Qīngxiāng zájì 青箱雜記
Miscellaneous Notes from the Green Casket by 吳處厚 (撰)
About the work
A ten-juàn anecdote-collection and proto-shīhuà by the political opportunist 吳處厚 Wú Chǔhòu 吳處厚 (zì Bógù 伯固, jìnshì of Huángyòu 5 / 1053; CBDB id 24894 c_fl 1053–1089). Wú made his notorious political mark in 1086 by interpreting Cài Què’s 蔡確 Chēgài tíng shī 車蓋亭詩 as treasonous yǐnyǔ (allegorical slander) of Empress Dowager Gāo, an act of denunciation that brought down his political enemy Cài Què and that won Wú rapid promotion. As the Sìkù compilers note, the work has been disliked for the author’s reputation but contains substantial poetry-talk material that retains the fēnggé (style) of Tang verse.
Tiyao
Your servants report: Qīngxiāng zájì in 10 juàn, by the Sòng Wú Chǔhòu. Chǔhòu zì Bógù, of Shàowǔ. Jìnshì of Huángyòu 5 [1053]; first appointed Jiāngzuò chéng; on Wáng Guī’s recommendation, given a Library post; then zhī Hànyáng jūn; later promoted to zhī Wèizhōu; died. The work records contemporary miscellaneous matter and also much poetry-talk. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì says the records often fail of fact, and faults the entry on Chéngdū’s establishing the jiāozǐ wù (paper-money office) as wrongly attributing the zhāngzhèng (institution) to Kòu Jiān rather than Zhāng Yǒng. Chǔhòu, through his frustrated office-seeking, harboured resentment and exposed Cài Què’s Chēgàitíng poems, obtaining rapid promotion thereby — zhě (those who) discuss politics held him in low regard; so Cháo Gōngwǔ disliked the man and likewise the book. Examining the contents: entries like “Féng Dào is a dàrén” (great-man) — quite contrary to fēngjiào (moral teaching), not just records of error. Yet Chǔhòu was himself a serious craftsman of verse: Xuānhé huàpǔ records his “Tí Wáng Zhèngshēng Yìnjǐng tíng shī”; Yǎnshǐ records his two poems “From Zhūjì to Yǎn” — all chuò yǒu Tángrén géyì (carrying the manner and conception of Tang). So his poetry-talk is often worth taking; one should not reject the work for the man.
Abstract
Wú Chǔhòu (CBDB id 24894; c_fl_earliest 1053, c_fl_latest 1089) is the prototype of the morally-compromised but technically-skilled Sòng bǐjì author. His Cài Què denunciation of 1086 — the Chēgài tíng shī interpretation — was one of the most consequential single literary-political acts of the Yuányòu faction’s brief ascendancy: Cài Què was demoted to Yīngzhōu and died there, and the precedent of treating allegorical poetry as treasonous shaped the Sū Shì “Wūtái shī àn” (Crow Terrace Poetry Case) interpretation pattern. The Qīngxiāng zájì itself is composed (probably in Yuánfēng — Yuányòu) on the standard Northern-Sòng bǐjì template: court anecdote, poetry-talk, witty observation, regional curiosity. Approximately 200 entries divided across 10 juàn.
The poetry-talk content is the work’s most-cited part by later shīhuà compilers (Hú Zǐ, Yán Yǔ): Wú’s familiarity with the formal poetics of Tang verse made his comparative judgments valued. He also preserves several otherwise-unattested anecdotes about Méi Yáochén, Liú Chǎng, and the early-Sòng poetic circles.
Standard modern edition: collated in QuánSòng bǐjì (Dàxiàng, 2003); Hsiao Tsao-Yuan, Qīngxiāng zájì coll. (Zhōnghuá, 1985).
Translations and research
- Egan, Ronald C. The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China. HUP 2006. Engages Qīngxiāng zájì on poetic-aesthetic discourse.
- Levine, Ari Daniel. Divided by a Common Language (UHP 2008) — uses Wú Chǔ-hòu’s career as case-study in Yuán-yòu factional dynamics.
- No European-language translation has been located.
Other points of interest
The “Chēgài tíng shī” incident is the defining political-literary event of Wú Chǔhòu’s life and one of the major cases of “wénzì yù” (literary-text persecution) in the Northern Sòng. The Qīngxiāng zájì itself does not discuss the case — Wú composing his bǐjì well after the events — but the work was read by contemporaries with full knowledge of Wú’s biographical record, and the Sìkù’s “rejecting the man and the book together” tradition follows that reception.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §63.
- https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=86586