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| 33. Tale of Clarity in Thought and Action | 雙清傳 1 |
| Commonly known as Paired Clarity of Gibbon and Crane (猿鶴雙清 Yuan He Shuang Qing)2 | Shuang Qing Zhuan |
| - Standard tuning:3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 played as 1 2 4 5 6 1 2 | Crane and Gibbon: Buddhist imagery? 4 |
In China both cranes (he) and gibbons (yuan, not monkeys, hou) were popular amongst the literati: desirable as household pets, valued for their melodious calls and graceful movements. In addition cranes were noted for their longevity and gibbons for their ability to inhale good qi. R.H. Van Gulik has written considerably on the role of these two animals in the world of the literati.5 He wrote that the painter Yi Yuanji (active 1060s)6 was the first painter known to have painted gibbons, and that after this it became a popular subject. It is perhaps more than a coincidence that this melody is said to have originated around the same time.
The name most commonly associated with Yuan He Shuang Qing was Shi Yangxiu (995-1057),7 an early Song dynasty scholar official who had a reputation for being both upright and, according to his official biography, having kept gibbons and cranes in his garden. I do not know if this is the sole or main reason he is connected to the melody, or whether he wrote something that more directly connects him to it.
This 1511 Shuang Qing Zhuan (Tale of Paired Clarity [in thought and action]) is the first surviving version of a melody that was apparently quite popular during the Ming dynasty,8 almost always under the title Yuan He Shuang Qing (Paired Clarity of Gibbon and Crane); the latter title appears first in the second surviving edition, dated 1530. The melody largely disappeared during the Qing dynasty, with Zha Fuxi's Guide listing it in only two Qing dynasty handbooks. The great number and the variety within the Ming dynasty editions suggests a popular melody with an unknown but perhaps Song dynasty source. This is born out by the vagueness of many attributions as well as their inconsistency.
An interpretation by Wang Huade, apparently his own reconstruction, was published on his 1993 Hugo recording, and today there are others who also play it, perhaps based on Wang's interpretation, but I have not yet seen commentary indicating the source of Wang's version.9
Some versions of Yuan He Shuang Qing seem to share some musical motifs with Cranes Cry from the Nine Marshbanks (He Ming Jiu Gao) as published both here in Taigu Yiyin and also in 1425, but I have not compared them closely.
Taigu Yiyin attributes Shuang Qing Zhuan only to someone it refers to as the "upright Song dynasty official Linquan", linquan (forest spring) generally referring to someone who has gone to the countryside to become a recluse. I do not know if there is any evidence that "linquan" is intended to refer specifically to Shi Yangxiu, the person often connected to it later. Just as often the attributions were simply to an unnamed recluse, and the only introduction that may mention another personal name is the afterword in 1549, which says the melody was created by a gao taisu (Gao Taisu): either to "an elevated person pure and simple", or to Gao the Pure and Simple (Taisu). However, although Taisu is a known nickname, I cannot find it referring to anyone surnamed Gao. In any case, it is also not clear whether the attribution refers to the words, the music, or both. The lyrics vary considerably within the versions that have lyrics, and I have not been able to trace independently the source of any of the versions. The variety perhaps suggests the lyricists were inspired by the idea, not by any known original text.
Although the earliest two versions of this melody both have lyrics, the style of the music suggests a basically instrumental melody to which lyrics were added: it is difficult, for example, to imagine someone actually singing one syllable for each note of a gun (run down) over seven notes then singing another six syllables for the ensuing
fu (run up) back to the seventh string (see further comment), as is done here.10 The fact that the third version (1539), without lyrics, seems a bit shorter than the others could suggest either that it was (or was based on) an earlier instrumental melody that was later elaborated to add lyrics, or a later one simplified by removing the lyrics, as well as perhaps some of the music associated with them.
Most of the versions with lyric seem to end with lyrics saying that the crane and gibbon have inspired the writer to create appropriate lyrics. In this were they inspired by Shi Chong? If so it would be most interesting to find someone who would actually state that, there being this melody but no lyrics, he was inspired by Shi Chong's example to go ahead and create some.
Music and lyrics: Eleven sections12
This is a largely syllabic setting, with lines of the poem irregular in length.
Taigu Yiyin generally indicates sections with large unnumbered circles. In this tablature there are five such circles, marking six sections. These sections are quite uneven in length (see the Roman numerals below), so in my transcription I have largely followed the sectioning in Faming Qinpu (1530). The 1530 melody and lyrics are quite different, but for the first 11 sections it is easy to find the corresponding passage in 1511; from there 1530 adds much material (especially gunfu and other multiple stroke techniques), and I cannot discern any correspondence.
1. (I)
Gibbon and crane, do not have the same life force.
Now on the surface , friendship connects them like brothers.
....(translation incomplete)
2.
3.
4. (II)
5.
6. (III)
7. (IV)
8.
9.
10. (V)
11. (VI)
12.
Coda. (harmonics)
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a
separate page)
1.
雙清傳 Shuang Qing Zhuan
43067.177 has only 雙清 Paired clarity: "存心與行事俱清之意 the idea of clarity in thought and deed." Quotes （楊Ò）九華安妃詩：相携雙清內，上真道不邪 a poem by Yang Xi (330—386) and 杜甫，《屏蹟》詩：心迹本雙清 a Du Fu poem called Avoidance #2. Nothing about music. 11/854 adds a few later quotes. See also Yuan He Shuang Qing (next).
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2.
Yuan He Shuang Qing 猿鶴雙清 (see also above)
21054.13 has only 猿鶴 gibbon and crane: "猿與鶴也。（宋史，石揚休傳）平居養猿鶴。 Gibbon and crane; (Song History, Shi Yangxiu biography) He lived in quiet retirement, raising gibbons and cranes." Nothing about music. See also Shuang Qing Zhuan above.
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3.
Tuning and Mode
Although Taigu Yiyin does not group pieces by tuning or mode, this melody is consistently placed in shang mode in later handbooks. Shang mode uses the first string as do (gong, 1), has do as its primary tonal center, with shang alongside so as a secondary tonal center. (Yijinglu Qinxue [1845] has a
Yuyin Shuang Qing in three sections, said to be in "Turbid/Corrupt Shang Mode" [濁商音 zhuo Shang Yin], but this must be a different melody.)
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4.
Image: Crane and Gibbon (at right a gibbon mother is cradling her child)
This image is two parts of a tryptich called Guanyin with Gibbon and Crane by the Song dynasty monk 法常 Fachang (ca 1210 - after 1269). The original is in the 大德寺 Daitokuji, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto; there are many online copies, this one from http://211.67.81.35/. A net search suggests the importance of crane and gibbon (usually translated as "ape", but which in Chinese correctly should a different word, "猴 hou") in Buddhism has to do with contrasting martial arts techniques: ape style vs. crane style. However, as Van Gulik has argued,
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5.
Gibbon in China
Van Gulik's The Gibbon in China (1967) is a fascinating essay in animal lore. In it he wrote that the gibbon was, "a symbol of the unworldly ideals of the poet and the philosopher, and of the mysterious link between man and nature”. The book is discussed in Hin-cheung Lovell, Van Gulik's Gibbon in China, A Dossier of Facts and Fancies, Orientations 12/11 (November 1981).
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6.
易元吉 Yi Yuanji (ca. 1000 - ca. 1064;
Wiki.)
Well-known for painting animals, gibbons in particular. Maybe not the first to do so, but the first to make it popular to do so.
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7.
Shi Yangxiu (石揚休; 995-1057)
24574.685 石揚休 Official during 仁宗 Renzong reign. Bio/367: From 眉州 Meizhou (south of Chengdu and east of 峨眉山 Emei Mountain), 字昌言 literary name Changyan, orphaned as a child he studied hard. In 1038 he became a 進士 jinshi (top scholar). 累官 Working hard he became 刑部員外郎 Ministry of Punishments Official (Outer Official) and 知制誥 Administrator of Making Mandates, and同判太常寺sub-prefect in the Court of Sacrificial Worship (in Loyang). He memorialized the emperor strongly requesting (various matters), and this had benefit at the time. 為人純素忠謹，以律度自居。 In order to be pure, faithful and respectful to people he thought of himself in terms of the ordering of musical tones.
In addition to Shuangqing Zhuan he is also associated with the melody
He Ming Jiugao. A poem of his about listening to the qin played by the monk Wen Ying is included in 琴書大全 Qinshu Daquan Folio 19B, #87, and discussed in Folio 17, #36.
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8.
Tracing Shuangqing Zhuan
Zha Guide 14/151/268 has 15 entries from 1511 through 1618, there are two more not in the guide from this period, then another two from the Qing dynasty, dated 1722 and 1884, with all the later ones except 1571 called Yuan He Shuang Qing. These 19 are as follows:
I have not yet completed a reconstruction of any of these.
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9.
Wang Huade recording of Yuan He Shuang Qing
The Hugo CD recording notes don't bother to give the source of Wang's version, mentioning only the version of 1511, which clearly is not the one Wang used. Its Chinese preface is as follows:
This is written in 2011. Currently I am living in Singapore and do not have access to my copy of this CD (I didn't bring my metal string CD recordings with me here), so I do not have access to the English translation or the recording itself.
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10.
Pairing lyrics to runs such as gun and fu
For Taigu Yiyin (1511) see, e.g., QQJC I/296, bottom right, lines 3 and 4. The same passage in Faming Qinpu (1530; I/336 top left 3rd and 4th lines) has fewer characters but is quite vague about the pairing.
In the above 1511 example the tablature said to gun 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 then fu 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 , pairing each with a character except the the last one (7): I interpret the repeated 1 as a mistake so the latter six characters are each shifted down one and 7 gets its needed character. On the other hand, later in 1511 (see, e.g., I/297, top right, lines 5-6), there is a gun fu paired to two characters, with no strings indicated; the next cluster is a stopped position on the seventh string, again paired to one character; here it seems clearly intended that one character is to be paired on a run from 7 to 1, the second on the run back up from 1 through 6, with the third character paired to that 7th string. If within 1511 this is not an inconsistency in pairing, it should mean that the first gunfu is done slowly enough that characters could be sung with it (whether or not the intention was actually to sing this at all), whereas with the second gunfu it should be played at a normal speed, i.e., too fast for singing. When I try to play this I do try to make this distinction, though there is no separate evidence that this is not, in fact, simply sloppy inconsistency on the part of someone. If I cannot make that musically satisfying then I either give up the melody altogether, or assume that the pairing was done for totally ideological reasons, not musical ones, and thus interpret the melody as a purely instrumental one. This latter is what I mostly did with my Zheyin Shizi Qinpu reconstructions.
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11.
Original preface
The original preface is as follows,
The copy in Zha's guide seems to change a few characters from the version in the handbook.
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12.
Original lyrics
The original lyrics begin,
2.
風雨凄凄，
The rest have not yet been put online.
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