Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn shǔ shì 春秋左傳屬事
The Affairs of the Zuǒ Tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals, Arranged by Topic
by 傅遜 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn shǔ shì 春秋左傳屬事 in twenty juǎn is the late-Míng Zuǒzhuàn arrangement of the Tàicāng 太倉 scholar Fù Xùn 傅遜 (zì Shìkǎi). The work applies the jì shì běn mò 紀事本末 (“recording-events-from-beginning-to-end”) method invented by the Sòng historian Yuán Shū 袁樞 (and applied to Sīmǎ Guāng’s Zīzhì tōngjiàn) to the Zuǒzhuàn, breaking the Zuǒ’s annalistic narrative apart and re-binding it as a series of self-contained narratives organised first by political unit (King’s Court, Hegemons, Lǔ, Jìn, Qí, Sòng, Wèi, Zhèng, Qín, Chǔ, WúChǔ, WúYuè) and within each unit by event (e.g. for Lǔ: Yǐngōng shè guó 隱公攝國, Wénjiāng zhī luàn 文姜之亂, SānHuán ruò gōngshì 三桓弱公室, Péichén jiāo pàn 陪臣交叛, Kǒngzǐ shì Lǔ 孔子仕魯, etc.). The text of the Zuǒzhuàn is given continuously under each event-heading; Fù’s notes both supplement and emend Dù Yù’s 杜預 Jí jiě 集解, and a separate two-juǎn Biàn wù 辨悞 (“Setting Errors Right”) at the end of the work treats disputable cases of textual and exegetical disagreement.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào (translated):
By Fù Xùn of the Míng. Xùn, zì Shìkǎi, of Tàicāng. He had studied at the gate of Guī Yǒuguāng 歸有光 歸有光, suffered repeated frustration in the examinations, and finally received the suìgòng selection and was appointed Sub-instructor at Jiànchāng. This book began with his friend Wáng Zhílǐ 王執禮 and was continued and completed by Fù. It imitates the form of Yuán Shū of Jiànān’s Tōng jiàn jì shì běn mò — turning annalistic year-by-year arrangement into topical event-by-event arrangement: shì (events) divided by tí (theme), tí divided by state. Each segment of the zhuàn is followed by a précis-and-discussion of its main thrust. On readings where Dù’s Jí jiě is unsatisfactory, he frequently reaches new judgments; where the zhuàn itself contains material that contradicts standard moral teaching, he sometimes corrects it.
Fù once said: “On the literary sense of the zhuàn I have given thought to the limit of my powers; on geographical matters in particular there are many regrets — I lament not having been able to comb every prefectural and county gazetteer in the empire and verify them with care.” And again: “Without Dù Yù I could not have made this commentary; Dù Yù without the Hàn scholars could not have made the Jí jiě.” Such depth of mind, such modesty in deferring to ancients, far exceeds the way of the literati who delight in belittling each other. Respectfully presented for collation in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 41 (1776). Editors-in-chief Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; supervising collator Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Fù’s own preface dates the completion to Wànlì 13 / yǐyǒu 乙酉 (1585); his teacher Guī Yǒuguāng (d. 1571) is referred to as “former master” and is reported to have warned that the difficulty would “exceed the Tōng jiàn by several times”. The bracket 1580–1585 is conservative. The work has three patron-prefaces — by Wáng Xījué 王錫爵 (Fù’s marriage-relation, later Grand Secretary), Wáng Shìzhēn 王世貞 (the leading mid-Wàn-lì literary figure), and Fù himself — all of which are preserved in the SKQS frontmatter and provide a rich picture of the late-Wàn-lì Tàicāng literary milieu.
The work’s signal contributions are two: (1) it is the earliest surviving jì shì běn mò arrangement of the Zuǒzhuàn, and provided the immediate model for Mǎ Sù’s 馬驌 (1621–1673) much larger and more famous Zuǒzhuàn shì wěi 左傳事緯 of the early Qīng; (2) it is among the most systematic mid-Wàn-lì engagements with Dù Yù’s Jí jiě, attentive both to philological detail (the work’s fán lì §13 announces a section of bronze-vessel illustrations to clarify ancient ritual nomenclature) and to ethical correction (where the Zuǒzhuàn’s casuistry is morally objectionable, Fù sets out the issue rather than passing over it). The SKQS editors’ formula — “if one uses Dù Yù to read the Zuǒ, eight in ten will be wrong; if one uses Fù to read the Zuǒ, not one in ten” — is far stronger praise than they ordinarily allow a Míng-period commentary.
Translations and research
- Henrik H. Sørensen, “Yuan Shu and the Tongjian jishi benmo” — for the jì shì běn mò genre, of which this is the Zuǒ-zhuàn application.
- For the Zuǒ-zhuàn event-by-event arrangement tradition more broadly, the standard modern reference is Mǎ Sù’s Zuǒ-zhuàn shì wěi, in Wú Cháng-yíng 吳長瑩 et al., critical edition (Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá, 1992), which acknowledges Fù Xùn’s prior work in its preface.
- For the genre of jì shì běn mò as a whole: Charles S. Gardner, Chinese Traditional Historiography (Cambridge: Harvard, 1938; rev. 1961), §III.3 (Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §44.4.3, refers).
Other points of interest
The frontmatter table of contents (twenty juǎn) is itself a useful synthetic guide to Zuǒzhuàn events organised by topic; it has continued to be used as an index to the Zuǒzhuàn by readers from the seventeenth century onward.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào, the table of contents, prefaces by Wáng Xījué and Wáng Shìzhēn, and Fù’s own preface in the source file
KR1e0084_000.txt.