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高齋漫錄

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Text ID
KR3l0060
Date
1148–1155
Dynasty
南宋

Gāozhāi mànlù 高齋漫錄

Casual Records from the Lofty Studio by 曾慥 (撰)

About the work

A one-juàn anecdote-collection (xiǎoshuō jiā lèi, záshì zhī shǔ) by 曾慥 Zēng Zào 曾慥 (zì Duānbó 端伯, hào Zhìyóuzǐ 至遊子; d. 1155), the Jìnjiāng 晉江 bibliophile and anthologist better known for his much larger Lèishuō 類說 and his Daoist anthology Dàoshū 道樞 (KR5d0039). Gāozhāi “Lofty Studio” was Zēng’s own study-name. The work is one of his late compilations of court and shìdàfū anecdote material, drawn from his reading and from his own observation, ranging from Tàizǔ down through the Xīníng, Yuánfēng, Yuányòu, Chóngníng, Dàguān, Zhènghé, Xuānhé and Shàoxīng reigns. It survived only in fragments after the Sòng; the present 1-juàn text is a Sìkù reconstruction principally from Yǒnglè dàdiǎn extracts, supplemented from Cáo Róng’s Xuéhǎi lèibiān.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Gāozhāi mànlù in 1 juàn, by the Sòng Zēng Zào. Zào — author of the Lèishuō, already on our register — in his preface to the Lèishuō held that “the minor arts are also worth examining” and gave them their value as zī zhìtǐ (aiding rule), zhù míngjiào (supporting the Teaching), gōng tánxiào (furnishing conversation and laughter), guǎng jiànwén (broadening observation). His composition of the present book also rests on this purpose: from the court’s diǎnzhāng (institutional precedent) above, down to shìdàfū shìjì (deeds of officials), and on to wénpíng shīhuà (literary judgments and poetry-talk), huīxié cháoxiào (jest and mockery) — whatever he saw or heard, all entered the record. As the entries on jǐshè zhī dāng fú chēngdài (“the Imperial Secretaries’ wearing of the red-belt”) and bù lì zhuǎnyùn shǐ zhī bù dé wéi zhīzhìgào (“one who has not served as Fiscal Commissioner cannot become Drafter”) — all supplement what the shǐzhì (Treatises of History) have not included. His citations are mixed and not without trivia, but the recoverable portion is much, and certainly far superior to ungrounded “wandering talk”.

Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records this book in 2 juàn; the world has seldom transmitted it. Recently Cáo Róng 曹溶 once excerpted it into the Xuéhǎi lèibiān, but only five pages survived there — extracted from other books for the sake of completeness, with many omissions. We have now taken from the various rhymes of the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn (extracts) and gathered them together — what we obtained exceeds Róng’s collection by thirty to forty percent. Where Róng’s text had something the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn did not preserve, we have also collated and supplemented from his text. We have roughly arranged the entries in chronological order, combining them into one juàn. Although this may not be Zào’s complete copy, the general outline can yet be seen. Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 9th month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Zēng Zào (CBDB id 1709; d. 1155) compiled the Gāozhāi mànlù late in life. Internal evidence places the composition in the latter part of his career: the work refers to Shàoxīng events and uses Shàoxīng vocabulary, and the catalog and modern scholarship consistently place the work alongside his other late anthological labors (the Lèishuō, completed 1136; the Dàoshū, c. 1151). A composition bracket of c. 1148 (after the Lèishuō and roughly contemporaneous with or just before the Dàoshū) — 1155 (his terminal year) is the tightest defensible window for the work in its received form.

The work belongs to the standard bǐjì genre of záshì (mixed-affairs) court and shìdàfū anecdote, but is distinguished by its concentration on the Xīníng — Yuánfēng — Yuányòu — Chóngníng generation: the Wáng Ānshí — Sū Shì — Sīmǎ Guāng circle dominates the entries. Sustained entries on Wáng Ānshí’s Zìshuō 字說, his retirement at Bànshān in Jīnlíng, his riddle-making and chess-talk; the rebuke between Sū Shì and Wáng Ānshí; Sū Shì and Sīmǎ Guāng’s famous chámò (tea-and-ink) exchange on the unity of dé in opposites; Sū Shì and Qián Mùfù’s sānbái (three-white) and máofàn (hairy-meal) joke; Sū Shì and Zhāng Dūn at the Xiānyóután; Zhāng Dūn and Cài Jīng on the Three-Hall examination reform; Cài Jīng’s tearful penitence on his demotion. The work is therefore one of the principal Sòng bǐjì sources for Northern-Sòng literary and political anecdote between 1070 and 1126.

The work also preserves notable kǎozhèng points: the bìsè 秘色 celadon ware was already so named in the Táng (citing Lù Guīméng’s poem on Yuè ware), against the WúYuè-origin tradition; the gǔdǒnggēng 谷董羹 (medley soup) of Chán-monastery origin, used by Sū Shì; the gloss of chīchí 癡瓻 (“foolish wine-jar”) as a textual corruption of chí 瓻 alone (the Tángyùn gloss on chí explains it as the wine-jar used in book-borrowing) — a textual point now standard.

The work was effectively lost between the late Sòng and the Qīng. Chén Zhènsūn (early thirteenth century) still recorded it in 2 juàn; by Cáo Róng’s day only five pages survived in the Xuéhǎi lèibiān; the Sìkù reconstruction from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovered substantially more, and the received 1-juàn text is the result. The Sìkù compilers note in the tíyào and in interlinear annotations throughout the body of the text which entries were supplemented from the Xuéhǎi lèibiān.

The work should not be confused with the Gāozhāi shīhuà 高齋詩話 (also by Zēng Zào, a separate shīhuà-genre work largely lost), nor with the much larger Lèishuō and Dàoshū.

Translations and research

  • Hervouet, Yves (ed.). A Sung Bibliography. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978. Has an entry on the work in the bǐ-jì section.
  • Egan, Ronald C. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi. HUP, 1994. Cites Gāo-zhāi mànlù on Sū Shì’s friendships and exchanges.
  • Bol, Peter K. “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in Tʻang and Sung China. Stanford, 1992. Uses Gāo-zhāi mànlù on Wáng Ān-shí’s late period at Bàn-shān.
  • Zhū Yì-xuán 朱易安 et al. (eds.). Quán Sòng bǐ-jì 全宋筆記. Zhèngzhōu: Dà-xiàng, 2003–. The standard modern critical edition of Gāo-zhāi mànlù is included in this series (3rd series, vol. 10).
  • No European-language translation of the whole has been located.

Other points of interest

The entry on bìsè celadon ware (entry 1 in the Sìkù reconstruction) is one of the most-cited Sòng bǐjì passages in modern Chinese ceramic-history scholarship: Zēng Zào’s use of Lù Guīméng’s Yuèqì poem to argue Táng origin of the bìsè designation supplied the framework for twentieth-century debate on the dating of the Faǎ-mén-sì-pagoda bìsè ware excavated in 1987.

The work’s textual transmission — survival of only five pages in Xuéhǎi lèibiān and partial recovery from Yǒnglè dàdiǎn — exemplifies the dependence of late-imperial bǐjì scholarship on the YuánMíng dàdiǎn compilation: similar reconstructions were performed by the Sìkù compilers for KR3l0050 Zhēnxí fàngtán and many others.

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