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茅亭客話

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Text ID
KR3l0116
Date
1004–1010
Dynasty
宋

Máotíng kèhuà 茅亭客話

Guest Talk from the Thatched Pavilion by 黃休復 (撰)

About the work

A ten-juǎn bǐjì compiled by the early-Sòng Chéngdū literatus Huáng Xiūfù 黃休復 (zì Guīběn 歸本, fl. 1006; see 黃休復) — better known as the author of KR3h0016 Yìzhōu mínghuà lù 益州名畫錄, the foundational chronicle of Chéngdū painting. Máotíng kèhuà is its companion work in bǐjì form: anecdotes recorded as if in guest-conversation at Huáng’s “Máotíng” (thatched pavilion) home. The book consists of approximately 110 entries arranged chronologically from the Former-Shǔ (王) and Later-Shǔ (孟) kingdoms through the Sòng conquest of Shǔ (965) down to the Zhēnzōng reign, with not a single entry concerning anywhere outside the Shǔ region (Sìchuān). It is therefore one of the principal Sòng sources for tenth-century Shǔ regional history — politically (the Wáng/Mèng courts and the Sòng transition), religiously (Daoist alchemy, yǐnshì, fāngshì), and culturally (painting, music, calligraphy).

Tiyao

Your servants report: Máotíng kèhuà in 10 juǎn. The Sòng Huáng Xiūfù zhuàn. Xiūfù has Yìzhōu mínghuà lù already on record. This compilation is a miscellany of what he saw and heard, beginning with the Wáng and Mèng (Former and Later Shǔ) families and ending in the reign of Sòng Zhēnzōng; all are scattered events of Shǔ — not a single entry crosses into another commandery. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says “what he records is mostly Shǔ affairs,” which suggests Chén had not checked the book thoroughly but only generalized. Lǐ Tián’s preface to the Yìzhōu mínghuà lù describes Xiūfù as “knowing the Chūnqiū” and “selling cinnabar to support his parents”; in the present book the entry on the Lǐ chǔshì mounts a vigorous critique of Dù Yù’s error in collapsing the Zuǒzhuàn with the Chūnqiū classic-text proper — proof of his Chūnqiū expertise; the other entries that discuss shāoliàn (alchemical smelting), fúěr (cinnabar regimen), dǎoyǐn (Daoist breathing-gymnastics), and that list the marvels of the Daoist masters together fill more than half the book — proof of his familiarity with the alchemical art (dān fǎ). The rest, although much given to the supernatural, often borrows the strange for the sake of admonition (jiè), and is among the most rational of xiǎoshuō.

His entry on WúWáng’s Kèshěngshǐ Gāo Bì presenting Wáng Xīzhī’s stone-rubbing of the Lántíng to the false-Shǔ heir-apparent — saying it was the rubbing made after Wáng’s preface composition — is a claim never heard from any prior stele-and-bronze cataloguer (note: Zhào Xīgǔ’s Bīntuì lù cites Cài Tāo: “the Dìngwǔ edition is the Jiāng-zuǒ-transmitted Jìn Kuàijī stone” — Zhào’s claim is probably his graft from this story). Likewise the entry on Dézōng’s secret order to the monk Xíngqín to entice Wéi Gāo with cinnabar, until in Zhēnyuán 20 (804) Gāo died of poisoning — this is also unrecorded in the Tang histories. The entry on the Léi qín (Léi family lute) is also exceptional — the bridge high but the strings low, the strings low but not striking the surface; pressing it as if there were no string under the finger, on plucking it the resonance is full — all such matter is help to broadening of yìwén (unusual knowledge). His refutation of Bǐmèng suǒyán’s report — that during Gāo Pián’s term in Shǔ the magician Wáng Jiàn exchanged the Fúgǎnsì pagoda’s golden xiānglún (spire-wheel) — citing the fact that in Chúnhuà 5 (994) the xiānglún fell and proved to be cast bronze-and-iron, refuting Sūn Guāngxiàn’s untruth — is likewise a useful correction of xiǎoshuō error.

Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 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.

Abstract

The Máotíng kèhuà is a tenth-century-Shǔ retrospective compiled c. 1006 by Huáng Xiūfù, who lived through the last decades of the Former and Later Shǔ kingdoms (Wáng 王 / Mèng 孟) and the Sòng absorption of 965. Lǐ Tián 李畋’s preface to Huáng’s Yìzhōu mínghuà lù (dated 1006) provides what little is known about the man — a Chūnqiū scholar who supported his parents by the sale of cinnabar (i.e., as a practising alchemist). The bracket adopted here (1004–1010) reflects the conventional dating of the Yìzhōu mínghuà lù and the closely-contemporaneous Máotíng kèhuà; the latest events in Máotíng are in Zhēnzōng’s reign (998–1022). The two works together — one on painting, one on miscellaneous bǐjì — fix Huáng as the principal Northern-Sòng chronicler of the Shǔ heritage.

The 110 or so entries cover an unusually wide range of subject-matter for a xiǎoshuō-classed work: doctrinal Chūnqiū exegesis (the Lǐ chǔshì entry’s polemic against Dù Yù’s Zuǒzhuàn-jīng fusion); Daoist alchemy and dǎoyǐn practice (more than half the book); painting, calligraphy and music (the Léiqín lute description, anomalously bridging organology and xiǎoshuō); and political-historical anecdote (the Gāo Bì Lántíng rubbing to Shǔ; the Dézōng / Wéi Gāo poisoning). The book is therefore as much a zázǔ miscellany as a zhìguài, and is regularly listed by SòngYuán cataloguers under both rubrics. It is one of the principal Sòng sources of information for Daoist alchemy practice in tenth-century Shǔ and was extensively quarried by Yuán and Míng compilers — entries cited in Tāo Zōngyí’s Shuō fú, in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, and in the Gǔjīn shuōhǎi.

The Sìkù compilers commend the book as “most rational among xiǎoshuō” (zài xiǎoshuō zhī zhōng zuì wéi jìn lǐ 在小説之中最為近理) — a judgement reflecting the book’s ratio of moral admonition to mere supernatural curiosity. The Wáng Xīzhī Lántíng rubbing anecdote and the Léiqín organological entry are particularly often cited in subsequent connoisseurship; the Wéi Gāo poisoning episode, by contrast, is largely ignored by the political-historical tradition (the standard histories do not preserve it).

Translations and research

  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Sòng-dài zhì-guài chuán-qí xù-lù 宋代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Nán-kāi 1997). Source-critical entry.
  • Soper, Alexander C. “Shu Painting in the Sung Dynasty,” Archives of Asian Art 26 (1972/73), pp. 70–84. Uses Máo-tíng kè-huà alongside Yìzhōu mínghuà lù as the principal Sòng witness to tenth-century Shǔ artistic production.
  • Sturman, Peter Charles. Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China (Yale 1997). Uses Máo-tíng kè-huà’s Lán-tíng rubbing entry as one of the standard early Sòng witnesses.
  • Hé Bīn 何彬. “Máo-tíng kè-huà yǔ Wǔ-dài Sòng-chū Shǔ-dì Dàojiào kǎo” 《茅亭客話》與五代宋初蜀地道教考, in Zōng-jiào xué yán-jiū (2009). Substantive Chinese article on the book’s value for tenth-century Shǔ Daoism.
  • Inglis, Alister D. Hong Mai’s “Record of the Listener” and Its Song Dynasty Context (SUNY 2006). Comparative discussion of the Northern-Sòng zhì-guài tradition.

Other points of interest

The Máotíng kèhuà’s entry refuting Sūn Guāngxiàn’s Bǐmèng suǒyán anecdote of the magician Wáng Jiàn exchanging the Fúgǎnsì pagoda’s golden spire — using as evidence the actual Chúnhuà 5 (994) collapse of the spire which revealed it was bronze-iron — is a textbook example of early-Sòng empirical xiǎoshuō criticism: a contemporary writer correcting his predecessor on the basis of physical examination of the artefact in question. The episode is regularly cited (e.g., by the Sìkù tiyao itself) as a case where the xiǎoshuō tradition contains internal critical machinery.

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