Sū shì yǎnyì 蘇氏演義
Master Sū’s Elaborations
by 蘇鶚 (Sū È, zì Déxiáng 德祥, late Táng; preface dated Guāngqǐ 2 = 886)
About the work
A late-Táng bǐjì of antiquarian and philological elaborations on institutional, terminological, and material-culture topics, originally in ten juan but lost from circulation by the high Sòng. The two-juan recension catalogued here is a Qing reconstruction by the Sìkù quánshū editors, assembled from the quotations preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典. The work investigates diǎnzhì 典制 (institutional precedent) and míngwù 名物 (the nomenclature of things), and is famous as the proof-text used by Qing philologists to expose the Táng-era forgery of the Gǔjīn zhù 古今注 attributed to Cuī Bào 崔豹 of the Wèi and the wholesale plagiarism of that work by Mǎ Gǎo 馬縞 in the Zhōnghuá gǔjīn zhù 中華古今注. Catalogued under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division (subdivision záokǎo 雜考).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Sū shì yǎnyì in two juan is the work of Sū È of the Táng. È, zì Déxiáng, a man of Wǔgōng 武功, took the jìnshì in the Guāngqǐ 光啟 era [885–888]; his official career is unknown. He once compiled the Dùyáng zábiān 杜陽雜編 along with this present work; the Zábiān is widely transmitted, but this book had long been lost. We have now pieced it together from the citations in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 and assembled it into book-form. The Zábiān is mere xiǎoshuō (anecdotal fiction); this work, by contrast, brings textual investigation to bear on institutional and material nomenclature. Many of its statements overlap with the received Gǔjīn zhù 古今注 of Cuī Bào 崔豹 of the Wèi and the Zhōnghuá gǔjīn zhù 中華古今注 of Mǎ Gǎo 馬縞, as we have already discussed under those entries. But for the lucky preservation in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, the falsity of Cuī’s book and the plagiarism of Gǎo’s would now be unprovable; this is precisely why the present work must be brought forth and made known, to clarify what is genuine and what spurious. Moreover, of the entries surviving here, more than half were not lifted by either of those two books; their philological exegesis is sober and authoritative, all profitable to the well-read. Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 書錄解題 declares that “in investigating the books and traditions and correcting the names of things, in disentangling errors, it can drive abreast of Lǐ Fú’s 李涪 Kānwù 刊誤, Lǐ Jìwēng’s 李濟翁 Zī xiá jí 資暇集, and Qiū Guāngtíng’s 邱光庭 Jiānmíng shū 兼明書” — and that is no exaggeration. All the more is it worth singling out and preserving for reference. The original was in ten juan; what we have collected from the loose fragments amounts only to this. As ancient books are lost the further we go, so they grow rarer — even a fragment of phoenix-plume is precious. It is not by quantity that they are to be judged. Respectfully revised and submitted, ninth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀 (note: 均 in the original is a typographical slip for 昀), Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Sū È 蘇鶚 (zì Déxiáng 德祥), a native of Wǔgōng 武功 (modern Shǎnxī), took the jìnshì during the Guāngqǐ 光啟 era of Táng Xīzōng 唐僖宗 (885–888); nothing else is recorded of his official career. He is the author of two works of late-Táng prose: the well-known Dùyáng zábiān 杜陽雜編 KR3l0106, a xiǎoshuō-class collection of anecdotes about the Dàzhōng 大中 to Xiántōng 咸通 reigns (ca. 847–874), and the present Sū shì yǎnyì, a serious záokǎo 雜考 work whose author’s preface is dated Guāngqǐ 2 (886) — the date adopted as the composition year here.
The original work was in ten juan and was already rare by the Northern Sòng; Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí (mid-13th c.) lists it but already in reduced compass. The text was effectively lost in the YuánMíng transmission; the Sìkù quánshū editors reconstituted a two-juan recension from the surviving citations in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典. The work is paired by Chén Zhènsūn (and again by the Sìkù editors of KR3j0029 Jiānmíng shū) with Yán Shīgǔ’s 顏師古 Kuāngmiù zhèngsú, Lǐ Fú’s 李涪 Kānwù KR3j0027, Lǐ Kuāngyì’s 李匡乂 Zī xiá jí and Qiū Guāngtíng’s 丘光庭 Jiānmíng shū KR3j0029 as one of the principal Táng záokǎo texts.
The work’s lasting philological significance is twofold. First, on internal evidence, the Sòng-era reconstructions of the Yǎnyì preserved by Hóng Mài 洪邁 and the Qing Sìkù recension constitute the principal proof that the received Gǔjīn zhù 古今注 attributed to Cuī Bào 崔豹 of the WèiJìn period is in fact a Táng-era fabrication or massively interpolated text, and that Mǎ Gǎo’s 馬縞 (Five Dynasties) Zhōnghuá gǔjīn zhù 中華古今注 is largely lifted from the Yǎnyì and from the pseudo-Cuī-Bào text. Second, the work offers a substantial and otherwise-unrecoverable corpus of late-Táng entries on the etymology of common terms, ritual implements, official titulature, and material objects (vehicles, dress, food).
The dating bracket is set to 886 (preface) for both notBefore and notAfter: the work was complete by the dated preface and not significantly revised thereafter.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Modern Chinese punctuated editions exist in the Cóngshū jíchéng 叢書集成 series and in the Quán Táng wǔdài bǐjì 全唐五代筆記 (Sānqín Chūbǎnshè, 2012). The work is a standard prooftext in modern Chinese studies of pseudepigraphic bǐjì and of the history of the Gǔjīn zhù corpus (e.g., Wáng Guówéi 王國維, Guāntáng jílín 觀堂集林, on the Gǔjīn zhù; Yú Jiāxí 余嘉錫, Sìkù tíyào biànzhèng 四庫提要辨證, juan 12); no Western-language translation exists.
Other points of interest
The Sū shì yǎnyì is one of the more dramatic Sìkù reconstructions: the Qianlong-era editors, using the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn as a textual base, were able to restore a work whose loss had until then concealed the late-Táng forgery of the Gǔjīn zhù. The case is much cited in modern accounts of how the Sìkù project actually contributed to philological scholarship beyond mere book-collection.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Sū shì yǎnyì entry.
- Companion work: KR3l0106 Dùyáng zábiān 杜陽雜編 (also by Sū È).
- CBDB id 92831 (Sū È).