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甲申雜記

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Text ID
KR3l0042
Date
1104–1104
Dynasty
北宋

Jiǎshēn zájì 甲申雜記

Miscellaneous Notes of the Jiashen Year by 王鞏 (撰)

About the work

A one-juàn anecdote-collection in 42 entries by 王鞏 Wáng Gǒng 王鞏 (zì Dìngguó 定國, self-styled Qīngxū xiānshēng 清虛先生, fl. 1075–1104), grandson of the chief minister Wáng Dàn 王旦 and son of the Gōngbù shàngshū Wáng Sù 王素. Wáng Gǒng was a literary intimate of Sū Shì — his demotion to Yángzhōu and then to the salt-tax superintendency of Jūnzhōu was a consequence of the Wūtái shī àn (Crow Terrace Poetry Case) of 1079, in which Sū Shì’s friends were swept up. Composed in Chóngníng 3 jiǎshēn (1104), whence the title. The 42 entries cover the Rénzōng through Chóngníng era, not chronologically arranged. The work is the first of three short bǐjì by Wáng Gǒng — with KR3l0043 Wénjiàn jìnlù 聞見近錄 (104 entries) and KR3l0044 Suíshǒu zálù 隨手雜錄 (33 entries) — preserved by his great-grandson Wáng Cóngjǐn 王從謹 from manuscripts recovered at the Xiàng family in Lóngxìng 1 (1163) and transmitted with a prefatory note by Zhāng Bāngjī 張邦基 (dated Shàoxīng 3 / 1133).

Tiyao

Source directory missing in /home/Shared/krp/KR3l/KR3l0042; the following tiyao (which is shared with KR3l0043 and KR3l0044, all three works of Wáng Gǒng’s preserved in a single Sìkù compendium) is from the Kyoto Zinbun digital Shikō Teiyō (curl-fetched from http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/db-machine/ShikoTeiyo/0290902.html), base text being the LiángHuái Mǎ Yù family library copy.

All by the Sòng Wáng Gǒng. Gǒng zì Dìngguó, self-styled Qīngxū xiānshēng, of Shènxiàn. Grandson of Tóng píngzhāngshì [Wáng] Dàn; son of Gōngbù shàngshū [Wáng] Sù. Served as Yángzhōu cuì; demoted to jiān Jūnzhōu yánshuì on account of his Sū Shì connection; later reached Zōngzhèng chéng. Recorded miscellaneous matter in 3 juàn, all of Dōngdū (Northern-Sòng) old report. Jiǎshēn zájì — 42 entries; jiǎshēn = Huīzōng Chóngníng 3 (1104). Records begin at Rénzōng and end at Chóngníng, ordered by writing-impulse, not chronologically. Wénjiàn jìnlù — 104 entries, starting from Zhōu Shìzōng down to Sòng Shénzōng, with Tàizǔ Tàizōng Zhēnzōng Rénzōng matter most numerous. Suíshǒu zálù — 33 entries, one of which on Zhōu Shìzōng, one on Southern Táng, one on Wúyuè, the remainder on Sòng; stopping at the early Yīngzōng. The latter two books’ events all predate Chóngníng jiǎshēn, yet in the old text they follow the Jiǎshēn zájì — evidently composed later. End-colophon by Wáng Gǒng’s great-grandson [Wáng] Cóngjǐn says: “Of my ancestor’s writings, much was lost; in Lóngxìng 1 (1163) I obtained these three compilations from the Xiàng family, transcribed and gathered them into one fascicle.” Front: Zhāng Bāngjī’s preface saying he got the text from Zhāng Yóuyí, who in turn as a young man received it from his father, who had got it from the broken-trunk-case in the Gǒng household. End-date jiǎyín 5th month — Sòng Gāozōng Shàoxīng 3 (1133). The Xiàng family text further descends from the Zhāng — confirming the manuscript chain and showing the work to be genuinely Gǒng’s, not pseudepigraphic. The three works occasionally touch the supernatural and approach bàiguān (street-talk), so classed as xiǎoshuō; but the recorded court-affairs are abundant, every advancing-or-retreating of the worthy or jiān and every gùshì yángé (precedent and change) given in detail beyond the zhuàn (historical biographies) — really not all xiǎoshuō-class talk. The Jiǎshēn zájì entry on Lǐ Dìng’s words about Sū Shì — Fèi Gǔn’s Liángxī mànzhì objects to the inaccuracy: Sū Shì’s New-Policies poetry began only at Xīníng 1; Wūtái shī àn in Yuánfēng 2; the gap is less than ten years, yet Lǐ Dìng said èrsān shí nián — incompatible; Fèi Gǔn is right. But Fèi continues that Lǐ’s ability to remember the occasion of poems from 20-30 years ago is unremarkable, hardly worth Sū Shì’s attention — Fèi is wrong: the work records Lǐ as saying “the writings cited classics chapter and verse, asked at random, answered without missing a graph” — i.e., Lǐ was identifying the quotation sources, not the occasions of composition — Fèi misread.

Abstract

Wáng Gǒng (CBDB id 7084; c_fl_earliest_year 1069; c_fl_latest_year 1094) was a literary intimate of Sū Shì. His three short bǐjì — Jiǎshēn zájì, Wénjiàn jìnlù, Suíshǒu zálù — are unusually well-attested in terms of transmission: a four-step manuscript chain from Gǒng’s household (the “broken-trunk-case” of his own writings) through Zhāng Yóuyí’s father, through Zhāng Yóuyí to Zhāng Bāngjī, who prefaced the transcript in 1133; and through the Xiàng family who held a copy until 1163, when Wáng Cóngjǐn (Gǒng’s great-grandson) recovered it and combined the three works into one fascicle. The chain effectively rules out pseudepigraphy.

The Jiǎshēn zájì (this work)‘s 42 entries are non-chronological. Topics covered: Wáng Gǒng’s grandfather Wáng Dàn’s chief-ministerial conduct, the Wūtái shī àn (Lǐ Dìng’s account of Sū Shì’s poetic learning), early-Sòng court precedent, Cài Què and the Chēgài tíng case.

Translations and research

  • Egan, Ronald C. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi (HUP 1994). Uses Jiǎshēn zájì and the other Wáng Gǒng works on the Sū Shì circle.
  • Levine, Ari Daniel. Divided by a Common Language. UHP 2008. Cites Jiǎshēn zájì on factional discourse.
  • No European-language translation has been located.

Other points of interest

Wáng Gǒng’s Jiǎshēn zájì recording of Lǐ Dìng’s words on Sū Shì preserves the only contemporary record of how the Wūtái shī àn prosecution prepared its evidentiary basis — Lǐ Dìng’s claim to have memorized Sū’s literary corpus with chapter-and-verse classical citations.

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