Yùquán zǐ 玉泉子
Master of the Jade Spring by 闕名 (anonymous)
About the work
A one-juàn anonymous late-Táng anecdote collection of 82 entries on miscellaneous Táng court and literary matter. The work has had a complex transmission with shifting titles (Yùquán zǐ jiànwén zhēnlù 玉泉子見聞真錄, Yùquán bǐduān 玉泉筆端, Yùquán zǐ) and varying entry counts (53, 82, 135 depending on the recension), with several portions overlapping word-for-word with KR3l0008 Yīnhuà lù and Lǐ Chuò’s 李綽 Shàngshū gùshí — suggesting either common sources or, more likely, late-Táng / Sòng anthological recombination. The work’s zhōnghé preface (preserved by Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 in Shūlù jiětí) dated to 883 (Zhōnghé 3) is incompatible with the present text, which contains Zhāozōng (888–904) material; the Sìkù compilers therefore considered the present version a later expansion.
Tiyao
Your servants report: Yùquán zǐ in 1 juàn, author’s name not given. All entries are Táng-era matter. Much is borrowed from other xiǎoshuō: the opening Péi Dù entry is identical with the Yīnhuà lù; the Hán Chàng / jīngēn chē matter is first found in the Shàngshū gùshí. So not all is the author’s own work. The Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì records Yùquán zǐ jiànwén zhēnlù in 5 juàn — count disagrees with the present 1 juàn; seems to be a different book. Shūlù jiětí records Yùquán bǐduān in 3 juàn with a Zhōnghé 3 preface and an end-colophon saying it came from Huáihǎi xiànggōng’s grandson Lǐ Zhāodé of Fúfēng — the present text has neither preface nor colophon. Zhōnghé is a Xīzōng reign-title, but the book contains Zhāozōng material; the periods do not match, so the present is also not that book. Shūlù jiětí further says: another edition called Yùquán zǐ has slightly fewer entries than the Bǐduān but 52 more, no preface or colophon, and the additional entries make up 1 juàn; the present has 82 entries total, perhaps the Chén [Zhènsūn]-recorded 1-juàn edition with the digit 8 corrupted to 5. Three plus one juàn makes the 4 juàn total — and indeed the Sòng catalogs’ “5 juàn” may itself be the 4-juàn expanded text with a sub-division. We cannot fully reconstruct the history; the present text under the title Yùquán zǐ must be the smaller 1-juàn recension noted by Chén Zhènsūn. (Continues with editorial details of the present text.)
Abstract
The transmission history is confused but the surviving 82 entries are coherent in character — short Tang court and literary anecdotes from the Yuánhé to Tiānyòu period. Internal date ceiling is Zhāozōng’s reign (888–904); the most plausible composition window is the Guānghuà — Tiānyòu years (898–907) or the immediate post-Táng. Authorship has never been recovered; the title Yùquán zǐ is the hào by which the anonymous author refers to himself.
The work’s principal modern interest is comparative: its overlap with Yīnhuà lù and Shàngshū gùshí makes it a witness to the late-Táng / Five-Dynasties anthological process. Wáng Wénjǐn 王雯錦 and other modern scholars have used it to trace how mid-Táng anecdote material was recopied through the cataclysm of the Huáng Cháo rebellion and the Táng-Five-Dynasties transition.
Standard modern editions: collated in Lìdài xiǎoshǐ 歷代小史 (Ming, Lǐ Shìjié 李栻 ed.); in Bǐjì xiǎoshuō dàguān; and Zhōu Xūnchū’s Tángrén yìshì huìbiān for selected entries.
Translations and research
- Zhōu Xūn-chū 周勛初, ed. 2002. Táng-rén yì-shì huì-biān. Shànghǎi gǔjí.
- No complete European-language translation has been located.
Other points of interest
The work is a useful test case for textual transmission: side-by-side reading of Yùquán zǐ, Yīnhuà lù, and Shàngshū gùshí reveals the late-Táng / Sòng anthological practice of slight verbal alteration to claim novelty, exactly the practice the Sìkù compilers complained of with the Xuéhǎi lèibiān compiler.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §61.3.
- https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=86237