Jīlèi 雞肋
Chicken-Ribs
by 趙崇絢 (Zhào Chóngxuàn, Sòng imperial-clan, 撰).
About the work
A short 1-juan bǐjì / lèishū hybrid compiled by Zhào Chóngxuàn 趙崇絢, zì Yuánsù 元素 — a Sòng imperial-clan member, eighth-generation descendant of Prince Jiǎn 簡王 Zhào Yuánfèn 趙元份 according to the Sòng shǐ · Zōngshì shìxì biǎo — and son of Zhào Rǔshì 趙汝适, compiler of the Zhūfān zhì 諸蕃志 (KR2k0024). The book opens by self-styling Zhào as a Biànrén 汴人 (Kāifēng person), a nostalgic acknowledgment of the lost northern capital despite living in the Southern Sòng. The title — Jīlèi “chicken-ribs”, from the famous Sānguó zhì anecdote (shí zhī wúwèi, qì zhī kěxī “tasteless to eat, regrettable to throw away”) — is a self-deprecating evaluation of the trifling material.
The book’s organizing principle is anomalous and slightly playful: it collects historical anecdotes grouped by similarity-of-name-or-feature: things with the same name but different reference (e.g. two “Yùhuán” 玉環 — Táng Ruìzōng’s pípá, and Yáng Guìfēi); things superficially similar but with opposite outcomes (the zònglǐ rùkǒu facial sign causing Zhōu Yàfū to starve to death but Chǔ Luó to live long); the same event recurring (Luán Bā, Guō Xiàn, Fútú Chéng each spitting wine to extinguish a fire); features-in-common (the thirteen stutterers including Hán Fēi; the eleven heavy drinkers including Yú Dìngguó); identical names (two Zhāng Yǔ, two Lǐ Guāngjìn). The Sìkù editors recognize this organizing principle as the founding model of the genre Chén Yǔzhī’s 陳禹之 Míng-period Piányǎ 駢雅 would adopt — innovative in the lèishì tradition.
Tiyao (abridged)
The Jīlèi in 1 juan by Zhào Chóngxuàn 趙崇絢 of the Sòng. Chóngxuàn, zì Yuánsù, according to the Sòng shǐ · Zōngshì shìxì biǎo is an 8th-generation descendant of Prince Jiǎn Zhào Yuánfèn. The author of the Zhūfān zhì — Zhào Rǔshì — is his father. The book opens self-styling as a Biànrén (Kāifēng person), not forgetting his roots.
The book gathers historical material: name-identical-but-substance-different cases (Yùhuán: Ruìzōng’s pípá and Yáng Guìfēi); look-alike-but-opposite cases (Zhōu Yàfū with zònglǐ rùkǒu sign starving to death, Chǔ Luó with same sign living long); one-fact-seen-many-times cases (Luán Bā, Guō Xiàn, Fútú Chéng all spitting wine to put out fires); like-features cases (stutterers — thirteen including Hán Fēi; drinkers — eleven including Yú Dìngguó); same-name cases (two Zhāng Yǔ, two Lǐ Guāngjìn).
Things like Xiāo Chá’s hatred-of-women, Liú Yōng’s scab-eating habit, each entered as a separate item without grouping — so what the tǐlì selects on is not entirely clear. The title “Chicken-Ribs” suggests this was a casual compilation — a single cè assembled by occasional recording — and the author was unable to broadly draw on all the materials and produce a complete book, so adopted the Sānguó zhì anecdote sense of “shí zhī wúwèi, qì zhī kěxī” (“tasteless to eat, regrettable to throw away”). Míng Chén Yǔzhī’s Piányǎ follows this work in its tǐlì. In the lèishì tradition, this is like the jìshì běnmò in the history tradition — outside the ancient forms it founds a new genre, and the later works cannot dispense with it. We retain it as the founder of the genre.
Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth 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 Jīlèi is a unique small Sòng bǐjì by an imperial-clan member, important as the founding work of the “anecdote-similarity” sub-genre of lèishū. Zhào Chóngxuàn was the son of Zhào Rǔshì (the author of the maritime-trade Zhūfān zhì); his own active period would have been roughly 1180–1230 by his father’s dates (Rǔshì jìnshì 1196). Composition is bracketed here to that period. The work is anomalously short — single-juan — and the Sìkù editors clearly find it idiosyncratic but valuable as a genre-founder. Its descendants include Chén Yǔzhī’s Piányǎ and several later YuánMíng bǐjì that gather material by surface-feature rather than topic.
For modern scholarship the work is principally useful as a witness to late-Southern-Sòng curiosity-collecting and to imperial-clan literary culture — a small but distinctive corner of the lèishū genre.
Translations and research
- Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Sòng.
No European-language translation.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s parallel between the Jīlèi and the jìshì běnmò (topical narrative history founded by Yuán Shū) — both as innovations founding new genres that later works could not dispense with — is a useful methodological observation on Sòng-period intellectual creativity.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Jīlèi entry.
- Wikidata: Q11074494.
- Related work: KR2k0024 Zhūfān zhì (Zhào Rǔshì, author’s father).