Máoshī zhǐshuō 毛詩指說
Pointing Out the Meaning of the Mao Recension of the Classic of Poetry by 成伯璵 (Chéng Bóyú, mid-Táng)
About the work
A short Táng treatise on the Shī in 1 juǎn, divided into four chapters: (1) Xīng shù 興述 (“Account of the Origins”), on the early Zhōu kings’ use of the Shī in guān fēng 觀風 (“inspecting the airs”) and Confucius’s editing of the Yǎ and Sòng; (2) Jiěshuō 解說 (“Explanation”), an extended structural commentary on the Shī read through the lens of Zhōunán 周南, with treatment of the xù 序 attribution; (3) Zhuàn shòu 傳受 (“Transmission”), on the lineages of the four early Hàn schools (Qí, Lǔ, Máo, Hán); (4) Wéntǐ 文體 (“Literary Form”), a Liú Xié-style 劉勰 Wénxīn diāolóng-influenced classification of the Shī’s rhetorical and prosodic devices. As the Sìkù editors note, Chéng’s distinction between the first sentence of each Máo xù (which he attributes to Zǐxià) and the rest (which he attributes to 毛萇 Máo Cháng) became one of the foundational positions of the post-Sòng xù controversy and is the position eventually canonized by the Sìkù itself (KR1c0003).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Máoshī zhǐshuō in 1 juǎn is by Chéng Bóyú of the Táng. Bóyú’s title, native place, and dates are unrecoverable. The work has four pieces. First, Xīng shù: the principle by which the former kings collected the Shī and inspected the customs, and the reason Confucius edited and rectified the Yǎ. Second, Jiěshuō: first the Shī’s general meaning, then Fēng / Yǎ / Sòng, then Zhōunán, then gùxùn / zhuàn / xù, then chapter and verse, then hòu fēi 后妃 (“queens and consorts”), ending with Quècháo 鵲巢 and Zōuyú 騶虞 — that is, broadly, taking the Zhōunán as a single overview and extending the discussion to the rest. Third, Zhuàn shòu: details of the transmission of the Qí, Lǔ, Máo, Hán four-house teacher-pupil generations and the source-streams of later commentaries. Fourth, Wéntǐ: through all 305 pieces, the long and short of the jù fǎ 句法, the many and few of the piān zhāng 篇章, the variant phrasings, the typology of character usage — all enumerated in detail; somewhat like Mr. Liú’s Wénxīn diāolóng 文心雕龍 in form. These are scholar’s marginalia on the Classic. But Bóyú’s settling that the first sentence of the Shī xù was transmitted by Zǐxià and that what follows was added by Máo Cháng — this is the seed of distinguishing the doubtful, and is of profound benefit to Shī exegesis.
Bóyú also has a Máoshī duànzhāng 毛詩斷章 in 2 juǎn, listed in the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目, said to draw on the principle of “broken-chapter citation” of the Chūnqiū — extracting and grouping Shī expressions — likely of the same kind as Lǐ Shí’s 李石 Shī rú lì 詩如例. The Sòng Xióng Kè 熊克 once tried, with Shěn Shàoyù 沈少豫 of Pílíng, to bring together the two books and cut blocks for them, but Duànzhāng could not be located, so they cut only the Zhǐshuō. The end of the present text has a colophon by Xióng Kè — so this is a Sòng-era impression. Xióng Kè was the author of the Zhōngxīng xiǎo lì 中興小歷, separately listed in the History division under the Biānnián class; he made this impression when serving as instructor at Jīngkǒu, hence the colophon’s wording about cutting “in the pánlín 泮林” [Confucian academy grove].
Respectfully revised and submitted, third 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
Chéng Bóyú is a poorly documented mid-Táng Shī scholar; the Sìkù editors candidly admit that “title, native place, and dates are unrecoverable.” The conventional placement is around the late eighth or early ninth century, on the basis of his reference to the standard Táng-imperial zhèngyì and his being cited (by name, as a definite predecessor) by Lù Démíng’s later editors and by Sòng Shī commentators. He survives only through this work and (by reference) through his lost Máoshī duànzhāng.
The Zhǐshuō is the earliest surviving treatise to formulate the position later associated with 歐陽修 Ōuyáng Xiū and 朱熹 Zhū Xī — that the Máo xù is a layered text in which the first sentence of each preface descends from the early Shī tradition (he attributes it to Zǐxià) but the elaboration is a later addition by Máo Cháng. As 顧鎮 Gù Zhèn observed in KR1c0065 Yúdōng xuéshī, this position became the standard mediating view in late Qīng scholarship; the Sìkù editors of the Shīxù recension (KR1c0003) explicitly credit Chéng Bóyú with originating it. The fourth chapter, on rhetorical and structural form, is a small but original Táng contribution to genre-criticism of the Shī and shares its method with Liú Xié’s Wénxīn diāolóng — direct borrowing is hard to demonstrate, but the structural parallel is clear.
The text was preserved through Xióng Kè’s mid-twelfth-century Jīngkǒu (Zhènjiāng 鎮江) impression and survives in essentially that form in the Sìkù.
Translations and research
No translation. Brief treatment in Hóng Zhànhóu 洪湛侯, Shījīng xué shǐ 詩經學史 (Zhōnghuá, 2002), 1:328–32. The text is occasionally cited in Western Shī scholarship as a Táng witness for the layered xù hypothesis (see Steven Van Zoeren, Poetry and Personality, Stanford 1991, ch. 4) but no dedicated study has been located.
Other points of interest
That this small Táng treatise — written by an obscure scholar whose lifedates are unknown — should turn out to be the first articulation of what would become the orthodox Qīng position on the Shī xù is one of the more curious recoveries of the Sìkù compilation. The Sìkù editors’ careful attribution to Chéng Bóyú in the Shīxù tíyào (KR1c0003) reads almost like an act of belated recognition.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào in Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù, 1781, juan 15.