Versions of Xue Chuang Yehua were apparently quite current in the 16th century, as at least seven publications of it survive from the one published in 1539 (see below) to the last one, dated 1596.² Though related, all are quite different and two have lyrics. In addition, the Chang Ce published in 1549 is clearly another version of this same melody.³ However, none of these has any apparent connection with the music or lyrics of Evening Talk by a Guest's Window.

The Xue Chuang Yehua in Fengxuan Xuanpin (1539) was the earliest version; it has lyrics and section titles but no preface.⁴ The lyrics, which may not have been intended for singing,⁵ do not mention proper names, but they clearly tell the story of a snowy evening conversation between a ruler and an advisor, connecting it to the story, told with at least one later version of the melody, of Zhao Kuangyin (927 - 976), first emperor of the Song dynasty, visiting his trusted advisor Zhao Pu,⁶ on a snowy evening. This story and its lyrics make the theme of that version of the melody solidly Confucian: the snowy setting simply emphasizes the devotion of the two men to Zhao Pu's Confucian principles of government.

On the other hand, the earliest actual commentary on this melody focuses on snow and the beauty of nature in winter. This comes in the afterword to the version I have learned, the one in Xilutang Qintong (1549).⁷ There the afterword refers to a completely different story, one focused on the beauty of snow as described by a famous female scholar, Xie Daoyun.⁸ This story was also very well known, and its ramifications reveal much about the lives of women in imperial China:⁹ one evening the Jin dynasty literatus and official Xie An (320-385),¹⁰ was discussing snow with his nephew Xie Lang,¹¹ and his niece, the aforementioned Xie Daoyun. Xie An took great pleasure in his niece's comparing snow to willow catkins blowing in a breeze.¹² The 1549 section titles also emphasize nature. In addition, throughout this version there is a musical motif that may suggest snow whirling upwards then settling down.¹³

The preface in the 1585 version, which has related music but completely different lyrics from those with the version published in 1539, attributes the melody to Zhao Pu himself. Again, there is no indication of the source of the lyrics.¹⁴

The variety of the seven versions, plus the preface in the 1552 handbook Taiyin Chuanxi, suggests that there were even more versions available at that time, some perhaps unwritten, some in unpublished handwritten copies.¹⁵

 
Afterword (1549)¹⁶

 
Music (1549)
12 Sections ¹⁷

1. Gathered clouds obscure the skies
2. Collected snow fills the wilderness
3. Lodging by an empty window
4. In a small room suspending a lamp
5. Sounds in the cold of chopping bamboo
6. An image of randomly flying blossoms
7. Playing techniques reflect the surroundings
8. Phrasing is carefully considered
9. Calling to a boy to sweep away the snow
10. Heating the cauldron and boiling tea

1 43160.169 雪窗 xuechuang ("snow window") is a short entry quoting the Tang poets 鄭谷 Zheng Gu and 黃滔 Huang Tao. 11/628 adds a quote from a poem (玉樓春) by 宴幾道 Yan Jidao (12th c.; Indiana Companion, p.922), but none of these seems particularly relevant to the stories directly associated with this melody. 雪窗螢火 or 雪窗螢儿 Snow(-lit) Window and Firefly (Light) tells of 孫康 Sun Kang (4th c. CE; Bio/775) and 車胤 Che Yin (d. 401 CE; Giles: Ch'e Yün; Bio/267) being too poor to afford a lamp, so they studied at night by a window from light reflected off the snow, or by the light of fireflies collected in a bag. Snow-lit Window and Firefly Light came to be a phrase for hard study, as in Chapter One of the famous opera 西廂記 Western Chamber Romance (see West and Idema, The Moon and the Zither, p.173), where the scholar Zhang uses this phrase to describe the difficult studies of his own childhood. But again, none of this seems particularly relevant to the present melody, though it does express a Confucian ideal similar to that in the story called Visiting Pu on a Snowy Evening (11/624 雪夜訪普 has a quote from 儒林外史 The Scholars [FLP, p.89]). According to this story, the first Song emperor 趙匡胤 Zhao Kuangyin met his advisor 趙普 Zhao Pu on a snowy evening to discuss affairs of state. Visiting Pu on a Snowy Evening later became a phrase referring to any such meetings. However, this story makes no mention of a window.

5890.228 and 2/362 夜話 yehua (晚間敘談 "evening chat") have quotes only from Bo Juyi (招東鄰) and Su Shi (答周循州 and 二十年目睹之怪現狀 #45); none mentions snow. (Return)

2 Zha's Guide 15/160/348 lists six occurences of Xue Chuang Ye Hua; adding 1552 makes seven. In addition, Chang Ce (1549) is another version of the same melody. See next footnote and the chart below. (Return)

3 長側 Chang Ce (III/109; Guide 19/182/--; 42022.xxx; see also under Cai Yong)
Chang Ce, which survives as a qin melody only as #38 in Xilutang Qintong (1549), is clearly another version of Xue Chuang. Besides the melodic relationship throughout, two versions of Xue Chuang (see 1559 and 1561 in the chart below) mark their Section 4 (comparable to 1549's Section 6) "長" (Chang) at the beginning and "側" (Ce) at the end; Section 10 is then defined as "長至側" (From Chang to Ce), followed by a short closing. The middle of Chang Ce Section 4 has the opening of the passage later called "From Chang to Ce", but this is only about 1/5th of the whole passage as found in versions called Xue Chuang; the rest seems to be missing.

The related afterword in Xilutang Qintong comes with #39 Duan Ce, but it applies to #s 36-39 :

4 Earliest surviving version of Xue Chuang Yehua
This version, in Fengxuan Xuanpin (1539), can be found in QQJC II, p.118. The outline for the original preface and music is as follows:

5 The 1539 lyrics (source unknown) begin:

1. 潛出彤門
   身貴心勞，畏天恐違君道。
   兵權盃酒消，四夷何以息侵鏖。
   兆庶未輕徭。默呼內宦官僚，
   隨朕訪問心交，江山何以堅牢。

2. 微行雪夜
   不須龍車鳳轎，....

My Fengxuan Xuanpin Commentary has a footnote discussing melodies that may not have been intended for singing. The main problem singing them is the density of text, with one character for each note of a slides or an arpeggio (gun and fu) as well as for each right hand stroke. I have written out a transcription for the Fengxuan Xuanpin version, with its lyrics. It can be played quite nicely as a purely instrumental melody, but I haven't completed a translation of the lyrics and have not worked out the textual problems. So the version I actually play is the one published in 1549.
(Return)

6 趙普 Zhao Pu (916 - 992)
Zhao Pu (38015.664; Bio/1640), style name 則平 Zeping, grew up in Loyang, though his family came from north of Beijing. In 954 he entered the service and soon became a leading advisor of 趙匡胤 Zhao Kuangyin (927 - 976), then a military commander under the Later Zhou dynasty (951 - 960), and from 960 first emperor of the Song dynasty, with its capital in Kaifeng. After this Zhao remained such a trusted advisor that the emperor came to him regularly for advice, even coming unattended during a snowstorm. Zhao Pu is said to have been a model of upright Confucianism, but the austerity of his policies led to him being in and out of favor during the reigns of the first two Song emperors. (Story in Giles.) (Return)

7 See QQJC III, p.114. I usually make a point of learning the earliest published version of any surviving title. Here I learned the 1549 version because of problems, mentioned in a footnote above, with the 1539 version with lyrics. I encountered a similar situation with the 1539 Yang Chun, and so learned the Yang Chun from 1549. (Return)

8 謝道韞 Xie Daoyun (4th c. CE; 36661.258; Bio/2382)
Xie Daoyun, a niece of 謝安 謝安 Xie An, was the wife of 王凝之 Wang Ningzhi (21295.1813, a son of Wang Xizhi and a calligrapher in his own right). She was naturally intelligent (36661.258 聰識有才辨 ; Bio/2382 夙慧) and well-educated. The story of her poetically describing snow is related in 晉書, History of the Jin Dynasty, Book 98. Women Writers of Traditional China, p. 721, has a brief biography and many references to her, saying she was "celebrated" in Shishuo Xinyu. More detailed information is given by Lily Xiao Hong Lee in Xie Daoyun: the Style of a Woman Mingshi, a chapter from Dr. Lee's The Virtue of Yin (Wild Peony, Sydney, 1994).

Xie Daoyun's marriage was apparently not happy: her husband and his family were all highly educated, but perhaps she felt Wang Ningzhi himself was an overzealous follower of the 五豆米 Five Pecks of Rice religious sect. However, she was loyal to him and, after he was killed by bandits, she herself fought and killed several of them; afterwards she lived a chaste life as a widow. Apparently it was this, rather than her intelligence, that led to her biography being included amongst the Exemplary Women in the History of the Jin dynasty. And although she is known to have written a number of poems, only a few have survived (they are translated in Dr. Lee's book cited above).

The story of Xie Daoyun describing snow is very well known. As an example, it led to her mention as follows in the 三字經 The Character Classic, a 13th century poem once universally memorized by young Chinese students,

9 The signifance of this story for the lives of women in traditional Chinese society is summarized by Lily Xiao Hong Lee (see above) as follows (personal communication):

10 謝安 Xie An, style name 安石 Anshi, also has several other qin connections. See his biography in Qin Shi. (Return)

11 謝朗 Xie Lang (36661.198; Bio/xxx) (Return)

12 Other than the preface, the image closest to the Xie Daoyun story is the title of the 1549 version, Section 7, 影亂飛花 An image of randomly flying blossoms. One example with 12/693 飛花 feihua is a poem by 蘇轍 Su Che, one of his 上元前雪三絕句. The explanation says that the flying blossoms are comparable to 飄飛的雪花 whirling snowflakes: “不管上元燈火夜，飛花處處作春寒。” (Return)

13 The passage 二引上__，飛吟下__ (draw the sound upwards in two steps then return downwards with a "flying vibrato") occurs in almost every section. (Return)

14 The lyrics of all the versions were probably newly written. (Return)

15 The preface to the 1552 edition is as follows,

16 The original Chinese is as follows:

17 The original Chinese section titles are as follows:

1. 同雲蔽天
2. 積雪盈野
3. 虛窗下榻
4. 小閣縣燈
5. 聲寒折竹
6. 影亂飛花
7. 吟安景象
8. 句就推敲
9. 呼童掃雪
10. 熱鼎烹茶
    (Return)

 
Appendix: Chart tracing Xue Chuang Yehua

琴譜     (year; QQJC Vol/page)	Further information (QQJC = 琴曲集成 Qinqu Jicheng; QF = 琴府 Qin Fu)
1.   風宣玄品       (1539; II.1/116)	12 sections, subtitled; lyrics connect it to Zhao Pu story; no commentary Section 11 repeats Section 5A; Section 12 repeats beginning of 5B
2a.   西麓堂琴統       (1549; III.1/106)	10, no subtitles; see afterword This melody, though called Chang Ce, is actually another version of Xue Chuang Yehua
2b.   西麓堂琴統       (1549; III.1/112)	10, subtitled; afterword mentions Xie An [320-385] Section 10 begins like 1539 Section 10, but then has new material
3.   太音傳習       (1552; IV.1/94)	14; preface comments briefly on variety of versions available, mentioning no particular story Extra # of sections comes from more subdivisions, not extra length
4.   太音續譜       (1559; III.4/429)	10; preface mentions two men on a snowy evening, but gives no proper names Section 10 repeats Section 4 ("長至側" [see 1549 for connection to 長側 Chang Ce])
5.   琴譜正傳       (1561; II.2/508)	10, untitled; no commentary; at front are the 1539 lyrics, but they no longer fit the melody Identical to 1559, including 長至側 for sections 4 and 10
6.   重修真傳琴譜       (1585; IV.3/382)	10, subtitled; preface mentions Zhao Pu Lyrics are completely different from 1539
7.   文會堂琴譜       (1596; VI.3/221)	9; no commentary