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毛詩草木鳥獸蟲魚疏

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Text ID
KR1c0005
Date
220–280
Dynasty
吳

Máoshī cǎomù niǎoshòu chóngyú shū 毛詩草木鳥獸蟲魚疏

A Sub-Commentary on the Plants, Trees, Birds, Beasts, Insects, and Fish of the Mao Recension of the Classic of Poetry by 陸璣 (Lù Jī, zì Yuánkè 元恪, fl. mid-3rd c., Wú-state Tàizǐzhōngshùzǐ 太子中庶子 and Wūchéng 烏程 magistrate)

About the work

The earliest surviving systematic catalog of the Shī’s natural-history vocabulary, in 2 juǎn. Item by item, Lù Jī goes through the plants, trees, birds, beasts, insects, and fish that occur in the Máoshī 毛詩, identifying each with the contemporary species, recording its synonyms in the Ěryǎ 爾雅 and other early lexica, and adding regional usage and local-product information. An appendix in four short pieces gives the lineage of the four Hàn Shī schools (Lǔ, Qí, Hán, Máo) — the locus classicus for the canonical “Confucius → Bǔ Shāng → Zēng Shēn → Lǐ Kè → Mèng Zhòngzǐ → Gēn Móuzǐ → Xún Qīng → Máo Hēng → Máo Cháng” line of Máoshī transmission, cited by Kǒng Yǐngdá and all subsequent commentators.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Máoshī cǎomù niǎoshòu chóngyú shū in two juǎn was made by Lù Jī of Wú. The Míng Northern Imperial-College edition of the Shī zhèngyì throughout writes “Lù Jī” 陸機 (with the machine-radical jī); but the Suí shū jīngjí zhì lists “Máoshī cǎomù chóngyú shū in 2 juǎn,” noted “by Lù Jī of Wújùn, magistrate of Wūchéng” — written 陸璣 (with the jade-radical jī) — and Lù Démíng’s 陸德明 Jīngdiǎn shìwén prefatory bibliography lists the same in 2 juǎn with the note “zì Yuánkè, man of Wújùn, Wú-state Tàizǐzhōngshùzǐ and Wūchéng magistrate.” The Tángshū yìwén zhì likewise writes 陸璣. So the College edition is in error.

Furthermore, the Jīn dài bìshū 津逮秘書 of Máo Jìn 毛晉 cites Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 view that, since the book cites Guō Pú’s 郭璞 Ěryǎ commentary, it must be later than Guō and not by a Wú-period author — and so titles it “by Lù Jī of the Táng.” But a Táng-dynasty book could not be listed in the Suí zhì; and the book’s Ěryǎ citations only reach Fán Guāng 樊光 of Hàn Jiānwèi-academy, with not a word touching Guō Pú. We do not know what Chén Zhènsūn was thinking. Yáo Shìlín’s 姚士粦 Bá 跋 already pointed this out — perhaps Máo Jìn never saw the Bá. The original being long lost, the present edition is of unknown compilation, but on the whole drawn from the Shī zhèngyì.

The zhèngyì on Wèifēng · Qí’ào 衛風·淇奧 cites Lù Jī’s shū on “Qí ‘ào — names of two streams”; the present text lacks this entry, showing that the compiler was not exhaustive. The Wèifēng · Yī tóng zǐ qī 衛風·椅桐梓漆 entry says “in modern Yúnnán the Zàngkē 牂牁 people weave it into cloth”; but examining the Hànshū dìlǐ zhì and the Hòu Hànshū jùnguó zhì, “Yúnnán” is the name of a single county (in Yìzhōu and Yǒngchāng commanderies respectively); only with the Tángshū dìlǐ zhì — Yáozhōu Yúnnánjùn established Wǔdé 4 (621) — was Yúnnán raised to the rank of commandery. Yet works like Yuán Zī’s 袁滋 Yúnnán jì and Dòu Pāng’s 竇滂 Yúnnán biélù refer to Yúnnán in this sense. Lù Jī’s lifetime is the Three Kingdoms; for him to align Yúnnán with Zàngkē suggests later transmitters tampered with his text as well — not all of it is original.

But upon collation, the citations in the various other works check out one by one — this is not a forged book. The end appends four short pieces on the lineage of the four Shī schools, with the Máo line treated in particular detail. Wáng Bǎi 王柏 in his Shī yí 詩疑 already attacked Lù Jī’s account as not matching the Jīngdiǎn shìwén; Wáng Yīnglín in Kùnxué jìwén also faulted his confusing Zēng Shēn 曾申 with Shēn Gōng 申公 — but this error is already in the Sòng edition, not a later interpolation.

Insects, fish, plants, and trees have changed names across the ages; the further back, the more confusion. Lù Jī, not far from antiquity, his glosses are still not too far off; the Shī zhèngyì uses them throughout, and Chén Qǐyuán’s Máoshī jīgǔ biān (KR1c0049) likewise grounds many of his rebuttals in Lù Jī. For students of “broad knowledge through the Shī,” this should be the first reference work.

Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Lù Jī (zì Yuánkè) is the foundational figure of the Shī natural-history tradition. Under the SūnWú regime he served as Tàizǐzhōngshùzǐ (“Junior Companion to the Crown Prince”) and as magistrate of Wūchéng 烏程 in Wújùn (modern Húzhōu 湖州, Zhèjiāng); the standard biographical notice is in Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén prefatory bibliography. He should not be confused with the famous Western Jìn poet Lù Jī 陸機 (261–303, zì Shìhéng 士衡) — the homophonous names produced confusion already in the Sòng catalogues, and the Míng Northern Imperial-College recension of the Shī zhèngyì misprinted his name throughout. CBDB id 33673 retains the standard Wú-period identification.

The work is preserved through citation: the original 2-juan Sòng edition is lost, and the present text is a reconstruction made principally from the citations preserved in Kǒng Yǐngdá’s Máoshī zhèngyì (KR1c0004). The Sìkù editors note that the extraction is incomplete (the Wèifēng · Qí’ào gloss preserved in the zhèngyì drops out) and that the text shows post-Tang interpolations (the “YúnnánZàngkē” passage cannot pre-date the Táng creation of Yúnnánjùn in 621), but they regard the bulk of the text as authentic and indispensable for Máoshī philology. The longer recompilation by Máo Jìn (KR1c0006 Lùshì shī shū guǎngyào 陸氏詩疏廣要) is a Míng-period scholarly elaboration of the same materials and is now the more commonly consulted form.

The four appended chapters on the Sì Shī yuánliú 四詩源流 (the genealogy of the four Hàn Shī schools) preserve the line of Máoshī transmission that became the standard one and that Kǒng Yǐngdá inherited verbatim in his Máoshī zhùshū tíyào; the misidentification of Zēng Shēn 曾申 with Shēn Péi 申培 (caught by Wáng Yīnglín) is the only major confusion noted by later philologists.

Translations and research

No complete English translation. The standard modern annotated edition is Lù Wényù 陸文郁, Shī cǎo mù jīn shì 詩草木今釋 (Tiānjīn rénmín, 1957), which collates Lù Jī’s identifications with modern botanical and zoological taxonomy. Bēijīng dàxué’s Lǐdài Shījīng zhùshù kǎo 歷代詩經著述考 (cited above at KR1c0001) treats it at length. For the historical natural-history dimension specifically, see Pan Fucheng 潘富俊, Shījīng zhíwù tújiàn 詩經植物圖鑑 (Shanghai, 2002).

Other points of interest

The book is one of the earliest works of post-Hàn philological natural history in any language; it is roughly contemporary with — and shares its taxonomic ambitions with — Zhāng Huá’s 張華 Bówù zhì 博物志, but is restricted to the Shī’s lexicon. Its identifications, modified through Sòng commentary, became the de facto reference standard down to the Qīng evidential revival.

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