Yījuéliáo zájì 猗覺寮雜記
Miscellaneous Notes from the Studio of Awakening
by 朱翌 (Zhū Yì, 1097/1098–1167; zì Xīnzhòng 新仲, hào Qiánshān jūshì 灊山居士)
About the work
A two-juan bǐjì of philological and antiquarian notes by the Southern-Sòng poet and zhōngshū shèrén 中書舍人 Zhū Yì 朱翌, compiled during his exile in Shàozhōu 韶州 (modern Sháoguān 韶關 in Guǎngdōng) after 1147 — the so-called Wǔrùn 五閏 period during which he was banished by the Qín Huì 秦檜 faction and obliged to retreat to a Buddhist monastery, deprived of his books. Of the 435 entries, the upper juan is given over to shīhuà 詩話 in the strict philological mode (textual evidence and source-criticism, with no aesthetic judgements on the poems’ “gōngzhuō” 工拙), while the lower juan ranges across literary and historical questions. The work was preserved by Zhū’s son Zhū Qí 朱軝, who as deputy prefect (tōngshǒu) of Gànzhōu 贛州 had it printed and asked the Hóng brothers — Hóng Shì 洪适 and after him Hóng Mài 洪邁 — for a preface; Hóng Mài duly composed one in Qìngyuán 3 (1197), thirty years after Zhū’s death. The book was widely admired in the Sòng (Liú Kèzhuāng’s 劉克莊 Hòucūn jí 後村集 calls Zhū “kǎozhèng” of the highest rank), and the Sìkù editors describe it as second only to Hóng Mài’s KR3j0038 Róngzhāi suíbǐ 容齋隨筆 in the Sòng shuōbù 説部.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yījuéliáo zájì in two juan, composed by Zhū Yì of the Sòng. Yì, zì Xīnzhòng, hào Qiánshān jūshì, was a man of Shūzhōu; he passed the jìnshì in the Zhènghé 政和 era and after the southern crossing held office as Zhōngshū shèrén 中書舍人. The upper juan of this compilation is entirely shīhuà 詩話, restricted to verifying loci and authorities and not commenting on the craft or clumsiness of the language; the lower juan freely treats literary matters and reaches into history. A recent woodblock printing by Mr. Bào of the Zhībùzú zhāi 知不足齋 (Bào Tíngbó 鮑廷博) split sixty-eight items off from the lower juan and inserted them into the upper to balance the page-count — this departs profoundly from the original layout the ancients intended. The original placed at the front a single letter to Chéngxiàng Hóng Shì 洪适 requesting a preface; Bào shifted this to the back of the work, also not as it was originally. Hóng Shì died before he could write the preface, and his younger brother Hóng Mài 洪邁 first composed one — calling Zhū “exhausting the Classics in his examination of antiquity, reaching upward to the Fēng and the Yǎ and ranging laterally to the histories and biographies.” Liú Kèzhuāng’s 劉克莊 Hòucūn jí 後村集 also greatly praises Zhū’s work of textual verification.
Today, considering this book: in the case of Dù Fǔ’s 杜甫 line “Yǐ shàngrén máozhāi 已上人茅齋” and the verse “tiānjí mànqīng sī 天棘蔓青絲” (lit. “celestial-thorn vines green threads”), [Zhū] consults the Běncǎo and emends it to diānjí 顛棘 — a far-fetched stretch. For Sū Shì’s 蘇軾 line “yí cán shǐ ěr jiǎn rú wèng 宜蠶使爾繭如甕,” the matter actually comes from the Lièxiān zhuàn 列仙傳, but he cites the spurious Shùyì jì 述異記. For Hán Yù’s 韓愈 Xiè Zìrán shī 謝自然詩, which is plainly a Táng poem, [Zhū] says it derives from the Fēngsú tōng 風俗通. For Dù Fǔ’s Lǐ Cháo bāfēn xiǎozhuàn gē, all extant editions read “kǔxiàn Guānghé shàng gǔ lì 苦縣光和尚骨立” but [Zhū] mistakenly reads gǔlì 骨力 and cites the Nán shǐ biography of Zhāng Róng 張融 in support. The matter of the magpies filling the river-bridge appears in the Yánshì jiāxùn 顏氏家訓 and in Yǔ Jiānwú’s 庾肩吾 poetry, and again in Bái Jūyì’s 白居易 Liùtiè 六帖 — yet [Zhū] dismisses it among items like “father-in-law and brother-in-law” 親家 as mere súshuō 俗説 (case note: Mǎ Gǎo’s 馬縞 Zhōnghuá gǔjīn zhù 中華古今注 also takes the magpie story as derived from súshuō, but Súshuō is in fact a work by Shěn Yuē 沈約 — its title is recorded in the Suí zhì 隋志). Sū Zhé’s 蘇轍 Shī zhuàn 詩傳 still preserves the opening line of the Xiǎo xù 小序, yet [Zhū] repeatedly speaks of “fèi xù” 廢序 (abolishing the Xù). “Táng” and “Yú” are dynastic designations, yet [Zhū] says “Yáo’s surname was Táng, Shùn’s surname was Yú” — these are all unavoidable lapses and errors. As to the entry on léiqín 雷琴, he cites Yuán Zhěn’s 元稹 poem-note as proving the maker was a Shǔ artisan; and the Hèruò 賀若 entry, where he cites the Tángshū biography of Wáng Yá 王涯 to prove [the player] was Hèruò Yí 賀若夷 — without realizing that Duàn Ānjié’s 段安節 Yuèfǔ záilù 樂府雜錄 already records that during the Zhēnyuán era Master Léi of Chéngdū 成都雷生 excelled at chiseling lutes, his craft surpassing all under heaven, with many players, and that during the Tàihé era there was Hèruò Yí who was particularly skilled and later as dàizhào 待詔 played a tune for Emperor Wénzōng who praised him and bestowed crimson robes on him — this becoming “the crimson-robe tune” 賜緋調 to this day. Both items have explicit sources and need no peripheral evidence; nor can [Zhū’s notes] be called probing the roots.
Yet the cases where his citations strike home are too numerous to count, and among Sòng shuōbù he is fairly counted second to the Róngzhāi suíbǐ 容齋隨筆 — fitly so, given Hóng Mài’s preface vouching for him. Respectfully revised and submitted, fourth month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
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
Zhū Yì 朱翌 (1097–1167 per CBDB id 3258; catalog meta gives 1098–1167) was a Zhènghé-era jìnshì 進士 from Shūzhōu Huáiníng 舒州懷寧 (modern Ānhuī, Qiánshānxiàn) who rose to Zhōngshū shèrén in the early Southern Sòng. His political alignment with Zhào Dǐng 趙鼎 brought him into collision with Qín Huì 秦檜; in Shàoxīng 17 (1147) he was banished to Shàozhōu in Guǎngdōng, where he spent five intercalary years (the “Wǔrùn” 五閏 of his own preface), confined to a temple cell, with neither books nor visitors. The Yījuéliáo zájì — named for the studio he occupied at the monastery — was compiled in those years from memory and from such books as he could borrow.
Hóng Mài’s preface (Qìngyuán 3 = 1197) is the principal external document for the work’s transmission. He recounts that Zhū had originally entrusted the editing and printing to Hóng Shì 洪适 (eldest of the three Hóng brothers, author of the Lìshì 隸釋), but that Hóng Shì died before completing the task; Zhū’s son Zhū Qí 朱軝, while serving as tōngshǒu of Gànzhōu, then carried out the printing and asked Hóng Mài for the preface that Hóng Shì had not lived to write. The accompanying letter from Zhū to Hóng Shì, originally placed at the head of the volume, was relocated to the end by the late-Qīng Bào Tíngbó 鮑廷博 in his Zhībùzú zhāi recension, against the Sìkù editors’ protest that this departed from the original arrangement.
The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1130, notAfter 1167) reflects Zhū Yì’s mature compositional life: the bulk of the entries clearly post-date his metropolitan service and were largely consolidated during the Shàoxīng 17 – Lóngxīng 1 (1147–1163) Shàozhōu exile, with the terminus ante quem set by his death in 1167.
The work was admired throughout the Sòng. Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 in his Hòucūn jí 後村集 singled out Zhū’s kǎozhèng 考證 work; Hóng Mài compared his historical-philological reach to Hán Yù’s reading of the Fēng and Yǎ. The Sìkù editors temper this by listing several ill-judged emendations (the tiānjí / diānjí misemendation in Dù Fǔ; the misattribution of a Hán Yù poem to the Fēngsú tōng; the careless reading of “gǔlì” for “gǔlì” in Dù Fǔ’s Lǐ Cháo poem; etc.) and conclude that Zhū could nonetheless be ranked second only to Hóng Mài’s KR3j0038 Róngzhāi suíbǐ among Sòng shuōbù. The work was lost in independent transmission for some time and survives via the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and the Sìkù recension; the Bào Tíngbó Zhībùzú zhāi cóngshū edition is a separate Qīng witness with the chapter-rebalancing the Sìkù tíyāo censures.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language secondary literature located. The standard modern Chinese textual treatment is the Zhī-bù-zú zhāi cóngshū 知不足齋叢書 edition; modern punctuated reprints exist in the Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 series (Zhū Yì’ān 朱易安 and Fù Xuáncōng 傅璇琮, eds., Dàxiàng chūbǎnshè, 2003–2013).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyāo records a small but interesting bibliographic curiosity: Zhū Yì cites the work Súshuō 俗説 as if it were a generic register of “popular sayings,” whereas in fact (as the editors note) Súshuō is the title of an actual book by Shěn Yuē 沈約, recorded in the Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì. Zhū’s misreading of his own source-tradition is exactly the kind of philological slip that Hóng Mài’s Róngzhāi suíbǐ makes a sport of correcting.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Yījuéliáo zájì entry.
- Hóng Mài 洪邁, preface to Yījuéliáo zájì, dated Qìngyuán 3 (1197).
- Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 series.