; it is the locus classicus of the Southern-Sòng yǒngwù style picked up later by Wáng Yísūn 王沂孫.