王氏談錄

Wángshì tán lù 王氏談錄

The Wáng-family Conversation-Record

by 王欽臣 (Wáng Qīnchén, zì Zhòngzhì 仲至, fl. 1067–1093; granted jìnshì status; Dàizhì of Zhī Chéngdé jūn), recording the words of his father 王洙 (Wáng Zhū, zì Yuánshū 原叔, 998–1057; Shìdú xuéshì and Shìjiǎng xuéshì; posthumous title Wén 文)

About the work

A 1-juan Northern Sòng bǐjì of 99 entries, transmitted under the name of Wáng Zhū but in fact compiled by his son Wáng Qīnchén — the entries are framed as “my late father said” (gōng yuē 公曰, xiān gōng yuē 先公曰) and explicitly record his father Wáng Zhū’s words. Of the 99 entries, more than 70 refer to xiān gōng / gōng in this way, making the editorial situation transparent. The Shūlù jiětí and the modern editors’ identification credit Wáng Qīnchén as the compiler. The book preserves substantial mid-Northern-Sòng connoisseur’s lore: calligraphy and brush-method, painting, classical exegesis (with the celebrated huì shì hòu sù 繪事後素 entry quoted by Zhū Xī in the Lúnyǔ jí zhù), antiquities, ink-and-stationery (the famous Lǐ Tíngguī ink entries), music, family-instruction, and contemporary court conversation.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Wángshì tán lù in one juan does not record the author’s name. The Shuō fú lists it as Wáng Zhū zhuàn; the Shūlù jiětí records it as compiled by the Hànlín xuéshì of Nánjīng Wáng Zhū’s son recording his father’s words. Now examining the book: in all 99 entries, those referring to xiān gōng and gōng number over 70 — so it is clearly not Wáng Zhū’s own composition. The compiler of this book saw that at the end of one entry was the colophon “editorial-recovery viewing book-list, end-note: Wáng Zhū respectfully recorded,” and therefore assumed the whole book was from Wáng Zhū’s hand; he did not realize that this one entry was by a pre-Jiāyòu author whom Wáng Zhū had transcribed and colophoned, and that his son appended this at the end. No one composes their own book and labels themselves “respectfully recorded.”

His [Wáng Zhū’s] gloss of huì shì hòu sù — “Painting comes after the white” = the Kǎogōngjì’s hòu sù gōng 後素工 (the painter-of-white-pigment-last craftsman) — is followed by Zhūzǐ in the Jí zhù. His argument that in book-collation variant-readings should be preserved together (“variant tradition both retained”) and that classical exegesis must not change the character to suit the sense — both are well-judged. His suggestion that 校書 annotations of two characters and above should be labeled yī yún 一云 (“one [recension] says”) and single-character variants yī zuò 一作 (“alternatively reads”) is also well-reasoned.

Wáng Zhū’s zì was Yuánshū; native of Yīngtiān Sòngchéng (modern Shāngqiū). Top-grade jìnshì; ended career as Shìdú xuéshì concurrent with Shìjiǎng xuéshì; posthumous title Wén. His son Qīnchén’s zì was Zhòngzhì; granted jìnshì status by imperial appointment; ended career as Dàizhì, Zhī Chéngdé jūn. According to the biography and Dōngdū shì lüè, Zhū’s son was only Qīnchén alone — so this book is precisely Qīnchén’s record.

Respectfully revised and submitted, third month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Wáng Zhū 王洙 (998–1057), zì Yuánshū 原叔, posthumous title Wén 文, of Sòngchéng 宋城 (Yīngtiān 應天 [Nánjīng] 南京 = Shāngqiū 商丘, Hénán). One of the most learned Northern Sòng scholars and court philologists; senior figure in the imperial calligraphy and seal-script work of the Rénzōng period; Shìdú xuéshì, Shìjiǎng xuéshì, Hànlín xuéshì chéngzhǐ. His son Wáng Qīnchén 王欽臣 (zì Zhòngzhì 仲至, fl. 1067–1093) granted jìnshì status, served as Dàizhì, Zhī Chéngdé jūn. The Wángshì tán lù is Wáng Qīnchén’s filial record of his father’s words on calligraphy, classical exegesis, painting, music, family-instruction, antiquities, ink-and-stationery, and contemporary court affairs.

The book is methodologically interesting as one of the more concrete Northern Sòng “tán lù” (conversation-records) preserving a major scholar’s daily conversation rather than a unified treatise. Major contents:

• Wáng Zhū’s family-instruction entries on filial piety (the famous opening xùn zǐ entry — describing his grandfather Wáng’s perfect filial conduct toward great-grandmother Qī).
• Calligraphy and seal-script: Wáng Zhū’s reform of lì shū (clerical script) into a new mature style after his imperially-commissioned work on the Xiàn Mù gōng zhǔ stele; the fú dèng 撥鐙 brush-method transmitted from Jiāngnán via the Xú brothers (Xú Xuàn 徐鉉 and Xú Kǎi 徐鍇) to Wú Zūnyì 吳遵義 and others; the systematic exposition of brush-form.
• Classical exegesis: the huì shì hòu sù gloss (incorporated by Zhū Xī into the Sì shū jí zhù); the Zǐ Sāngbózǐ identification; the Zhèngshì zhù Yì discussion; the Tián zhāng / Tàixuán discussions.
• Ink and stationery: the celebrated Lǐ Tíngguī mò 李廷珪墨 entries (with detailed authentication-method including the “Shèzhōu Lǐ Tíngguī mò” inscription-tracking method).
• Painting: anecdotes about Xú Xī 徐熙, Xǔ Dàoníng 許道寧 (compared to the Qīngzhōu Lǐ Chéng 李成), Huáng Quán 黃筌; Huáng Quán’s báitù painting at Mèng Chǎng’s birthday.
• Antiquities: the imperial Jǐngyòu-period bronze and jade objects with Wáng Zhū’s identifications.
• Court anecdotes: the Yàn Shū 晏殊 / Zhāng Diān 張顛 anecdote on the Jīnlíng banquet golden belt; the Lì Fáng 李防 jīn dài (golden belt) story; many bǐ fǎ (brush-method) anecdotes; the Lǐ Yánniǎn (Wèi Wēnzhōng) anecdote on inheritance and learning.

The closing biānlù guān lǎn shūmù — the comprehensive book-list and inquiry-list of Wáng Zhū’s editorial-life — is one of the more substantial Northern Sòng records of imperial-library editorial practice (and one of the document-sets that the Sìkù editors identify as having been mistaken for an authorial colophon).

Dating. Notbefore 1057 (Wáng Zhū’s death) — the book postdates the father’s death and is a filial recollection; notAfter 1085 (Wáng Qīnchén’s mid-career period).

The standard text is the SKQS recension. Modern punctuated edition in Quán Sòng bǐjì 全宋筆記 ser. 1.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language complete translation. The huì shì hòu sù entry is regularly cited in modern Confucian-classics scholarship for the lineage of the Zhū Xī reading. The Lǐ Tíng-guī ink entries are major sources for premodern Chinese ink-history (see Tsien Tsuen-hsuin in his Paper and Printing volume of Science and Civilisation in China).

Other points of interest

The book is one of the earliest substantial Chinese filial bǐjì — the genre of a son recording his father’s words. The honest editorial acknowledgement at the work’s end (Wáng Qīnchén’s preservation of his father’s jìng lù “respectfully recorded” colophon on the editorial-list entry) is itself a model of filial-textual transmission practice. The Wáng family’s role in Northern Sòng court calligraphy, ink-and-stationery connoisseurship, and bibliographic editorial activity is captured here with detail unmatched in any other source.

The work’s preservation of the fú dèng 撥鐙 brush-method transmission (Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之 → Xú Xuàn → Wú Zūnyì) is one of the principal Northern Sòng witnesses to the calligraphic technical-transmission tradition.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3 · Záshuō zhī shǔ, Wángshì tán lù entry.