Yùdìng cípǔ 御定詞譜
The Imperially Established Cí-Score imperially compiled, edited by 王奕清 (奉敕輯)
About the work
The Yùdìng cípǔ 御定詞譜 (“Imperially Established Score-Book for Cí”) is the imperially commissioned authoritative cí-prosody manual of the Kāngxī era, compiled under the direction of Wáng Yìqīng 王奕清 and a Hànlín editorial board, completed in Kāngxī 54 / 1715. Forty juǎn. Where the Yùxuǎn lìdài shīyú KR4j0074 of 1707 was the imperial cí-canon, this is the imperial cí-prosody: for each of the 826 tunes catalogued, the work specifies the standard character-count, the jùdòu (line-break) pattern, the píngzè (level-and-deflected) tonal grid, and the rhyme-fall, working from a canonical example cí. Where alternative settings of the same tune existed (the Cǎotáng shīyú-line problem of yīdiào èrtǐ), the pǔ tabulates each form. The cípǔ is the prosodic counterpart to the Yùdìng qǔpǔ KR4j0089 (also 1715, for qǔ) and continues the Pèiwén yùnfǔ (1704) line of imperially commissioned scholarship.
Imperial preface
The opening “Yùzhì cípǔ xù” 御製詞譜序 by Shèngzǔ lays out the editorial program. The emperor opens with the formula that “cí having a score-book is like shī having body-frames”; sets cí’s origin in the Shījīng 305 pieces (singable in their day, as the Yílǐ, Lǐjì, and Zuǒzhuàn witness); narrates the Hàn yuèfǔ’s lyric-music synthesis, the WèiJìnTáng dissociation of shī and music, the founding of cí in the mid-Táng, and the Sòng Chóngníng 崇寧 establishment of the Dàshèng yuèfǔ under Zhōu Bāngyàn 周邦彥 with 12 lǜ and 60 jiā and 84 tunes — and then the further expansion to 200+ tune-forms with the catalog details. The preface then sets out the editor’s working principle: “cí is set to tune; the number of characters is fixed, the line-breaks are fixed, the rhyme-tones are fixed, the minutest difference must not be obscured; only when these conditions hold do tones harmonize; otherwise the music goes astray and the genre becomes a tangle of variants — this is why a pǔ cannot be neglected.” The emperor surveys recent works — the Xiàoyú cítǒng 嘯餘詞統, the Cíhuì 詞匯, Wàn Shù’s Cílǜ KR4j0087 — and acknowledges that each rests on the Zūnqián and Huājiān and Cǎotáng lines but remains incomplete; so he has commissioned the present cípǔ, completed by his Hànlín officials. The preface closes with a Yuèjì citation: “all music springs from the human heart; sorrow and joy and grief and rage stir the heart and reach to the voice; cí, in having tunes, also responds in the same way — they cannot be forced.” Then a justification of the cí’s integration into the wider system of Lǐyuè 禮樂.
Other prefatory matter
The same _000.txt file also preserves Wú Hé 吳和’s preface to Wàn Shù’s Cílǜ KR4j0087 (the Yángxiàn / Chángzhōu private prosody manual that ran in parallel with the imperial cípǔ — the two are usually consulted side by side, as the Sìkù editors freely admit).
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào (in standard form): Yùdìng cípǔ, 40 juǎn. Imperially commissioned by Emperor Shèngzǔ of the present dynasty; compiled by Wáng Yìqīng and Hànlín officials in Kāngxī 54. The work systematically tabulates the 826 cí-tunes attested in the tradition (with variant forms tabulated as separate entries); for each tune, an exemplar cí is cited from the Quán Táng shī, Quán Sòng cí, or other authoritative sources, with marginal indication of píngzè and rhyme-fall. The text is the canonical Qīng reference for cí-prosody and supersedes Wú Miánxué 吳綿學’s Cítǒng and similar Míng compilations. Compared with Wàn Shù’s contemporary Cílǜ KR4j0087, the imperial Cípǔ is more conservatively-canonical in its tune-selection and more rigorously source-attributed; the two works are complementary, the Cílǜ having greater theoretical depth and the imperial Cípǔ greater comprehensive coverage.
Abstract
The Yùdìng cípǔ is the authoritative Qīng prosodic manual for cí. Comprehensive treatment of 826 tunes in 40 juǎn; completion Kāngxī 54 / 1715. The work is the cí-prosodic counterpart to the Yùxuǎn lìdài shīyú (1707) anthology and the Yùdìng qǔpǔ (1715) qǔ-prosody manual: together these three constitute the imperially commissioned Kāngxī cíqǔ corpus. The cípǔ remained the standard reference into the modern era; modern cí-prosody works (Lóng Mùxūn 龍沐勳’s Tángsòng cí gélǜ; the Cíxué journal’s reference apparatus) build directly on the Yùdìng cípǔ.
Translations and research
- Tāng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋, Cí-xué lùn-cóng 詞學論叢 — discusses the imperial cí-pǔ in cí-prosody history.
- Lóng Mù-xūn 龍沐勳, Tángsòng cí gé-lǜ — modern reference, built on the imperial cí-pǔ.
- Stuart Sargent, “Tz’u,” in Mair, ed., Columbia History of Chinese Literature.
Other points of interest
The Kāngxī emperor’s framing of cí as a continuation of the Lǐyuè system — the closing Yuèjì citation in the imperial preface — gave cí full canonical dignity in the imperial cultural program, and made the Yùdìng cípǔ the institutionalized authority for cí-prosody for the next two and a half centuries.