Liú Bīnkè jiāhuà lù 劉賓客嘉話錄
Record of the Talented Talk of Court Visitor Liú [Yǔxī] by 韋絢 (撰)
About the work
A one-juàn record of conversational anecdotes of the mid-Táng poet-official 劉禹錫 Liú Yǔxī (772–842), compiled by 韋絢 Wéi Xún 韋絢 (zì Wénmíng 文明) and prefaced by him in Dàzhōng 10 (856) while serving as Jiānglíng shǎoyǐn. Wéi Xún was the son of the early Táng official Wéi Zhíyì 韋執誼; in Chángqìng 1 (821) he was at Báidì 白帝 (Kuízhōu, where Liú Yǔxī was governing) and there heard the conversational anecdotes Liú told. The 35-year delay between hearing (821) and writing (856) means the Jiāhuà lù is not a contemporary record but a late recollection, and accordingly the Sìkù compilers caution that some material may have been imperfectly remembered or corrupted in transmission.
Tiyao
Your servants report: Liú Bīnkè jiāhuà lù in 1 juàn, by the Táng Wéi Xún. Xún’s zì was Wénmíng; native of Jīngzhào. The Táng shū Yìwén zhì records “Wéi Xún Liúgōng jiāhuà lù 1 juàn” with the note “Xún was the son of Zhíyì; the Liúgōng is Xián-tōng-era Yìwǔ jūn jiédùshǐ Liú Yǔxī.” The Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì records both Liúgōng jiāhuà in 1 juàn and Bīnkè jiāhuà in 1 juàn; the Liúgōng jiāhuà must be the present work, while the Bīnkè jiāhuà is unknown to all the other catalogs and must arise from variant citation (some sources cite “Liúgōng jiāhuà,” some “Liúbīnkè jiāhuà,” which the Sòng compilers took for two titles, additionally dropping the graph “Liú”). The present text is taken from the Xuéhǎi lèibiān of Cáo Róng, with Xún’s own preface dated Dàzhōng 10 saying he was Jiānglíng shǎoyǐn and was recording what he had heard from Liú Yǔxī at Báidì in Chángqìng 1. A Qiándào guǐsì (1173) colophon of Biàn Tú 卞圖 says: the Xīn Táng shū drew on this book extensively, yet few possess the full text; his family had an old copy, and he had it cut at Chānghuà. The present text descends from that Sòng print. Zhào Míngchéng’s Jīnshí lù cites this book on the Wǔ-clan stele losing its tortoise-head and the obliterated Wǔ graph, refuting it; the present text has no such entry. Cross-reference with the Tàipíng guǎngjì 143 confirms that Guǎngjì attributes that anecdote to the Róngmù xiántán 戎幕閒談 — and given that the Róngmù xiántán is also by Wéi Xún, Zhào Míngchéng’s slip is simply mistaking the two works of the same author. [Long list of duplicated entries follows showing that many entries in the present text are also found in Lǐ Chuò’s Shàngshū gùshí with one or two lines altered for surface novelty, evidence that the Xuéhǎi lèibiān compiler grafted material from Lǐ Chuò.] We have now expunged the grafted entries to preserve the original. The single entry “Chánglí shēng gǎi jīngēn chē” is cited in Wáng Mào’s Yěkè cóngshū and the Biàn qiānyīng zì entry in Huáng Cháoyīng’s Xiāngsù zájì, both attributing them to Liú Yǔxī’s Jiāhuà; whether they were originally one entry doubly cited or two we cannot determine — we preserve both. Although the surviving text is mutilated, perhaps eight or nine parts in ten of the original can still be made out.
Abstract
The work is one of the principal anecdotal sources for the literary world around Liú Yǔxī — a circle that included Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元, Bái Jūyì 白居易, Yuán Zhěn 元稹 — and contains many of the surviving Liú Yǔxī conversational fragments on poetics, on calligraphy, and on contemporary politics. Wéi Xún (zì Wénmíng; CBDB-attested as fl. 812–856) was an examiner-official whose other anecdote collection, the Róngmù xiántán 戎幕閒談 (KR3l… partly), records what he heard from Lǐ Déyù during the latter’s mid-career. The Jiāhuà lù’s late-recollection character means its claims must be cross-checked against contemporary documents; the Sìkù compilers explicitly note that Tōngjiàn and Xīn Táng shū draw selectively on it. The text as received is admittedly incomplete — perhaps 80–90% of the Sòng zhì original survives — and has been substantially conflated with Lǐ Chuò’s 李綽 Shàngshū gùshí 尚書故實 in some printings (Xuéhǎi lèibiān’s editorial overlay); the Sìkù compilers excised the obvious intrusions.
Modern critical edition: Liú Mǎocí 劉懋慈 / Tián Tíngzhù 田廷柱 collation in the TángSòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān (Zhōnghuá, 2002).
Translations and research
- Tián Tíng-zhù 田廷柱, coll. 2002. Liú-Bīnkè jiāhuà lù 劉賓客嘉話錄, Yīn-huà lù 因話錄, Jiā-shì tán-lù 賈氏譚錄. Zhōnghuá (Táng-Sòng shǐ-liào bǐjì cóngkān).
- Wéi Xún (separate work) Róng-mù xián-tán — anecdotes from Lǐ Dé-yù’s circle (preserved in the Tài-píng guǎng-jì).
- No complete European-language translation has been located.
Other points of interest
Wéi Xún is unusual among Táng anecdotalists in having compiled two conversation-records by-listening: one (the Jiāhuà lù) of Liú Yǔxī, and one (the Róngmù xiántán) of Lǐ Déyù. He is therefore a hinge witness across the Niú-Lǐ factional divide.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §61.3 (Táng bǐjì).
- https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=86187