Lài Jì 籟紀
Chronicles of Sounds by 陳王叔齋 (撰)
About the work
The Lài Jì 籟紀 is a Ming dynasty anthology of sounds organised on the cosmological framework of Zhuangzi’s three sounds (sān lài 三籟: heavenly, earthly, and human sounds). For each sound type, the author provides a prose identification and a personal rhapsody (fù 賦) in the sāo 騷 style — long-line verse modelled on the Chuci 楚辭. The surviving portion consists of the Heavenly Sounds (Tiān lài 天籟) in three sub-volumes (上、中、下); the Earth Sounds (Dì lài 地籟) and Human Sounds (Rén lài 人籟), promised in the preface, are not preserved in this edition. The work is cited as “陳侍中王叔齋《籟紀》” in 方以智’s encyclopedic philology 《通雅》 (Tōng Yǎ, KR3j0066, completed by 1641), which quotes its description of the eight winds (bā fēng 八風) in extenso.
Prefaces
The author’s own preface (《籟紀·敘》) explains the genesis of the work. Written in the wake of an unnamed catastrophe in which the author lost family members and was displaced from the capital — “since I encountered the change, my family members have already scattered and sunk” (予遭變故以來，骨肉奄已漂淪) — he sought consolation in listening to sounds. Lamenting that “only the lament of Shǔ Lí sounds at White Gate” (秪哭黍離白下 — Shǔ Lí 黍離 being the canonical Shijing poem mourning a fallen dynasty capital; Báixià 白下 being Nanjing), he took Zhuangzi’s concept of the three sounds together with the “eight winds” of the historical records, and compiled a single fascicle: one rhapsody per sound, so that “those who have met the same fate may read them.” The preface’s allusive references to the abandonment of the capital and the loss of Nanjing point to composition during the crisis years of the late Chongzhen reign (1628–1644).
Abstract
The Lài Jì is known exclusively through the text preserved in the Kanripo corpus; it is not listed in the Sìkù quánshū and does not appear to have circulated in print during the Qing dynasty. Its author is identified in 方以智’s Tōng Yǎ (KR3j0066, juan 11) as “陳侍中王叔齋” (Chén Shìzhōng Wáng Shūzhāi): the surname is 陳 (Chen), the official title 侍中 (Attendant Gentleman), and the studio name 王叔齋 (Wáng Shūzhāi). No fuller biographical data for this individual has been located in the CBDB database or standard biographical sources. The internal evidence — displacement from the capital, mourning of the fallen Southern Ming at Nanjing, emotional register consistent with loyalist writing of the 1640s — situates the composition most plausibly in the late Chongzhen period (1628–1644) or the immediate post-1644 transition years. Because 方以智 incorporated the passage into Tōng Yǎ prior to its 1641 presentation to the throne, the Lài Jì must predate that year at the latest.
The surviving text covers the 天籟 section in three volumes:
- 天籟卷之上 (Upper): the eight directional winds (bā fēng 八風), each with a brief prose identification and a sāo-style rhapsody.
- 天籟卷之中 (Middle): water sounds, thunder, rain, and related natural phenomena, each with prose and verse.
- 天籟卷之下 (Lower): additional natural sounds — river rapids, insects, birds — ending abruptly with the cry of the chī 鴟 (owl), whose closing verse alludes to Jia Yi’s 賈誼 owl rhapsody.
The work draws on a range of early cosmological sources, including 《淮南子》, 《呂氏春秋》, and the commentary tradition on the eight winds; the verse component is highly personal, each rhapsody expressing the author’s sorrow and sense of rupture through the medium of natural sound. The title aligns with the Zhuangzi (齊物論) framework in which wind moves through the “ten thousand apertures” of nature to produce the heavenly sounds.
Whether the 地籟 and 人籟 sections were ever composed or simply not transmitted with this edition cannot be determined from the surviving text.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The eight-winds passage preserved in Tōng Yǎ (KR3j0066/11) is the only known external citation of the Lài Jì in a traditional Chinese source. 方以智 compares the Lài Jì account with that in 《呂覽》 and notes several variant names for individual winds, indicating that he read the work closely and valued it as a primary source for historical nomenclature of the winds.
Links
- 方以智 — Tōng Yǎ KR3j0066, juan 11 (external citation)