蒙求集註

Méngqiú jízhù 蒙求集註

Collected Notes on the Méngqiú

李瀚 (Lǐ Hàn, Táng, 撰) original Méngqiú in four-character couplets; 徐子光 (Xú Zǐguāng, Sòng, 註) collected commentary.

About the work

The Méngqiú 蒙求 (“Beginner’s Inquiry”) of the Táng minor official Lǐ Hàn 李瀚 (early–mid 8th c.) is a verse mnemonic of historical gùshí in 596 four-character lines, paired so that two lines of four characters each form an exemplum couplet (e.g. Wáng Róng jiǎnyào, Péi Kǎi qīngtōng — “Wáng Róng concise and incisive; Péi Kǎi pure and penetrating”). It was the standard Táng-period and later East-Asian primer of historical knowledge, used through the Song into the Ming as the elementary text for cataloguing famous figures and their characteristic deeds — and from the Heian period onwards in Japan, where it became a foundational text for kanbun education. The present Sìkù recension is the Jízhù (Collected Notes) of the Southern Sòng commentator Xú Zǐguāng 徐子光 (fl. 12th c.), the only annotated tradition of the Méngqiú to survive. Chén Zhènsūn’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí records it in 8 juan; the present recension consolidates into 2 juan. Xú’s plan is to lay out two paired couplets at a time, then attach a detailed gloss explaining each cited figure and event, often citing variant readings from the histories.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Méngqiú jízhù in 2 juan; the original copy gives no compiler. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records: “Bǔzhù Méngqiú in 8 juan, by Xú Zǐguāng, takes Lǐ Hàn’s Méngqiú and adds notes; beyond the immediate couplet it also brings in the events of other figures” — this agrees with the present book; only the juan counts differ (8 vs 2). The volumes are rather heavy here, so a later editor must have combined Xú’s 8 juan into 2. The book places Lǐ Hàn’s Méngqiú original at the head of each juan, then takes every two couplets as a section, glossing each. The notes are somewhat verbose, but quite painstaking and precise.

For example: the couplet Lǚ Wàng fēixióng 呂望非熊 — since the Liùtāo original has no “fēixióng” wording, the jízhù cites Cuī Yīn’s 崔駰 Dázhǐ commentary, which first uses “fēixióng”, to clarify the source. The couplet Zhōu Sōng lángkàng 周嵩狼抗 — since the Jìn shū Sōngzhuàn writes “kàngzhí” 抗直, the jízhù cites Shìshuō xīnyǔ which originally writes “lángkàng” 狼抗 to confirm. The couplet Jiǎ Yì jì fú 賈誼忌鵩 — since Jiǎ’s Fúfù has no character jì, the jízhù cites Kǒng Zāng’s 孔臧 Xiāofù, Jiǎshēng yǒushí zhī shì jì qiánfú yān “Master Jiǎ, a knowing man, was bothered by the owl before him”, to clarify. The couplet Yān Zhāo zhútái 燕昭築臺 — since the Shǐ jì writes 築宮 (built a palace) not 築臺 (built a terrace), the jízhù cites Kǒng Róng’s letter to Cáo Cāo and Bào Zhào’s Yuèfǔ poetry, both of which use 築臺, to confirm. The couplet Hú Zhāo tóuzān 胡昭投簮 — since his biography has no “tóuzān”, the jízhù cites the Zhì Yú 摰虞-composed Zhāo-eulogy to confirm.

Such are not careless examples. For matters that cannot be fully verified, where the old notes give no clear source — as in Zhào Mèng cīmiàn 趙孟疵面, Cáo Zhí bādǒu 子建八斗, Sū Zhāng fùjí 蘇章負笈, Shēntú duànyāng 申屠斷鞅, Lóng Páng bǎn chū 龍逄板出, Hé Qiān féncí 何謙焚祠 — Xú preserves the uncertainty as uncertainty, which is no failure of carefulness. The occasional slip: Zhū Yì’s 朱翌 Yījué liáo zájì picks out the Máo Bǎo and Hán Shòu entries. Checking now: the couplet Jì Zhān chū jì 紀瞻出妓 — the matter is in Shìshuō xīnyǔ, the old note’s citation is not erroneous, but Xú says “today’s recension does not contain it”. The couplet Jiāng Gé zhōngxiào 江革忠孝 — the matter is in the Nán shǐ, but Xú takes it as the HòuHàn Jiāng Gé and changes zhōngxiào to jùxiào 巨孝. The couplet Yán Shū bǐngzhú 顔叔秉燭 — Xú says “the matter comes from Máo Gōng’s Shī-commentary”, but the Máo Shī commentary in fact has no such passage. These are not free of small slips. As for the couplet Liú Tán qīng niàng 劉惔傾釀 — Xú has mis-read the Shìshuō “qīngjiā” (impoverish-the-household) qīng as “qīngjiǔ” (pour-wine) qīng — another correction failed. But on the whole the work is comprehensive — truly a ferry-raft for beginners.

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

The Méngqiú of Lǐ Hàn (presented to the throne in Tiānbǎo 5 = 746, according to Hú Sānxǐng’s 胡三省 note on the Zīzhì tōngjiàn) is the most influential Chinese primer of historical gùshí — a single rhymed text of 596 four-character lines, paired so that two lines form an exemplum-couplet, gathering some 596 exempla of memorable Confucian figures and deeds in mnemonic form. Its author Lǐ Hàn (CBDB id 185588 records a death year of 802, but this is probably a later homonym; the Méngqiú author was a Hézhōng 河中 official of the Tiānbǎo period, possibly identical with the Lǐ Hàn whose jìnshì is recorded in Quán Déyú’s circles) is otherwise obscure. The work circulated as a school text throughout the Táng and Sòng; in the Heian period it was imported to Japan where it became the foundational kanbun primer, glossed by Minamoto no Mitsuyuki 源光行 (in the Méngqiú yǐzhù 蒙求倭注 / Mōgyū wachū).

The present Sìkù recension is the Méngqiú jízhù (Collected Notes), the commentary of the Southern Sòng official Xú Zǐguāng 徐子光 (Húzhōu 湖州 jǔrén, fl. early 12th c.; no biography survives in the Sòng shǐ). His jízhù is the sole surviving annotated tradition of the Méngqiú in Chinese (the Bǔzhù Méngqiú of Wáng Tàirán 王態然, recorded in Chén Zhènsūn, is lost). Composition date is bracketed here to the late Northern through early Southern Sòng (1101–1200); Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí (compiled 1230s–1240s) is the terminus ante quem. The transmission history is: Lǐ Hàn 746 → Xú Zǐguāng (early–mid Southern Sòng) → consolidated 8→2 juan form preserved in the Yuán–Míng lèishū collectanea → Sìkù recension.

The Sìkù tíyào’s evaluation is unusual in the volume of specific philological criticism it directs at Xú Zǐguāng’s notes — naming five careless slips by sub-couplet — while still concluding that the commentary as a whole is “yāntōng” 淹通 (broadly conversant) and “a jīnfá (ferry-raft) for beginners”. This makes the Méngqiú jízhù tíyào one of the best Qīng evidential-bibliographical critiques of a Southern Sòng commentary on a Táng primer.

Translations and research

• Étienne Fourmont (1683–1745) was the first European to render the Méng-qiú into a Latin word-list (Paris, 1737, Bibliothèque royale ms.). No complete European-language translation has appeared.
• Burton Watson, Meng Ch’iu: Famous Episodes from the Lives of Eminent Chinese (New York: Frewin, 1979; repr. Boulder: Westview, 1988). Selected translations of the most important exempla, with brief introduction.
• Hu Pin-ching 胡品清, “Le ‘Méng-tch’iu’, primer de la culture chinoise classique” (in French), T’oung Pao 49 (1961), 33–82.
• Ikeda Toshio 池田利夫, Mōgyū chūshakushū tagen kenkyū 蒙求注釈書多元研究 (Tōkyō: Kasama shoin, 2002), the definitive philological study of the multiple recensions, including the Japanese commentaries.
• Wáng Sān-qìng 王三慶, Méng-qiú yán-jiū 蒙求研究 (Tái-běi: Wén-jīn, 1995).

Other points of interest

The Méngqiú is the textual basis of the Japanese yotsumonoji-no-tegoto 四字句の手事 tradition of four-character exemplum mnemonics, and a substantial portion of Heian waka and kanbun allusions derive directly from its line-pairings. The Xú Zǐguāng commentary, by contrast, was apparently not transmitted to Japan in the medieval period; the Heian commentators used independent Chinese histories.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Méngqiú jízhù entry.
• Wikipedia (en): Mengqiu; Wikidata: Q1934672.