Li Bai's Ziye Wuge, occasionally called Ziye Qiuge (Ziye Song of Autumn), is a poem included in the famous collection called 300 Poems of the Tang dynasty.³ Several books have been published in China with transcriptions into staff notation for old qin songs.⁴ These include at least one melodic setting of the Ziye Wu Ge lyrics based on qin tablature in an old Japanese handbook.⁵ That transcription was based on old tablature that apparently has only been preserved in Japan. Since the transcription was published several further attempts have been made to revive this qin song.⁶

Qinqu Jicheng has published three almost identical editions of qin tablature for this very short song. All are from Japanese handbooks, as follows:

1. Hewen Zhu(yin) Qinpu (#9),
2. Minghe Ben Donggao Qinpu (#6) and
3. Dayuan Zhilang ben Donggao Qinpu (#11).⁷

A comment at the end of the song in the Hewen Zhu(yin) Qinpu edition says "revisions were made by the hand of Toko Shin-etsu".⁸ This may suggest that Shin-Etsu brought the melody with him when he went from Hangzhou to Japan in 1677, then revised it for his students in Japan. However, the melody itself is not known to have been preserved in China.

Li Bai's poem is actually one of four Ziye Songs for Four Seasons; it is the one concerning autumn.⁹

Ziye lyrics¹⁰ are so-called because they are in some way structured on originals attributed to a woman of the Jin dynasty known as Zi-Ye ("Lady Midnight").¹¹ Yuefu Shiji has a large number of such Ziye lyrics. Most are written from the supposed perspective of a woman.¹²

Songs of Wu (Wu Ge) refers to songs from the Suzhou area. They are said to have a very ancient tradition.¹³

 
Original preface
None

 
Music
One section; a mostly syllabic setting of the lyrics¹³ Several translations are available online including one from chinese-poems.com and another, by YK Chan, which is part of his translation of Li Bai's 子夜四時歌 Ziye's Ballads of the Four Seasons. YK Chan's rendition is,

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. ZWDCD has three references:

2. The Japanese handbooks say "商音 Shang Yin". (Return)

3. My Taiwan edition with a translation by Witter Bynner uses 子夜秋歌 Ziye Qiuge as the Chinese title. The title Ziye Wuge apparently comes from the inclusion in a Yuefu Shiji section called 吳聲歌曲 Songs with Wu Sounds (see below). (Return)

4. The transcriptions were originally published in a book Wang Di called Qin Songs. They have since been re-published in a collection of old Chinese songs. See also Fenghuang Taishang Yi Chui Xiao. (Return)

5. Wang Di's transcription of Ziye Wu Ge is on p. 64 of the 1983 publication and p. 135 of 1989. The note values used are identical, but whereas the former begins on A and ends on D, the latter has been transposed down four notes, so it begins on E and ends on A. There is no explanation for this. (N.B. This happens in the middle of Fenghuang Taishang Yi Chui Xiao, clearly a mistake!) Also without explanation, but presumably because the melody is so short, Wang Di has added Li Bai's poem on winter from the same set, to serve as lyrics for a second verse (repeating the melody of the first verse). Since all four poems have the same structure ([5 + 5} x 3), presumably one could just as well sing all four of Li Bai's poems to this melody. (Return)

6. See, for example, on the NAGA website. (Return)

7. Zha's Guide 34/--/503 is not clear on this, but the three editions are in QQJC XII, pp. 181, 246 and 260. Wang Di does not specify which edition, but in fact all three are identical except that the two Toko Kinpu (Minghe and Dayuan) give different notes for the characters 良人 liang ren (harmonics at the seventh stud) than does Hewen Zhu(yin) Qinpu (harmonics at the fifth stud). (Return)

8. 東皋心越挍 (Return)

9. Li Bai's 子夜四時歌四首 Zi-Ye Songs of the Four Seasons are included in YFSJ, p.653. (Return)

10. Ziye Lyrics (or Ziye Songs) are discussed in a footnote below. They are often called 子夜吳歌 Ziye Songs of Wu; for Songs of Wu see another footnote below. (Return)

11. 子夜 Zi-Ye (Lady Midnight)
Zi-Ye is said to have been a fourth century courtesan, but nothing is known about her. Though Ziye poems tend to be presented as in the voice of a woman, it is unknown how many (if any) of the Ziye lyrics she actually wrote, or even how many were actually written by women. Ziye lyrics are discussed further in the next footnote. (Return)

12. 子夜歌 Ziye Songs (Songs associated with Lady Midnight; see above)
Ziye Songs are preserved in the 清商曲辭 Qingshang Melody Lyrics section of Yuefu Shiji: all of Folio 44, then Folio 45 to p.655. All the Ziye poems are in 5-character lines; most have four lines. Those of the first set, 42 such poems, are the ones most closely associated with Zi-Ye herself; some also claim for her the 75 after that, making 117 in all. After this are more anonymous poems, then some by known poets, including the 子夜四時歌四首 Four Ziye Songs of the Four Seasons by Li Bai; the third of these, about autumn, are the lyrics for the present song. (Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature, pp. 237 - 240 discusses Zi Ye under "Yue-fu of the South, and translates some poems from the first set. She is not included in Chang and Saussy, Women Writers of Traditional China.) (Return)

13. 吳歌 Wu Ge (Songs of Wu)
The cultural center of the Wu region is often said to be Suzhou. There is a long tradition of "Songs of Wu" (note the claims on a popular account at Wu Songs, which mentions Ziye songs), but there is no apparent way to connect their melodies or melody types to either the ancient melodies of Ziye songs, or to the short surviving melody from a Japanese qin handbook. (Return)

14. The original lyrics follow the Li Bai poem, as follows,

Note the mention of Pounding Cloth 擣衣 Dao Yi. There are several qin melodies called 搗衣 Dao Yi.
(Return)

 
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