西溪叢語

Xīxī cóngyǔ 西溪叢語

Collected Talk from West Stream

by 姚寬 (Yáo Kuān, 1105–1162; zì Lìngwēi 令威, hào Xīxī 西溪)

About the work

A Southern-Sòng bǐjì of philological and literary observation, in two juan (the Sìkù tíyāo gives “three juan” but the transmitted recension is two), by the official, mathematician, and astronomer Yáo Kuān 姚寬 of Shèngxiàn 嵊縣 (modern Zhèjiāng). Most entries are textual collations and corrections — readings in the Wénxuǎn 文選, errors in poetic citation, mis-identifications of characters in editions of Hán Yù 韓愈, Sū Shì 蘇軾, Wáng Ānshí 王安石, and Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅. The Sìkù editors place it among the worthier kǎozhèng 考證 works of the Southern Sòng — “yú duō xiá shǎo” 瑜多瑕少, more virtues than flaws — even while listing several errors of attribution and over-reaching identifications.

Note on the catalog date: the project meta records “date: 1097” for this entry. This date is incompatible with Yáo Kuān’s lifedates as recorded in CBDB (id 10758: 1105–1162) and in standard reference works including the Sòng shǐ and the Jiātài Kuàijī zhì 嘉泰會稽志. 1097 is in fact the jìnshì year of Yáo’s father Yáo Shùnmíng 姚舜明 (Shàoshèng 4 = 1097), as recorded in the present tíyāo. The catalog meta has confused father and son. The actual composition window for the Xīxī cóngyǔ falls within Yáo Kuān’s mature career (post-Shàoxīng 10 = 1140) and before his death in 1162 — corrected here.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Xīxī cóngyǔ in three juan, by Yáo Kuān of the Sòng. Kuān, zì Lìngwēi, was a man of Shèngxiàn. His father Shùnmíng 舜明 took the jìnshì in Shàoshèng 4 [1097] and after the southern crossing held office as Hùbù shìláng 户部侍郎 and Huīyóugé dàizhì 徽猷閣待制. Kuān entered office on his father’s privilege (bǔguān) and rose to quánShàngshū hùbùyuánwàiláng 權尚書户部員外郎 and Shūmìyuàn biānxiūguān 樞密院編修官.

His book is much given to verifying discrepancies among the standard works. For example: he refutes the Wénxuǎn’s reading “yù” 玉 in the Shénnǚ fù 神女賦 as a mis-engraving for “wáng” 王; refutes Liú Bān’s 劉攽 argument that Xiāo Hé 蕭何 had not been Gōngcáo 功曹; refutes Huáng Tíngjiān’s 黃庭堅 claim that the rhyme of Xú Hào’s 徐浩 guī 瓌 néng 能 is núlái fǎn 奴來切; refutes Ōuyáng Xiū’s 歐陽修 question about Zhāng Jì’s 張繼 “midnight bell”; refutes Wáng Ānshí’s 王安石 Shī jīng xīnyì 詩經新義 reading of tóngguǎn 彤管 as xiāo and shēng. All these are extremely careful. As to his investigation of the origin of the GǎnZhēn fù 感甄賦 — he does not refute its falsity. He says that Tāo Qián’s 陶潛 “Tián Zǐchūn” 田子春 is the same as Tián Shēng 田生 of the Hàn shū “Liú Zé” 劉澤 biography; he says that the huángshān shàonián 黃衫少年 in Dù Fǔ’s poem is the huángshān kè 黃衫客 of the Huò Xiǎoyù zhuàn 霍小玉傳; and he holds that Dù Fǔ’s “jùnyì Bào cānjūn” 俊逸鮑參軍 line was meant as a satire on Lǐ Bái 李白 — all these stretch and force the meaning. In annotating Liú Yǔxī’s 劉禹錫 poem on wēngzhòng 翁仲, he does not realize that the term was not in fact composed at Luòyáng; in annotating Lǐ Bái’s poem on the tuòjǐng 唾井 he does not realize it derives from the Yùtái xīnyǒng 玉臺新詠; in annotating “Wáng Sòng” 王宋’s poem he cites Qín Jiā’s 秦嘉 Zèngfù shī 贈婦詩 mistakenly attributing the first poem to Xú Shū 徐淑; in citing the Shīpǐn 詩品 he wrongly emends the word bǎochāi 寳釵. All these are loose and erroneous.

But on the whole, the gems outnumber the flaws — he is a kǎozhèng author with foundations. Yè Shì’s Shuǐxīn jí 水心集 contains a postface to Xīxī jí 西溪集; he praises this book for its [readings of] yì 易 Féidùn 肥遯 as Fēidùn 飛遯 and of Mèngzǐ “bùruò shì jiè” 不若是恝 as “bùruò shì pò” 不若是&KR2202; — two cases in particular. Yè further reports that when Hǎilíngwáng 海陵王 of the Jīn invaded southward, Kuān had calculated by the courses of Tàiyǐ 太乙 and Yínghuò 熒惑 that the Jīn must fail; not long after came the affair of Cǎizhōu 采洲. Yè further says that Kuān’s writings ran to two hundred juan, comprehending without exception every same and different thing of antiquity and the present; further that his yuèfǔ in the old style were liquid and plaintive, his shorter and longer regulated verse free of all ingenious thinness, entering wholly into the old lǜ — placing him a rank above [contemporaries]. He was indeed a literary specialist of broad learning and a man of one age.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777].

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

Yáo Kuān 姚寬 (1105–1162, CBDB id 10758, zì Lìngwēi 令威, hào Xīxī 西溪 — whence the name of this bǐjì) was a Shèngxiàn 嵊縣 native (modern Shèngzhōu 嵊州 in Zhèjiāng), the son of Hùbù shìláng and Huīyóugé dàizhì Yáo Shùnmíng 姚舜明 (a Shàoshèng 4 = 1097 jìnshì). Yáo Kuān entered office through his father’s privilege rather than by examination and held a series of fiscal and military-secretariat posts, ending his career as quánShàngshū hùbù yuánwài láng 權尚書户部員外郎 and Shūmìyuàn biānxiūguān 樞密院編修官. Yè Shì 葉適 in his preface to Yáo’s collected works (Xīxī jí 西溪集) records that Yáo correctly predicted, on the basis of Tàiyǐ 太乙 and Yínghuò 熒惑 (Mars) calculations, that the Jīn invasion under Hǎilíngwáng 完顏亮 would fail — borne out by the disastrous Jīn defeat at Cǎishí 采石磯 (1161) under Yú Yǔnwén 虞允文.

Yáo Kuān was something of a polymath: in addition to the Xīxī cóngyǔ and his collected works he wrote on mathematics (the Xīxī wángshù 西溪忘數, on calculation methods now lost), on the Tàixuánjīng 太玄經, and on calendrical astronomy. The two-juan Xīxī cóngyǔ preserved here is a small fraction of what Yè Shì describes as a literary output of “two hundred juan.”

The Xīxī cóngyǔ is structured as straightforward kǎozhèng: textual emendations to canonical works (Wénxuǎn, Shī jīng with Wáng Ānshí’s Xīnyì, the rhyme-systems of Sòng poetry), corrections of historical mis-identifications (Liú Bān on Xiāo Hé), and bibliographic corrections (the citation issues with the Yùtái xīnyǒng and Shīpǐn). The Sìkù editors’ praise of his readings of yì 易 Féidùn 肥遯 as Fēidùn 飛遯 and of Mèngzǐ “bùruò shì jiè” 不若是恝 as “bùruò shì pò” 不若是&KR2202; — both adopted from Yè Shì’s earlier postface — singles out two emendations that became standard in later philology.

Date: The catalog meta gives “1097” for this work, which is incorrect — it is the jìnshì year of Yáo Kuān’s father Yáo Shùnmíng. Yáo Kuān himself was born in 1105 (CBDB) and died in 1162. The Xīxī cóngyǔ’s entries reference SòngJīn relations (e.g. the Hǎilíngwáng prediction commemorated in Yè Shì’s postface) and post-date Yáo’s mature career. The bracket adopted here is notBefore 1140, notAfter 1162 (death).

The book is recorded by Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí and by Yè Shì’s postface to Xīxī jí; in independent transmission it was nearly lost and survives mostly through Sìkù and Cóngshū jíchéng witnesses.

Translations and research

No substantial European-language secondary literature located. Modern Chinese editions:

• Xīxī cóngyǔ 西溪叢語, in the Sìkù quánshū recension and in Cóngshū jíchéng chūbiān 叢書集成初編.
• Kǒng Fánlǐ 孔凡禮 (ed.), Xīxī cóngyǔ · Jiā-shì jiùwén 西溪叢語·家世舊聞, Zhōnghuá shūjú 1993 — the standard modern punctuated edition.
• Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 series (Dàxiàng chūbǎnshè).

For Yáo Kuān’s astronomy and mathematics see the entries on Tài-yǐ 太乙 calculation in Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China vol. 3, where Yáo’s prediction is briefly mentioned in the context of Sòng celestial divination.

Other points of interest

Yáo Kuān is one of the few Southern-Sòng bǐjì authors whose calculation skill is independently attested. Yè Shì’s postface to Xīxī jí, repeated in the present tíyāo, ties the prediction of the Jīn invasion’s failure to specific astronomical observations on Tàiyǐ and Yínghuò (Mars) — this is one of the better-recorded cases of practical astrological-political application by a Sòng official, and the favourable outcome (the Jīn defeat at Cǎishí, 1161) made Yáo a minor figure in the prognostic tradition.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Xīxī cóngyǔ entry.
• Yè Shì 葉適, postface to Xīxī jí 西溪集, in Yè Shì jí 葉適集.
• Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 series.