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說苑

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Text ID
KR3a0007
Date
-23–-17
Dynasty
漢

Shuōyuàn 說苑

Garden of Persuasions by 劉向 (Liú Xiàng, 77–6 BCE, 漢)

About the work

A twenty-juan / twenty-篇 anthology of moral and political anecdotes, edited and presented to Chéngdì 成帝 by Liú Xiàng during his imperial-library cataloguing commission. Each 篇 takes a thematic title — Jūndào 君道, Chénshù 臣術, Jiàn běn 建本, Lì jié 立節, Guì dé 貴德, Fù ēn 復恩, Zhèng lǐ 政理, Zūn xián 尊賢, Zhèng jiàn 正諫, Jìng shèn 敬慎 (the WYG text reads 敬慎 where most variants read Fǎ jiè 法誡), Shàn shuō 善說, Fèng shǐ 奉使, Quán móu 權謀, Zhì gōng 至公, Zhǐ wǔ 指武, Tán cóng 談叢, Zá yán 雜言, Biàn wù 辨物, Xiū wén 修文, Fǎn zhì 反質 — and is a series of short yú 喻 / anecdotes culled from the imperial library and arranged thematically. The work was substantially lost in the Northern Sòng (only five 篇 in the Chóngwén zǒngmù); Zēng Gǒng 曾鞏 recovered fifteen 篇 from private hands during his editorial commission of the imperial library at the close of the eleventh century, and the closing chapter 反質 was supplied from a Korean (高麗) presentation copy as recorded by Lù Yóu 陸游’s Wèinán wénjí 渭南文集 quoting Lǐ Décú 李德芻. The received twenty-篇 form is therefore a Northern Sòng reconstruction whose substance is Liú Xiàng’s. Closely paired with the Xīnxù 新序 (KR3a0008) by the same author and in much the same format.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Shuōyuàn in twenty juan was composed by Liú Xiàng of the Hàn, in twenty 篇. The Suí and Táng bibliographies all agree. The Chóngwén zǒngmù says, “Of the present extant only five 篇; the rest are all lost.” Zēng Gǒng’s collation preface 校書序 says: “I obtained fifteen 篇 from gentlemen’s families, which together with the old made twenty 篇.” Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says: “Liú Xiàng’s Shuōyuàn takes for its 篇-titles Jūndào, Chénshù, Jiàn běn, Lì jié, Guì dé, Fù ēn, Zhèng lǐ, Zūn xián, Zhèng jiàn, Fǎ jiè, Shàn shuō, Fèng shǐ, Quán móu, Zhì gōng, Zhǐ wǔ, Tán cóng, Zá yán, Biàn wù, Xiū wén. In the fourth year of Yángjiā [Yángjiā 4 = 135 CE; Cháo’s manuscript chronology — actually a misreading; the work was presented in late Western Hàn] he submitted it. The twentieth juan is missing. The twenty 篇 Zēng Zǐgù [Zēng Gǒng] obtained were precisely the result of splitting juan nineteen into two — Xiū wén upper and Xiū wén lower.” The present text reads the tenth chapter as Jìng shèn 敬慎 in place of Fǎ jiè; after Xiū wén there is Fǎn zhì 反質. Lù Yóu’s Wèinán jí records the words of Lǐ Décú: he obtained the Korean presentation copy and so completed the work. So in the Sòng this fuller text was already current; Cháo Gōngwǔ simply had not seen it.

The work in every case records bequeathed words and lost matters that may serve as a model or warning. Its conventions are exactly those of the Xīnxù. Yè Dàqìng’s 葉大慶 Kǎo gǔ zhì yí 考古質疑 picks out passages mismatched in chronology — Zhào Xiāngzǐ’s reward of those merited at Jìnyáng with Confucius’s appraisal of him; the speaker forbidding the Chǔ Zhuāngwáng’s tower-building citing Wǔ Zǐxū; Yànzǐ as envoy to Wú meeting Fūchāi; Jìn historiographer Tú Yú with the Duke Huán of Zhōu discussing Jìn Pínggōng; Jìn defeating the Zhī clan followed by Hélǘ’s attack on Yǐng; Chǔ historiographer Yǐxiāng on Yuè breaking Wú; Yànzǐ seeing off Zēngzǐ; the battle of Bì in Jìn Zhāogōng’s reign; Confucius’s reply to Zhào Xiāngzǐ — all chronologically distant from each other. Likewise the Jiè Zǐtuī and Zhōu zhī Qiáo songs are both placed under the same incident, with the Zhōu zhī Qiáo data badly off. Huáng Cháoyīng’s 黃朝英 Xiāngsù zájì 緗素雜記 picks out Gùsāng’s discussion with Jìn Pínggōng on cultivating shì — paralleled in the Xīnxù as the boatman Gǔchéng’s reply to Zhào Jiǎnzǐ — and Chǔ Wénwáng’s enfeoffing of Guǎn Ráo, paralleled in the Xīnxù as Chǔ Gòngwáng enfeoffing Guǎn Sū. The two works came from one hand and yet contradict each other; he was gathering up the various accounts and following his immediate sources without proper cross-collation.

But where ancient books have scattered and been lost, this work preserves much of them — for instance the eight 篇 of Héjiàn xiànwáng 河間獻王 in the Hàn zhì, no longer in the Suí zhì, of which four passages are still preserved here — enough to show his discussion to be sober and unblemished, no disgrace to the Confucian tradition. Other materials are likewise often worth selecting; though the work has minor errors of hearsay, it does not impair the whole jade.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

(Note: the SKQS-base reading 陽嘉四年 [Yángjiā 4 = 135 CE] in Cháo Gōngwǔ’s note is anomalous, as Liú Xiàng died in 6 BCE and the work was presented in his own lifetime. Editors have occasionally suggested 陽朔四年 (= 21 BCE) as a probable copyist error. The present translation preserves the source reading and flags it.)

Abstract

The Shuōyuàn is one of the two great anthologies of moral-political anecdotes that Liú Xiàng presented to Chéngdì alongside his bibliographic-editorial work in the imperial library; the companion is the Xīnxù. The composition window is the period of Liú Xiàng’s library commission under Chéngdì, with Bān Gù’s Hàn shū yìwén zhì listing it among Liú’s “suǒxù sixty-seven 篇” — Xīnxù, Shuōyuàn, Shìshuō (lost), Liènǚ zhuàn and Sòngtú. The Liú Xiàng Shuōyuàn xùlù 說苑序錄 places presentation in the third lunar month of Hóngjiā 4 (Hóngjiā 鴻嘉 4 = 17 BCE), with the editorial work running from the start of the Chéngdì-period commission ca. 26 BCE; the conventional bracket is therefore ca. 23–17 BCE.

The textual transmission is one of the cleanest cases of substantial Tang–Sòng loss followed by Sòng recovery: the Suí zhì and the Liǎng Táng zhì all carry the work in the original twenty 篇, but by the Chóngwén zǒngmù only five remained; Zēng Gǒng recovered fifteen more from private hands; the twentieth 篇 Fǎn zhì was supplied from a Korean presentation copy. The twenty-篇 received form is therefore a late-Northern-Sòng restoration. The Yán Yǐnggǔ-style chronological dislocations noted by Yè Dàqìng and Huáng Cháoyīng — and parallel passages diverging between Shuōyuàn and Xīnxù — reflect the editorial method: drawing thematically from the imperial library without cross-collating each anecdote between dialects of the tradition.

The chapter Jiàn běn 建本 contains some of the most influential pre-Imperial pedagogical anecdotes; Tán cóng 談叢 collects gnomic sentences that pass into a parallel later anthology tradition; Fǎn zhì 反質 (the chapter recovered from Korea) preserves the Liú Xiàng polemic against luxury that became a template in later moralistic literature.

The bibliographic record: Hàn shū yìwén zhì (Liú Xiàng “suǒxù sixty-seven 篇” — Rújiā); Suí shū jīngjí zhì (二十卷); Jiù Táng shū jīngjí zhì; Xīn Táng shū yìwén zhì; Chóngwén zǒngmù (5 篇 only); Zēng Gǒng Yuánfēng lèigǎo 元豐類藁 校書序; Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi.

Translations and research

  • Eric Henry, Garden of Eloquence: A Translation and Study of Liu Xiang’s Shuoyuan, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021. The standard complete English translation, with extensive critical apparatus.
  • Xiàng Zōnglǔ 向宗魯, Shuōyuàn jiào zhèng 說苑校證, Běijīng: Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1987. The standard Chinese critical edition.
  • Lú Yuánjùn 盧元駿, Shuōyuàn jīn-zhù jīn-yì 說苑今註今譯, Tabei: Shāngwù Yìnshūguǎn, 1977.
  • Zǔ Bǎoquán 左保全, Shuōyuàn jíjiào 說苑集校 — fundamental collation work.
  • David R. Knechtges and Taiping Chang (eds.), Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Brill, 2014, s.v. “Shuoyuan”, 904–907.
  • Michael Loewe (ed.), Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Berkeley, 1993, s.v. “Shuo yüan”, 443–445 (entry by D. R. Knechtges).
  • Anne Behnke Kinney’s work on Liú Xiàng more generally is essential context.

Other points of interest

The contradictory parallel passages between Shuōyuàn and Xīnxù (e.g. Gùsāng / boatman Gǔchéng; Chǔ Wénwáng / Chǔ Gòngwáng) make the pair a methodologically useful test case in pre-modern Chinese editorial criticism — Yè Dàqìng’s diagnosis (independent gathering followed by inadequate cross-collation) is essentially correct and is now standard.

The Tán cóng 談叢 (chapter 16) is a long sequence of gnomic two-line aphorisms detached from any narrative frame; it is the closest pre-Buddhist Chinese analogue to a sentence-collection tradition, and is often anthologised separately.

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