Shípíng cí 石屏詞
Stone-Screen Lyrics by 戴復古 (撰)
About the work
The Shípíng cí 石屏詞 is the cí collection of the late-Southern-Sòng Jiānghúpài 江湖派 poet Dài Fùgǔ 戴復古 (c. 1167–c. 1248, zì Shìzhī 式之, hào Shípíng 石屏), preserved in one juǎn in the Sìkù. The Stone-Screen volume is a separately printed offshoot of Dài’s main collection, the Shípíng shījí KR4d0278, cut as a stand-alone volume by Máo Jìn 毛晉 for his Jígǔ gé Liùshí jiā cí. Stylistically Dài’s cí match his shī: Lù Yóu 陸游 is his master and Dù Fǔ his model; Fāng Huí’s Yíngkuí lǜsuǐ calls him “fresh, sharp, healthy, fast — a school unto himself”; in cí the formula is the same.
Tiyao
Shípíng cí, one juǎn, by Dài Fùgǔ of the Sòng. Fùgǔ has the Shípíng jí KR4d0278, separately catalogued. This volume of cí is the separately printed edition cut by Máo Jìn. Fùgǔ was Lù Yóu’s pupil and ranked among the great voices of the Jiānghúpài; Fāng Huí’s Yíngkuí lǜsuǐ praises him as “fresh, sharp, healthy, fast — a school unto himself.” Looking now at his cí, the rhyme and tone are spontaneous, costing no chisel-work. His Wàng Jiāngnán 望江南 Zìcháo 自嘲 1st piece runs: Jiǎdǎo xíngmó yuán zì shòu / Dùlíng yányǔ bùfáng cūn / shuí jiě xué Xīkūn 賈島形模元自痩，杜陵言語不妨村，誰解學西崑 (“Jiǎ Dǎo’s frame is gaunt; Dùlíng’s diction does not shy from rusticity; who is bothering to learn from the Xīkūn school?“) — and this is Fùgǔ’s whole poetic creed in three lines. Taking shī as cí, he stamps new meaning, never once tracing the steps of his predecessors. The piece “Dàjiāng xīshàng” 大江西上曲 of this volume is itself a Niàn nú jiāo 念奴嬌, the tune so called after Sū Shì’s opening Dàjiāng dōngqù 大江東去; Fùgǔ then used his own opening line Dàjiāng xīshàng as the tune-name — a poor imitation of Sū Shì’s case. At least, his Mǎnjiānghóng 滿江紅 “Memories at Red Cliff” is a powerful piece, every bit of Sū Shì’s stature; Yáng Shèn’s Cípǐn 詞品 rates it highest, and rightly. This volume at the end carries a colophon by Lóu Yuè 樓鑰 (which is also the postscript in the Shípíng jí); and the entry by Táo Zōngyí 陶宗儀 (preserved in his Chuògēng lù) is included too. The “Jiāngyòu Nǚzǐ” 江右女子 piece is given without a tune-name; on the evidence of the various tunes it must be a Zhù Yīngtái jìn 祝英臺近: the first half-stanza has the full 37 characters, but the latter half has dropped its opening 3 lines / 14 characters and is fragmentary in transmission. Compilers of cípǔ in later times, never having seen this, looked at the line “Róusuì huājiān” 揉碎花箋 (“crumpled the floral letter-paper”) and from those four characters fabricated an entirely new tune — a rank invention. Moreover, Mùlánhuāmàn “Recalling the Past” has in its first half-stanza the line Chónglái gùrén bùjiàn 重來故人不見 (“I return: the old friend is not to be seen”), which echoes the Jiāngyòu Nǚzǐ piece’s jūn ruò chónglái bùxiāngwàng 君若重來不相忘 (“If you, sir, return, will you remember me?“) — these two read as a paired exchange, and one suspects the Jiāngyòu Nǚzǐ piece may have been written for his wife; but the matter cannot now be settled.
(The Sìkù tíyào fascicle continues with the Duàncháng cí 斷腸詞 of Zhū Shūzhēn 朱淑眞 — see KR4j0058.)
Abstract
The Shípíng cí is the cí component of Dài Fùgǔ’s literary corpus, separately cut by Máo Jìn from the Shípíng shījí into a stand-alone juǎn; the WYG follows that Jígǔgé text. The transmitted count is around 50 pieces. Dài’s cí are read as an extension of his shī into the song-medium: the same insistent commitment to a Lù Yóu / Dù Fǔ stylistic line, against both the JiāngXīpài of Huáng Tíngjiān and the “Xīkūn” 西崑 manner. The Mǎnjiānghóng on Red Cliff (a deliberate companion-piece to Sū Shì’s famous “Dàjiāng dōngqù”) is the most-anthologized of the collection. The dating window 1200–1248 reflects Dài’s adult working span. The Sìkù editors note in passing a moving textual riddle: the lost-second-half Zhù Yīngtái jìn paired with the Mùlánhuāmàn “Recalling the Past” reads as a cí written by Dài’s wife and an answering piece by him, the manuscript damage having severed what was once a song-dialogue.
Translations and research
- Wú Xióng-hé 吳熊和 et al., editorial work on Sòng cí — surveys of the Jiānghú-pài cí.
- J. D. Schmidt, Stone Lake: The Poetry of Fan Chengda (Cambridge, 1992) — context for the Jiānghú-pài circle in which Dài Fù-gǔ moves.
- Stuart Sargent, “Tz’u,” in Mair, ed., Columbia History of Chinese Literature — brief notice.