Gǔshǐ 古史
Ancient History by 蘇轍 (compiler), with notes (附註) by his son 蘇遜
About the work
A 60-juǎn recasting of Sīmǎ Qiān’s Shǐjì by the Northern-Sòng prose-master Sū Zhé 蘇轍 (1039–1112), produced in his late retirement at Yǐngbīn 穎濱 (early 12th c.). Following Sīmǎ’s jìzhuàn form, Sū Zhé reorganises the material from Fú Xī 伏羲 and Shén Nóng 神農 down to Qín Shǐhuáng into 7 běnjì, 16 shìjiā, and 37 lièzhuàn. The work is conceived as a corrective to what Sū Zhé regarded as the Shǐjì’s failure to grasp “the meaning of the sages” (聖人之意) — particularly its alleged ranking of HuángLǎo 黃老 above the Six Classics, and its slack credulity in early-historical reportage. Sū Zhé’s revisions are at once classicist (preferring the Shàngshū version of the Shùn 舜 succession over the Shǐjì’s, suppressing the legends of Yī Yǐn 伊尹 the cook and Zàofù 造父 driving King Mù to the Western Queen Mother) and syncretic (incorporating Daoist and Buddhist apparatus into the early-imperial accounts). The supplementary notes (附註) are by Sū Zhé’s son Sū Xùn 蘇遜, a fact identified by the Sìkù editors from Yè Dàqìng’s 葉大慶 Kǎogǔ zhìyí 考古質疑.
Tiyao
Submitted by your servants, etc. The Gǔshǐ in sixty-five juǎn was compiled by Sū Zhé of the Sòng. Zhé’s Shī-zhuàn is already on record. Zhé judged that Sīmǎ Qiān’s Shǐjì mostly missed the meaning of the sages, and so he took Qiān’s old text from Fú Xī and Shén Nóng down to Qín Shǐhuáng and reorganised it as 7 běnjì, 16 shìjiā, and 37 liè-zhuàn, considering himself to have “recovered the residual meaning of the sages and worthies and shown it plainly to later ages.” On the matter of moral success and failure, gain and loss, he treats the causes in detail. Examining now: in the Sānhuáng-jì he interpolates Daoist material, holding that the Yellow Emperor took wú-wéi 無為 as his root and that his book has affinities with the Lǎozǐ; in the Lǎozǐ liè-zhuàn he appends Buddhist material, holding that the Buddhist tradition takes the body of the Way still further than Lǎozǐ and “stands beyond the world”; in the Mèngzǐ liè-zhuàn he holds that Mèngzǐ studied with Zǐ Sī 子思 and acquired his teaching, but gradually lost it, and conversely praises Tián Pián 田駢 and Shèn Dào 慎到 — even saying these were what the Buddhists call “śrāvakas of dull faculties” 鈍根聲聞. Now Bān Gù’s critique of Qiān’s defects placed first the offence of “putting Huáng-Lǎo before the Six Classics” — and what Zhé revised here, where then is his amendment? The Zhū Zǐ yǔ-lèi says: “[Lǚ] Bógōng and [Lǚ] Zǐyuē hold to Sīmǎ Qiān’s school; I once argued vigorously with them. Zǐyóu’s Gǔshǐ says of Mǎ Qiān, ‘shallow and unschooled, slovenly and credulous’ — these two phrases catch Mǎ Qiān’s defects most exactly. Bógōng disliked them intensely. The Gǔshǐ preface says, ‘The ancient emperors and kings were necessarily good as fire is necessarily hot, as water is necessarily cold; their not being bad was as the zōuyú 騶虞 does not kill, as the qiè-zhī 竊脂 does not eat grain’ — this language is excellent. I once asked Bógōng whether Mǎ Qiān could ever have got this. Yet though Zǐyóu’s writing is excellent it has its sicknesses too. Where he says, ‘the Way of emperors and kings takes wú-wéi as its root’ and the like — he speaks only the great outlines but the practical work below is empty and feeble.” This is because of Zhū Xī’s polemics with Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 — for which reason Zhū at other times wrote his Záxué biàn 雜學辨 against Sū Zhé, but here speaks for him; yet [Zhū] could not after all conceal Zhé’s offence of mixing Confucian and Mohist [thought]. Plainly stated, history-writing reaching Sīmǎ Qiān is like poetry reaching Lǐ-Dù 李杜, calligraphy reaching Zhōng-Wáng 鍾王, painting reaching Gù-Lù 顧陸 — not to be measured by one limb or one joint of his strengths or weaknesses. That Zhé should propose to mark up his text — he hardly avoids levity. As for the corrections and supplements: where the Shǐjì records Yáo’s marrying Shùn before Gǔ Sǒu 瞽瞍 still wished to kill Shùn, Zhé follows the Shàngshū in placing the marriage after Gǔ Sǒu’s submission; where the Shǐjì records Yī Yǐn pleading by way of his cooking-pot and Zàofù driving King Mù of Zhōu to see the Western Queen Mother, Zhé excises them; where the Shǐjì omits the praying-for-rain-at-the-mulberry-grove episode he supplies it; in the Sòng shìjiā the Shǐjì praises Duke Xiāng of Sòng for his ritual decorum at the battle of Hóng but Zhé disparages him; he debates the Guǎnzǐ as a Warring-States accretion; in the Yànzǐ biography he interpolates the Yànzǐ-during-the-Cuī-Zhù-coup episode, and his foreknowledge of the Chén usurpation, and remonstrance episodes; on Zǎi Wǒ 宰我 he debates that Zǎi did not join the rebellion; on Zǐ Gòng 子貢 he debates that Zǐ Gòng did not stir Qí; he draws on the Zuǒzhuàn to compose biographies of Liǔxiàhuì 柳下惠, Cáo Zǐzāng 曹子臧, Wú Jì Zhá 吳季札, Fàn Wénzǐ 范文子, Shū Xiàng 叔向, Zǐ Chǎn 子產, etc., supplementing what the Shǐjì had not reached; in the Lǔ Lián 魯連 biography he appends Yú Qīng 虞卿; the assassins-biography omits Cáo Mèi 曹沫 — these choices are also not undeliberate. To set them alongside Qiān’s text in cross-comparison can do no harm. The book includes the supplementary notes (附註) which, by Yè Dàqìng’s Kǎogǔ zhì-yí, are the work of [Sū Zhé’s] son Xùn 遜; the old text did not bear the name and we have appended it now. Second month, Qiánlóng 41 (1776). Chief compilers, etc. (Note: the tíyào gives the extent as 65 juǎn, but the catalog meta and standard editions count 60 juǎn; the discrepancy reflects different counts of the appendix matter.)
Abstract
The Gǔshǐ belongs to the Northern-Sòng tradition of zhèngshǐ 正史 revision and abridgement that begins with Liú Shù 劉恕’s Tōngjiàn wàijì 通鑑外紀 (covering pre-Zhōu) and continues in Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙’s Dàshì jì 大事記. Sū Zhé’s project is more polemical than these: as the tíyào makes clear, his guiding charge against Sīmǎ Qiān is twofold — that the Shǐjì indulges Daoist (and by implication popular) anecdote at the expense of canonical Shàngshū and Zuǒzhuàn evidence, and that it is “shallow and unschooled, slovenly and credulous” (淺陋而不學, 疎略而輕信). The work was composed during Sū Zhé’s last retirement at Yǐngbīn (after 1097, principally during 1100–1112) and was already in circulation by Sòng Huīzōng’s reign. Its reception was sharply divided: Zhū Xī (1130–1200) recognised the strength of its critique of Sīmǎ Qiān and selectively defended it against Lǚ Zǔqiān’s school, but condemned the syncretic Daoist–Buddhist apparatus in his Záxué biàn 雜學辨. The work’s date bracket here is set from the start of Sū Zhé’s Yǐngbīn period of retirement (when he was simultaneously composing the Lǎozǐ jiě) to his death in 1112. Wilkinson (Chinese History, §49.4) lists the Gǔshǐ among the Sòng zhèngshǐ revisions inspired by the new Sòng historiographical consciousness associated with Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn. The supplementary notes by Sū Xùn (anonymously transmitted before the Sìkù) are short philological remarks rather than substantive history.
Translations and research
- Yáng Hǎizhèng 楊海崢. 2013. Sū Zhé Gǔshǐ yánjiū 蘇轍《古史》研究. Master’s thesis, Húběi dàxué.
- Lǐ Zhènxīng 李震興. 1996. “Sū Zhé Gǔshǐ lùn xī” 蘇轍《古史》論析. Wén-shǐ-zhé 文史哲 1996.5: 80–86.
- Cài Fāngdìng 蔡方鼎. 2001. “Sū Zhé Gǔshǐ lùn-zàn yánjiū” 蘇轍《古史》論贊研究. Sòngdài wénhuà yánjiū 宋代文化研究 11: 245–267.
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The Gǔshǐ is one of three substantial Sòng-era Shǐjì-revisions surviving in the Sìkù — alongside Liú Shù’s Tōngjiàn wàijì (KR2b0007) and Luó Bì’s Lùshǐ (KR2d0008) — and is the only one of the three to operate within the jìzhuàn form as opposed to a chronological / mythographical structure. Sū Zhé’s polemical preface, with its sharp dismissal of the Shǐjì as “shallow and credulous,” is one of the most direct early-modern criticisms of Sīmǎ Qiān. The Buddhistic readings of the Lǎozǐ lièzhuàn belong stylistically with Sū Zhé’s late Lǎozǐ jiě 老子解 (KR5c0074).