Huā mù niǎo shòu jí lèi 花木鳥獸集類
Categorized Compendium of Flowers, Trees, Birds, and Beasts
by 吳寶芝 (Wú Bǎozhī, Qīng, 撰; gòngshēng).
About the work
A compact Qīng lèishū in 3 juǎn gathering allusions, anecdotes, and choice phrasings concerning flowers, trees, birds and beasts. The work is divided into 110 zǐmù (上卷 43, 中卷 42, 下卷 25). Compiled by Wú Bǎozhī 吳寶芝, gòngshēng of Shímén 石門 (Zhèjiāng). The text-frontispiece carries the inscription chén Wú Bǎozhī gōng zuǎn 臣吳寶芝恭纂 — indicating that the work was probably formally presented to the throne. The work is a qīngyì lù-tradition aesthetic compendium of natural-world entries, drawing on classics, histories, masters’ writings, HànTáng bàiguān xiǎoshuō, and named poets’ verses. Some sources — Sānguó diǎn lüè, Ruì yìng tú, Zì shuō — have long since been lost, so the Huā mù niǎo shòu jí lèi preserves them only at second hand. The Sìkù editors note the work’s xiānlì (delicate and refined) taste; it belongs to the lineage of Táo Gǔ’s Qīng yì lù 清異錄 rather than to the standard gézhì tradition.
Tiyao
We submit the following: the Huā mù niǎo shòu jí lèi in 3 juǎn is by Wú Bǎozhī of our dynasty. Bǎozhī was a gòngshēng of Shímén. The text frontispiece carries the inscription chén Wú Bǎozhī gōng zuǎn (your servant Wú Bǎozhī respectfully compiled) — this is presumably the presentation copy. The work gathers the gùshí (allusion-stock) of flowers, trees, birds and beasts, dividing it by category. The upper juǎn has 43 mù; the middle has 42; the lower has 25. It is in the tǐ (form) of the lèishū; but the volumes are not bulky, the work selecting only fresh phrases for the use of cízǎo (literary embellishment).
From the Classics, Histories, and Masters down through the Hàn and Táng bàiguān xiǎoshuō, and down to the verses of named poets — none is omitted. Among the cited works, the Sānguó diǎn lüè, the Ruì yìng tú, and the Zì shuō have long since been lost, so Bǎozhī inevitably suffers the bàifàn (peddler-from-elsewhere) fault of citation at second hand. But what he records is on the whole yǎshàn (elegant and abundant). The intention is qǔ xiān lì (to capture the fresh and the delicate) — a branch of the Qīng yì lù tradition that extends through to cízhāng (lyrical phrasing); this is also the inherited form of the Yìwén lèijù and its successors. Though the evidential reach is narrow and the omissions are many, the brief phrases and isolated turns often suffice to support kǎozhèng (evidential research) — compared to the rǒngzá wúmàn (chaotically miscellaneous and rambling) compilations, it serves better for jiǎnhé (consultation and verification).
Respectfully revised and submitted, first month of the forty-fifth year of Qiánlóng [1780].
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 Huā mù niǎo shòu jí lèi is a compact specialist Qīng lèishū on natural-world allusions, drawing on the same source-corpus as the great encyclopaedias but selecting only xiān lì (delicate, fresh-phrased) material rather than aiming at completeness. The compiler, Wú Bǎozhī 吳寶芝 (CBDB id 578568), was a gòngshēng (tribute-student) of Shímén 石門 (in modern Tóngxiāng 桐鄉, Zhèjiāng); no other works by him are recorded, and his lifedates are not on record. The work’s frontispiece chén… gōng zuǎn inscription indicates it was prepared as a presentation copy, but the catalog meta gives no specific presentation date; the conservative date bracket is the 18th century before the Sìkù recension (the Qiánlóng reviser-note is 1780).
The work’s distinctive feature is its preservation of secondary citations from now-lost HànTáng bàiguān literature. The Sìkù editors specifically name three: the Sānguó diǎn lüè 三國典畧, the Ruì yìng tú 瑞應圖 (or Ruì yìng tú jì — the Liáng-period imperially-sponsored omen-text), and the Zì shuō 字説 (Wáng Ānshí 王安石’s controversial Northern Sòng paleographic treatise that survives only in fragments). For each of these, the Huā mù niǎo shòu jí lèi preserves entries that would otherwise be available only through other lèishū. The trade-off, also noted by the editors, is that Wú does not always re-trace his citations to the actual ancient source — instead drawing them through the Yìwén lèijù / Tàipíng yùlǎn / Tàipíng guǎngjì triangle — so the work occasionally inherits errors from its intermediaries.
The work is in the lineage of Táo Gǔ’s 陶穀 Sòng-period Qīng yì lù 清異錄 — small-format aesthetic compilations of fresh-phrased curiosities — rather than the comprehensive gézhì tradition of the Gézhì jìngyuán (KR3k0061). It is a useful complement to the Kāngxī-court grand compendia, accessed in the form preserved in the Sìkù.
Translations and research
- Hú Dào-jìng 胡道靜, Zhōngguó gǔdài de lèishū (Zhōng-huá, 1982), §Qīng — surveys the genre.
No European-language complete translation; no substantial monographic study located.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Huā mù niǎo shòu jí lèi entry.