Bìjī mànzhì 碧鷄漫志
Casual Records from the Green-Cock Lane by 王灼 (撰)
About the work
The Bìjī mànzhì 碧鷄漫志 (“Casual Records from the Green-Cock Lane”, named for Wáng’s lodgings in the Bìjī fāng of Chéngdū during the early Shàoxīng period) is the founding theoretical history of the cí genre. One juǎn in the Sìkù arrangement (the modern recension is in 5 juǎn; the Sìkù tíyào treats the surviving compressed text). The work runs in two parts: first, seven zǒnglùn 總論 (“general discourses”) sketching the evolution of song-poetry from the Shījīng through Hàn yuèfǔ, mid-Táng gēshī, and the rise of cí (already in the late Táng) to its Northern-Sòng efflorescence under Zhōu Bāngyàn 周邦彥 and his Dàshèng music-bureau; second, 28 entries on specific tunes (the Liángzhōu, Zǐyè, Màihuāshēng etc.), each tracing the tune’s origin, its semantic-and-prosodic transformations, and its modern (Sòng) form. The work is the principal early-Southern-Sòng witness to the song-craft as a musical-and-prosodic practice (rather than as a verbal genre — a distinction Wáng works hard to maintain): the Bìjī mànzhì preserves much of what we know about how cí were actually sung, and how gōngtiáo mapped onto tune-text.
Tiyao
Bìjī mànzhì, one juǎn. By Wáng Zhuó of the Sòng. Zhuó’s zì was Huìshū, of Suíníng; held office as a mùliáo during Shàoxīng. Author of the Tángshuāng pǔ 糖霜譜, separately catalogued. This volume describes the source and evolution of song-tunes. The first 7 entries are zǒnglùn, setting out the transformations from antiquity through TángSòng song-poetry; then 28 entries each on tunes like Liángzhōu 凉州, tracing the origin of each name and its gradual evolution into the various Sòng cí-tunes. The Shījīng 305 pieces ended; in the Hàn the residue became yuèfǔ; in the Táng it became gēshī; toward mid-Táng cí began to sprout; in the Sòng gēshī declined and cí flourished. At that time the shìdàfū were also musically literate, often composing new tunes themselves and gradually augmenting the old tune-books; hence one tune-name may carry several body-forms, and one body-form may carry several settings — the catalogue is barely accountable. None of this is the ancient gēfǎ of Táng and Five-Dynasties. Wáng undertakes, on tunes whose transmission and provenance can be securely traced, to settle their míngyì and to fix their gōngdiào, the better to record where the yǐshēng (song-setting) began. Tunes that came later, in indiscriminate variation, he does not bother to detail. By the time of the JīnYuán yuànběn, the singing-method of song-lyrics had already been lost; the wénshì now produce cí by following the old tune’s level-and-deflected tones and filling in characters to fit — so what is now called cí has become a literary practice, no longer a musical one. The Sìkù editors gently remark that Wáng’s records of gōngdiào now likewise survive only as oblique guides; one cannot puzzle out their precise theory from his text alone. Yet through these notices one may still grasp the outline of the genre’s zhèngbiàn (orthodox-vs-variant) line; the volume is essential to anyone seriously studying ancient cí.
(The same Sìkù tíyào fascicle continues with the Yuèfǔ zhǐmí 樂府指迷 of Shěn Yìfǔ — see KR4j0080.)
Abstract
The Bìjī mànzhì was composed in Shàoxīng 15–19 (1145–1149), as the dating of the zǒnglùn and internal references attest. Wáng Zhuó was then resident in Chéngdū, in the Bìjī fāng; the title is taken from the lane. The transmitted text suffered substantial loss between the Sòng and the Sìkù; the Sìkù admits the surviving 1-juǎn form, while the Zhībùzú zhāi cóngshū edition (Bào Tíngbó 鲍廷博, 1801) reconstructs the work in 5 juǎn on the basis of additional manuscript witnesses. The work is the principal early-Southern-Sòng theoretical-historical statement on cí as song-form, and is irreplaceable for the genre’s musical prehistory. Modern scholars (Yè Jiāyíng, Wú Xiónghé) treat the Bìjī mànzhì together with Shěn Yìfǔ’s Yuèfǔ zhǐmí KR4j0080 as the two founding Sòng cí-treatises; together they form the indispensable source for the late-imperial cíhuà tradition that culminates in Wáng Guówéi’s Rénjiān cíhuà.
Translations and research
- Sòng Xī-rén 宋希仁 / Lóng Mù-xūn 龍沐勳, modern collations of the Bì-jī màn-zhì.
- Stephen H. West, “Drama,” in Nienhauser, ed., Indiana Companion — uses Bì-jī màn-zhì as a major source for Sòng song-form.
- Lin Shuen-fu, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition (Princeton, 1978) — treats the Bì-jī màn-zhì as the principal Southern-Sòng source for the prehistory of the cí tradition.
- Wú Xióng-hé 吳熊和, Táng-Sòng cí tōng-lùn — sustained discussion.
Other points of interest
The Bìjī mànzhì is the source for one of the most-quoted critical judgments in the cí-tradition: Wáng’s epigram on Lǐ Qīngzhào — that her cí “could push back the guīluán mirror at midnight and stand level with the masters in the lineage of Sòngtíngyōu and Liǔyǒng” — has been cited in every modern critical study of Lǐ Qīngzhào.