Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty (Complete 5 Volumes)

Author: Tang Guizhang (Editor)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: November 7, 1998
Features: In the nearly 20,000 works collected in this Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty, many of the over 1,300 people (poets) included are considered "traitors" by feudal rulers and listed in the Biography of Traitors in the History of the Song Dynasty. Some are assistants to these "traitors," while others surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty and became petty officials, and so on, without listing them all. Since Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty is a reference book aiming for completeness, and its target readers are researchers, it is necessary to include these works and authors. The old edition of Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty began compilation in 1931 and was completed in early 1937. The Commercial Press once printed it, and it was published in Changsha during the 1940 war period. This book had a limited print run and was not widely circulated, and it had many flaws. The most serious issue was that, due to limitations of conditions and the era, many materials were unknown or inaccessible, and the format was based on the Complete Lyrics of the Tang Dynasty, starting with "Emperors and Imperial Family" and ending with "Buddhists and Taoists" and "Women." From 1940 to the present, over twenty years have passed. For researchers, Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty is still necessary. Clearly, reprinting the old edition is not suitable. With the care and encouragement of the Party Committee of Nanjing Normal University, the old edition was revised and supplemented; later, the Literary Group of Zhonghua Book Company further revised and supplemented the entire manuscript and presented it to readers. After revision and supplementation, both in terms of materials and format, the new edition has made certain improvements compared to the old one: replacing some better manuscripts with older ones, adding over 240 people and over 1,400 lyrics (excluding fragments), removing identifiable Tang, Five Dynasties, Jin, Yuan, and Ming Dynasty people and works, revising and rewriting the biographies of people, adjusting the original arrangement, and adding several appendices. Here is a brief explanation of the revision and supplementation:
The compilation of Song Dynasty lyric collections began in the Song Dynasty itself. In the Northern Song Dynasty, although lyrics had already formed an independent literary genre, they were not yet widely recognized as "orthodox literature," so the lyrics of the Northern Song people were generally not included in collected works. For example, Ouyang Xiu's Pingshan Collection, Yan Shu's Juyu Collection, Su Shi's Dongpo Lyrics, and He Zhi's Dongshan Lyrics were all published separately. By the Southern Song Dynasty, this situation changed, and lyrics were generally included in collected works. For example, Zhang Xiaoxiang's Yuhu Scholar Collection contains four volumes of lyrics, Lu You's Weinan Collection contains two volumes of lyrics, Liu Kezhuang's Houcun Scholar Collection contains five volumes of lyrics, and so on. When the Southern Song people compiled collected works of Northern Song people, they often adopted the same method. For instance, the Classified Collection of Huang Xiansheng's Complete Works published in the Qianyou era contains one volume of Yue Zhang, and the Complete Collection of Ouyang Xiu compiled during the Qingyuan period contains three volumes of lyrics, both of which are clear examples. Another situation is that lyrics included in collected works also had separate published editions, and their contents were not always the same. For example, Ouyang Xiu had Zuo'er Qinqu Wai pian in six volumes, and Zhang Xiaoxiang had Yuhu Scholar's Short and Long Verses in five volumes and Supplement in one volume. This was the situation of compiling separate lyric collections of Song people. At that time, many popular separate lyric collections existed. According to Zhijia Shulu Jieshui, Volume 21, Chen Zhensun encountered over one hundred such collections, including the so-called Hundred Collections of Lyrics, plus three annotated editions. Over time, a large part of these lyric collections have been lost. Even those that have survived to the present day, their names and volumes often differ from what Chen Zhensun saw, and they may not be the same as the old collections. In addition to separate lyric collections, there were also collected lyric collections. In the Song Dynasty, there were Hundred Collections of Lyrics published by a Changsha bookshop (now lost), Qinqu Wai Bian published in Fujian (now survives in five volumes), Dianyao Ci (now survives in nineteen volumes), and Sixty Collections of Lyrics (now lost). Wu Ne of the Ming Dynasty had Tang and Song Famous Scholars' Hundred Collections of Lyrics, which was not published at the time but survives in manuscript and printed editions by the Commercial Press. Of the seventy collections, ten Song Dynasty lyrics are lost, and sixty remain. In the late Ming Dynasty, Mao Jin published Famous Song Scholars' Lyrics in six volumes, totaling sixty-one collections, marking the beginning of large-scale publishing of lyric collections after the Song Dynasty. This book was widely circulated. Before the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there was Hou Wenchan's Ten Famous Scholars' Collections of Lyrics, and in the middle period, Qin Enfu's Ci Studies Series. As for those occasionally included in series such as Zhiwu Ziqi Series and Biexia Ziqi Series, there were not many and had little influence. Since the late Qing Dynasty, Ci studies were once promoted among scholars, and the compilation of collected lyric collections became a trend. Wang Pengyun's Four Seal Collections of Lyrics and Thirty-One Song and Yuan Collections of Lyrics preceded these; followed by Jiang Biao's Famous Song and Yuan Collections of Lyrics, Wu Chongxi's People of Shandong's Lyrics, and later, Zhu Xiaozang's Qiangcun Series, Wu Changshou and Tao Xiang's Published Song, Jin, Yuan, and Ming Dynasty Lyrics, and Tao Xiang's Published Seven Song and Jin Lyrics from Jiguangu. Most of these collected lyric collections followed previous works. For example, Famous Song Scholars' Lyrics was almost entirely based on separate lyric collections, while Qiangcun Series had half of its content extracted from collected works. Only a few lyric collections, such as Four Seal Collections of Lyrics (Li Qingzhao's Laiyu Lyrics) and Qiangcun Series (Zhao Chongshan's Baiyun Xiaogao), were newly compiled from various sources. Despite this, they still have reference value: some preserved base texts of lyric collections that are now lost, such as Famous Song Scholars' Lyrics; some published old editions that are now difficult to find, such as Published Song, Jin, Yuan, and Ming Dynasty Lyrics; and some compilers had a deep understanding of Ci studies, such as Four Seal Collections of Lyrics and Qiangcun Series, whose corrections and supplements were invaluable.
The compilation of Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty relied primarily on these two types of lyric collections.
Song Dynasty selections of lyrics, judging from the popularity of separate lyric collections at the time, must have been numerous. The eight extant selections are Meiyuan, Yuefu Yacuo, Cotang Shiyou, Excellent Lyrics Since Tang and Song, Excellent Lyrics Since the Zhongxing Era, Yangchun Baiyue, Excellent Lyrics, and Yuefu Buti. There are also about five to six other named selections that can be traced but are now lost. Among them, Qungong Shiyou was once collected by Qian Zeng and Ji Zhenyi in the early Qing Dynasty but later disappeared. As for Yuan Dynasty selections, only Cotang Shiyou compiled by Fenglin Academy is known. These Song and Yuan Dynasty selections often contain lyrics not found in separate collections, especially those of lesser-known authors, which are often preserved through them.
As for Ming and Qing Dynasty selections, such as Ci Lin Wanxuan, Collected Lyrics of Famous Scholars Since Tang and Song, Huacao Cuibian, Supplement to Cotang Shiyou, Ci Zong, Poetry Reserves of All Dynasties, and Supplement to Ci Zong, some were compiled by scholars, while others were produced by publishers, with varying quality. However, except for a few selections like Huacao Cuibian, it is difficult for them to add much to the separate collections and selected collections of Song Dynasty compilers. These selections are also important references for our compilation work.
Comprehensively utilizing the above materials to compile Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty has encountered many difficulties. Some books were poorly printed, and some were limited by the compilers' level, often resulting in unexpected errors. Even if the books were compiled with care, compared with other materials, they often appeared disorganized and chaotic. Therefore, selecting base texts and verifying the authenticity of works were the most labor-intensive tasks in utilizing these lyric collections. In comparing and selecting base texts, we respected old texts but did not blindly trust them, choosing the better ones. For example, the Famous Song Scholars' Lyrics preserved in the Beijing Library, annotated by Lu Yidian and Mao Zhan, were based on old texts that are now lost. However, from the actual situation of the annotations, the texts they used were indeed better than the existing ones, so we basically adopted their annotations for this part. However, their old texts were not perfect either. For example, Lu Zuga's Pujiang Lyrics, in the Jiguangu edition, contains only over twenty lyrics, and the Lu and Mao annotations did not add any. However, the Qiangcun Series edition is based on a Ming Dynasty manuscript of Pujiang Lyrics Draft, which, despite containing some spurious lyrics, has over seventy more lyrics than the Jiguangu edition. For such cases, we naturally chose the Qiangcun Series edition. Another example is Huang Tingjian's lyric collection. Although there is a Song Dynasty edition of Shanju Qinqu Wai Bian, the Qiangcun Series edition of Shanju Qinqu Wai Bian was annotated by Zhu Xiaozang. After comparing the two editions, we also chose the Qiangcun Series edition.
Regarding the verification of works, the situation is more complex. Many Song Dynasty lyrics appear in two or more collections of different authors. The Jiguangu edition of Famous Song Scholars' Lyrics contains Zhu Ci, Liu Ci, Shouyu Ci, and Xixiang Yuefu, with many such examples. In selections, such as Classified Cotang Shiyou, about eighty lyrics have incorrect author names, Ci Lin Wanxuan has about twenty, and Supplement to Cotang Shiyou has about thirty. Due to later misunderstandings, these errors were repeated and even mis-added to various lyric collections. Luo Bi of the Song Dynasty had already done some work in distinguishing authenticity, explaining in his annotations without drawing conclusions. Mao Jin published lyrics with occasional (investigations), but lacking a calm and serious attitude, he made arbitrary judgments, leading to mistakes in deletion and addition, which were often overly assertive. During our compilation process, we strived to correct the errors of previous compilers and clarify their confusions. For example, Ouyang Xiu's "Shengzhai Ci" titled "Last Year on the Lantern Festival" was mistakenly attributed by Yang Shen to Zhu Shuzhen, and Mao Jin repeated the error by adding it to Duanjian Ci. Recently, someone even published an article arguing that Yang Shen's conclusion was correct. In fact, this lyric appears in Song and Yuan Dynasty editions of Ouyang Xiu's collection, and Song people had no other opinions, so arbitrarily overturning this conclusion was inappropriate. Another example is the last lyric "Dongxian Ge" in Pujiang Lyrics Draft, which appears in Zeng Qiao's Yuefu Yacuo. Zeng Qiao lived much earlier than Lu Zuga, so this lyric could not have been written by Lu Zuga. The Qiangcun Series edition of Zhu Yi's Huangshan Shiyou contains only five lyrics, but one is by Wang Tinggui and another by Zhang Yuankuan. For all these cases, we conducted careful examinations based on existing research.
The collection of lost lyrics of Song Dynasty lyrics truly attracted the attention of researchers only in the late Qing Dynasty. The Laiyu Ci and Baiyun Xiaogao mentioned earlier were the achievements of Wang Pengyun and Wu Changshou. Later, Liu Yupan's Sixty Song, Five Dynasties, Jin, and Yuan Famous Scholars' Lyrics Collection began large-scale collection of lost lyrics, including forty-four Song lyrics from sixty collections, but unfortunately, their sources were unclear, authenticity uncertain, and verifications poor, earning criticism from scholars. By the time of Zhao Wanli's Collected and Verified Lyrics of Song, Jin, and Yuan People, the materials used were broader, including fifty-one Song lyric collections, most of which were compiled from lost lyrics. Additionally, others had also done work in this area. Although each of these efforts had shortcomings, without them, the compilation of Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty would have been much more difficult.
Building on these collection efforts, we conducted further research. In addition to collecting materials from various selections, certain encyclopedias like Quanfang Beizou, Xinbian Tongyong Qizha Jiejiang Gang, and Xinbian Shiwen Laomu Dahan were also rich sources for collecting lost lyrics. Just these three books alone yielded over 1,000 lyrics. Other sources like Song Huaiyao Jigao, Lebang Wenle, Shouqin Yanglaoshu, Zheng Yuanzhao's Annotated Duanjian Collection of Zhu Shuzhen, Yongle Dadian, as well as various general collections of poetry and prose, separate collections, notes, novels, inscriptions on paintings and calligraphy, records of inscriptions, flower and plant catalogs, local gazettes, and so on, contained scattered materials that were countless.
With vast literary materials like smoke and mist, uncovering hidden truths required immense effort. We made every effort to search for the materials we knew and could access, filling in the gaps left by previous compilers. Although the results were limited, some of them were fragments, but in the sense of allowing researchers to see the overall picture of existing Song lyrics more comprehensively, they were not entirely unsatisfactory.
Regarding specific tasks such as collation, arrangement, and writing biographies of lyricists, detailed explanations are provided in the General Provisions, and no further elaboration is needed here.
Although we have made great efforts in this revision and supplementation, the Song lyrics passed down through generations cannot be considered complete. Our knowledge is limited, and we have not seen enough books, so many lyrics must still be left out. Even for books we have used, it is difficult to guarantee that there are no omissions. Some supplementary corrections made during the proofreading process (see Supplementary Notes) illustrate this point. In terms of verification and arrangement, there are still about three hundred people whose lives remain unknown; even those with biographies written may be too brief or even contain errors. Moreover, there were many same-named people in the Song Dynasty, and a slight oversight could easily lead to misidentification. It is possible that the current Complete Lyrics of the Song Dynasty also contains such errors.
We sincerely ask readers to point out any omissions or errors so that they can be revised in future editions.
May 1964