聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

劇談錄

9 min read

Text ID
KR3l0109
Date
877–895
Dynasty
唐

Jùtán lù 劇談錄

Records of Animated Talk by 康駢 (撰)

About the work

A late-Táng anecdote-and-anomaly anthology in 2 juàn / 40 entries (per the Sìkù and the Tàipíng guǎngjì) by Kāng Pián 康駢 (zì Jiàyán 駕言, fl. 877–895), a man of Chíyáng 池陽 in Jīngzhào 京兆 who passed the jìnshì in Qiánfú 乾符 4 (877) and rose to the rank of Editor at the Chóngwén Studio (Chóngwén guǎn jiàoshūláng 崇文館校書郎); the book was completed in Qiánníng 乾寧 2 (895). The work’s two-character title Jùtán — sometimes translated “animated” or “sharp” talk — signals its character: the entries are not the cool inventories of fact characteristic of bǐjì, but spirited eyewitness or near-eyewitness anecdotes of late-Táng court, official, and street life, mostly post-Tiānbǎo (i.e., from c. 750 forward), each closed by a one- or two-sentence editorial comment from the compiler. Forty entries are listed in the Sìkù table of contents; among them the most consequential is the Pān Jiāngjūn shī zhū 潘將軍失珠 (General Pān’s Lost Pearl) entry — featuring the female martial-arts adept Pān Húlǜ 潘鶻硉 — which is the first sustained Chinese narrative of the xiánǚ 俠女 (woman-knight) archetype and the textual ancestor of the entire late-imperial wǔxiá (martial-romance) tradition.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Jùtán lù in 3 juàn. The Táng Kāng Pián 康駢 zhuàn. Wáng Dìngbǎo’s 王定保 Zhí yán 摭言 writes the surname “Táng” 唐 — this is a copyist’s slip. The Táng shū Yìwén zhì writes the name as Kāng Pǐn 康軿 [different graph]; cross-checked against his zì “Jiàyán” 駕言 — both characters [駢 and 軿, in their carriage-vehicle senses] are semantically consistent, so it is unclear which is correct. Yet every text that cites it writes Pián 駢; we suspect the Táng zhì is in error here. Pián was a man of Chíyáng 池陽. In Qiánfú 4 (877) he advanced to jìnshì; he held office up to Chóngwénguǎn jiàoshūláng 校書郎. This book was completed in Qiánníng 2 (895). All entries record petty matters from the Tiānbǎo period (742–756) onward, occasionally with discussions attached; there are 40 entries in all. Now checking against the Tàipíng guǎngjì, every one [of the Tàipíng guǎngjì’s citations] agrees with [the present text] — either it was taken whole into the Tàipíng guǎngjì at compilation, or it was reconstituted from the Tàipíng guǎngjì later.

At the end of this base-text there is an imprint mark of the Chén Daoist’s bookshop at Línānfǔ (杭州), and the wording appears to derive from a Sòng-period imprint. As in the Pān Jiāngjūn 潘將軍 entry’s note, the character should be Pān Húlǜ 潘鶻硉 — but the present Jiànxiá zhuàn 劍俠傳 cribbed the entry from the Tàipíng guǎngjì and miscopied it as Pān Hèsuì 潘鶴碎, which then becomes incomprehensible. From this one knows the present base-text is good.

It records an entry on Yuán Wēizhī 元微之 (Yuán Zhěn 元稹) advancing in age to jìnshì, taking a calling-gift, and visiting Lǐ Hè 李賀. The Gǔfúyútíng zálù 古夫于亭雜錄 discusses this: “Yuán [Zhěn]‘s passing the jìnshì was not late in life; nor was Lǐ Hè a senior. How could Yuán have taken a gift to his door — and indeed how could he have been treated with such contempt? Xiǎoshuō without roots is like this.” That criticism is well-taken. Yet bàiguān (street-history) writing is half hearsay; truth and falsehood intermingle. From of old it has been so; one can take it as evidence neither entirely, nor entirely as fabrication. It is for the reader to weigh truth and falsity. We do not therefore reject this one-family-tradition.

Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 41 (1776), 10th month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

(Note: the Sìkù tiyao reports 3 juàn but the WYG manuscript is transmitted in 2 juàn — the juànshàng / juànxià form preserved here is also the form recorded in the Tàipíng guǎngjì citations and in Wáng Yáochén’s Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目.)

Abstract

The composition window is sharply fixed by the tiyao’s own data: 877 (Kāng Pián’s jìnshì) to 895 (Qiánníng 2, the year of completion). The book is therefore one of the last xiǎoshuō collections produced under the Táng before the catastrophic Huáng Cháo 黃巢 rebellion (875–884) gave way to the warlord-fragmentation of the Tiānfù / Tiānyòu years and the Liáng usurpation of 907. The work’s atmosphere already registers that decline: its court anecdotes are nostalgic recollections of the great Xuánzōng — Mùzōng — Wénzōng — Wǔzōng court culture rather than current reportage, and its frequent invocations of géshì (a previous reign or age) underline the elegiac mode.

The 40 entries are ordered loosely. The list (recoverable from the mùlù in the WYG manuscript) divides naturally into clusters: court anecdotes of Xuánzōng 玄宗 / Sùzōng 肅宗 / Dàizōng 代宗 (Xuánzōng’s nocturnal summoning of the Hànlín xuéshì; Liú Píng 劉平 encountering Ān Lùshān 安祿山’s chīmèi 魑魅 demons; the strategic burnings of the Zhū Cǐ 朱泚 cloud-ladders by Hún Lìnggōng 渾令公 and Lǐ Xīpíng 李西平 [Lǐ Shèng 李晟]); minister-anecdotes (Péi Dù 裴度 at the Tiānjīn bridge; Yuánxiāng Yuán Zhěn 元稹 visiting Lǐ Hè 李賀, the entry the QīngQiánLóng critic Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禛 in his Gǔfúyútíng zálù singled out as transparently fabricated); local-magistrate marvels (Dí Wéiqiān 狄惟謙 praying for rain; Yuánxiāng Yuán Zhěn melting snow into gold for a county-magistrate); cultural anecdotes (the Cíēnsì 慈恩寺 peony; the Báifù 白傅 [Bái Jūyì 白居易] sailing on the Wěi River; Bó zhéxiān yuàn cí 廣謫仙怨詞 — an expanded version of the Cǐtóng 此調 of Xiàhóu Zī 夏侯孜); and the unique martial-romance entries (Guǎn Wàndí yù zhuàngshì 管萬敵遇壯士; Pān Jiāngjūn shī zhū 潘將軍失珠).

The Pān Jiāngjūn shī zhū entry is the most consequential single text in the collection. General Pān 潘 — a Cháng’ān officer — has his treasured pearl stolen from a locked chamber; under increasing pressure he is referred to a jūngshì 軍士 (military man) who in turn introduces him to a wandering lǎofù 老婦 (old woman) of Héběi origin, who in turn brings forward her granddaughter Pān Húlǜ 潘鶻硉 — a young woman of unremarkable appearance who turns out to be a kūnlún 崑崙-trained adept of supernormal martial arts. By midnight she has located the thief, recovered the pearl, and departed back into anonymity, refusing reward. The entry is among the earliest extant Chinese narratives in which the woman-knight (xiánǚ 俠女) is presented matter-of-factly as a type — neither monstrous nor fantastically idealised — and is the textual ancestor of the entire SòngYuánMíng wǔxiá 武俠 tradition through the Tàipíng guǎngjì (which reprints it in juàn 196 under the háoxiá 豪俠 heading) and on to Pú Sōnglíng’s Liáozhāi and the modern xiánǚ film. The Qīng-period Jiànxiá zhuàn 劍俠傳 reprints the entry but, as the Sìkù compilers note, miscopies Pān Húlǜ as Pān Hèsuì 潘鶴碎 — a textual corruption whose correction the Sìkù compilers register here as one ground for their preference of the WYG base-text over later MíngQīng prints.

Standard modern edition: Jùtán lù, in TángWǔdài bǐjì xiǎoshuō dàguān 唐五代筆記小說大觀 (Shànghǎi gǔjí 2000); annotated entry in Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國, TángWǔdài zhìguài chuánqí xùlù 唐五代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nánkāi 1993), pp. 949–966.

Translations and research

  • 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), entry on Jù-tán lù. The standard source-critical treatment.
  • Wáng Mèng-ōu 王夢鷗. Táng-rén xiǎo-shuō yán-jiū 唐人小說研究 (Tái-běi: Yì-wén, 4 vols., 1971–78).
  • Wāng Bì-cōng 汪辟疆. Táng-rén xiǎo-shuō 唐人小說 (Shàng-hǎi 1934).
  • Allen, Sarah M. Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China (Harvard Asia Center 2014). Treats the Jù-tán lù directly among the principal late-Táng anecdotal anthologies, with attention to its compositional layers.
  • Lévy, André. “Sur le Jutan lu 劇談錄 de Kang Pian,” in Études d’histoire et de littérature chinoises (Paris 1976). The principal French treatment.
  • Schafer, Edward H. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (UC Press 1963) and The Vermilion Bird (UC Press 1967). Use Jù-tán lù for late-Táng material culture.
  • Selected entries (especially Pān Jiāng-jūn shī zhū and Yuán-xiāng yè Bái Lè-tiān) translated in Karl S. Y. Kao, ed. Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (Indiana UP 1985), and in Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau, eds., Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations (Columbia 1978; repr. Cheng & Tsui 1986).

Other points of interest

The Pān Húlǜ 潘鶻硉 entry is the founding text of the xiánǚ 俠女 (woman-knight) line in Chinese fiction, anticipating Péi Xíng’s 裴鉶 Niè Yǐnniáng 聶隱娘 in the same period — both became canonical Tàipíng guǎngjì juàn 196 háoxiá entries. The Jùtán lù’s 40 entries are also the principal xiǎoshuō witness to the post-Huáng-Cháo Cháng’ān cultural memory: the destruction of the Da-míng-gōng 大明宮 Hányuándiàn 含元殿 figures explicitly in one entry; the political consequences of Wáng Xiānzhī 王仙芝 / Huáng Cháo 黃巢 brigandage in another. As a historical-cultural document, the Jùtán lù sits at the absolute hinge of Táng / Wǔdài transition, and what makes it survive is the Tàipíng guǎngjì’s complete absorption of it — which in turn fixed its 40 entries as the standard recension for the entire later tradition.

Graph View

Backlinks