Sànhuāān cí 散花菴詞
Lyrics of the Scattered-Flowers Hermitage by 黃昇 (撰)
About the work
The Sànhuāān cí 散花菴詞 is the personal cí collection of Huáng Shēng 黃昇 (zì Shūyáng 叔暘, hào Yùlín 玉林 and Huāān cíkè 花菴詞客), the great Southern-Sòng cí-anthologist. One juǎn in the Sìkù arrangement, it preserves about forty cí — Huáng’s own work, originally appended to his Huāān cíxuǎn KR4j0066 KR4j0067 in imitation of the precedent set by Wáng Yì 王逸 (who appended his own poems to the Chǔcí), Xú Líng 徐陵 (who appended his own pieces to the Yùtái xīnyǒng), and Ruì Tǐngzhāng 芮挺章 (in the Guóxiù jí). Critically Huáng’s own cí are judged by the Sìkù editors to “press close to Qín Guān (Shǎoyóu 少游) and to mimic Jiāng Kuí’s Báishí 白石 idiom” — refined, restrained, late-Southern-Sòng yǎ 雅 in register. The volume was treated by the Sìkù editors as a sub-volume of the Huāān cíxuǎn, with a single combined tíyào (placed under KR4j0055 梅溪詞).
Tiyao
(The Sìkù tíyào for the Sànhuāān cí is placed at the end of the Méixī cí tíyào in the _000.txt for KR4j0055; we translate it here.)
Sànhuāān cí, one juǎn, by Huáng Shēng of the Sòng. Shēng’s zì was Shūyáng, hào Yùlín, again hào Huāān cíkè 花菴詞客 — for his dwelling had a Yùlín 玉林 and also a Sànhuāān 散花菴. Máo Jìn’s printed text gave Shēng 昇 as Zè 昃 and Shūyáng 叔暘 as Shūyáng 叔陽; the various witnesses in fact mostly read Huáng Shēng. Examining the old printed witness of his Juémiào cíxuǎn KR4j0066 KR4j0067, the title-page reads Huáng Yì 黃易; the Shīrén yùxiè prefaced by him preserves what is a rubbing of his autograph signature, again Huáng Yì 黃易; on this cíxuǎn the closing seal of the preface reads Shēng 昇. The point is that, by Xǔ Shèn’s Shuōwén, shēng 昇 written in seal-script becomes 昇 — Huáng was simply signing in seal-form, hence the apparent Yì. Máo Jìn, with no knowledge of the six-script principles, arbitrarily corrected it to Zè 昃 — a complete error. As for Shūyáng: that is the zì of Lú Bǐng 盧炳 (author of the Hōngtáng cí 哄堂詞), with whom Máo Jìn has confused him; this is “táojiāng lǐdài 桃僵李代” — peach standing in for plum. Of his Juémiào cí selection, Shēng appended to the end forty of his own pieces, following the precedent of Wáng Yì’s Chǔcí, Xú Líng’s Yùtái xīnyǒng, and Ruì Tǐngzhāng’s Guóxiù jí. This volume preserves all of them, only drawing in three additional pieces from other sources. Shēng abandoned the examinations early and devoted himself to song-craft; he gained the recognition of Yóu Jiǔgōng 游九功 by his shī (so reports Hú Défāng 胡徳方’s preface to the Cíxuǎn). His cí push close to Shǎoyóu 少游 (Qín Guān) above and imitate Báishí 白石 (Jiāng Kuí) below; Jiǔgōng’s poem of presentation, comparing him to “icicles in the clear sky”, says as much. Défāng’s preface further says that Mínshuài 閩帥 Lóu Qiūfáng 樓秋房 [Lóu Yuèshēng], hearing of his friendship with Wèi Júzhuāng 魏菊莊 [Wèi Qìngzhī], called the pair “men of quiet retreat among the cliffs and waters”. Júzhuāng’s name was Qìngzhī, of Jiànān 建安 [continued in the source file’s text].
Abstract
The forty (later forty-three) pieces of the Sànhuāān cí descend through the same Máo Jìn Jígǔgé line as the Huāān cíxuǎn. Internal evidence places Huáng’s working span in the late Chúnyòu reign-period (c. 1240–1249); the latest dated piece in his anthology is Chúnyòu jǐyǒu (1249), and the colophon-friend Liú Chéngfǔ 劉誠甫 cuts the woodblocks in that same year. Stylistically the collection is a textbook late-Southern-Sòng yǎcí: refined and restrained, with a Bái-shí-line interest in yǒngwù and seasonal description, set deliberately above the popular Cǎotáng 草堂 KR4j0070 register. The historical importance of Huáng’s collection is, however, less in his own cí than in its anthology-partner: the Huāān cíxuǎn is the single most influential Southern-Sòng cí-anthology after the Huājiān jí KR4j0062 and the Cǎotáng shīyú, and the Sànhuāān cí derives critical weight from being its compiler’s signature.
Translations and research
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋 et al., eds., Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1965; rev. 1999) — Huáng Shēng’s cí are collated here.
- Lin Shuen-fu, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Sung Tz’u Poetry (Princeton, 1978) — useful for placing Huáng Shēng’s cí in the Jiāng Kuí line he himself promoted.
- Anna M. Shields, “The Inscription of Emotion in Mid-Tang Collaborative Poetry” (and related work on cí anthology-formation) — methodologically relevant for the kind of anthologist Huáng was.