Yuèfǔ yǎcí 樂府雅詞
Refined Lyrics from the Music Bureau edited by 曾慥 (編)
About the work
The Yuèfǔ yǎcí 樂府雅詞 (“Elegant cí of the Music Bureau”) is the major Northern-Sòng cí anthology compiled by Zēng Zào 曾慥 (zì Duānbó 端伯), prefaced by Zēng himself on the Lantern Festival (15th day, 1st month) of Shàoxīng bǐngyín — i.e. 1146 — at Wēnlíng 溫陵 (Quánzhōu, Fújiàn). The volume preserves 34 Northern-Sòng poets together with the great zhuǎntà 轉踏 and dàqǔ 大曲 of the Northern-Sòng court-performance tradition (the Tiáoxiào 調笑 sets, Jiǔzhāng jī 九張機, and Dǒng Yǐng 董穎’s monumental Dàogōng Báomèi 道宫薄媚). The compiler’s editorial principle was yǎ 雅 (“refined”, “appropriate”): erotic and xiéxuè (joking) pieces excluded. Pieces with the name of Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修 that the compiler regarded as later courtesan-attributions to the great master have also been pruned. The collection is the principal Sòng-period anthology of Northern-Sòng cí in the pre-Cǎotángshīyú manner; together with the Huājiān jí KR4j0062 and the Huāān cíxuǎn KR4j0066 it is one of the three Sòng-period cí anthologies most often cited by the Sìkù. The transmitted SBCK text (the basis of the catalog source) is in 3 juǎn plus shíyí 拾遺.
Tiyao
(The Yuèfǔ yǎcí was admitted to the Sìkù as a 3-juǎn unit; the catalog meta gives only 3 juǎn. The _000.txt prefatory matter in the project source is the SBCK transcription of Zēng Zào’s own preface (1146); the standard Sìkù tíyào is reproduced from the Zinbun database below.)
The Sìkù tíyào (Zinbun digital, by way of Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù): Yuèfǔ yǎcí, 3 juǎn, with shíyí 2 juǎn. Edited by Zēng Zào of the Sòng. Zào’s zì was Duānbó, of Quánzhōu. Author of the Lèishuō 類說 separately catalogued. His preface dated Shàoxīng 16 / 1146 explains the title: the work is named Yuèfǔ yǎcí because, although the collection draws on the long-and-short-line poems of the famous compilers, the editor has excluded all pieces tending to xiéxuè (joking, lewdness). The 34 poets included are headed by Jiǔzhòng zhuànchū (i.e. emperor Huīzōng’s own pieces), followed by zhuǎntà sets and the famous Jiǔzhāng jī and Dǒng Yǐng’s Dàogōng Báomèi; only then come the masters Ōuyáng Xiū, Wáng Ānshí 王安石, Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之, etc. Where a piece bearing the name of Ōuyáng Xiū is suspected by the compiler to be a later courtesan-attribution, it is excised. The principle is austere; the result is a textually conservative selection.
Abstract
The compilation date is the most secure of any major Sòng cí-anthology: 1146, as stated in Zēng’s preface. The volume is the principal anthology-witness for the Bǎnzhèng 樊曾 line of Northern-Sòng cí — Wáng Ānshí, Ōuyáng Xiū, Cháo Bǔzhī, Lǐ Yuányīng 李元膺, Zhāng Xiān 張先 — and is the unique source for several cí and zhuǎntà sets otherwise lost (Zhèng Yànnéng 鄭彥能’s Diàoxiào lìng 調笑令 set is the most-cited example). Dǒng Yǐng’s Dàogōng Báomèi dàqǔ — the great Northern-Sòng song-drama on the Xīshī legend — is preserved only here, and is a key text for the textual prehistory of yuánběn and zájù drama. Zēng Zào’s strict editorial yǎ principle (no jokes, no courtesan-attributions to the major masters) is also a polemical position: against the popular-anthology line that culminates in the Cǎotáng shīyú KR4j0070, itself the target of severe Sìkù-editorial reproof. Modern editions (Wáng Pèizhū 王培珠; Liú Jūnwén 劉君文) treat the Yuèfǔ yǎcí as a first-tier source for Northern-Sòng cí.
Translations and research
- Stuart Sargent, “Tz’u,” in Mair, ed., Columbia History of Chinese Literature — extended discussion of Yuè-fǔ yǎ-cí as a Sòng anthology landmark.
- Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry — places Yuè-fǔ yǎ-cí within Northern-Sòng cí anthologizing.
- Wú Xióng-hé 吳熊和, Táng-Sòng cí tōng-lùn — anthology history.
- The Dǒng Yǐng Báo-mèi is a particular focus of West Chinese drama-prehistory scholarship: see Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West, Chinese Theater 1100–1450: A Source Book (Wiesbaden, 1982).
Other points of interest
The Yuèfǔ yǎcí opens with pieces by emperor Huīzōng under the editorial fiction “Jiǔzhòng zhuànchū” 九重傳出 (“transmitted from the Ninefold [palace]”) — a courteous formula for an imperial attribution that the Sìkù preserves. The volume’s exclusion of xiéxuè material and “courtesan-attribution” pieces is a cī analogue to the yǎ principle in Shī-criticism (the Shījīng sub-classification Yǎ over against Fēng).