Gāoshì zhuàn 高士傳
Biographies of Lofty Gentlemen by 皇甫謐 (撰)
About the work
A three-juàn collective biography of gāoshì 高士 — recluses, refusers of office, and other moral exemplars who declined service to kings and emperors — by Huángfǔ Mì 皇甫謐 (zì Shìān 士安, hào Yuányàn xiānsheng 元晏先生, 215–282), WèiJìn polymath of Cháonà 朝那 in Āndìng 安定 (modern Gānsù), great-grandson of the Hàn Tàiwèi 太尉 Huángfǔ Sōng 皇甫嵩. Huángfǔ Mì was once recommended as xiàolián but did not accept; his career is given in the Jìnshū biography. According to his preface and according to Lǐ Shí’s 李石 (Southern Sòng) Xù bówù zhì 續博物志, the original count of biographies in the Gāoshì zhuàn was 72, “matching the seventy-two immortals of Liú Xiàng’s Lièxiān zhuàn.” The transmitted text in the WYG, however, contains 96 biographies; comparison with the Tàipíng yùlǎn (which quotes the work extensively in juàn 506–509) shows that some 26 of the present biographies are interpolations — drawn from Jì Kāng’s 嵇康 Gāoshì zhuàn, the Hòu Hànshū, and other miscellanea — added by Sòng-period editors. The original 72 select gentlemen run from Yáo’s reign down to Wèi (so explicitly Huángfǔ Mì’s preface — “from Yáo to Wèi, more than ninety persons in all” — but the figure 72 is accepted as canonical on the basis of Lǐ Shí’s testimony). The biographies are uniformly short, anecdotal, and arranged chronologically.
Tiyao
Gāoshì zhuàn in three juàn, by Huángfǔ Mì of the Jìn. Mì, courtesy name Shìān, sobriquet Yuányàn xiānsheng, was a man of Cháonà in Āndìng, great-grandson of the Hàn Tàiwèi Huángfǔ Sōng. He was once recommended xiàolián but did not take office. His career is given in the Jìnshū biography. Lǐ Shí’s Xù bówù zhì says: “Liú Xiàng made Lièxiān zhuàn of seventy-two persons; Huángfǔ Mì made Gāoshì zhuàn also of seventy-two persons.” So the original count was only seventy-two, but this copy contains as many as ninety-six. Yet Tàipíng yùlǎn juàn 506–509 quotes the entire book, totalling seventy-one persons — seventy of whom match the present, plus Dōngguō xiānsheng 東郭先生 (one), making seventy-one — agreeing with Lǐ Shí’s count except for one omission, which we attribute to a flaw in the Sòng yùlǎn re-cut. Beyond these, ten further biographies — Zǐzhōu Zhīfù 子州支父, Shíhùzhīnóng 石戶之農, Xiǎochén Jì 小臣稷, Shāngróng 商容, Róng Qǐqī 榮啟期, ChángjǔJiénì 長沮桀溺, Hètiào zhàngrén 荷蓧丈人, Hànyīn zhàngrén 漢陰丈人, Yán Chù 顏觸 — are passages that the Yùlǎn quotes from Jì Kāng’s Gāoshì zhuàn. Ten more — Mǐn Gòng 閔貢, Wáng Bà 王霸, Yán Guāng 嚴光, Liáng Hóng 梁鴻, Tái Tóng 臺佟, Hán Kāng 韓康, Jiǎo Shèn 矯慎, Fǎ Zhēn 法真, Hànbīn lǎofù 漢濱老父, Pánggōng 龎公 — are passages that the Yùlǎn quotes from the Hòu Hànshū. Six only — Pīyī 被衣, Lǎo Dān 老聃, Gēngsāng Chǔ 庚桑楚, Lín Lèi 林類, Lǎo Shāngshì 老商氏, Zhuāng Zhōu 莊周 — are not in the relevant Yùlǎn class and must have been added by later hands miscellaneously gleaning from the Yùlǎn and other sources. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì also gives the count as 96, but Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Shūlù jiětí says: “running from Pīyī to Guǎn Níng 管寧, only 87.” So already in the Sòng there were two recensions, and the work had been disordered. Since it has been transmitted thus for so long, we have not dared make rash deletions; but the reader should know that this is not the original 72-person Gāoshì zhuàn. Reverently presented in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The Gāoshì zhuàn is the foundational work in the Chinese collective-biography genre devoted to recluses (yǐnyì 隱逸) and the foundation for later such collections (Yuán Hóng’s 袁宏 lost Zhúlín míngshì zhuàn 竹林名士傳; Tāng Qiú’s 湯球 Sānshí guó chūnqiū 三十國春秋 fragments; the Jìnshū yǐnyì zhuàn, etc.). Composition fell within the active scholarly career of Huángfǔ Mì, whose lifedates are firmly attested at 215–282 and whose WèiJìn philological output spans broadly the 250s–280s; the Gāoshì zhuàn preface is undated but should be placed in the late part of his career. CBDB record 135362 has no dates, but the Jìnshū biography (juàn 51) is reliable. The 26-biography expansion of the original 72 took place in the Sòng (Cháo Gōngwǔ already gives 96), drawing on Jì Kāng’s lost Gāoshì zhuàn, the Hòu Hànshū, and other sources, but transmitted under Huángfǔ Mì’s name. The work is the principal WèiJìn instance of the Lièzhuàn sub-genre as biography of moral exemplars rather than dynastic actors, distinct from Liú Xiàng’s Liènǚ zhuàn (KR2g0017) but in conscious dialogue with Liú’s Lièxiān zhuàn.
Translations and research
- Aat Vervoorn, Men of the Cliffs and Caves: The Development of the Chinese Eremitic Tradition to the End of the Han Dynasty (Hong Kong: CUHK Press, 1990) — uses Huáng-fǔ Mì’s Gāo-shì zhuàn extensively.
- Alan J. Berkowitz, Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China (Stanford UP, 2000) — the principal Western-language critical study, includes substantial discussion of and extracts from the Gāo-shì zhuàn.
- The standard catalog notice is in Sì-kù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 史部·傳記類三·總錄之屬.
Other points of interest
Huángfǔ Mì is also the principal medical-philological figure of his age (the Zhēnjiǔ jiǎyǐ jīng 鍼灸甲乙經 is his); the Gāoshì zhuàn is the most influential of his historical compositions. The recovery of the original 72-person count by collation against the Tàipíng yùlǎn is a textbook example of Sìkù-era critical philology.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.
- CBDB person id 135362 (Huángfǔ Mì 皇甫謐).
- Wikidata: 皇甫謐