Shan'ge, the 'Mountain Songs': Love Songs in Ming China

615 Pages·2011·8.27 MB·English

by  Oki Yasushi and Paolo Santangelo

Shan’ge, the ‘Mountain Songs’
Emotions and States of
Mind in East Asia
Editors
Paolo Santangelo
Sapienza University of Rome
Cheuk Yin Lee
National University of Singapore
VOLUME 2
Shan’ge, the ‘Mountain Songs’
Love Songs in Ming China
By
Ōki Yasushi
&
Paolo Santangelo
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oki, Yasushi.
Shan’ge, the mountain songs : love songs in Ming China / by Oki Yasushi,
Paolo Santangelo.
p. cm. — (Emotions and states of mind in East Asia ; no. 2)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-90-04-18900-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Love songs—China—17th century—History and criticism. 2. Folk songs,
Chinese—China—17th century—History and criticism. 3. Folk music—China—
17th century—History and criticism. 4. Feng, Menglong, 1574-1646. Shan’ge.
I. Santangelo, Paolo. II. Title.
ML3746.2.S25 2011
782.42162’951009032—dc22
2010048893
ISSN 1878-8084
ISBN 978 90 04 18900 3
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center,
222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
preface v

contents
List of illustrations vii
Preface ix

Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction to Feng Menglong’s Mountain Songs (Shan’ge) 1
Ōki Yasushi
“secret Loves”
Folk love songs from Ming china 29
Paolo Santangelo
Annotated text of the songs with english translation 65
chapter one ●山歌•卷一 “on secret Loves in four lines”
私情四句 65
chapter two ●山歌•卷二 “on secret Loves in four lines”
私情四句 111
chapter Three ●山歌•卷三 “on secret Loves in four lines”
私情四句 151
chapter Four ●山歌•卷四 “on secret Loves in four lines”
私情四句 171
chapter Five ●山歌•卷五 “Miscellaneous songs in four
lines” 雜歌四句 198
chapter six ●山歌•卷六 “on objects in four lines”
詠物四句 222
chapter seven ●山歌•卷七 “on secret Loves in various
styles” 私情雜體 269
Glossary 291
Paolo Santangelo
Bibliography 581
vi contents
list of illustrations vii

LIst oF ILLustrAtIons
Figure 1 textile work (tGKW) 66
Figure 2 Fisher with a large square fishing net (sctH) 69
Figure 3 Kinds of caps (sctH) 74
Figure 4 Map of the area of the tiger Hill 76
Figure 5 Millstone by hydraulic energy (tGKW) 87
Figure 6 The granary (sctH) 89
Figure 7 The Daoist immortal He (from Perceval Yetts,
“The eight Immortals”, Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, 1916) 91
Figure 8 Potamogeton maackianus 94
Figure 9 storied building (lóu 樓) (sctH) 105
Figure 10 transplanting rice shoots (tGKW) 108
Figure 11 Drums (sctH) 117
Figure 12 David starr Jordan, Guide to the study of Fishes,
new York: Henry Holt, 1905 124
Figure 13 Loom (tGKW) 125
Figure 14 Phoenix-like mythical bird (sctH) 128
Figure 15 Bed with curtains (sctH) 143
Figure 16 lóng 礱, rice huller (sctH) 168
Figure 17 Water chestnut 188
Figure 18 Iron rake (sctH) 216
Figure 19 An inkstone (Yàntái 硯臺) 225
Figure 20 Ink and ink pots 226
Figure 21 A move of chinese chess (sctH) 227
Figure 22 The ‘double six’ game (sctH) 229
Figura 23 casting coins tGKW 235
Figure 24 Abacus 239
Figure 25 scales (sctH) 240
Figure 26 Fans (sctH) 241
Figure 27 Hairnet ribbon (sctH) 242
Figure 28 Brush (sctH) 244
Figure 29 Lantern (sctH) 246
Figure 30 The revolving lantern 247
Figure 31 The food box (sctH) 250
Figure 32 Ink marker (sctH) 254
viii list of illustrations
Figure 33 Arrohead (sctH) 258
Figure 34 citrus medica 259
Figure 35 Boat (sctH) 264
Figure 36 on the left side a fishing boat (sctH) 267
Figure 37 Ancestral temple 祠堂 (sctH) 272
Figure 38 egret (sctH) 281
Figure 39 chinese castanets (sctH) 285
Figure 40 Waterwheel (tGKW) 286
Figure 41 The saw (sctH) 288
preface ix

PreFAce
“Zhanghou sang the village songs, and I took my zither to accompany
him, the sound of the cords like the words” 章侯唱村落小歌, 餘取琴
和之, 牙牙如語。1
since the recent publication of Materials for an Anatomy of Personality
in Late Imperial China, this is the second volume of the new series
on the representation of emotions and imagery, which provides the
analysis of an extremely interesting source This volume is dedicated
to seven chapters of the collection of songs by Feng Menglong, a text
which can be considered of marginal importance compared with
other writing of the times 2 This marginality itself however is signifi-
cant in that it helps us understand the nature of the society back
then, which was very mobile and articulated, as well as the vitality
of the intellectual world of Jiangnan
Shan’ge is ‘marginal’ firstly because it cannot be included, strictly
speaking, in the Great tradition, as it is mostly written in a local
dialect The marginality of the collection also reflects the marginality
of many intellectuals of the time, as Ōki has demonstrated in his 1996
essay And it is marginal for the content and the ideology that
inspired the songs The collection did not follow the orthodox moral
intent that Zhu Xi advocated in the interpretation of the Shijing 詩經
(Book of odes) Lü Desheng 呂得勝 (–1568) attacked folk songs—“If
the lamp is turned on in the eastern house, the western house is
lighted too” (東屋點燈西屋明)— as they were ridiculous and useless
for children 3 on the contrary, the songs selected and re-elaborated
by Feng Menglong dealt with the lives of common people: women,
1 Zhang Dai, Tao’an mengyi, 4, The Detachment Garden 不系园
2 on some aspects of this marginality, see robert Hegel, “unpredictability and
Meaning in Ming-Qing Literati novels”, in Hung eva, ed , Paradoxes of Traditional
Chinese Literature, Hong Kong: The chinese u P , 1994, pp 147–166, pp 147–166
3 Lü Desheng 呂得勝, Xiao’er yu 小兒語, in Yangzheng yigui 養正遺規 (sibu
beiyao ed ), 2:7b, cit in Gernet Jacques, “L’éducation des premières années (du XIe
au XVIIe siècle), in christine nguyen tri et catherine Despeux, eds , Education et
instruction en Chine. I. L’éducation élémentaire, Paris: Peeters, 2003, pp 24–25