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葉氏春秋傳

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Text ID
KR1e0032
Date
1115–1148
Dynasty
宋

Yèshì Chūnqiū zhuàn 葉氏春秋傳

Master Yè’s Tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 葉夢得 (撰)

About the work

The Yèshì Chūnqiū zhuàn 葉氏春秋傳 in twenty juan is the principal Chūnqiū commentary of Yè Mèngdé 葉夢得 (1077–1148), one of three works of his Chūnqiū programme together with KR1e0033 Chūnqiū kǎo and KR1e0034 Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn yàn. The work was first cut by Yè’s grandson Yè Yún 葉筠 in the Kāixǐ 開禧 era (1205–1207) at Nánjiànzhōu 南劍州, with a postface by Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀 (1178–1235). Methodologically, Yè Mèngdé seeks to balance the SūChéng Chūnqiū programme — taking all three commentaries as evidentiary witnesses, supplementing each with the other where one falls short. The Sìkù base is the WYG copy.

Tiyao

The Sìkù tíyào (text from the Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào):

By Yè Mèngdé of Sòng. Mèngdé, zì Shǎoyùn 少蘊, sobriquet Shílín 石林, was a man of Wúxiàn 吳縣. Jìnshì of Shàoshèng 4 (1097); after the southern crossing rose to Chóngxìn jūn jiédùshǐ 崇信軍節度使. Career detailed in the Sòng shǐ wényuàn zhuàn. Mèngdé held that Sūn Fù’s KR1e0018 Zūn wáng fā wéi, in setting aside the commentaries to seek the jīng, and Sū Zhé’s KR1e0026 Chūnqiū jí jiě, in following the Zuǒshì and discarding the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng, both have failings. Hence his work weighs all three commentaries to seek the jīng: where the events do not yield, examine the meaning; where the meaning does not yield, examine the events; the two mutually illuminate. The result is rather precise.

In the Kāixǐ era, his grandson Yún 筠 cut the work at Nánjiànzhōu; Zhēn Déxiù wrote the postface, calling it “removing heterodox theories, expelling the unorthodox, of no small benefit to the world’s instruction.” The Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì further records Yè separately wrote Chūnqiū kǎo in 30 juan, Chūnqiū yàn in 30 juan, Chūnqiū zhǐyào zǒnglì 春秋指要總例 in 2 juan, and Shílín Chūnqiū 石林春秋 in 8 juan. The Yàn and Kǎo survive scattered in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn (sufficient to recover the main outlines); the rest are lost. Only the present zhuàn survives complete.

The Nánchuāng jì shì 南窗紀事 records: “Yè Mèngdé, in writing on the Chūnqiū, distinguishes four genres: explanation of the words and meanings is zhuàn 傳; correction of the events is kǎo 考; attack on the three commentaries is yàn 讞; arrangement of the regulatory items is lì 例. He once said to Xú Dūnjì 徐惇濟: ‘My naming convention is unprecedented in antiquity.’ Dūnjì replied: ‘Wú Chéngbǐng 程秉 wrote books totalling more than thirty thousand characters, titled Zhōuyì zhāi 周易摘, Shàngshū bó 尚書駁, Lúnyǔ bì 論語弼: this approaches the same convention.‘” But this present zhuàn does not exclusively explain words and meanings — that account is wrong. As for using a single character to title a book — the ancients have many examples. Within the Chūnqiū sphere alone: as recorded in the Hàn shū yìwén zhì, Duóshì 鐸氏 and Zhāngshì 張氏 both have Chūnqiū wēi 春秋微; Mǐn Yīn 閔因’s Chūnqiū xù 春秋序 (preserved in the Gōngyáng zhuàn shū); Zhèng Zhòng’s 鄭眾 Chūnqiū shān 春秋刪 (in the Hòu Hàn shū); Hé Xiū’s 何休 Chūnqiū yì 春秋議 in the Suí zhì; Cuī Lǐngēn’s 崔靈恩 Chūnqiū xù; Sūn Yán’s 孫炎 had earlier produced a Chūnqiū lì 春秋例. Yè was widely-read and could not have failed to see these. To say “ancient antiquity has no such name” is therefore not factual. Moreover the Sòng zhì records his Chūnqiū zhǐyào zǒnglì — not titled Chūnqiū lì. The Nánchuāng jì shì anecdote is probably a xiǎoshuō 小說 (notebook-fiction) embellishment, not reliable.

Abstract

The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that this is the principal Chūnqiū commentary of Yè Mèngdé, the Southern-Sòng chancellor and prolific essayist; that Yè’s hermeneutical position consciously seeks a balance between Sūn Fù’s commentary-discarding direct reading and Sū Zhé’s Zuǒ-only eclectic reading, taking all three commentaries as mutually illuminating evidentiary witnesses; that the zhuàn is one of four works in Yè’s tetrad organised by interpretive function — zhuàn (running commentary), kǎo (event-correction), yàn (commentary-critique), and lì (regulatory items) — of which only this and the kǎo and yàn survive (the lì and the Shílín Chūnqiū are lost); that the editor’s xiǎoshuō anecdote about Yè’s claim of generic novelty is wrong since the ancients used such single-character genre titles widely.

The Yè-school Chūnqiū — preserved here, plus KR1e0033 and KR1e0034 — is the most ambitious single Sòng-period systematic Chūnqiū programme between Liú Chǎng’s KR1e0021 and Hú Ānguó’s KR1e0036, and one of the principal twelfth-century works that the Hú-school subsequently absorbed and superseded.

Translations and research

  • Lǐ Wěitài 李偉泰, Sòng-rén Chūnqiū xué dōu lùn 宋人春秋學論衡 (Tāiběi: Wénjīn 1995).
  • Sūn Wěimíng 孫衛明, Sòng dài Chūnqiū xué yánjiū 宋代春秋學研究 (Bēijīng: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2009).
  • Yè Yánsōng 葉嫣松, Yè Mèngdé Chūnqiū xué yánjiū 葉夢得春秋學研究 (Tāiběi: Wèisīt-ruì wénhuà 2014) — full-length monograph.

Other points of interest

Yè Mèngdé was a major Southern-Sòng polymath: classicist, statesman (he served as Cānzhī zhèngshì 參知政事 / Vice Grand Councillor under Sòng Gāozōng 高宗), military strategist on the Húběi 湖北 frontier against the Jīn 金, prolific essayist (his Shílín yàn yǔ 石林燕語 is one of the major Southern-Sòng bǐjì 筆記 collections), and the most distinguished member of the Yè family of Wúxiàn. The breadth of his interests is reflected in the methodological breadth of his Chūnqiū programme.

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