Bié hào lù 別號錄
Register of Alternate Sobriquets
by 葛萬里 (Gě Wànlǐ, Qīng, 撰).
About the work
A 9-juǎn Qīng-period biographical-reference lèishū indexing the bié hào (alternate sobriquets, hào) of Sòng, Jīn, Yuán, and Míng literary and cultural figures. The work groups bié hào under the rhyme of their xià yī zì (lower / second graph): SòngJīnYuán figures are gathered in one juǎn; Míng figures fill the remaining eight juǎn. The work is modelled on the Sòng-period Zì hào lù 自號錄 of Xú Guāngpǔ 徐光浦 (Qiántáng 錢塘, Chúnyòu period, 1241–1252), preserved through Sūn Dàomíng’s 孫道明 Zhìzhèng (Yuán) period copy. Compiled by Gě Wànlǐ 葛萬里, hào Mèngháng 夢航, of Kūnshān 崑山 (Sūzhōu). The author’s prefatory note (signed Mèngháng jūshì) emphasizes that bié hào “flourished in the Southern Sòng and grew rampant in the Míng” — making the work both a usability-aid (so a reader of late-Míng materials can decode the swarm of hào) and a quasi-historiographical aid.
Tiyao
We submit the following: the Bié hào lù in 9 juǎn is by Gě Wànlǐ of our dynasty. Wànlǐ’s hào was Mèngháng, a man of Kūnshān. The book takes the bié hào of Sòng, Jīn, Yuán, and Míng figures and groups them under the rhyme of the second graph. SòngJīnYuán figures together fill one juǎn; Míng figures fill eight juǎn. We note: Qián Cēng’s Dúshū mǐnqiú jì records a Sòng-Chúnyòu period Zì hào lù in one juǎn by Xú Guāngpǔ of Qiántáng, listing the hào of contemporary “famous lords and worthies of his day, lyric-poets and ink-men,” with a preface by Tán Yǒuwén — its original copy from Zhìzhèng period taken by Sūn Dàomíng of Huátíng — and that book is now lost. Wànlǐ’s present work is presumably modelled on its example and extended.
We further note: in ancient times one was given a zì (style-name) at the capping ceremony; after age 50 one was addressed by bózhòng (uncle-rank); that was all. By the Zuǒ zhuàn one already has Zǐchǎn and Zǐměi — with two-character zì and personal name both in use — already difficult to disentangle. Yet there were no bié hào yet. The Shāngshān sì hào (Four Hoary Heads of Shāngshān) each had a personal-and-family name and also the HuángQǐ and other appellations — perhaps the prototype of bié hào. From the Táng onward, the practice multiplied; Wànlǐ’s view that bié hào “flourished in the Southern Sòng and grew rampant in the Míng — so that the reader does not know who is who” is correct.
The tǐlì (rule of practice) is somewhat gǒujiǎn (rough and casual): under each rhyme only the first name gives the full liǎng zì (two-graph) form; below it only one graph; on quick reading the result is hardly clear. For SòngJīnYuán figures only the dynasty is noted; for Míng figures the official rank and place are noted as well — but the rank fits in only two graphs and the place in one, requiring further effort. There are also lapses: under the pō 坡 rhyme Sū Shì’s Dōngpō is included, but under the wēng 翁 rhyme Ōuyáng Xiū’s Zuìwēng is omitted — failing under the very eyebrows. There are many such gaps. Still, the diligence of the cǎi zhé (collection) is enough to support evidential research, and though it appears trivial, it has its uses for historiography. As Yáng Wànlǐ used to receive a yīzì shī (one-character correction) from a clerk, the work cannot be dismissed as qiǎnlòu (shallow and inadequate).
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 Bié hào lù is the principal Qīng-period reference work for the bié hào (alternate sobriquets) of pre-1644 Chinese literati. Its design problem, set out clearly in the author’s brief preface and the fánlì, is the explosion of bié hào in late-Míng literary culture: by the Wànlì and Chóngzhēn decades virtually every published author used at least one hào in addition to míng (personal name) and zì (courtesy name); literary culture had reached the point where unindexed hào impeded the reading of contemporary prose and poetry. The Bié hào lù offers a rhyme-organized lookup index from hào to míng — a tool designed to operate as the practical inverse of a biographical dictionary.
The compiler, Gě Wànlǐ 葛萬里, hào Mèngháng 夢航 (“Dream-Voyaging”), was a Kūnshān 崑山 figure of the early-to-mid Qīng (no CBDB record; not in the standard biographical dictionaries). The work is generally placed in the early 18th century on the strength of its Qīng-period compilation and the Qiánlóng reviser’s 1781 date as terminus ante quem. The model — explicitly named by the author and by the Sìkù editors — is Xú Guāngpǔ’s lost Sòng-Chúnyòu Zì hào lù, transmitted through Sūn Dàomíng’s Zhìzhèng manuscript.
The 9-juǎn division gives a quantitative measure of the bié hào explosion: the entire pre-Míng output (Sòng + Jīn + Yuán) fits in one juǎn, while Míng output alone fills eight. The lookup organization — by the rhyme of the second graph of the hào — is unfamiliar to modern users but follows the same rhyme-indexing logic as the Pèiwén yùnfǔ. The Sìkù editors’ principal complaint, well-judged, is that for second-and-later entries under any rhyme only one of the two characters is given as the index head, so the reader has to keep glancing back. They also note characteristic omissions (Sū Shì’s Dōngpō present but Ōuyáng Xiū’s Zuìwēng absent — at adjacent rhymes), but acknowledge that the work nevertheless makes a real contribution to shǐxué (historiographical practice).
For modern users the Bié hào lù remains a useful first-resort index for the bié hào of Sòng-through-Míng figures, especially when working with Míng biéjí and Míng-Qīng wénjí, where hào references are otherwise hard to decode without the full biànmíng (name-dictionary) apparatus.
Translations and research
- Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (Harvard, 2018), §32.6 (on names and reference works for name-conversion) — places the Bié hào lù in the tradition of bié-hào indexes alongside Chen Naiqian’s modern Shìmíng biéhào suǒ-yǐn 室名別號索引.
- Chén Nǎi-qián 陳乃乾, Shì-míng bié-hào suǒ-yǐn 室名別號索引 (Zhōng-huá, rev. ed. 1957; further rev. 1982) — the principal modern successor.
No European-language complete translation.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Lèishū lèi, Bié hào lù entry.