Bīn tuì lù 賓退錄
Notes Jotted After the Guests Have Gone
by 趙與旹 (Zhào Yǔshí, zì Xíngzhī 行之 / Déxíng 德行, 1175–1231; Sòng imperial clansman, descendant of Tàizǔ in the seventh generation; minor official rising to zhōng yì láng 忠翊郎 and tōngzhí láng 通直郎)
About the work
A late Southern Sòng bǐjì 筆記 in 10 juan, the autograph product of three decades of casual conversation with visitors at Zhào Yǔshí’s home in Guī’ān 歸安 (Húzhōu), set down “after the guests had left” — hence the title Bīntuì lù. The book’s interests are deliberately broad: textual notes on the classics and histories, miscellany on Sòng court precedents and prefectural geography, anecdotes about Sòng poets and officials, evidential corrections of earlier authors, and discursive notes on Buddhist and Daoist matter. The author’s self-preface and the colophon date the assembled manuscript to Jiǎshēn (甲申 = 1224, Jiādìng 17). The Sìkù editors place it explicitly in the lineage of Mèngxī bǐtán 夢溪筆談 and Róngzhāi suíbǐ 容齋隨筆, noting that on poetry the author’s judgments are diffuse but on textual evidentiary work (考証經史辨析典故) “six or seven out of ten entries are precise and substantial.” Catalogued under Záshuō zhī shǔ 雜說之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division (subdivision 3).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Bīntuì lù in ten juan was compiled by Zhào Yǔshí of the Sòng. Yǔshí’s zì was Xíngzhī (note: the preface by Chén Zōnglǐ 陳宗禮 of Bǎoyòu 5 [1257] gives the zì as Déxíng, which disagrees with his tomb-inscription. Perhaps he had two zì; this we cannot be sure of, and have noted it here.) Cross-referenced against the Sòng shǐ imperial-clan genealogy, he was the seventh-generation descendant of Tàizǔ. The Sòng shǐ has no biography for him, and the gazetteers likewise do not record his name. Only in Zhào Mèngjiān’s 趙孟堅 Yízhāi wénbiān 彝齋文編 is there a Gù Lìshuǐ chéng Zhàogōng mùmíng 故麗水丞趙公墓銘 (Tomb-inscription of the late Magistrate of Lìshuǐ, Lord Zhào) which reads: “There is the tomb of Tōngzhí Lord Zhào Xíngzhī of the Sòng, in the prefecture of Ānjí, Guīān county, Xiāngshān plain. The Lord with quick wits stood out in the imperial line; while still in his twentieth year he had already been recommended for the examinations. When Níngzhōu [Níngzōng] ascended the throne, he was appointed by yòu xuǎn 右選 to the post of granary-superintendent, serving in Wù, in Tài, and in Qú prefectures by turn (three posts), and superintended the Imperial Arms Office and the xíng zài cǎoliào chǎng 行在草料場 of the temporary capital. He served on the western steps for more than thirty years and was never for a day at ease in pursuit of the examinations — so from Dīngmǎo [1207] to Yǐmǎo [1219], by the suǒtīng 鎖廳 examination route, he sat for office three times, never matching the spring quota. His accumulated grade reached zhōng yì [láng]. The present sovereign bestowed and exchanged his civil grade. The old system had it that for imperial-clan transfers the grade was set against the holder’s serving rank; for zhōng yì, the corresponding capital office should have followed. Under the new system, after the abolition, what he was finally entitled to amounted only to a routine subordinate post — and he was made chéng [magistrate] of Lìshuǐ. His Lordship’s long acquaintance with the great officers of state was such that they were already prepared to advance him when his illness took an irreversible turn. He was 57. In the eleventh month of Shàodìng 4 [1231] he died. He had memorialized to decline office; the appointment to tōngzhí arrived after his death and he never saw it.” This passage gives the fullest account of Yǔshí’s life. Only the preface to the inscription says that his son Mèngbǎo 孟珤 sought the inscription from “me” as Bǐngxū [1226] jìnshì class-fellow — so Yǔshí must have been the Bǎoqìng 2 (1226) jìnshì under Lǐzōng. Yet the tomb-inscription says he never matched the spring quota — meaning, perhaps, that he passed the jìnshì in the same year as his son Mèngbǎo. (note: Mèngjiān was also not a Bǐngxū jìnshì; the marginal note “代作” beneath the text indicates the inscription was composed for someone else.)
Yǔshí placed colophons at the front and back of the book. The front colophon is undated and says that he was fond of telling guests what he had heard and seen over his life, and that when the guests left (“bīn tuì”) he sometimes jotted these matters down on tablets — hence the title Bīntuì lù. The back colophon is dated èrféng tūntān 閼逢涒灘, i.e. Jiǎshēn (1224, Jiādìng 17). Chén Zōnglǐ’s preface says Yǔshí studied under Cíhú xiānshēng 慈湖先生 — meaning he was a disciple of Yáng Jiǎn 楊簡. Yet the book’s poetic discussions are mostly muddled and superficial, betraying no real understanding of the craft; on textual investigation of the classics and histories, however, and on the elucidation of administrative precedents, six or seven entries out of ten are precise and well-anchored. It is fit to be considered the successor of Mèngxī bǐtán and Róngzhāi suíbǐ. Observe how, regarding the palace lyrics (gōng cí) of Wáng Jiàn 王建 and Lady Huārúi 花蕊夫人, he repeatedly revises his own initial judgment in the light of later research — knowing that careful collation and the labours of years had been required. Before him stood Zhèng Kāngchéng 鄭康成 [Zhèng Xuán]‘s commentaries on the Lǐ and the Shī, whose later notes do not retrofit themselves onto the earlier ones; after him stood Yán Ruòqú 閻若璩’s Shàngshū gǔwén shūzhèng 尚書古文疏證, whose later notes substantiate the earlier ones — gains and losses are preserved together, and one sees clearly how his learning grew more meticulous. Indeed, because one is not certain that one’s first reading is right, one can finally arrive at what is right. Compared with the Sòng scholars who fortified their own first opinions, contradicted their own minds, and contended only to win, his intellectual outlook is set very far apart.
Respectfully revised and submitted, sixth month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Zhào Yǔshí 趙與旹 (1175–1231; zì Xíngzhī 行之 — the alternative zì Déxíng 德行 in Chén Zōnglǐ’s preface may indicate two zì or a transmission error) was a Sòng imperial clansman descended from Tàizǔ in the seventh generation. He was raised in Húzhōu 湖州 (Wūchéng / Guīān 歸安) and never passed the jìnshì examinations, building a journeyman provincial career of granary postings (Wù, Tài, Qú prefectures) and minor central-government supply offices before being appointed magistrate (chéng 丞) of Lìshuǐ 麗水 — an appointment whose corresponding tōngzhí (tōngzhí láng 通直郎) commission arrived only after his death in the eleventh month of Shàodìng 4 (1231) at the age of 57. His master in learning was Yáng Jiǎn 楊簡, Cíhú xiānshēng (1141–1226), one of the principal Sòng inheritors of Lù Jiǔyuān’s 陸九淵 xīnxué 心學; the Sìkù editors note this affiliation but find few traces of distinctively Yáng-school metaphysics in the Bīntuì lù itself.
Lifedates correction: the data/catalogs/meta entry gives 1172–1228, but the Sìkù tíyào (quoting Zhào Mèngjiān’s tomb-inscription) and the CBDB record (id 15109) both give 1175–1231. The catalog dates are followed here only for the persons-list cross-check; the externally verified figures are followed in the person note and abstract.
The Bīntuì lù’s ten juan are the gathered notes of Zhào’s home conversations, set down “bīn tuì” — “after the guests have departed.” The author’s self-preface explains that he originally jotted these matters on tablets without intent to compile; the manuscript thickened over years and he was unwilling to discard it, so he arranged the entries into ten juan. The back-colophon date Jiǎshēn (1224) is the assembled-text date adopted here as both notBefore and notAfter: although the entries themselves accumulated over the preceding two or three decades, the compiled book carries the Jiǎshēn terminus and the author lived another seven years without reissuing it.
The work is canonically záshuō 雜說 and its interest, recognized from the Sìkù onward, lies in the evidential entries on Sòng court institutions, on textual variants in the classics and histories, and on the geography of the southeastern prefectures the author had personally administered. The Sìkù editors’ famously dry assessment — “on poetry he is largely muddled; on textual investigation he is six- or seven-tenths exact” — has held up. Cross-references in the Bīntuì lù to Wáng Jiàn’s Gōng cí and Lady Huārúi’s Gōng cí, where the author returns to a topic to correct his own earlier reading, are characteristically valuable for the evidential tradition.
Catalogued in Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì (under a slightly different juan-count) and in subsequent Yuán and Míng compilations; the Sìkù received text is the standard reference.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. The text is regularly cited as a primary source in modern Chinese-language studies of Southern Sòng kǎo-zhèng, Sòng court institutions, and Húzhōu local history. The standard modern punctuated edition is Zhào Yǔshí 趙與旹 (Qí Zhìpíng 齊治平 ed.), Bīntuì lù 賓退錄, Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè 上海古籍出版社, 1983; also reprinted within Zhū Yìxuán 朱易安 et al. (eds.), Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記, ser. 7.
Other points of interest
The author’s self-described compositional method — recording loose ends after guests’ departure — is one of the more candid descriptions of Sòng bǐjì compilation practice. The book’s incorporation of his own later self-corrections (cited approvingly by the Sìkù editors) is unusual and methodologically interesting: the Sìkù editors compare it to the cumulative architecture of Zhèng Xuán’s classical commentaries and of Yán Ruòqú’s Shàngshū gǔwén shūzhèng.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3 · Záshuō zhī shǔ, Bīntuì lù entry.
- CBDB id 15109 (Zhào Yǔshí).
- Wikidata: no entry located.