Yǔháng zálù 雨航雜錄
Miscellaneous Notes of the Rain-Voyage
by 馮時可 (Féng Shíkě, zì Mǐnqīng 敏卿, jìnshì 1571), of Huátíng 華亭.
About the work
A 2-juàn late-Míng bǐjì by 馮時可 (Féng Shíkě), Provincial Administration Commissioner of Húguǎng. The upper juàn discusses learning and literature; the lower records natural products with miscellaneous notes. The Sìkù editors single out Féng as exceptional among the LóngWàn (Lóngqìng / Wànlì) generation of bǐjì authors: his peers, they say, tended to grandiose and unmoored speculation, but Féng’s reasoning is grounded and reasonable. The book includes his philosophical reflections — that Hàn classicism and astronomy are partial yet indispensable; that the Sòng schools’ rigour, though limited, is irreplaceable; that Lù Jiǔyuān (Xiàngshān) and Zhū Xī (Zǐyáng) are not to be blamed for their followers’ excesses; and that Sòng literati prose has its characteristic faults. The book’s critical attention to Wáng Shìzhēn 王世貞 — both his poetic style (“close to artisan-fabrication, far from naturalness”) and his biographical writings (overly fulsome on minor men) — is one of its substantive contributions to late-Míng literary controversy.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Yǔháng zálù in 2 juàn was compiled by Féng Shíkě of the Míng. Shíkě’s zì was Mǐnqīng, a Huátíng man, jìnshì of Lóngqìng xīnwèi (1571); held office to Húguǎng bùzhèngsī cānzhèng. This book’s upper juàn mostly discusses learning and literature; the lower juàn mostly records natural products with occasional miscellaneous matters. In the Lóngqìng-Wànlì interval, scholar-officials liked grand pronouncements, so bǐjì and notebook literature often surged and flowed self-willedly, untracked by orthodoxy.
Shíkě alone held substantive views, his words mostly matching reason. As when he says: “Hàn men in respect of the classics are like terrace-historians measuring the heavens — they cannot fully measure heaven, yet astronomers cannot dispense with them. Sòng men in respect of learning are like a compass-rule applied to the ground — they cannot fully cover the ground, yet field-surveyors cannot deviate from them.” And again: “Zǐjìng’s [Lù Xiàngshān] search for the heart, with his disciples discarding the classics; and Zǐyáng’s [Zhū Xī] exhaustion of principle, with his disciples mired in chapter-and-verse — these are not the teachers’ faults but the students’ failings.” And again: “Sòng rú in literature relish the easy and delight in the shallow; in characterizing men they prefer detail and seek depth; in court memorials they value directness and lack remonstrance” — all these are calm and even-tempered talk.
His critique of Wáng Shìzhēn’s lines “Bēigē jiéshí hóng gāo xià, jīzhú Xiányáng rì dòngyáo” (lamenting song at the stele-stone, the rainbow rising high and low; striking the zhù-zither at Xiányáng, the sun is shaken) — as close to artisan-fabrication and far from naturalness — is right in pointing out one fault. And drawing on Xú Shūmíng’s words, it discusses Wáng Shìzhēn writing biographies and epitaphs for people — exhaustively praising even jiāoxiáng (academy) trial-successes and other minor matters, with elaborate phrases — saying this not only was not done before the Hàn, but TángSòng men too did not have this vulgar way. These too show insight.
Only his discussion saying that when the Shísān jīng zhùshū was established, the glosses of the Western Capital rú were destroyed — this is rather too high-pitched and a passing reflection of contemporary fashion.
Respectfully revised and submitted, sixth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng (1778).
Abstract
The Yǔháng zálù is a substantive late-Míng bǐjì by 馮時可 (Féng Shíkě), notable both for its critical engagement with the contemporary literary scene (especially the Hòuqīzǐ stylist Wáng Shìzhēn) and for its philosophically moderate stance on the ZhūLù controversy. Féng — a Sōngjiāng (Huátíng) literatus serving in provincial administration — was a prolific writer whose surviving works range across classics (Zuǒshì shì 左氏釋, KR1e0086), medicine (KR3eq020), and bǐjì.
The book’s principal contributions:
- Mediating the ZhūLù controversy. Féng’s even-handed verdict — that Lù Xiàngshān’s “search for the heart” is not invalidated by disciples who abandon the classics, nor Zhū Xī’s “exhaustion of principle” by disciples who mire themselves in chapter-and-verse — gives a temperate late-Míng position on the central Neo-Confucian rift.
- Critique of Wáng Shìzhēn. The detailed criticism of Wáng’s “rainbow rising high and low, sun shaken at Xiányáng” couplet for artificiality, and of his biographical writing for indiscriminate praise, is a notable substantive critique of the Hòuqīzǐ (Latter Seven Masters) leader.
- Natural-products records. The lower juàn’s entries on wùchǎn (regional products) are useful as Wú-dialect ethnographic and natural-history material.
Dating. Féng was jìnshì in 1571 and reached cānzhèng by the early Wànlì. The book belongs to his middle-to-late career. NotBefore 1571 (his jìnshì), notAfter c. 1610 (the latest defensible bracket from his floruit; CBDB id 30243 records no firm death date).
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language treatment of the Yǔ-háng zá-lù located. For Féng’s life and other writings see the Míng shǐ biographical appendix to Féng Ēn 馮恩 and the Míng-rén zhuànjì zīliào suǒyǐn p. 209.5522.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Yǔháng zálù entry.