Mèngzǐ jiě 孟子解
Glosses on the Mencius
蘇轍 (Sū Zhé, 1039–1112)
About the work
A short, single-juàn set of 24 chapter-glosses on the Mèngzǐ. Although the WYG copy is title-headed “Yǐngbīn yílǎo” 潁濱遺老 — Sū Zhé’s late-retirement hào — Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Shūlù jiětí shows that the work was actually composed in his youth (probably between his 1057 jìnshì and the early Xīníng era of Wáng Ānshí’s reforms), and only published with the late hào attached when Sū Zhé compiled his final corpus. Each entry treats one Mèngzǐ passage in turn, mostly in a sober Confucian register; a handful of entries lean into Buddhist and Daoist vocabulary characteristic of the Méishān school.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Mèngzǐ jiě in 1 juàn — by Sū Zhé 蘇轍 of the Sòng. The old text-line affixes the words “Yǐngbīn yílǎo” — his late-retirement hào — but examination of Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí shows it is a youthful work. There are 24 zhāng in all.
Zhāng 1 — that the sage practises rényì in person, and benefit subsists with him; he does not practise it for the sake of benefit. Zhāng 2 — that King Wén’s hunting park of seventy lǐ was a mountain-forest-marsh shared with the people. Zhāng 3 — that small and large, noble and base, all proceed from the mìng 命 of Heaven; hence “fearing Heaven” and “rejoicing in Heaven”. Zhāng 4 — glossing “zé nán chén shàn 責難陳善” as gōngjìng 恭敬, and “chù jūn 畜君” as “loving one’s lord”. Zhāng 5 — that the hàorán zhī qì 浩然之氣 is what Zǐsī 子思 called chéng 誠. Zhāng 6 — on cultivating qì through study and waiting for it to come of itself. Zhāng 7 — that zhī yán 知言 is recognising whence error arises. Zhāng 8 — using kèjǐ fùlǐ 克己復禮 to gloss “the archer corrects himself”. Zhāng 9 — on the gòng 貢 system being not yet perfect because the early Sage-Kings still drew the laws coarsely. Zhāng 10 — that Chén Zhòngzǐ’s 陳仲子 over-narrow honesty errs in setting up no one in the world to coexist with. Zhāng 16 — that Confucius “left for a small offence” both to spare his lord [Lǔ Dìnggōng] and to spare himself. Zhāng 18 — on serving Heaven and establishing one’s mìng. Zhāng 19 — on receiving correctly what is decreed. Zhāng 22 — on swift advance and swift retreat. Zhāng 24 — on extending rényì — all are sound and unstrained. Zhāng 20 — using the Zhōuguān “Eight Considerations” to refute “stealing one’s father and fleeing” [the celebrated Mèngzǐ 7A.35 passage]. Zhāng 23 — that Sīmǎ Yì 司馬懿 and Yáng Jiān 楊堅 obtained the world; the question is solely whether they were rén or not, not whether they “got it” — also has insight.
Only zhāng 11 — “studying the sage is not as good as studying the dào”; zhāng 12, 13, 14 — using Confucius’s discussion of xìng to rebut Mencius’s discussion of xìng; zhāng 15 — assigning zhì 智 to Bó Yí and Liǔ Xià Huì, and lì 力 to Confucius; zhāng 17 — using zhēn ér bù liàng 貞而不亮 to rebut “the gentleman is not liàng”; zhāng 21 — taking xíngsè tiānxìng 形色天性 as compulsively decorating the exterior — these are not free of admixture. The book is one in which flaw and gem are equally visible. Yet compared with his late writings — which slide entirely into Buddhism and Daoism — this is far more disciplined.
— Respectfully revised, eighth month of the 42nd year of Qiánlóng [1777]. General Compilers: Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Mèngzǐ jiě belongs to Sū Zhé’s earlier Confucian period — pre-Xī-níng, before the Wáng Ānshí 王安石 reforms drove him into political opposition and then into prolonged exile. The work is therefore a counterpart to his youthful Lúnyǔ lüèjiě (later subsumed into Sū Shì’s lost Lúnyǔ shuō; cf. KR1h0010). The 24 entries circulate around three thematic clusters: (1) the moral metaphysics of rényì and hàorán zhī qì (zhāng 1, 5, 6, 7, 24); (2) institutional readings of King Wén’s hunting park, the gòng tax, and the zhōuguān statutes (zhāng 2, 9, 20); (3) the moral psychology of the jūnzǐ under unjust rulers (zhāng 16, 18, 19, 22).
The Sìkù tíyào is, on the whole, fair: the work is sober, occasionally insightful (especially the institutional readings), and only sporadically slides into the Méi-shān-school Buddhist-Daoist register. The zhōuguān “Eight Considerations” gloss on Mèngzǐ 7A.35 — Sū Zhé argues that Mencius’s “stealing the father and fleeing” thought-experiment must be read against the Zhōulǐ statute exempting royal kin from ordinary penalty — is one of the most influential of his readings and was picked up by Zhū Xī (with a careful reframing) in the Mèngzǐ jízhù 集註 (KR1h0015). The Sīmǎ Yì / Yáng Jiān gloss on the legitimacy of conquering rulers (zhāng 23) was likewise picked up — though more cautiously — by later orthodox Lǐxué writers.
The work was first cut for print in the late Northern Sòng; the WYG transmits the text via a YuánMíng manuscript line.
Translations and research
No standalone English translation. Treated as part of the Sū-family Sì-shū corpus in Chinese scholarship: Cuī Yán 崔縯, Sū-shì Mèngzǐ jiě jiào-zhù 蘇氏孟子解校注 (Bā-Shǔ shū-shè 1998); Cài Fāng-lù 蔡方鹿, Sòng-dài Sì-shū xué yánjiū; Zhū Hàn-mín 朱漢民, Sòng-Míng lǐ-xué tōnglùn. Western: brief mentions in surveys of Sòng Mèngzǐ hermeneutics; no monograph.
Other points of interest
The Mèngzǐ jiě differs notably from the parallel Lúnyǔ shíyí (KR1h0010) in that it is early, not late, in Sū Zhé’s career: it predates the deep Méishān turn into Buddhist-Daoist syncretism that the Sìkù editors detect in the Lúnyǔ shíyí. Read together, the two books mark the two ends of Sū Zhé’s hermeneutic life on the Confucian Sì shū.
Links
- Sòngshǐ 339 (Sū Zhé biography).
- Cài Fānglù 蔡方鹿, Sòngdài Sìshū xué yánjiū.