Shī yíwèn 詩疑問 (附 詩辨說)
Doubt-Questions on the Classic of Poetry (with appended Shī biàn shuō) by 朱倬 (Zhū Zhuō, zì Mèngzhāng 孟章, d. 1352) — appendix by 趙悳 (Zhào Dé)
About the work
A 7-juǎn late-Yuán Shī commentary in question-and-answer form, with a 1-juǎn Shī biàn shuō by the Sòng zōngshì recluse Zhào Dé appended. Methodologically Zhū Zhuō raises a yíwèn (doubt-question) on each ode’s main intent and lists the various readings beneath; some entries have no answer at all. The transmitter Liú Jǐnwén 劉錦文 in his preface accounts for these blanks: “Where there are questions without answer — was he really in doubt? Or did he leave it to the learner to think deeply and find for himself?” The Sìkù editors note that the present recension is Liú Jǐnwén’s reorganized form, not Zhū Zhuō’s original, and that the question-without-answer pattern may also reflect transmission losses for which Liú Jǐnwén supplied a justification ex post. The original Shòujīng tú and Jīngjí zhì records give the combined work (Zhū + Zhào) at 6 juǎn; the Sìkù base is 7 juǎn + 1 juǎn (for Zhào). The discrepancy may again be Liú Jǐnwén’s editorial reorganization.
The pairing with Zhào Dé’s Shī biàn shuō is editorial rather than original: Zhū Zhuō was a zhōngjié (Yuán official martyred for refusing to flee bandit invasion in 1352) and Zhào Dé was a gāoyǐn (Sòng royal-house member who withdrew into Yuán-period reclusion). The Sìkù editors observe that “their personal characters are well-matched, so later editors gathered them together.” Both works share a Zhū-Xī-school Shī commentary orientation but are conducted in different registers.
The work has a substantive seventeenth-century preface by Nàlà Xìngdé 納喇性德 (Nalan Xingde, 1655–85), the Manchu bibliophile, who used the Wāng Ruì 汪叡 āicí preserved in the Xīn’ān wénxiàn zhì to identify Zhū Zhuō and reconstruct his career — without which the Yuánshǐ-omitted Zhū Zhuō would have remained anonymous.
Tiyao
By the Yuán Zhū Zhuō. Zhuō zì Mèngzhāng, of Xīnchéng in Jiànchāng. Jìnshì of Zhìzhèng 2 (1342). Office: xiànyǐn of Suí’ān. Rénchén autumn, the bandits came; the clerks and runners scattered; Zhū Zhuō alone sat in the public hall to wait for the end. When the bandits burned the xièshè, he threw himself in the water and died — also a zhōngjié man. The Yuánshǐ dropped him.
Our dynasty’s Nàlà Xìngdé wrote a preface for this book. Drawing on the Wāng Ruì āicí preserved in the Xīn’ān wénxiàn zhì, he was first to make manifest the start-and-end. The book picks the main intent of each Shī chapter and asks a question; what answer he has is given below; some have nothing. Liú Jǐnwén’s preface says: “Where there are questions without answer — was he really in doubt? Or in the very thing for the learner to think deeply and find for himself?” Liú also says the old text was without order and he has now adjudicated it, so that those of identical wording but slightly different intent can be read across each other. So the present text is Liú Jǐnwén’s revision, not Zhū Zhuō’s original; the questions-without-answer may be transmission losses for which Liú made up an excuse.
After it is appended Zhào Dé’s Shī biàn shuō in 1 juǎn. Dé was Sòng zōngshì; passed the jìnshì; on the Yuán entered reclusion at Dōnghú in Yùzhāng. His book is somewhat similar to Zhū Zhuō’s. Probably later editors thought Zhū’s loyalty and Zhào’s high reclusion were a fit pair, so they combined them. Zhū Zhuō’s book is 7 juǎn; with Zhào’s it is 8. Zhū Mùjué’s Shòujīng tú and Jiāo Hóng’s Jīngjí zhì both give 6 juǎn — perhaps a transmission error, or Zhū Zhuō’s original was 6 juǎn and Liú Jǐnwén split it into 7. We cannot determine.
Abstract
The Shī yíwèn is a relatively minor late-Yuán Shī commentary preserved through Liú Jǐnwén’s editorial reorganization and Nàlà Xìngdé’s seventeenth-century reception. Its principal interest lies less in its scholarly content (Zhū-Xī-school Shī-question commentary, of which numerous specimens survive) than in its biographical-historical witness: the work documents the YuánMíng transition through two complementary types — the loyalist martyr (Zhū Zhuō) and the reclusive Sòng zōngshì (Zhào Dé). The composition window is set 1342 (Zhū Zhuō’s jìnshì) to 1352 (his death). The Liú Jǐnwén editorial layer is mid-fourteenth-century or somewhat later but cannot be precisely dated.
Translations and research
No translation. The most substantial modern treatment is by way of Nà-là Xìngdé’s Tōngzhì tángjīng jiě — for which see Hé Hǎiyàn, Qīng-rén Shīxué yǔ Sòng-rén Shīxué. Otherwise the work is principally noticed in Yuán-Míng transition studies for Zhū Zhuō’s zhōng-jié career rather than for Shī-canon scholarship.
Other points of interest
Nàlà Xìngdé’s seventeenth-century recovery of Zhū Zhuō through the Xīn’ān wénxiàn zhì — using a regional collection to fill a zhèngshǐ lacuna — is one of the more documented examples of how the late-Míng / early-Qīng compendium tradition supplied biographical material the standard histories had missed. It also reflects the Manchu bibliophile’s particular interest in late-Yuán loyalism, a tradition the Qīng court had institutional reasons to celebrate.