Shī tóngzǐ wèn 詩童子問
A Child’s Questions on the Classic of Poetry by 輔廣 (Fǔ Guǎng, zì Hànqīng 漢卿, hào Qiánzhāi 潛齋, Qìngyuán Fǔshì 慶源輔氏)
About the work
An 8-juǎn (originally 10) commentary written explicitly as a wing-extension (yǔyì 羽翼) to Zhū Xī’s Shī jí zhuàn (KR1c0009 / KR1c0015), transcribing what the author had heard from Zhū Xī in the form of the disciple’s questions and the master’s answers (hence the title “child’s questions”). Each juǎn opens with the dà xù and xiǎo xù (small preface), followed by selected sayings on the Shī from the Shàngshū, Zhōulǐ, and Lúnyǔ with Fǔ Guǎng’s own annotations, and a documented record of the various commentators’ debates on how to read the Shī. The body does not reproduce the jīng text — only the piānmù (chapter titles) with chapter-divisions and xùngǔ. The final juǎn is devoted entirely to xié yùn 叶韻 (rhyme-fitting) — Zhū Xī’s signature contribution to Shī phonology.
The Sìkù editors note that the work is in fact a partisan brief on Zhū Xī’s behalf: Fǔ Guǎng systematically attacks the small preface readings, going beyond what Zhū Xī himself was willing to commit to in print. Two distinct editions circulated: a 20-juǎn form (interleaved with the Jí zhuàn, with Hú Yīzhōng 胡一中’s preface, printed in the Jiànyáng book trade) and a 10-juǎn “Fǔ Guǎng original” form (without the Jí zhuàn and without Hú’s preface). The Sìkù base-text is the 10-juǎn form, surviving through Máo Jìn’s Jígǔgé reprint and reorganized into 8 juǎn. The juǎn-count difference is editorial doubling, not loss.
Tiyao
By the Sòng Fǔ Guǎng. Guǎng zì Hànqīng, hào Qiánzhāi. His father was a Shuò man; on the southern crossing he settled in Chóngdéxiàn of Xiùzhōu. Originally a pupil of Lǚ Zǔqiān, later he again studied with Master Zhū — the so-called Qìngyuán Fǔshì. The general intent of this work is to supplement the Shī jí zhuàn by recording what he heard daily from Master Zhū’s teachings; hence the title “child’s questions.” The opening juǎn gives the dà xù and xiǎo xù, gathers utterances on the Shī from the Shàngshū, Zhōulǐ, and Lúnyǔ, with each annotated. It also fully documents the disputes of the various scholars on the method of reading the Shī. The body does not give the Classic text, only the chapter titles, divisions, and xùngǔ. The last juǎn is on xié yùn alone.
Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records this work in 20 juǎn with Hú Yīzhōng’s preface, which says he found it in the Jiànyáng book market, bought it and had blocks cut, putting Master Wéngōng’s Jí zhuàn on top and the Tóngzǐ wèn below. The present text is only 10 juǎn, without the Jí zhuàn and without Hú’s preface. The Hú edition has the Jí zhuàn combined, so the juǎn-count is doubled; this is the Jígǔgé reprint of Fǔ’s original, so the juǎn-count is halved — nothing is missing.
His exposition often beats up the small preface, somewhat to excess. Zhāng Duānyì’s Guì’ěr jí preserves Chén Shàn’s farewell-poem to Fǔ Guǎng for Kǎotíng: “I hear that all his life Fǔ Hànqīng has eaten the leftover gruel below Wǔyí Mountain” — Chén faulted him for being all too tame, devoted to one master only. But each honours what he has heard, each acts on what he knows; respectfully holding to the master’s transmission, dividing schools and households — after the Southern Sòng, this is not Fǔ Guǎng alone, and not worth deep censure. Chén Qǐyuán’s Máoshī jīgǔ biān corrects his gloss on Zhōu sòng·Qián, noting that Fǔ Guǎng did not realize that “in the late spring offer the wěi sturgeon” is a Yuèlìng sentence, mistakenly treated it as a xù-citation, and argued from there: this is genuinely sloppy. Yìlǐ learning and kǎozhèng learning have been on different paths for a long time. Fǔ Guǎng’s project lies elsewhere; he was not strong on canonical citation and ancient evidence.
Abstract
The Shī tóngzǐ wèn is the most important first-generation pupil-elaboration of the ZhūXī Shī tradition and the principal documented source for Zhū Xī’s spoken Shī-teaching beyond the Yǔlèi records. The dialogic format — disciple’s questions and master’s answers — formalizes the late-Sòng pedagogical practice of the yǔlù and connects to the larger ZhūXī school strategy of consolidating the master’s teaching in pupil-edited compendia. The Sìkù editors’ criticism (echoing Chén Qǐyuán’s seventeenth-century work) is essentially that Fǔ Guǎng wrote yìlǐ commentary without kǎozhèng discipline — the very critique that drove Qīng Shī scholarship away from the ZhūXī tradition altogether. The composition window is set by Fǔ Guǎng’s mature post-Zhū-Xī (post-1200) period, before the work’s circulation in the early thirteenth century. The dual editorial transmission (interleaved with Jí zhuàn in the Jiànyáng book trade vs. independent in the Máo Jìn Jígǔgé reprint) is documented in the Sìkù tíyào.
Translations and research
No translation. Treated in studies of the Zhū-Xī school’s Shī learning: Hé Hǎiyàn 何海燕, Qīng-rén Shīxué yǔ Sòng-rén Shīxué (Wǔhàn dà., 2008); Cài Fāngdé 蔡方鹿, Zhū Xī jīngxué yǔ Zhōngguó jīngxué (Rénmín, 2004), pp. 387–401. The work is the principal independent witness for Zhū Xī’s xié yùn doctrine outside the Jí zhuàn itself.
Other points of interest
Chén Shàn’s epigram about Fǔ Guǎng “eating the leftover gruel below Wǔyí Mountain” (preserved in Zhāng Duānyì’s Guì’ěr jí) is one of the more frequently cited late-Sòng pieces of academic gossip and a useful reminder that the apparent uniformity of post-Zhū-Xī scholarship was already noticed and mocked by contemporaries.