Shílín yàn yǔ 石林燕語
Banquet Talk from the Stone Forest
by 葉夢得 (Yè Mèngdé, 1077–1148; hào Shílín 石林). The SKQS recension is supplemented by a Kǎo yì 考異 by 宇文紹奕 (Yǔwén Shàoyì, Sòng), which the Sìkù editors restored from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn.
About the work
A 10-juàn Northern-Sòng bǐjì by 葉夢得 (Yè Mèngdé, 1077–1148), the great Sòng polymath of Wúxiàn 吳縣 (modern Sūzhōu). The book records the institutional history, court ceremonies, guānzhì (office-system), and kēmù (examination-system) of the Northern Sòng, drawing on Yè’s own decades of central-government experience (he served Huīzōng, Qīnzōng, and Gāozōng, including as Hànlín xuéshì). The book is one of the principal Northern-Sòng bǐjì witnesses for institutional history, comparable to and frequently paired with 宋敏求’s Chūnmíng tuìcháo lù and 徐度’s Què sǎo biān (KR3j0108) — the three together constituting the institutional-bǐjì trio of the early Southern Sòng.
The SKQS recension is the most complete extant text; the Sìkù editors have restored Yǔwén Shàoyì 宇文紹奕’s Kǎo yì 考異 (a Southern-Sòng critical apparatus) and Wāng Yīngchén 汪應辰’s parallel Shílín yàn yǔ biàn 石林燕語辨 fragments from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, each set under the relevant entries.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Shílín yàn yǔ in ten juan was compiled by Yè Mèngdé of the Sòng. Mèngdé’s Chūnqiū zhuàn is separately recorded. Yè was a Shàoshèng veteran; under Huīzōng he served in the drafting of imperial lún gào (decrees), so his attention to court ceremonies and statutes is long-standing. Accordingly this book’s compilation of old hearings concerns the principal matters of the day; on guān zhì (office system) and kē mù (examinations) it is especially detailed, easily supplementing the gaps in the official histories. It can be read in mutual support with Sòng Mǐnqiú’s Chūnmíng tuìcháo lù and Xú Dù’s Què sǎo biān.
Chén Zhènsūn’s Shū lù jiě tí says it was completed in Xuānhé 5 (1123). Yet one entry on guǎn bàn of the Liáo emissaries is from Jiànyán 3 (1129); another, on the prime ministers, says “from Yuányòu 5 (1090) to today, Shàoxīng 6 (1136)” — so the book was completed after the Southern migration; Chén’s account is inexact.
Only that Yè worked in the chaos of the Northern–Southern Sòng transition, with books in disorder, sometimes his memory failed or details were incomplete. Wāng Yīngchén accordingly composed a Shílín yàn yǔ biàn, and Yǔwén Shàoyì of Chéngdū (note: of Shàoyì’s career nothing is known; in the Jiādìng period there was a Shūmìshǐ Yǔwén Shàojié, perhaps his brother) also composed a Kǎo yì to correct it. Wāng’s book Chén Zhènsūn already records as “not seen” — apparently rare even by late Sòng. The Rúxué jǐng wù (a Southern-Sòng anonymous compilation) cites some entries that agree with Shàoyì’s Kǎo yì, scattered through the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn but too few to form a separate volume; only Shàoyì’s book can still be reconstructed in bulk. We have respectfully collected and collated it, each entry appended below its corresponding entry in Yè’s text.
Some of Shàoyì’s hearings, dates, and scribal-corrections are excessively raised — too much like a magnifying glass and tweezers, in the manner of Liú Xián’s regulating Dù Yù or Wú Zhěn’s correcting Ōuyáng Xiū; yet the yuán wén corroboration is in eight or nine of every ten cases exact. So the original Yàn yǔ together with the Kǎo yì — read in conjunction — is, of one dynasty’s records, a most useful body of historical scholarship.
Furthermore the Yè edition: Sòng block-prints are rare; the early-Míng dà zì edition’s reprint is also seldom seen; the current Máo Jìn Jīndài mìshū recension has many errors; the Shāng Jùn Bài hǎi recension is the worst. We have collated against all recensions and the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn version, correcting errors and supplementing lacunae, restoring the work as close as may be to its original.
Respectfully revised and submitted, third month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781).
Abstract
The Shílín yàn yǔ — “banquet talk from the Stone Forest,” after Yè’s Bīanshān 卞山 retreat south of Húzhōu — is Yè’s principal institutional bǐjì and the foundation of his reputation as a bǐjì writer (alongside the better-known Shílín shī huà). Yè’s own preface, dated Xuānhé 5 (1123) and addressed retrospectively after a Jiànyán 2 (1128) revision following the Jīngkāng catastrophe, locates the genesis of the book in his 1123 retreat to the Bīanshān after declining further central office; the inner content, however, was supplemented through the early Southern Sòng (datable entries through Shàoxīng 6 = 1136). The Sìkù editors correct Chén Zhènsūn’s Shū lù jiě tí on this point — Chén’s “Xuānhé 5” reflects only the original preface, not the compilation’s completion.
The book is one of the most substantial Northern-Sòng bǐjì witnesses for institutional history. Topics include: guān zhì (office system), kē mù (examinations and the jìnshì corpus), court ceremony, the zǎixiàng lineage from Yuányòu through Shàoxīng, the Hànlín yuàn (where Yè himself served), the Yùshǐ tái, the Shūmì yuàn, the position and treatment of Liáo and (later) Jīn envoys, the structure of the imperial banquet and yàn xí, jì yún (frontier dispatches), and similar matters. Yè’s perspective is sympathetic to the Shàoshèng reformers — he was a Shàoshèng graduate — but moderate.
The Kǎo yì by Yǔwén Shàoyì 宇文紹奕 (Southern Sòng; possibly elder kinsman of Yǔwén Shàojié, Shūmìshǐ in the Jiādìng period) is a substantial critical apparatus, line-by-line, on matters of dating, office-title precision, and textual transmission. Its restoration from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn by the Sìkù editors is one of the more important Sìkù recovery projects on Sòng bǐjì. The earlier Shílín yàn yǔ biàn of Wāng Yīngchén 汪應辰 (1118–1176) survives only in fragments, also recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn.
Dating. NotBefore 1123 (the date of Yè’s original preface); notAfter 1136 (the latest internally datable entry).
Translations and research
No complete Western-language translation. The book is fundamental in modern Chinese-language scholarship on Northern Sòng institutional history and is heavily cited in Wāng Shèng-duó 王曾瑜 and Dèng Xiǎo-nán 鄧小南’s institutional studies. Modern punctuated edition by Hóu Zhōng-yì 侯忠義 in Tángsòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān (Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1984).
Other points of interest
The Shílín yàn yǔ together with the institutional bǐjì of Sòng Mǐnqiú and 徐度 form the trio of Northern-Sòng institutional bǐjì in standard reception. Sòng readers and editors regularly cited it as the primary source for guānzhì nomenclature and ceremony precedent in the late Northern Sòng.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Shílín yàn yǔ entry.
- Wikipedia: 石林燕語.