Máo Shī xiě guān jì 毛詩寫官記
Notes by the Transcriber-Official on the Mao Recension of the Poetry by 毛奇齡 (Máo Qílíng, zì Dàkě 大可, hào Xīhé 西河, 1623–1716)
About the work
A 4-juǎn informal Shī notebook by Máo Qílíng, the prolific and aggressively polemical early-Qīng polymath of Xiāoshān 蕭山. The work’s framing-device — taking its title from the Hàn shū yìwén zhì notice of Emperor Wǔ’s establishment of xiě shū officials (transcribers) — is conceit: Máo casts himself as recording his oral Shī discussions to a Rǔnán (Rǔnán prefecture) Grand Administrator-character’s xiě guān, as if from memory; the result is in the huò wèn (question-and-answer) genre, formally similar to Zhū Xī’s Lúnyǔ huò wèn and Mèngzǐ huò wèn.
The 188 entries are short philological-and-interpretive notes spanning the Shī. The work’s status within Máo’s vast Shī output is indirect: in his early years Máo had composed a Máo Shī xù zhuàn 毛詩續傳 in 38 juǎn, which was then lost; afterwards he reconstructed his findings via Guófēng shěng piān 國風省篇, the Máo Shī xiě guān jì, the Shī zhá 詩札 (KR1c0052), and other smaller works. His pupils — chiefly Lǐ Gōng 李塨 — record (in the latter’s preface) that Máo himself acknowledged sustained errors in his early Shī writings (e.g., the reading of Shí mǔ zhī jiān as a yín bēn poem; Chī xiāo as composed in eastern exile; the enfeoffment of Kāngshū as having occurred under WǔWáng; Yǒu Tāi jiā shì as referring to Tài Jiāng — these Máo himself characterizes as huò (delusions)).
The Sìkù tíyào characterizes the work as containing many idiosyncratic readings, but with broadly substantial citation — “xiá yú bìng jiàn lì dùn hù chén” (jade and flaw together visible, sharp and blunt mutually arrayed): the reader must select.
The Sìkù-edition WYG volume that contains this work also contains, as a paired text, the Shī zhá 詩札 (KR1c0052), a similar work in 2 juǎn and 84 entries — so the tíyào of the two works appears in a single block at the front of the 0051 _000.txt.
Tiyao
Your servants etc. respectfully present: Máo Shī xiě guān jì in 4 juǎn. By the guócháo (Qīng) Máo Qílíng. All entries are notes of his own Shī-discussions; the title is taken from the Hàn shū yìwén zhì expression of Emperor Wǔ establishing the office of transcribers. The self-preface states he is recording, as if from memory, the answers of a Rǔnán Grand Administrator’s tīng (audience-court) transcribing-official — i.e., he frames the work as a xiě guān-character’s question-and-answer record, in the huò wèn genre.
In all, 188 entries. In his early years Qílíng wrote Máo Shī xù zhuàn 毛詩續傳 in 38 juǎn; the manuscript was lost. Afterwards he recomposed from memory the Guófēng shěng piān, Máo Shī xiě guān jì, Shī zhá, and other works. His pupils’ jīng lì (school records) state: “He had earlier cut his Shī shuō in Huáiān, and not been able to correct it.” Lǐ Gōng’s preface and table of contents states: “I once put Shī-points to my master; the master said, ‘Of the various Shī-readings I have transmitted, there are several I have not been able to correct: e.g., taking Shí mǔ zhī jiān as a yín bēn poem; Chī xiāo as concerning the eastern-exile retreat; the enfeoffment of Kāngshū as WǔWáng’s; Yǒu Tāi jiā shì as Tài Jiāng’s; the jì of Lángyá. All these are delusions.‘” From this it is clear that Qílíng himself had recognized the errors within these works — but those he himself recognized were not exhaustive.
Yet though the work loves the unusual, its citation is detailed and broad — not without supplement to argumentation. Jade and flaw together visible, sharp and blunt mutually arrayed — it is for the reader to select.
[Shī zhá:] Your servants etc. respectfully present: Shī zhá in 2 juǎn. By the guócháo (Qīng) Máo Qílíng. After composing the Máo Shī xiě guān jì, Qílíng again imagined himself sending letters of inquiry to the xiě guān and the xiě guān answering, to compose this work. In all, 84 entries. The second juǎn-front carries a record by his pupil noting: “This is a Xīhé early-period work; hence its readings include several at variance with his late-period polemic conclusions; the rhyme-collation in particular contradicts his later work; but having long circulated, it is not now convenient to amend.” From this it is clear that much in the work is not his settled view — even his pupil does not conceal the fact. Yet Qílíng’s learning is intrinsically broad and deep, and on míngwù xùngǔ he has many strengths; to discard the work entirely is also not the way of even-handedness. Máo’s tradition rejected the yì yì (alternative readings); the Qí and Lǔ recensions had already different readings — Hàn-period specialism was already not limited to one school. Jiān shōu bìng xù (collecting widely and treating in parallel) — this is in any case the mode of the Shī-explanatory tradition, and a method secondary scholars regularly draw from. Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 9th month, respectfully collated. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Editor: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Máo Shī xiě guān jì is one of three small Shī monographs that survive from Máo Qílíng’s larger but lost Máo Shī xù zhuàn (38 juǎn) — the others being Shī zhá (KR1c0052) and the larger Guófēng shěng piān (separately preserved). Composition is undatable beyond the broad bracket of Máo’s adult life (after the loss of his early manuscript and his post-1679 Hànlín employment); the entries are short and informally framed, and the work was repeatedly cited by Máo across his long writing career. Self-correction is explicitly registered: Máo’s pupil Lǐ Gōng records that the master himself acknowledged sustained errors in his earlier Shī writings.
The polemic temper of the Máo Shī xiě guān jì — even-handedly attacking Sòng Lǐxué readings while building substantive philological arguments — is characteristic of Máo’s broader scholarly style. The Sìkù editors’ final assessment (“a mixture of jade and flaw”) is markedly more accommodating than their assessments of his polemic Yì-school works, where they are harsher.
Translations and research
No translation. The work is treated in the standard Máo-Qílíng-school monographs: Lín Qìngzhāng 林慶彰, ed., Qīngdài Shī jīng zhe shù xiàn cáng mù lù; Hé Yùmíng 何昱明, Míngdài Shī jīng xuéshǐ lùn. For broader treatment of Máo Qílíng as a scholar see Bouchot’s chapter in Wilhelm and Knechtges, eds., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Indiana University Press), and Pi Xirui’s Jīngxué lìshǐ on the early-Qīng anti-Sòng polemic tradition.