聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

集異記

9 min read

Text ID
KR3l0104
Date
821–824
Dynasty
唐

Jíyì jì 集異記

Collected Records of the Strange by 薛用弱 (撰)

About the work

A one-juàn mid-Táng chuánqí / zhìguài anthology, 16 entries in the received WYG recension, by Xuē Yòngruò 薛用弱 (zì Zhòngshèng 仲勝, fl. early 9th c.), who served as Prefect of Guāngzhōu 光州 in the Chángqìng 長慶 reign-period (821–824) of Táng Mùzōng 穆宗 (according to Xīn Táng shū Yìwén zhì). The book is among the smaller anthologies of the late-Táng chuánqí corpus, but it carries a strikingly disproportionate cultural weight: four of its 16 tales — Wáng Wéi 王維 and the Yùlún páo 鬱輪袍 (the lute-tune by which Wáng Wéi outmanoeuvres Princess Yùzhēn’s favourites and secures first place in the jìnshì examination), Wáng Zhīhuàn 王之渙 and the Qítíng huàbì 旗亭畫壁 (the three-poet wager at a wine-shop, in which Wáng Zhīhuàn’s Liángzhōu cí 涼州詞 is sung by the most beautiful of the singing-girls), Dí Rénjié 狄仁傑 and the Jícuì qiú 集翠裘 (the kingfisher-feather robe of Empress Wǔ), and Wáng Jīxīn 王積薪 and the Fùgū wéiqí 婦姑圍棋 (the Mount Min mother-in-law and daughter-in-law playing weiqi in the dark) — became canonical citations of Táng cultural memory and recur in Sòng anthologies, lèishū, cí-prefaces, and modern textbooks down to the present. The collection thus stands not as a marginal zhìguài compendium but as a principal point of preservation for TángXuánzōng / High Táng anecdotal lore.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Jíyì jì in 1 juàn. The Táng Xuē Yòngruò 薛用弱 zhuàn. On examination, the Táng shū Yìwén zhì records that Yòngruò zì Zhòngshèng 仲勝 served as Prefect of Guāngzhōu 光州 during the Chángqìng period (821–824); his native place is not recorded. The opening of this book’s first juàn heads itself “Hédōng 河東” (East-of-the-River), but Táng-era shìzú customarily indicated their jùnwàng 郡望 (ancestral commanderie) — every Liú claimed Péngchéng, every Lǐ Lǒngxī — so where exactly he was born remains uncertain. The book records 16 entries in all. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 says the first entry is on Xú Zuǒqīng 徐佐卿’s transformation into a crane — the present recension likewise opens with this entry, agreeing with Cháo’s record, and presumably still represents the old recension. The world-transmitted entries on Dí Rénjié and the kingfisher robe (Jícuì qiú), Wáng Wéi and the Yùlún páo, Wáng Jīxīn and the mother-and-daughter-in-law weiqi-game, Wáng Zhīhuàn and the wineshop-wall inscription — all derive from this book. Its Liángchángshān xīngōng míng 良常山新宮銘 was praised by Hóng Mài’s 洪邁 Suíbǐ as a wondrous composition; Sū Shì’s 蘇軾 line to his son Sū Guò 蘇過, “Ěr yīng núlì Cài Shǎoxiá, wǒ yì bózhòng Shān Xuánqīng” 爾應奴隸蔡少霞、我亦伯仲山玄卿 (You shall play slave to Cài Shǎoxiá; I shall stand brother to Shān Xuánqīng), uses material from this book. Slim though the juàn-count be, generations of literary men have habitually quarried it for citations — it is one of the xiǎoshuō writings worth taking up.

Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Shūlù jiětí 書錄解題 says the book has an alternative title Gǔyì jì 古異記, but no other catalogue records this title; on what basis Chén worked is unclear. There is also a Tang Bǐbù lángzhōng Lù Xūn 陸勳 who likewise wrote a Jíyì jì, in two juàn, of the same name as Yòngruò’s; the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo therefore titles Lù’s book “Lùshì Jíyì jì” to distinguish it from Yòngruò’s.

(Note: the present WYG manuscript’s tiyao block continues directly into a second tiyao, for the Bóyì jì of Gǔshénzǐ KR3l0105, on the same pages — the Sìkù compilers treated the two short collections as a paired sub-section of the yìwén category.)

Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 12th month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The composition window adopted here (821–824) follows the Sìkù compilers’ identification of Xuē Yòngruò’s tenure as Prefect of Guāngzhōu in Chángqìng 1–4 with the most plausible date of compilation; the Xīn Táng shū Yìwén zhì lists the work under his name as a xiǎoshuō-class item, with no other dating-anchor available. Modern Chinese scholarship (Wāng Bìcōng 汪辟疆, Tángrén xiǎoshuō 唐人小說, 1934; Wáng Yīměi 王夢鷗, Tángrén xiǎoshuō yánjiū 唐人小說研究, 1971–78) treats it as a Chángqìng product.

The 16 entries are loosely arranged by subject and date. The opening Xú Zuǒqīng 徐佐卿 entry — Táng Xuánzōng shooting a crane in Tiānbǎo 13 (754) at the Shāyuàn 沙苑 hunting park, the crane vanishing wounded with the arrow, the emperor on his subsequent flight to Shǔ finding the arrow inscribed on the wall of the Míngyuè Daoist abbey near Yìzhōu 益州 at the hands of the Daoist “Xú Zuǒqīng” who turns out to be the crane in human form — is the locus classicus of the Tang transformation-Daoist motif, and was already a cultural touchstone by the time Cháo Gōngwǔ wrote in the early Southern Sòng. The four canonical “Táng anecdote” entries — Jícuì qiú (Dí Rénjié refuses to compete for Empress Wǔ’s kingfisher robe), Yùlún páo (Wáng Wéi plays the eponymous pípa tune for Princess Yùzhēn and so secures first place in the jìnshì examination), Fùgū wéiqí (Wáng Jīxīn, fleeing to Shǔ with Xuánzōng, overnights at a Mínshān cottage and overhears two women, mother- and daughter-in-law, playing weiqi blind in their separate rooms — and finds his entire repertoire eclipsed by their casual instructions), and Qítíng huàbì (Wáng Chānglíng 王昌齡, Gāo Shì 高適, and Wáng Zhīhuàn 王之渙 in a wineshop, betting on whose poems the singing-girls will perform — the prize being the song of Wáng Zhīhuàn’s Liángzhōu cí by the most beautiful of them) — are the principal source of the popular image of the High Táng literary world.

Other entries are darker: Lǐ Qīng 李清 (the Bózhōu druggist’s xià yú jiāyán xià descent into the Tàishān grotto-cave for fifty years), Dù Zǐchūn 杜子春 (the famously dark Cháng’ān prodigal who is tested through the Buddhist hell-cycle by an alchemist and fails by speaking out of pity in the final, hardest test — though the canonical “Dù Zǐchūn” chuánqí under that title is the parallel version preserved in KR3l0099-tradition / Xuánguài lù, and the Jíyì jì version is a related shorter narrative), and Liángchángshān xīngōng míng 良常山新宮銘 (the elaborate Daoist temple-inscription whose imagery Sū Shì later parodied in his lines on Shān Xuánqīng and Cài Shǎoxiá).

Textual transmission: the Xīn Táng shū lists Xuē’s Jíyì jì as 3 juàn; the Sòng shǐ and Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì as 1 juàn; the received WYG text in 1 juàn is plainly a Southern-Sòng-era abridged or reconstructed recension. Bibliographers from Chén Zhènsūn onward note that the title was sometimes confused with two other Jíyì jì — the Sòng Lù Xūn 陸勳 Jíyì jì (mid-Hàn? possibly 2-juàn — recorded in the Tōngkǎo), and a separate Sòng-period Jíyì jì by Xú Xuàn 徐鉉.

Standard modern edition: collated text in Tángrén xiǎoshuō 唐人小說 (Wāng Bìcōng 汪辟疆 ed., Shànghǎi 1934; many reprints), pp. 130–149; for the principal entries with annotation, see Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國, TángWǔdài zhìguài chuánqí xùlù 唐五代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nánkāi 1993), pp. 421–432.

Translations and research

  • Wāng Bì-cōng 汪辟疆. Táng-rén xiǎo-shuō 唐人小說 (Shàng-hǎi 1934; many reprints). Standard collected text, including a critical recension of the Jí-yì jì.
  • Wáng Mèng-ōu 王夢鷗. Táng-rén xiǎo-shuō yán-jiū 唐人小說研究 (4 vols., Tái-běi: Yì-wén 1971–78). Most thorough source-critical study of the entire Táng chuán-qí corpus, Jí-yì jì included.
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Táng-Wǔ-dài zhì-guài chuán-qí xù-lù 唐五代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nán-kāi 1993). Bibliographical and source-critical entries for every Táng-Wǔ-dài zhì-guài and chuán-qí; Jí-yì jì treated in detail.
  • Reed, Carrie E. A Tang Miscellany: An Introduction to Youyang zazu (Peter Lang 2003). General methodology for Táng bǐ-jì / xiǎo-shuō anthologies, with comparative use of Jí-yì jì.
  • Selected tales translated in: Karl S. Y. Kao, ed. Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (Indiana UP 1985); Edwards, E. D., Chinese Prose Literature of the T’ang Period (1937–38), vol. 2.
  • Yāo Líng-líng 姚玲玲. “Jí-yì jì yán-jiū” 集異記研究. MA thesis, Sì-chuān shī-fàn dà-xué 2007. The most thorough modern Chinese-language single-work study.
  • Hú Yīng 胡瀛. “Jí-yì jì zài Sòng-Yuán cí-yuán-qū-fù yǐn-yòng kǎo” 集異記在宋元詞元曲賦引用考. Wén-shǐ zhī-shi 2014.

Other points of interest

The WángJīxīn / Fùgū wéiqí entry — the imperial hànlín weiqi-master overhearing two Mínshān women playing in the dark by call-out coordinates (“East 5, South 9”; “East 5, South 12”; “West 8, South 10”…) — is the earliest sustained Chinese narrative of the xiánfù gāoshǒu 賢婦高手 (humble-wife-as-supreme-master) trope, and the earliest detailed extant description of a blind weiqi game in Chinese literature; it remains in modern Chinese weiqi textbooks. The Qítíng huàbì tale is the principal extant source for the canonical anecdotal pairing of Wáng Zhīhuàn, Wáng Chānglíng, and Gāo Shì as the three pre-eminent High-Táng yuèfǔ poets, and its citation of Wáng Zhīhuàn’s Liángzhōu cí (“Huánghé yuǎnshàng báiyún jiān…”) as the song-of-the-most-beautiful-girl is the principal ground on which the poem is now habitually attributed to him. (It also appears under Wáng Hàn’s 王翰 name in some witnesses; the Jíyì jì version is the locus classicus for the Wáng Zhīhuàn attribution.)

Graph View

Backlinks