The Compilation of the Nan-T'ang Erh-Chu Tz'u
It is curious that the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u , which is without doubt more often read than the Tsun-ch'ien chi , and about whose principal poet, Li Yü, there has grown up an extensive (if generally lightweight) body of secondary literature, has attracted the attention of fewer textual scholars than has the latter anthology. There are, however, two excellent brief discussions of it, and we are, as a result, in a position to date the text at least roughly.
It was Wang Kuo-wei who, in his colophon (dated 1909) to the edition of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u printed in the Ch'en-feng ko ts'ung-shu , made the first serious attempt to date it and describe its compilation.
[15] Li Hsin-lung, "Tsun-ch'ien chi yen-chiu," in Ch'ing-chu Jui-an Lin Ching-i hsien-sheng , pp. 2261–388.
[16] Wang Chao-yung's hypothesis that the supplementing of the text was evidence of Ku Wu-fang's careful editing is thus no longer tenable, reasonable, indeed acute, as it was at the time he advanced it; "Chi-ku-ko pen Tsun-ch'ien chi shu-hou," Tz'u-hsüeh chi-k'an 3, no. 2 (June 1936): 161–62.
Relying on the names and official titles of several persons mentioned in the notes to the original, particularly Ts'ao Hsün, he proposed that the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u was put together early in the Southern Sung, during the Shao-hsing period (1131–63).
In his comments on this colophon, which he reprints as part of an appendix to his Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u chiao-ting , Wang Chung-wen makes several additional points (pp. 103–4). In the first place, he notes that all of the extracts from tz'u-hua writings and the like that are included in the original text can be found in the compendium T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua of Hu Tzu, which was presumably the source from which they were taken. Thus, Wang reasons, the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u can only have been compiled after the completion of Hu's work, that is, after 1167. The terminus ante quem cannot, he continues, be fixed much earlier than the death of Ts'ao Hsün (1174), who is referred to in the text as chieh-tu (military governor), a title that he received in 1150. This would not have been used after his elevation to grand protector (t'ai-wei ), which took place sometime during the reign of Emperor Hsiao-tsung (r. 1163–90). Second, Wang points out that the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u , unlike most other Sung tz'u collections, is not arranged according to melody name, chronology, musical mode, or seasonal reference, nor does it follow any other apparent principle of order. He suggests, therefore, that it was compiled in a bookshop, specifically for publication as a commercial venture, as was at least one other well-known early tz'u anthology, the Ts'ao-t'ang shih-yü . Wang's conclusions are very persuasive, although it does seem possible that the consultation of the T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua could have taken place quite late in the process of compiling the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u , the larger part of which may have occurred before 1167. In any case, the present compilation must have been printed by 1208, since it heads a series of tz'u collections published by the Liu clan's Changsha bookstore and recorded in the Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i . The series was titled Pai-chia tz'u , and was evidently the ancestor of Wu Na's compendium. The latter, however, included the Tsun-ch'ien chi , which is not included in the Chih-chai list.[17]
Lacking a compiler's name or an original preface, even an anonymous one, we cannot tell just who was responsible for putting the collection together or how it was done. The one source of information that we do have is the various notes appended to the poems or to their titles. These clearly formed part of the original text, and they are found with
[17] See Jao Tsung-i, Tz'u-chi k'ao (Hong Kong: Hsiang-kang ta-hsüeh ch'u-pan-she, 1963), pp. 28–31. The Chih-chai description of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u will be taken up below.
only minor variants in all extant exemplars of it.[18] They report on the sources from which the poems were taken, raise questions of attribution, and recount anecdotes associated with the poems. Since much of the discussion to follow will refer to particular poems or the notes attached to them, it will prove convenient if all thirty-seven poems in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u are listed here. For each poem, the following table supplies a serial position in the collection, the melody title, and the opening phrase. (These phrases are transcribed as given in Wang Chung-wen's text, without prejudice as to arguments that may be advanced later concerning the readings.) In addition, the editorial notes are translated or summarized as they occur:
1. "Ying t'ien ch'ang" i kou ch'u yüeh lin chuang ching
Headnote: "Hou-chu's inscription reads, 'Lyrics composed by the late emperor.' The manuscript belongs to the household of Ch'ao Kung-liu."[19]
2. "Wang yüan hsing" pi ch'i hua kuang chin hsiu ming
3. "Huan hsi sha" shou chüan chen chu shang yü kou
Appended note: Quotes the Man-sou shih-hua , discussing a tasteless emendation of the poem.[20]
4. "Huan hsi sha" han t'an hsiang hsiao ts'ui yeh ts'an
First appended note: Anecdote involving a witty exchange between Li Ching and Feng Yen-ssu in which this poem is quoted; no source is given in the note.
Second appended note: Anecdote relating a conversation about tz'u between Wang An-shih and Huang T'ing-chien in which this poem is cited; no source is given in the note.
5. "Yü mei-jen" ch'un hua ch'iu yüeh ho shih liao
Headnote: "In the Tsun-ch'ien chi there are eight poems in all, lyrics by the last ruler, Ch'ung-kuang [Li Yü]."
6. "Wu yeh t'i" tso yeh feng chien yü
7. "I hu chu" hsiao chuang ch'u kuo
[18] While the notes that refer to published works might conceivably have been added later, those that identify manuscript sources can scarcely be from any hand but that of the original compiler. As we shall see in the next section, the textual evidence provided by these notes is important in the establishment of a genealogy of the extant editions. That it contributes to a consistent interpretation shows that, at the very least, the notes were part of a common ancestor of all the extant editions.
[19] Ch'ao Kung-liu is unidentified, but he must have been related to Ch'ao Yüeh-chih, who is said elsewhere to have added an inscription to the manuscript. See below.
[20] The Man-sou shih-hua is extant only in fragments. See Kuo Shao-yü, Sung shih-hua chi-i (1937; rpt., Taipei: Wen-ch'üan ko, 1972), A.429–51.
8. "Tzu-yeh ko" jen sheng ch'ou hen ho neng mien
9. "Keng-lou-tzu" chin ch'üeh ch'ai
10. "Lin chiang hsien" ying t'ao lo chin ch'un kuei ch'ü
Appended note: Quotes an anecdote from the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua that purports to explain the unfinished state of this poem as it is found in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u ; a continuation comments on the anecdote.[21]
11. "Wang Chiang-nan" to shao hen
12. "Ch'ing-p'ing yüeh" pieh lai ch'un pan
13. "Ts'ai sang-tzu" t'ing ch'ien ch'un chu hung ying chin
14. "Hsi ch'ien ying" hsiao yüeh chui
15. "Tieh lien hua" yao yeh t'ing kao hsien hsin pu
Headnote: "Found in the Tsun-ch'ien chi ; the Pen-shih ch'ü treats it as a work by Li Kuan of Shantung."[22]
16. "Wu yeh t'i" lin hua hsieh liao ch'un hung
17. "Ch'ang hsiang-ssu" yün i kua
Headnote: "When Tseng Tuan-po collected the [Yüeh-fu ] ya-tz'u , he treated this as a work by Sun Hsiao-chih; this is incorrect."[23]
[21] The Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua too is extant only in fragmentary form; see Kuo, Sung shih-hua , A.317–70. This poem and the anecdotes related to it are discussed in considerable detail in Daniel Bryant, "The 'Hsieh Hsin En' Fragments of Li Yü and His Lyric to the Melody 'Lin Chiang Hsien,'" Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 7 (1985): 37–66.
[22] On the Pen-shih ch'ü , see Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Chi Shih-hsien Pen-shih ch'ü-tzu chi ," Pei-p'ing Pei-hai t'u-shu-kuan yüeh-k'an 2 (1929): 1–3, and She Chih, "Li-tai tz'u-hsüan-chi hsü-lu," pt. 2, Tz'u-hsüeh 2 (1983): 238–39. According to Liang, this collection was a large and relatively early collection of tz'u and anecdotes related to them. She Chih, on the other hand, doubts that it was all that large. It appears to have been lost by the end of the Yüan dynasty, and the only surviving references to it are in notes such as this one in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u . The compiler of the Pen-shih ch'ü was one Yang Hui (1027–88), a political opponent of Wang An-shih. Li Kuan failed to pass the chin-shih examination, but did hold minor local office. Little else is known of him.
[23] Tseng Tuan-po is Tseng Tsao (d. 1185), compiler of several books of various sorts. For his Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u , see Chao Tsun-yüeh, "Tz'u-chi t'i-yao," Tz'u-hsüeh chi-k'an 6, no. 2 (n.d.): 14; Li Ting-fang, "Sung-jen hsüan-pien ti Sung tz'u tsung-chi," Wen-hsüeh i-ch'an 1980, no. 3: 148; She Chih, "Li-tai tz'u hsüan-chi hsü-lu," pt. 1, Tz'u-hsüeh 1 (1981): 284–86; and Wu Hsiung-ho, T'ang Sung tz'u t'ung-lun (Hangchow: Che-chiang ku-chi ch'u-pan-she, 1985), pp. 338–40. The Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u was transmitted in manuscript form for a long period before it was printed, and consequently has suffered textual loss and corruption, although it remains a valuable source. Sun Hsiao-chih is Sun T'an, a virtual cipher. The Ch'üan Sung tz'u , ed. T'ang Kuei-chang (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1965), p. 1037, prints two poems under his name, the authenticity of both being in dispute.
18. "Tao lien-tzu ling" shen yüan ching
Headnote: "Comes from the Lan-wan ch'ü-hui ."[24]
19. "Huan hsi sha" hung jih i kao san chang t'ou
Headnote: "This tz'u is found in the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua ."
20. "P'u-sa-man" hua ming yüeh an lung ch'ing wu
Headnote: "Found in the Tsun-ch'ien chi ; the Tu Shou-yü tz'u also includes this poem, with some variants in the text."[25]
21. "Wang Chiang mei" hsien meng yüan
22. "P'u-sa-man" p'eng lai yüan pi t'ien t'ai nü
23. "P'u-sa-man" t'ung huang yün ts'ui ch'iang han chu
24. "Juan lang kuei" tung feng ch'ui shui jih hsien shan
Headnote: "Presented to the prince of Cheng, my twelfth brother."[26
] Additional note: "Followed by the seal of the Heir Apparent's Library in clerical script."
25. "Lang t'ao sha" wang shih chih k'an ai
Headnote: "Comes from the Hsia family at Ch'ih-chou."[27]
26. "Ts'ai sang-tzu" lu lu chin ching wu t'ung wan
Headnote: "The autograph of these two tz'u is in the household of Examiner Wang Chi-kung."[28]
27. "Yü mei-jen" feng hui hsiao yüan t'ing wu lü
28. "Yü-lou ch'un" wan chuang ch'u liao ming chi hsüeh
Headnote: "The following two tz'u come from the household of Governor Ts'ao Kung-hsien; it is said that the autograph used to be in the quarters of an old gentleman living in retirement in the Prince Li Monastery outside the Liang Gate
[24] For the Lan-wan ch'ü-hui , see Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Chi Lan-wan chi ," Pei-p'ing Pei-hai t'u-shu-kuan yüeh-k'an 2 (1929): 5–6; Chao Tsun-yüeh, "Tz'u-chi t'i-yao," Tz'u-hsüeh chi-k'an 3, no. 3 (Sept. 1936): 53–54; She Chih, "Tz'u-hsüan-chi," pt. 2, pp. 236–37; and Wu Hsiung-ho, T'ang Sung tz'u , pp. 335–36. Liang points out that the Lan-wan chi must be earlier than 1196, since it is cited in a book of that date. It was compiled by K'ung I, a friend of Yang Hui, and so was probably contemporaneous with Yang's Pen-shih ch'ü . Chao Tsun-yüeh cites references to the Lan-wan chi in notes to the Yang-ch'un chi and concludes that it must predate the latter collection (1057). This point seems to conflict with its having been compiled by K'ung I, who did not pass the chin-shih examination until the period 1086–94. The text of the Lan-wan chi has long been lost.
[25] The Tu Shou-yü tz'u is the collected tz'u of Tu An-shih, about whom little is known.
[26] The prince of Cheng was Ts'ung-shan, who was later held prisoner in the north by the Sung court.
[27] Ch'ih-chou is in modern Kuei-ch'ih, in Anhwei.
[28] I have been unable to identify this person.
of the capital, and that as a consequence it is in poor condition and hard to read."[29]
29. "Tzu-yeh ko" hsün ch'un hsü shih hsien ch'un tsao
30. "Hsieh hsin en" chin ch'uang li k'un ch'i huan yung
Headnote: "The autograph of the following six poems is in the household of Prince Meng."[30]
31. "Hsieh hsin en" ch'in lou pu chien ch'ui hsiao nü
32. "Hsieh hsin en" ying hua lo chin chieh ch'ien yüeh
33. "Hsieh hsin en" t'ing k'ung k'o san jen kuei hou
34. "Hsieh hsin en" ying hua lo chin ch'un chiang k'un
35. "Hsieh hsin en" jan jan ch'iu kuang liu pu chu
36. "P'o chen-tzu" ssu shih nien lai chia kuo
Appended note: Quotes [Su] Tung-p'o's description of Li Yü's departure from his conquered state, to which the poem apparently refers.
37. "Lang t'ao sha ling" lien wai yü ch'an ch'an
Appended note: Quotes the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua on Li Yü's homesickness in captivity.
Wang Chung-wen has already wrung from these notes what little information they can be made to yield on the subjects of the dating and authenticity of the poems. It remains to be seen if further examination of them can advance us to a better understanding of how the book was compiled. Once again, a table will be the clearest way of summarizing the material. For each poem, one or more sources is given, unless none is known. Sources explicitly referred to in the notes summarized and translated above are given without parentheses; sources given here in parentheses are those known to have been in existence by the time of the compilation of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u but not mentioned in its notes. The three groups of poems assigned to "Prince Li" in the Tsun-ch'ien chi are designated by the letters A, B, and C, and the poems are numbered according to their position in each group. For example, "TCC A-4" means "the fourth poem in the first group of 'Prince Li' poems in the Tsun-ch'ien chi ."[31]
[29] Ts'ao Kung-hsien is Ts'ao Hsün; see above. The temple would have been in Kaifeng, the Northern Sung capital where Li Yü died while in captivity.
[30] Prince Meng is Meng Chung-hou (d. 1157), the elder brother of the empress of Emperor Che-tsung (r. 1086–1101). He held a number of official posts under both Northern and Southern Sung. He was created prince of Hsin-an prefecture in 1137. For a full discussion of the textual problems in the poems from this autograph, see Bryant, "The 'Hsieh Hsin En' Fragments."
[31] TCC B-3 is a poem by Wen T'ing-yün not included in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u ; see below. TCC C-1 appears under the melody title "Tzu-yeh t'i" in the Tsun-ch'ien chi , but under "P'u-sa-man" in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u .
1–4. manuscript from Ch'ao Kung-liu (3 is TCC A-4; 4 is TCC B-8)
5. TCC A-5 (headnote says that there were eight poems in TCC)
6. (no other source is known for this poem before the Ming dynasty)
7. (TCC A-1)
8. (TCC A-2)
9. (TCC A-3; Hua-chien chi attributes it to Wen T'ing-yün)
10. Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua ; (T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua )
11. (TCC B-1,2)
12. (TCC B-5)
13. (TCC B-6)
14. (TCC B-7)
15. TCC B-4; Pen-shih ch'ü attributes it to Li Kuan; (Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u attributes it to Ou-yang Hsiu)
16. (Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u , anonymous)
17. Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u , anonymous
18. Lan-wan ch'ü-hui ; (TCC attributes it to Feng Yen-ssu)
19. Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua
20. TCC C-1; Shou-yü tz'u attributes it to Tu An-shih
21–23. (no other source is known for these poems before the Ming dynasty)
24. manuscript from the Heir Apparent's Library; (Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u attributes it to Ou-yang Hsiu; Yang-ch'un chi attributes it to Feng Yen-ssu, with an editorial note in some editions reading, "Misattributed to Yen Shu in the Lan-wan chi ")
25. manuscript from the Hsia family in Ch'ih-chou
26–27. manuscript from the household of Wang Chi-kung
28–29. manuscript from the household of Ts'ao Hsün
30–35. manuscript from the household of Meng Chung-hou
36. Tung-p'o chih-lin ; (T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua )
37. Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua ; (T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua )
Now, there is a certain amount of order to be found here. The poems by Li Ching, all from the same manuscript source, are placed at the beginning; all other poems from manuscripts (24–35) are grouped together, the last being the fragmentary set of poems on the unique pattern "Hsieh hsin en." Three of the four poems found in the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u are grouped together, as are three of the four poems known from no other pre-Ming source. The poems taken from (or at least appearing in) the Tsun-ch'ien chi are found in the same three groups as in that collection and appear at first glance to have been treated with considerable care. The two poems by Li Ching are transferred to his works, and one by Wen T'ing-yün is silently excluded (B-3). In two cases (15, 20)
involving poems whose attribution to Li Yü in the Tsun-ch'ien chi is contested by another source, the discrepancy is mentioned in the headnotes.
In view of all this, it seems all the more curious that the following questions arise: Why is the division of the poems into three groups followed? Why is another poem by Wen T'ing-yün (9, TCC A-3), whose spurious character is just as evident as that of the one excluded (B-3), included here without comment? Why is poem 18 included on the basis of the Lan-wan ch'ü-hui without any mention of its attribution to Feng Yen-ssu in the Tsun-ch'ien chi ? Why does the headnote to poem 5 simply and specifically say that the latter collection includes eight poems by Li Yü, when there are fourteen poems attributed to "Prince Li" there, and from nine to twelve (depending upon whether one counts poems 11 and 21 as two or four poems, whether one includes poem 18, and so on) from the Tsun-ch'ien chi appearing in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u ?
In addressing these questions, we shall, in the interest of clarity of presentation, examine the poems in the following groups: 1–4, poems by Li Ching from the Ch'ao manuscript; 5–14, poems from the Tsun-ch'ien chi , with interpolations and deletions; 15–23, poems from other published or unknown sources; 24–35, poems from manuscript sources; 36–37, poems apparently added from the T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua .
If it were not for the manuscript from which poems 1–4 were entered into the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u , it is unlikely that we would know them to be the work of Li Ching, for the Tsun-ch'ien chi makes no distinction between Ching and his son Yü, suggesting that the collection's editor did not know that Ching was a poet.[32] There seems to be no good reason, however, for doubting the authenticity of the manuscript, which is described in more detail in the Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i . Moreover, some of the poems are cited in anecdotes concerning Li Ching that are recorded in historical sources, in particular the Nan-T'ang shu of Ma Ling. The compiler of the Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i , Ch'en Chen-sun (fl. 1230–50), offered the following comment:
The Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u , in one chüan , by the second ruler, Li Ching, and the third ruler, Li Yü. The four poems at the beginning, to "Ying t'ien ch'ang," "Wang yüan hsing" (one each), and two to "Huan hsi sha," are by the second ruler. Ch'ung-kuang [Li Yü] wrote them out, the autograph being with the Ch'ao clan in Hsü-chiang. The inscription reads, "Lyrics composed by the late emperor." I have seen it. It is on mai-kuang
[32] Ch'i Huai-mei takes this as evidence that the Tsun-ch'ien chi cannot have been compiled very early in the Northern Sung.
paper, in the po-teng style of script, with an inscription by Ch'ao Ching-yü. I do not know where it is now. The rest of the poems are by Ch'ung-kuang.[33]
Taking this manuscript as authority, the compiler of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u evidently began the collection with these four poems on the assumption that the father's work ought to precede that of the son, even if there were fewer of the father's poems.
Poems 5–14 are somewhat more difficult to account for. It seems clear that the compiler's next step was essentially to transcribe the poems that were found in the Tsun-ch'ien chi . But it is just as clear that this was not done in a mechanical way, at least not from a Tsun-ch'ien chi identical to the texts now current. A straight listing of the poems in the Tsun-ch'ien chi according to their sequence in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u gives the following order: Group A: 7, 8, 9, 3, 5; Group B: 11a, 11b, (Wen T'ing-yün poem not included), 15, 12, 13, 14, 4; Group C: 20. It is not impossible to see what was done instead. Poems 3 and 4, of course, were omitted, since they had already been included on the basis of the Ch'ao manuscript; 11a and 11b were treated as one, the Wen T'ing-yün poem was simply dropped as spurious, poems 15 and 20 were set aside temporarily because of questions concerning their authenticity, and—and this is simply conjecture—poem 5 was shifted to the head of the group just because it is one of Li Yü's most beautiful and best-known creations and seemed to deserve pride of place.[34] Such a procedure would give the sequence 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, and these are
[33] Ch'en Chen-sun, Chih-chai shu-lu chieh-t'i (Chü-chen pan ts'ung-shu ed.) (PP 27/35), 21.1b. Mai-kuang was a special type of paper made from hemp fibers. Li Yü was an acknowledged master of the po-teng or "light in the stirrups" style of calligraphy. Ch'ao Ching-yü is Ch'ao Yüeh-chih, an important literary figure of the Northern Sung. The Ch'ao clan was prominent during the entire Northern Sung and followed the common Chinese practice of having all members of a single generation share one character of their personal names. Thus, the personal names of Ch'ao Yüeh-chih's brother and cousins all end with chih (it). The character shared by members of the next generation was kung , as in Kung-liu, the owner of the manuscript. Some members of the Ch'ao clan settled in Hsü-chiang, in Kiangsi, at the beginning of the Southern Sung. It is possible that Kungliu was the son, or at least a nephew, of one of them. Presumably they carried the Li Ching manuscript south, and it seems likely, if it was in their possession, that they were brothers or close cousins of Yüeh-chih.
[34] The placement of this poem and of another great "late" poem, "Lang t'ao sha ling," which comes at the very end of the collection, has a striking analogue in the placement of The Tempest and The Winter's Tale at the beginning and end of the canon of Shakespeare's comedies. In that case, as in this, there appears to be insufficient evidence for anything more than speculation.
presumably the eight poems referred to in the headnote, which must have been added at this time.
The questions that remain are two. First, why was poem 9 not omitted at the same time as the other one by Wen T'ing-yün? And second, where did poems 6 and 10 come from, and when were they added? The omitted poem is the first of the "Keng-lou-tzu" lyrics by Wen T'ing-yün in the Hua-chien chi , while poem 9 is the third. One might suppose that the first poem's position called attention to it, while the other one was missed because it was not quite so "visible," though it is only a few lines away in the text. At any event, the oversight probably originated within the textual tradition of the Tsun-ch'ien chi , rather than in that of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u . In the former, both poems have a headnote specifying the mode to which the lyric was to be sung, but this is augmented in the Wu and Mao editions by a reference to Wen T'ing-yün's possible authorship of the poem not found in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u . Since in general the Wu and Chu editions agree against Mao, Wang Chung-wen's suggestion (p. 65) that the additional note was omitted in the manuscript belonging to Mei Ting-tso, from which Chu was printed, is probably correct. If the additional note goes back so far in the textual tradition of the Tsun-ch'ien chi that it is shared by the Mao and Wu editions, then it may have been present in the original, or at least added to the text by the time of the compilation of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u , whose compiler would have been sufficiently reassured by it that he would not have troubled to check poem 9 against the Hua-chien chi (or Wen T'ing-yün's collected tz'u , to which the Tsun-ch'ien chi note refers) himself, assuming that this had already been done. This hypothesis is consistent with what we can deduce of the care that went into the compilation of the two texts. The Tsun-ch'ien chi , valuable as it is, is prone to misattributions and careless errors, while the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u seems to be the product of an editor who, if not infallible, was remarkably careful and thorough in his work.
Unfortunately, he was not quite so thorough as to tell us where he got poems 6 and 10, or why he entered them where he did. It seems very likely that 10 came either directly from the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua , with the additional comments added later from the T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua , or else, with both comments, directly from the latter, which quotes the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua . The question then is not so much where the poem came from, but rather why it was inserted where it was.[35] The same
[35] Wang Kuo-wei's hypothesis, offered in his colophon to the Tsun-ch'ien chi , that the latter originally included poem 10 but that Ku Wu-fang dropped it because it was incomplete, is rendered implausible by the arguments presented here.
question can be asked about poem 6, except that here there is an added element of uncertainty, since no other source for this poem earlier than the Ming dynasty is known. We shall return to this problem after other questions of a simpler nature have been dealt with.
If understanding how the compiler of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u incorporated the poems taken from the Tsun-ch'ien chi has required a measure of ingenuity and left behind a residue of unresolved doubts, the measure and the residue that are required and left behind in dealing with the next group of poems are considerably greater. In fact, the rationale for treating poems 15–23 as a group lies only in their being distinct from poems 5–14 before them and from 24–35 after. One can divide them into a number of subgroups. Poem 15, taken from the Tsun-ch'ien chi (B-4), seems to have been shifted here simply to separate it from the eight poems in that source that required no additional discussion. There seems to be no good reason why poem 20 could not have been treated in the same way and placed immediately before or, more consistently, after 15, but this was not done. The poems found in the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u present a particular problem due to the present state of the text of that work. It has clearly suffered a good deal of corruption, particularly as regards the names of the authors of the poems that it includes. The compiler of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u seems to have supposed that poems without an author's name attached were by the writer of the preceding poem, and this may even have been true, in general, of the edition at hand. But it led to the assumption that poem 17 was attributed to Sun T'an in the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u , although it is not so attributed in the current text, only the poem that precedes it. The more puzzling questions about the four poems found in both the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u and the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u are these: Why is poem 24 separated from the other three? And why, since the headnote to poem 17 cites the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u only to disagree with it, are the other poems from the same collection (15, 16, 24) not credited to it in separate headnotes? The first question is not too hard to answer. It seems clear that poem 24 was entered on the basis of the old manuscript that had once been in the Heir Apparent's Library—the heir, of course, was Li Yü himself. That it was also to be found attributed to Ou-yang Hsiu in the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u and to Feng Yen-ssu in the Yang-ch'un chi was apparently overlooked by the compiler; or perhaps, having the autograph in hand, he did not think the discrepancy worth discussing.
It is possible that poems 16 and 17 were entered not from the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u , but from some other source, specified in a headnote to poem 16 that has since disappeared from the text, as Wang Chung-wen suggests
(p. 28).[36] Clearly there must have been some other source for poem 17, for otherwise there would have been nothing to contradict the supposed attribution to Sun T'an. No other extant Sung source includes either poem, however, so we cannot suggest what the alternative source may have been.
The source for poem 18 is not a problem in itself, since it is specified in the headnote. The poem is, however, also found in the Tsun-ch'ien chi , where it is attributed to Feng Yen-ssu. It was not included in the Yang-ch'un chi , Feng's collected tz'u , and this suggests that the attribution to Feng in the Tsun-ch'ien chi may be erroneous.
The problem with poem 19 is not so much its source, which is specified in the note, as its location. That is, one poem from the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua , 10, is entered earlier, and one, 37, later. To complicate matters, it is very possible that the direct source for 10 and 37 was in fact not the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua itself, but rather the T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua , which quotes it. But the latter collection also includes this poem, the source cited there being not the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua , but another, no longer extant book of Northern Sung date, the Chih-i of Liu Fu.[37] Why the Chih-i is not mentioned in the note to this poem is hard to say. It is possible that Ts'ai T'ao, the compiler of the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua , took the poem from the Chih-i without acknowledging this, and that the compiler of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u got it from the Hsi-ch'ing shih-hua , while Hu Tzu cited the original source. The poem is also cited in another Sung dynasty source, the Men-shih hsin-hua of Ch'en Shan, where it is treated as a shih poem.[38]
Reference has already been made to the puzzling separation of poems 15 and 20, which one would have expected to be grouped together. Poem 20 is also cited in Ma Ling's Nan-T'ang shu , but this text is not explicitly referred to in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u . The separation is probably not related to poem 20's uncertain placement in the Tsun-ch'ien chi , which placement is, as already noted, most readily explained as the result of an unrelated event in the textual history of that collection.
Poems 21–23 are also something of a puzzle, since they, like poem 6, are known from no other source earlier than the Ming dynasty. Had they come from a manuscript, its origin would presumably have been cited, and they probably would have been placed after the poem taken from the autograph with Li Yü's own seal on it.
[36] Both poems are found in the shih-i (supplement) section of the Yüeh-fu ya-tz'u , which consists of poems probably set apart because their authors were unknown.
[37] Almost nothing is known of Liu Fu.
[38] Ch'en Shan, Men-shih hsin-hua (Ju-hsüeh ching-wu ed.) (PP 1/1), A.2.8b (33.8b).
The poems from manuscript sources (24–35) are the easiest to deal with, since, except for poem 24, there are no disputed attributions and no questions about the ordering of the poems. Some of them are textually corrupt or incomplete, but that is a different sort of problem.
The last two poems too are quite straightforward, so far as their source, the T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua , is concerned. The authenticity of poem 36 has been questioned on the grounds that it comes from a book of doubtful authenticity, the Tung-p'o chih-lin . As has been pointed out elsewhere, the challenge rests on very shaky logic and is best ignored.[39]
Now, what sort of general conclusions can we draw about the compilation of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u on the basis of the specific observations above? Perhaps the most important one is that a remarkable amount of care went into it, at least in the earlier stages of the process. Both the searching of numerous published works and the gathering of copies from scattered manuscript sources suggest that every effort was taken to make the collection as complete and accurate as possible. Only four poems are still extant that are likely to have been Li Yü's work but not included in the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u . Two of these are written to the melody "Yü-fu." They were inscribed on a painting and then copied into an eleventh-century history of Five Dynasties painting, the Wu-tai ming-hua pu-i of Liu Tao-ch'un.[40] One, to the melody "Liu-chih," is cited as a shih poem in several Northern Sung works; only much later is it treated as a tz'u .[41] The "Yü-fu" melody too is close to a shih in structure, and it is possible that some or all of these poems were known to the compiler of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u , who excluded them as not being true tz'u . The other omitted poem, to the melody "Wu yeh t'i," was attributed to Meng Ch'ang in an early Southern Sung work, the Ku-chin tz'u-hua of Yang Shih, and to Li Yü only—among extant works—in the later, but generally more reliable anthology T'ang Sung chu-hsien chüeh-miao tz'u-hsüan , compiled by Huang Sheng.[42] It is quite possible, then, that the compiler of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u knew this poem too but did not have sufficient reason to attribute it to Li Yü.
If a good deal of care and effort went into gathering and evaluating the materials that went into the collection, the apparently haphazard
[39] See the introduction to Daniel Bryant, Lyric Poets of the Southern T'ang: Feng Yenssu, 903–960, and Li Yü, 937–978 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982), and the article cited there, K'ung Ying-te, "Li Hou-chu wang-kuo shih-tz'u pien-cheng," Li-hsüeh 2 (1934): 91–97.
[40] Liu Tao-ch'un, Wu-tai ming-hua pu-i, Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu chen-pen , ser. 5 ed., p. 11b.
[41] See, for example, Shao Po, Shao-shih wen-chien hou-lu (Hsüeh-chin t'ao-yüan ed.) (PP 46/24), 17.4a; and Chang Pang-chi, Mo-chuang man-lu (Pai-hai ed.) (PP 14/3), 2.7b.
[42] Huang Sheng, T'ang Sung chu-hsien chüeh-miao tz'u-hsüan (SPTK ed.), 1.22b (p. 15).
arrangement of the whole calls for some explanation, even if it is only conjecture. The work of collecting materials must have been done by someone with access to high social circles, possibly a member of the educated class himself, for the manuscript sources were presumably in collections that would not have been readily accessible. The materials gathered would have been transcribed on separate sheets of paper as they were located, with an identifying note attached to each. The sheets may have been loosely bound in a fixed order, or they may simply have been left sorted but unassembled. Eventually, however, they would have been recopied in order, in preparation for printing. It is possible that the preparation of this transcribed "final" copy, and perhaps some tasks of the later stages of collecting as well, were not the work of the original compiler, that someone else undertook to publish the collection and in so doing either mixed up a few of the sheets or perhaps simply added newly found material on blank parts of sheets that had not been completely filled. If poem 5, for example, had been copied separately by the original compiler with the intention of setting it at the beginning of Li Yü's tz'u (i.e., out of order with respect to its source, the Tsun-ch'ien chi ), there might well have been room for poem 6 to have been added on the rest of the sheet later, perhaps by a different hand. Poem 10 might similarly have been added at the end of what was originally the A group of poems from the Tsun-ch'ien chi , and so forth. Of course, it is possible to imagine various other ways in which the text as it presently exists might have taken shape. Our concern should be not so much to determine the indeterminable as to delimit and reduce—eliminate, if possible—the inexplicable, and some variant of the "careful compiler + conscientious but less meticulous publisher" formula seems to offer the most reasonable way of doing this. The collection of most, if not all, of the materials, the addition of the editorial headnotes, and at least a rough ordering of the contents would have been the work of the former. Preparation of the final copy, perhaps with the addition of some poems or of the anecdotes from the T'iao-hsi yü-yin ts'ung-hua , very probably with a certain amount of rearrangement of the material and perhaps the accidental omission of one or more editorial notes, that of the latter.
Our curiosity is naturally aroused by the question of the original compiler's identity. There is no reason to suppose that we shall ever know who was responsible for assembling the book, but we can deduce a good deal about what sort of person it could have been: a careful scholar, perhaps, well-connected socially, interested in tz'u poetry, and present in Hangchow during some part of the period 1150–70 or so. The lack of a compiler's name attached to the text itself could be due
to any of a variety of circumstances, from political disgrace to accidental loss of the editor's preface from the original text. One doubts, in any case, that identifying the actual compiler of the Nan-T'ang erh-chu tz'u will ever become as popular a pastime as proving that someone else wrote the plays of Shakespeare.