This paper engages in structures, contents and a text comparison of the 51 poems of a quatrain with seven words to a line, which appear in the First Cast Gapinja-Type Edition of Hyangsansamchebeop. It will explore three themes in the following order: ⅰ) the composition, selected works and writing-related matters of the Hyangsansamchebeop poems; ⅱ) the contents of the Hyangsansamchebeop poems; and a text comparison of Hyangsansamchebeop poems with Zhu Jincheng’s Bai Juyi ji jian jiao(白居易集箋校).
51 poems of Hyangsansamchebeop were collected in Anthology of Poems by Bai Juyi(白居易文集). Bai Juyi ji jian jiao cites that there are 15 poems from Book 13, 10 poems from Book 14, 5 poems from Book 15, 2 poems from Book 16, 3 poems from Book 18, 4 poems from Book 19, 1 poem from Book 23, 1 poem from Book 27, 1 poem from Book 34, 5 poems from Book 35, and 1 poem from Book 37. 3 poems did not appear on the Anthology of Poems by Bai Juyi(白居易文集).
The poems included in Hyangsansamchebeop show us matters related to the writing of the poems such as the time, place or government post Bai was in when he wrote the works. the most works from his 30s and 40s were selected and from his writings done in Changan, Luoyang, Kangzhou, Xiagui, Zhouzhi, Zhongzhou, Hangzhou, and from Changan to Kangzhou along the way. Bai Juyi went through various government posts and wrote a lot of poems in his 30s up to 70s; he wrote a satirical poem in his 30s in Changan, Zhouzhi and Xiagui; some of the satirical and most of the quiet poem in his 40s in Changan, Kangzhou and Zhongzhou; a quiet and sentimental poem in his 50s in Changan and Hangzhou and in his 60s and 70s in Luoyang. His official life bore close relations to the writing time and place and had a great influence in the creation of the poems. The poems contain scenes of Bai Juyi’s everyday life and surroundings with 22 poems for ‘Personal relationships with others’, 9 poems for ‘Sentiments’, 7 poems for ‘Scenery’ and 3 poems for ‘songs of historical facts’. Altogether, there are 51 poems in 4 categories.
A comparison done of the First Cast Gapinja-Type Edition of Hyangsansamchebeop (Model A), created around the 10th year of King Jungjong’s reign, with Zhu Jincheng’s Bai Juyi ji jian jiao (Model B) yielded the following results. First, the original texts of Model A and Model B have differences in letters: there are instances of Model A and Model B having similar Chinese characters so that there are no great differences in the interpretation; instances of Model A and B having contrasting letters so that it is difficult to know the differences in interpretation; instances where later annotations show that the letter of Model A is more correct; and instances where later annotations show that the letter of Model B is more correct. Secondly, the original texts of Model A and Model B have differences in poem’s title; the annotations of poem’s title which appear in Model B complete the interpretation of the original text; A and Model B have the same titles, yet Model B sometimes has proved wrong and corrected letters for the poems in the annotations. The results of this study will be used in the most fundamental studies of Bibliography, Chinese Literature, Chinese poetry which includes the study of Bai Juyi’s poetry.