Yìyú túzàn 異魚圖贊
Illustrated Encomia of Strange Fish by 楊愼 (Yáng Shèn, 撰)
About the work
A four-juàn mid-Míng-period rhyme-verse encomium-collection on rare and exotic fish (and other marine animals — shellfish, mollusks, crustaceans), composed in the zàn 贊 (encomium) verse-form modelled on Guō Pú 郭璞 and Zhāng Jùn 張駿. By the great mid-Míng polymath-and-exile Yáng Shèn 楊愼 (1488–1559), composed during his long Yúnnán exile. Dated by self-preface to Jiājìng jiǎchén 11th month 15th day (= late 1544). Drawing on Wàn Zhèn’s 萬震 Nánzhōu yìwù zhì and Shěn Huáiyuǎn’s 沈懷遠 Wùzhì, Yáng composes 86 zàn (encomia) of four-character rhymed verse covering 87 “strange fish” varieties (in three juàn), plus an appended fourth juàn of 30 zàn covering 35 “marine miscellanea” (hǎicuò 海錯) — shellfish, snails, mollusks, sea-cucumber, etc. Total 122 varieties in 116 zàn.
The work was originally circulated only as Yáng’s private manuscript (“for keeping under one’s pillow”) and was not woodblock-printed until Wànlì wùshēn (1608) by Fàn Yǔnlín 范允臨, half a century after Yáng’s death.
Tiyao
We submit that the Yìyú túzàn is in four juàn by Yáng Shèn of the Míng. Shèn’s Gǔyīn lüèlì and other works are already separately catalogued. At the head is the Jiājìng jiǎchén (1544) self-preface, which says: “A Western-state painting-history’s Náncháo yìyú tú (Strange Fish of the Southern Dynasties Illustrations) — I was about to repaint-and-restore it. Examining the names, many are mis-set and the text not refined-and-tame. So I took Wàn Zhèn’s and Shěn Huáiyuǎn’s Wùzhì*, modelled them on Guō Pú’s and Zhāng Jùn’s encomium-style, either restating their finished compositions or expanding with new text. Within the lines, evidence sufficient to convey the meaning; outside the words, sight not requiring the spread-of-paint or the brilliance-of-color.”*
In all, the fish-illustrations are in three juàn covering 87 varieties, with 86 zàn; appended is a one-juàn Hǎicuò (Marine Miscellany) of 35 varieties with 30 zàn. The diction is rather gǔjùn (ancient-cultivated). Although the glossing-and-explanation does no more than sketch the form briefly, while he hastily claims it can “substitute for illustration” — this is unavoidable self-flattery. Yet the overall purport is yǎshàn (cultivated-and-rich), suitable for the broadly-learned to consult. Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 5 (1781).
Abstract
The work is a major Míng-period ichthyological compilation and one of the principal documents of Yáng Shèn’s exile-period scholarship. Yáng Shèn — exiled to Yúnnán in 1524 after the Great Rites Controversy and never permitted to return to the capital despite the sentence’s legal expiry — turned his enormous philological-and-scholarly energy in exile to a wide range of subjects, including this zàn-encomium treatment of strange fish-and-marine-creatures.
The work covers a remarkable range of marine and freshwater fauna: 87 fish varieties + 35 marine miscellany = 122 species total. Many are exotic species from southern and tropical waters (Yúnnán, Sìchuān, the Indian Ocean), including identifiable types such as: sìbù xiàng 四不像 (sea-cow or dugong, the “Four-Unlike”); jiāorén 鮫人 (mermaid-like marine being); fúyú 鯆魚 (a kind of skate or ray); tǔyún 吐霧 (cuttlefish — “the Mist-Expirer”); hǎitún 海豚 (dolphin); jīngyú 鯨魚 (whale, with zàn on its size); zhāngyú 章魚 (octopus); bǎobèi 寶貝 (cowrie shell); various coral and shellfish.
The zàn (encomium) form is significant: it is the classical four-character rhymed-verse mode used in Guō Pú’s Shānhǎijīng zàn and in the Ěryǎ verse glosses — Yáng deliberately models on these to give the work canonical scholarly weight. Each zàn is short (typically 8–12 lines of four-character verse) and densely allusive.
The composition date is fixed by the self-preface to Jiājìng jiǎchén (1544). The work was originally untitled and unpublished — circulating only as Yáng’s private manuscript — and was first printed at Yúnnán in 1608 by Fàn Yǔnlín, with Fàn’s own tící (head-inscription).
Translations and research
- Schorr, Adam. 1993. “Connoisseurship and the Defense Against Vulgarity: Yang Shen (1488–1559) and his Work”. Monumenta Serica 41. The standard English-language treatment of Yáng Shèn.
- Cài Měibiāo 蔡美彪. 1990. Yáng Shèn yǔ Yúnnán 楊慎與雲南. Kūnmíng: Yúnnán rénmín chū-bǎn-shè.
- Métailié, Georges. 2015. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. VI part 4. Cambridge UP.
Other points of interest
The work is the principal predecessor and source-of-materials for Hú Shì’ān’s 胡世安 Yìyú túzàn jiān 異魚圖贊箋 (KR3i0049) and Yìyú túzàn bǔ (KR3i0050) of the early Qīng, which expand Yáng Shèn’s foundational text with extensive commentary and additional species. The trio of works (KR3i0048, KR3i0049, KR3i0050) form the most comprehensive pre-modern Chinese ichthyological-marine-biological compendium.
The zàn on jīngyú (whale) is particularly notable: it documents the late-Míng Chinese knowledge of whales — drawn from observation at the Fújiàn coast — and notes the whale’s mammalian biology (suckling young), one of the earliest Chinese statements of this fact.