Gùzǐ yìxùn 顧子義訓
The Instructions on Righteous Conduct by Master Gù by 顧夷 (Gù Yí, fl. mid 4th century, 晉)
About the work
A lost Eastern Jìn 東晉 zǐbù moral-instructional treatise by Gù Yí 顧夷 of the prominent Wújùn 吳郡 Gù lineage. Reconstructed from quotations in 《初學記》, 《北堂書鈔》, 《太平御覽》 and 《文選注》 (Lǐ Shàn’s 李善 notes on poem cycles). Not in the Sìkù quánshū; sourced from CHANT (CH2a1386).
Abstract
Gù Yí was a Wújùn classicist of the southern aristocratic Gù lineage — the same lineage as the famous Wú minister Gù Yōng 顧雍 and the Jìn shū historian Gù Yánwǔ 顧野王 of a later generation. He is recorded in the Jìn shū and in Tōng diǎn as a Sūnzǐ bīngfǎ 孫子兵法 commentator and as the author of several lost classical and zǐ-house works, of which the Yìxùn is the one that survived longest in citation. The reconstructed fragments are short and didactic: instructions on the conduct of office, observations on the moral psychology of governance, and a small number of glosses that read as commentary on the Lúnyǔ and the Lǐjì. The work is in the jiāxùn 家訓 (“family instructions”) manner that would culminate, two centuries later, in Yán Zhītuī’s 顏之推 Yánshì jiāxùn. The date-bracket reflects Gù Yí’s plausible Eastern Jìn floruit. The received recension is a 19th-century jíyì.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Standard fragment-compilation: 嚴可均 Quán Jìn wén 全晉文 j. 138.
Links
- Jìn shū 晉書 (passim).
- Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書經籍志.