Yě fú kǎo 野服考
A Study of Rustic Garb
by 方鳳 (Fāng Fèng, 1240–1321, late Sòng / early Yuán yímín 遺民).
About the work
The Yěfú kǎo is a short antiquarian treatise in one juǎn by Fāng Fèng 方鳳, the Pújiāng 浦江 recluse-scholar and convener (with Xiè Áo 謝翺 and Wú Wèi 吳渭) of the Yuèquán yínshè 月泉吟社 — the great Sòng-loyalist poetry contest of 1286. The work assembles sixteen items of “rustic” or recluse attire — táilì zīcuō 臺笠緇撮 (the rush hat and dark-cloth cap), lùqiú dàisuǒ 鹿裘帶索 (deerskin coat with hempen rope belt), héguān 鶡冠 (the pheasant-feather cap), dúbíkūn 犢鼻褌 (calf-nose breeches), bùjiè 不借 (the straw sandal), báijiē- 白接䍦 (the white head-cloth), cǎocháng 草裳 (grass skirt), duǎnhè 短褐 (short coarse hempen jacket), jùfāng tú bǎihuā dài 聚芳圖百花帶 (the “Hundred-Blossom Belt of Gathered Fragrances”), yǐnshì shān 隱士衫 (the hermit’s shirt), shùyī mángjué 樹衣芒屩 (bark-cloth and rush sandals), jiǔhuá bànbì 九華半臂 (the Nine-Bloom half-jacket), qīnglì lǜsuō 青笠綠蓑 (the green hat and green straw-cape of Zhāng Zhìhé’s Yúfù cí 漁父詞), fēiyún lǚ 飛雲履 (Bái Jūyì’s “flying-cloud” shoes), jiǎnyàng fāngpíng mào 減樣方平帽 (Luó Yǐn’s “thrift-pattern” cap), and tàiqīng chǎng 太清氅 (the gauze-summer outer-robe of LínchuānShàngráo). Each item is documented from a classical or near-contemporary source (Máoshī, Gāoshì zhuàn 高士傳, Zǐlüè 子略, Xījīng zájì 西京雜記, Gǔjīn zhù 古今注, Shìshuō xīnyǔ 世說新語, Jíjùn zálù 汲郡雜錄, Táo Yuānmíng’s Wǔliǔ xiānshēng zhuàn 五柳先生傳, Gāoshì chūnqiū 高士春秋, Liáng Fú’s Lúlíng jì 盧陵記, DàTáng xīnyǔ 大唐新語, Yúnxiān zájì 雲仙雜記, Qiáorén zhíshuō 樵人直說, Suǒsuì lù 瑣碎錄, Qīngyì lù 清異錄), constituting a quietly programmatic yímín (Sòng-loyalist) sartorial manifesto: the “wild” robe as the ethical opposite of court dress.
Tiyao
The KRP source preserves at its close an evaluative paragraph in the form characteristic of a Sìkù tíyào notice (working from the biānxiū Chéng Jìnfāng jiācáng běn 編修程晉芳家藏本; Chéng Jìnfāng 程晉芳, 1718–1784, was a Sìkù compiler). It is translated here as the tíyào:
Yěfú kǎo, one juǎn. Source: the copy in the family library of editor Chéng Jìnfāng. Composed by Fāng Fèng of the Sòng. Fāng was also named Jǐngshān; his courtesy name was Sháoqīng; he was a native of Pújiāng. At the end of the Sòng he was appointed wénxué (Confucian Lecturer) of Róngzhōu. When the dynasty fell he did not serve under the new regime, but wandered freely through the mountain wilds. He was on friendly terms with Xiè Áo and Wú Sīqí. This book gathers from the classics, the histories, and the shuōbù (informal literature) what is recorded about the styles of yěfú (rustic dress) — from the táilì zīcuō (rush hat and dark-cloth cap) onward, sixteen items in all. It would seem that Fāng identified himself with the Sòng remnant subjects (yímín), and composed this work as an expression of his ideals.
Abstract
The Yěfú kǎo belongs to Fāng Fèng’s post-1279 yímín phase and should be read alongside the Yuèquán yínshè contest of 1286, the Yánnán xiānshēng persona, and his other surviving compositions in the Cúnyǎtáng yígǎo 存雅堂遺稿 KR4d0407. The work’s qíyán 自序 (preface) puts the polemic plainly: “rustic attire begins with the breed of yìmín 逸民 (untrammeled men) — for the most part those who have shaken off the shackles of profit and fame and opened the gates of pure and lofty conduct.” The preface continues that even later “scholars and grandees” sometimes “released themselves from the bondage of the cap and tassel and took their pleasure in the homespun”; the book is therefore offered as evidence that the rustic garb is no mere countryman’s necessity but the embodied ethical statement of the hermit-tradition. Fāng’s careful classical sourcing — each item buttressed by a Han-or-pre-Han locus where possible — gives the work its antiquarian respectability, while the cumulative effect is unmistakable: a Sòng-loyalist’s quiet refusal to don the official robes of the new Yuán regime.
The dating bracket reflects the yímín phase of Fāng Fèng’s career: notBefore 1279 (fall of the Sòng), notAfter 1321 (Fāng’s death). The work’s tone — settled, antiquarian, programmatically yímín — and the integration with the Pújiāng circle of Xiè Áo / Wú Sīqí (active in the 1280s) make a date in the 1280s–1290s most likely, but no internal evidence permits a tighter bracket. The Sìkù editors entered the work in the cúnmù 存目 of the zǐbù zájiā lèi.
Translations and research
- The work is included in Cáo Róng 曹溶 / Táo Yuè 陶越, Xué-hǎi lèi-biān 學海類編 (jí-yú / kǎo-jù sub-category), printed by the Liù-ān Cháo 六安晁 family in Dào-guāng 11 (1831, wood movable-type); Hán-fēn lóu 涵芬樓 photo-reprint; Qí-Lǔ shū-shè 齊魯書社 hardback 1995 (ISBN 9787533304782). Full text at ctext.org.
- No substantive monographic study located. Treated in passing in general Sòng-Yuán dress-history surveys and in studies of Fāng Fèng’s literary circle.
- For Fāng Fèng’s life and broader corpus see the editorial apparatus to Cún-yǎ-táng yí-gǎo (Zhāng Suì 張燧 ed., 1654) KR4d0407.
Other points of interest
The Yěfú kǎo’s sixteen-item structure draws together a remarkable diachronic sweep: from Shījīng “rush hat and cap” (high antiquity) and Zhuāngzǐ’s RóngQǐqī “deerskin and rope” through Sīmǎ Xiāngrú’s dúbí kūn (Hàn), Sūn Dēng’s cǎo cháng (Jìn), Táo Yuānmíng’s duǎn hè (Eastern Jìn), Zhū Táozhuī’s shù yī (Táng), Bái Jūyì’s fēiyún lǚ (mid-Táng) to Luó Yǐn’s jiǎnyàng fāngpíng mào (late Táng) — a tacit canon of literary recluses, several of whom were also Sòng yímín references in their own right.