春秋金鎖匙

Chūnqiū jīnsuǒshi 春秋金鎖匙

The Golden Key to the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 趙汸 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū jīnsuǒshi 春秋金鎖匙 (“The Golden Key to the Chūnqiū”) in one juan is the shortest work in Zhào Fǎng’s 趙汸 five-work Chūnqiū corpus (KR1e0066–KR1e0070). It is a condensed handbook: the sage’s tèbǐ 特筆 (distinctive editorial pen) and the Chūnqiū’s general categories are illustrated by juxtaposing analogous events to bring out their similarities and differences. The doctrinal frame: the Chūnqiū’s opening period (YǐnHuánZhuāng) emphasizes restraining the lords; its closing period (ZhāoDìngĀi) emphasizes restraining the great-officers; the Qí Huán — Jìn Wén hegemonic period in the middle is judged by the relative honoring or dis-honoring of the king. The work is a bǐshì shǔcí 比事屬辭 (“associate-the-events, link-the-words”) condensation. The fourth cluster-work in the five-work Zhào Fǎng Chūnqiū corpus.

Tiyao

The Sìkù editors respectfully note: The Chūnqiū jīnsuǒshi in one juan is by Zhào Fǎng of Yuán. Fǎng has Chūnqiū shīshuō (KR1e0067) and Zuǒshì bǔzhù (KR1e0068) and other works already registered. This work picks up the sage’s tèbǐ and the Chūnqiū’s great categories, and by juxtaposing similar cases reasons through them comparatively, examining their agreement and difference and clarifying their zhèngbiàn 正變 (regular and variant) — combining bǐshì 比事 (associating events) and shǔcí 屬辭 (linking wording) into one. The main thesis: the early Chūnqiū emphasizes the restraining of the lords; the late Chūnqiū emphasizes the restraining of the great-officers; the middle period’s Qí — Jìn hegemonic regime is judged by whether they honor the king. Even where, as in his thesis that the sage demoted Qǐ’s rank from hóu to zǐ, or that the heavenly king’s bestowing on Máo Bó (毛伯錫命) with the wording xī 錫 implies a mutual exchange — Zhào still preserves the residue of older speculative readings — the deployment of shūfǎ (writing-method) is orderly; what Master Chéng [Yí] called the dozens of meanings shining like sun and stars may be approached.

We note that Shěn Fěi 沈棐 of Sòng wrote a Chūnqiū bǐshì 春秋比事 (KR1e0042) whose thesis is closely allied with this work; presumably Zhào did not see Shěn’s book and therefore proceeded to write this one. But the two books’ formats differ: Shěn is detailed and exhaustive, Zhào condensed and clear; they may run side by side without difficulty.

Respectfully presented, Qiánlóng 44 / 9 (September 1779).

— Editors-in-chief: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Editor-of-Collation: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Jīn-suǒ-shi is the most condensed and pedagogically-oriented of Zhào Fǎng’s Chūnqiū works — a handbook fit for a student. The metaphor in the title (the golden key) suggests it is meant to open the Chūnqiū by giving the canonical patterns to which the events conform. The methodological frame is the same as the Shǔcí (KR1e0070) — bǐshì shǔcí — but the working level is one of worked examples rather than categorical articulation.

The composition window: like the Bǔzhù, the Jīn-suǒ-shi depends on Zhào’s mature methodology and is internally consistent with the cluster’s late-1340s through 1360s composition span. The bracket 1340–1369 is defensible.

The Sìkù editors note that Shěn Fěi’s 沈棐 Chūnqiū bǐshì (KR1e0042) had pre-empted Zhào’s program — Shěn’s work, also using the bǐshì method, was apparently unknown to Zhào when he wrote the Jīn-suǒ-shi. The editors’ note that the two are not in conflict — Shěn detailed, Zhào condensed — is correct: they are different layers of the same interpretive program.

In the five-work Zhào Fǎng cluster, the Jīn-suǒ-shi occupies the pedagogical slot. Together: the Shīshuō preserves the master’s foundation; the Bǔzhù does Zuǒ-philology; the Jízhuàn is the running commentary; the Shǔcí is the methodological treatise; and the Jīn-suǒ-shi is the handbook by which a student is initiated into the program.

Translations and research

• Wú Wánjū 吳萬居, Zhào Fǎng Chūnqiū-xué yánjiū (Tāiběi 1992).
• Sūn Wěimíng 孫衛明, Sòng dài Chūnqiū xué yánjiū (Bēijīng 2009).
• No dedicated Western-language study located.

Other points of interest

The title Jīn-suǒ-shi (“golden key”) is unusual in the Confucian classical-commentary tradition — suǒ-shi (or yào-shi 鑰匙) is more typical of Daoist and esoteric-text titles (cf. Cān tóngqì jīn-suǒ-shi 參同契金鎖匙 of the alchemical tradition). Zhào’s choice is to be read as a deliberate appropriation: the bǐshì shǔcí methodology is presented as the one secret key that, applied carefully, unlocks the Chūnqiū. The Sìkù editors’ rare praise — that the work approaches Master Chéng Yí’s image of “the dozens of meanings shining like sun and stars” — is consistent with this self-presentation.

Links

• Sìkù tíyào: from KR1e0069_000.txt in source.