Tiānlài jí 天籟集
The Heaven’s-Pipe Collection by 白樸 (撰)
About the work
The Tiānlài jí 天籟集 (“Heaven’s-Pipe Collection”) is the cí corpus of Bái Pǔ 白樸 (1228 – c. 1307), one of the canonical “Four Great Masters” of Yuán zájù drama. Bái is much better known for his plays — Wútóng yǔ 梧桐雨 and Qiángtóu mǎshàng 牆頭馬上 — but the Tiānlài jí preserves about 200 of his cí (in the WYG arrangement, two juǎn), originally circulated under prefaces by Wáng Bówén 王博文 (i.e. Wáng Yún 王惲’s group, JīnYuán transition statesmen) and Sūn Zuò 孫作, the latter ascribed to the early Hóngwǔ era, supplemented by a zàn 贊 from Cáo Ān 曹安. The text was lost in the late Yuán / Míng and only rediscovered in Kāngxī by Yáng Xīluò 楊希洛 of Liùān, who tracked it down in the possession of one of Bái’s descendants and brought it to Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 for editing in Kāngxī gēngchén (1700). Zhū re-arranged the corpus into the two-juǎn form, which the Sìkù preserves.
Tiyao
Tiānlài jí, two juǎn, by Bái Pǔ of the Yuán. Pǔ’s zì was Rénfǔ 仁甫 (also Tàisù 太素), hào Lángǔ 蘭谷, a man of Zhēndìng 真定. His father, called only Yùzhāi 寓齋 (his given name lost), served the Jīn as Shūmìyuàn pànguān 樞密院判官; in the time of the troubles, father and son lost track of one another, and Pǔ was raised in the house of Yuán Hǎowèn 元好問, receiving his pointed instruction. After the fall of the Jīn he was recommended for office but would not come out; he moved to Jīnlíng, gave himself over to wine and poetry, and was uniquely accomplished at song-craft. With Guān (Hànqīng) and Zhèng (Guāngzǔ) he ranks as one of three; those who know say he stands above [Mǎ] Dōnglí (Mǎ Zhìyuǎn) and Zhāng [Kějiǔ?] Xiǎoshān. This cí collection was long lost; in Kāngxī, Yáng Xīluò 楊希洛 of Liùān finally found it among Bái’s descendants — in all 200 pieces. At its head is a preface by Wáng Bówén 王博文, at its end a preface by Sūn Zuò 孫作 and a zàn by Cáo Ān 曹安. Yáng brought the manuscript to Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊, who divided it into two juǎn and transmitted it. Bái’s cí is qīngjuàn (clear, refined) and wǎnyì (elegant, free); meaning and rhyme are pleasingly matched; one may set him on a footing with Zhāng Yán’s Yùtián cí. Although Bái was Yuán Hǎowèn’s pupil in cí, the pupil here surpasses the master; he should be reckoned an orthodox master of the song-craft. The pity is that his fame in qǔ (drama-arias) has eclipsed his fame in cí, so anthologists have largely overlooked him. Zhū Yízūn’s own Cízōng KR4j0075 regrets not having had access to Bái’s cí; in fact among the masters of the early Yuán Bái is one who stands strikingly above his fellows. — Qiánlóng 44 / 1779, 3rd month.
Abstract
The Tiānlài jí is in two layers of recension. The original YuánMíng text bore prefaces by Wáng Bówén (a high Yuán statesman, zì Zǐmiǎn 子勉; preface, as Zhū Yízūn’s own preface explains, dating to before 1300) and the early-Míng Hóng-wǔ-era preface by Sūn Dàyǎ 孫大雅 of Jiāngyīn and the zàn by Cáo Ān (Sōngjiāng instructor). That text was lost. In Kāngxī gēngchén (1700) Yáng Xīluò recovered the manuscript from Bái Pǔ’s descendants (the family had migrated from Gūshú 姑孰 to Liùān 六安 in early Míng); Zhū Yízūn divided the 200 pieces into two juǎn, prefaced his own edition, and made the WYG-text possible. Stylistically Bái’s cí are qīngjuàn wǎnyì — refined and free in the late-Southern-Sòng yǎcí manner of Zhāng Yán 張炎 (hào Yùtián 玉田) and Jiāng Kuí. The Sìkù editors ranked Bái above his master Yuán Hǎowèn, and read his cí as a Yuán continuation of the Southern-Sòng Juémiào hǎocí line. The composition window 1260–1307 reflects Bái Pǔ’s adult working years in his Jīnlíng retirement.
Translations and research
- Wáng Wén-cái 王文才, Bái Pǔ jí jiào-zhù 白樸集校注 (modern annotated edition).
- Wilt L. Idema, “The Story of Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun” and other studies of Yuán drama — context for the dramatist side of Bái Pǔ.
- Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays (Hackett, 2010) — includes translation of Qiáng-tóu mǎ-shàng.
- Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋, Quán Jīn-Yuán cí 全金元詞 (Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1979) — collated text of the Tiān-lài jí.
Other points of interest
The recovery of the Tiānlài jí in 1700 — via Yáng Xīluò’s thousand-mile journey carrying the manuscript from Liùān up to Zhū Yízūn in the Jiāngnán — is the textbook case of late-imperial cí-textual recovery, deliberately enshrined by Zhū Yízūn in his preface as a pattern for what philological recovery of SòngYuán cí should look like.
Links
- Wikipedia 白樸
- Wikidata Q706983 (Bái Pǔ).
- Quán JīnYuán cí 全金元詞