Mòchí suǒlù 墨池璅錄
Trifling Records from the Ink-Pond by 楊愼 (Yáng Shèn, 1488–1559, 明, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Yáng Shèn’s four-juàn miscellany on calligraphy, compiled during his Yúnnán exile (1524 onwards). The work mixes adaptations of older calligraphic literature with Yáng’s own opinions, drawn from his enormous erudition. The principal critical positions: Yáng demotes Yán Zhēnqīng, claims that “Mǐ Fú’s xíng falls short of his words,” and elevates Zhào Mèngfǔ as the one calligrapher of the post-Wáng-Xīzhī tradition who returned wholly to the Jìn standard — a position consistent with the broader Yuán-and-Míng revival of Zhào’s authority. The work also contains substantial paleographic kǎozhèng — for example, a piece on Zhāng Tiāncì 張天錫’s Cǎoshū yùnhuì and its sources, and a piece on the Càotǐ shū attributed to a junior Wáng, and on the character xī 𠈭 in the Hàn Sīlì Yáng Jué stele.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Mòchí suǒlù in four juàn, by Yáng Shèn of the Míng. Wáng Shìzhēn’s Míngxián yímò bá says: “Shèn was famed for broad learning; his calligraphy too was self-confident — in the tánɡwǔ of [Zhào Mèngfǔ of] Wúxīng. The world has transmitted that when he was banished to Yúnnán he would, in his cups, daub on his hair with cosmetic powder, dress it in twin buns and flowers, with various entertainers in attendance, going forth as if at a fair. Some had pure-white silk made into vests for the entertainers; in the wine he was asked for writing — drunken ink dripped abundant, men bought them back to be mounted as scrolls. Apparently Shèn too was a serious student of calligraphy.” This book extensively diminishes Yán Zhēnqīng; says “Mǐ Fú’s xíng falls short of his words”; goes so far as to say “with Zhào Mèngfǔ’s emergence, the disease of YánLiǔ was washed clean and one took Jìn as one’s teacher — Yòujūn’s [Wáng Xīzhī’s] sole successor.” This agrees with Wáng Shìzhēn’s Wúxīng tánɡwǔ notice — confirming the book is from Shèn’s hand. Among the pieces are passages where he adopts old writings and others where he expresses his own view — many of which are personally arrived at. His account of Zhāng Tiāncì’s Cǎoshū yùnhuì’s sources, the small Wáng’s Pòtǐ shū, and the Hàn Sīlì Yáng Jué stele’s xī character — these also have evidential value. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), ninth month.
Abstract
Yáng Shèn 楊愼 (zì Yòngxiū 用脩, hào Shēngān 升庵, 1488–1559), the great Míng polymath exiled to Yúnnán in 1524 for the Dàlǐ affair, produced an enormous body of scholarly miscellany during his thirty-five-year exile. The Mòchí suǒlù belongs to that body. Yáng’s calligraphic position — pro-Zhào Mèngfǔ, anti-Yán, against Mǐ Fú’s self-promotional claims — reads as a Míng-mainstream return to the Yuán literati orthodoxy. The work also includes evidential paleographic content (Zhāng Tiāncì, the Càotǐ, Hàn-stele kǎozhèng) that gives Yáng’s signature combination of broad learning and personal opinion. The Sìkù editors confirm the attribution to Yáng on the strength of Wáng Shìzhēn’s Wúxīng tánɡwǔ notice.
Translations and research
- Schorr, Adam. The Trap of Words: Political and Cultural Strategies in the Career of Yang Shen. PhD diss., Princeton, 1991.
- Chow, Kai-wing. Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004 (on Yáng’s publishing afterlife).
- Lo, Andrew. The Literary Career of Yang Shen and the Yunnan Exile. (Various conference papers.)
- No standalone Western-language monographic study of the Mòchí suǒlù.
Other points of interest
Yáng’s emphatic dismissal of Mǐ Fú’s xíngshū in this work is a key Míng witness against the Sòng “four masters” (Sū, Huáng, Mǐ, Cài) consensus and an indicator of the strength of the Zhào Mèngfǔ revival in mid-Míng calligraphic theory.