Duànshì máoshī jíjiě 段氏毛詩集解
by 段昌武 (Duàn Chāngwǔ, zì Zǐwǔ 子武, fl. ca. 1200–1240, 廬陵) printing-privilege petition by his nephew 段維清 (Duàn Wéiqīng), 1248
About the work
A Southern Sòng Máoshī 毛詩 (KR1c0001) commentary by Duàn Chāngwǔ. Originally in 30 juan and originally titled Cóngguì máoshī jíjiě 叢桂毛詩集解 after Duàn’s study (Cóngguì hall 叢桂堂); the Sìkù copy is incomplete, surviving in 25 juan with material from Zhōusòng · Qīngmiào 周頌·清廟 onward lost. The body opens with a Xuéshī zǒngshuō 學詩總說 (“General Discussion of How to Study the Shī”) in three parts (作詩之理 “the principles of composing Shī”, 寓詩之樂 “the music inhering in the Shī”, 讀詩之法 “the method of reading the Shī”) and a Lùnshī zǒngshuō 論詩總說 (“General Discussion on the Shī”) in five parts (詩之世 “the dynastic situation of the Shī”, 詩之次 “the order of the Shī”, 詩之序 “the Xù”, 詩之體 “the genres”, 詩之派 “the schools”) before the line-by-line commentary.
The work is also famous as the carrier of a 1248 (Chúnyòu 8) printing-privilege petition by Duàn’s nephew Duàn Wéiqīng, magistrate-vice-magistrate (xiàn chéng 縣丞) of Huìchāng 會昌 county in Gànzhōu 贛州 — one of the small handful of extant Sòng documents recording an explicit, formal request for what amounts to a copyright-like printing privilege.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Máoshī jíjiě in twenty-five juan was composed by Duàn Chāngwǔ of the Sòng. Duàn (zì Zǐwǔ, native of Lúlíng 廬陵) — Jiāo Hóng’s 焦竑 Jīngjí zhì writes him “Duàn Wénchāng 段文昌,” confused with the Táng figure of that name; Zhū Mùwēng’s 朱睦㮮 Shòujīng tú 授經圖 writes him “Duàn Wǔchāng 段武昌,” a transcription error inverting the syllables. His personal life is otherwise unrecoverable. Only the petition prefacing the work, by his nephew Wéiqīng requesting a printing certificate, says: “My late uncle, Court Gentleman for Audience [Cháofèng láng], Chāngwǔ, with the Shījīng twice topped the autumn tribute and on repeated examination passed the spring office.” That is all that is known.
The book had the older title Cóngguì máoshī jíjiě 叢桂毛詩集解, after his hall. The volume opens with a Xuéshī zǒngshuō in three sections (the principle of composition; the music in the Shī; the method of reading) and a Lùnshī zǒngshuō in five (the Shī’s dynastic situation, its order, the Xù, its genres, its schools); after these, the chapter-by-chapter commentary follows. The general method is modelled on Lǚ Zǔqiān’s 呂祖謙 Dúshī jì 讀詩記, but its phrasing is plainer. The original was 30 juan; in the Míng only Zhū Mùwēng’s Wànjuàntáng 萬卷堂 held a complete Sòng-print copy, lost in the Biànliáng 汴梁 flood. The present copy is from Sūn Chéngzé’s 孫承澤 family transcription, surviving only in 25 juan; from Zhōusòng · Qīngmiào onward it is wholly missing. Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo records the book as 30 juan and notes “missing”; he also separately records a Dúshī zǒngshuō 讀詩總說 in 1 juan and notes “extant” — the present Xuéshī zǒngshuō and Lùnshī zǒngshuō prefatory matter falls outside the original 30-juan count, and one suspects this is the so-called Dúshī zǒngshuō: either a single book that Zhū Yízūn mistakenly split, or two books that the transmitter mistakenly merged. There is no way to be certain.
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
Duàn Chāngwǔ (zì Zǐwǔ, native of Lúlíng = modern Jí’ān 吉安, Jiāngxī) is poorly documented; the Sìkù editors flatly note “其始末無考”. His CBDB record (id 21766; Wikidata Q45400515) carries no dates. The 1248 petition by his nephew refers to him as “late uncle, cháofèng láng Chāngwǔ”, placing his death well before 1248; a working floruit of ca. 1200–1240 (i.e. late Níngzōng 寧宗 through Lǐzōng 理宗) is the safest formulation, with his jìnshì sometime in the early-to-middle thirteenth century.
The work follows Lǚ Zǔqiān’s exegetical method but in plainer language, and is one of the better Sòng Máoshī compendia from outside the Zhū Xī orbit. The two prefatory zǒngshuō essays (eight sections in total) form an extended methodological introduction to the practice of Shī commentary. The Sìkù editors’ identification of the prefatory matter with the Dúshī zǒngshuō recorded in Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo is plausible but not provable.
The 1248 petition (the Qǐng jǐjù zhuàng 請給據狀) is independently important. Duàn Wéiqīng, newly appointed xiàn chéng (vice-magistrate, cóngjiǔpǐn 從九品) of Huìchāng county in Gànzhōu, petitions the central government to issue a certificate (jù 據) prohibiting other booksellers in the LiǎngZhè 兩浙 and Fújiàn circuits from re-cutting the work, citing both the family’s printing partner Luó Yuè 羅樾 (a cáogòng 漕貢 — “transport-tribute” provincial graduate) and the integrity of his uncle’s reputation. The Ministry-level reply granting the certificate is preserved with the petition. This is one of two or three commonly-cited Sòng documents recording explicit pre-print-permission claims and is treated as foundational evidence in the historiography of Chinese book-piracy and early printing privilege.
The Sìkù base text was the Sūn Chéngzé family transcription; other surviving witnesses include the Sòng Yún 宋筠 transcript at the National Library of China and a Qing-era copy descending from the Qiānqǐngtáng 千頃堂 line at Fùdàn University.
Translations and research
No English translation of the work exists. No modern critical / punctuated edition has been located; the working text remains the WYG. Digital surrogates: Kanripo KR1c0022, Shídiǎn gǔjí SK0245.
The most thorough modern Chinese treatment is “Sòng Duàn Chāngwǔ Shīyì zhǐnán, Cóngguì máoshī jíjiě” 宋段昌武《詩義指南》、《叢桂毛詩集解》, in Běijīng dàxué Zhōngguó gǔwénxiàn yánjiū zhōngxīn jíkān 北京大學中國古文獻研究中心集刊, vol. 13, which works through the textual stemma (Sūn Chéngzé / Zhū Mùwēng / Sòng Yún / Qiānqǐng-táng) and the catalog errors.
The 1248 petition itself is one of the most-cited documents in modern Chinese book-history scholarship on printing privilege (版權史). It figures centrally in Nianhua Feng (Féng Niánhuá), Copyright Protection in Song China (960–1279) (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 2007). Western scholarship on Sòng publishing (Lucille Chia, Printing for Profit, Harvard, 2002; Joseph McDermott, A Social History of the Chinese Book, HKU, 2006; the chapters in Lucille Chia and Hilde De Weerdt eds., Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print: China, 900–1400, Brill, 2011) provides the framework within which Duàn Wéiqīng’s petition is normally read, though no published Western treatment is dedicated to it.
Other points of interest
The textual interest of the work is two-fold and distinct: as a Southern Sòng Máoshī commentary in the post-Lǚ Zǔqiān tradition, and as the carrier of one of the most-cited extant Sòng documents on printing privilege. Modern scholarship typically engages with one or the other rather than both. The Sìkù editors’ careful disentangling of the catalog errors (Jiāo Hóng’s 段文昌, Zhū Mùwēng’s 段武昌) is also a small case study in the kind of bibliographic detective work the Sìkù tíyào is admired for.