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古今善言

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Text ID
KR3l0133
Date
400–428
Dynasty
劉宋

Gǔjīn shànyán 古今善言

Good Sayings, Old and Modern by 范泰 (撰)

About the work

A LiúSòng zhìrén 志人 (“records of persons”) anthology in 30 juàn, compiled by Fàn Tài 范泰 (范泰, 355–428) — father of the historian Fàn Yè 范曄 (范曄, compiler of the Hòu Hàn shū). The collection assembles short anecdotes and pithy sayings (shàn yán 善言, “good sayings”) drawn from Hàn through Eastern-Jìn historical sources and from oral tradition, organised topically. Together with Liú Yìqìng’s 劉義慶 (later) Shìshuō xīnyǔ 世說新語 and Péi Qǐ’s 裴啟 Yǔlín 語林 (KR3l0135), the Gǔjīn shànyán belongs to the formative LiúSòng moment of the qīngtán 清談 / zhìrén genre — the prose form devoted to memorable utterance and characterological observation that would crystallise as the Shìshuō tradition.

Tiyao

Lost; no original 提要; fragments only.

Abstract

The Gǔjīn shànyán is registered in the Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書經籍志 (under zǐbù xiǎoshuō) at 30 juàn under Fàn Tài’s name, and in both Táng bibliographic treatises at 30 juàn. Fàn Tài (范泰) was a senior LiúSòng official — Tàicháng 太常 and Jīnzǐ guānglù dàifū 金紫光祿大夫, later Sī kōng 司空 — who lived 355–428 (Sòng shū 60 gives his standard biography). The work was therefore composed by Fàn Tài himself during his official career, almost certainly during the first quarter of the 5th century; the working window adopted here is c. 400–428 (the year of his death). The book’s bracketing date is not separately attested in the work itself — it survives only as fragments — but the composition must postdate the documented intellectual contacts of his maturity and predate his death.

The work was lost as a transmitted unitary text by no later than the early Sòng; the Chóngwén zǒngmù and the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì both omit it. Surviving fragments are scattered across the great Tang and Sòng lèishū: Lì Dàoyuán 酈道元’s Shuǐjīng zhù 水經注 (early 6th c.) preserves at least three substantial citations (notably the Rìnán 日南 [northern Vietnam] dialogue between Zhāng Zhòng 張重 and Míngdì concerning whether the sun is seen from the north in the southern frontier — juàn 36); the Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 cites the work numerous times under both Gǔjīn shànyán and the alternate title Hǎo shū 好書; the Běitáng shūchāo 北堂書鈔 (Yú Shìnán 虞世南, early Táng) and the Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚 also preserve substantial citations. The standard modern reconstruction is Lǔ Xùn’s 魯迅 in Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén 古小說鉤沉 (1909–11), expanded in the 20th c. by Wáng Guóliáng 王國良 (WèiJìn nánběicháo zhìguài xiǎoshuō yánjiū) and others. The reconstructed text amounts to several dozen entries — a small fraction of the lost original 30-juàn compilation.

The work’s importance is twofold. First, it is a documentary witness to the development of the zhìrén genre in the LiúSòng period before the Shìshuō xīnyǔ (compiled by Liú Yìqìng 劉義慶 in the Yuánjiā reign, 424–444). The Shìshuō certainly drew on it (Liú Jùn 劉峻’s later commentary explicitly cites it); the Gǔjīn shànyán is thus a key piece of evidence for the Shìshuō’s sources and method. Second, several of the more substantial surviving anecdotes — the Rìnán dialogue, the Yáng Xù 羊續 incident under Língdì showing the YángXùzǔ 羊續祖 song of his moral integrity (cited in the Hòu Hàn shū), the Pèi Wényáng 裴文陽 anecdote — preserve historical material not found in the standard histories or known to be drawn from a no-longer-extant Hàn — Jìn anecdotal tradition.

Fàn Tài’s son Fàn Yè (Fàn Yè 范曄, 398–445, compiler of KR2a0009 Hòu Hàn shū) draws on the Gǔjīn shànyán material in the Hòu Hàn shū — most notably the Yáng Xù incident already mentioned. The flow of material from the Gǔjīn shànyán into the Hòu Hàn shū is one of the documented examples of how LiúSòng anecdotal compilation fed standard historiography.

Translations and research

  • Lǔ Xùn 魯迅. Gǔ xiǎo-shuō gōu-chén 古小說鉤沉 (c. 1909–11; published 1938). The pioneering modern reconstruction; reprinted in Lǔ Xùn quán-jí.
  • Wáng Guóliáng 王國良. Wèi-Jìn nán-běi-cháo zhì-guài xiǎo-shuō yán-jiū 魏晉南北朝志怪小說研究 and related work. Updates Lǔ Xùn’s reconstruction with subsequent collation.
  • Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Táng qián zhì-guài xiǎo-shuō shǐ 唐前志怪小說史 (Nán-kāi, 1984; rev. 2005), discussion of Liú-Sòng zhì-rén sources.
  • Knechtges, David R., and Chang, Taiping, eds. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, vol. 1 (Brill, 2010), entry on Fàn Tài, with notice of the Gǔjīn shànyán.
  • Mather, Richard B., trans. Shih-shuo Hsin-yü: A New Account of Tales of the World (Minnesota, 1976; rev. Hawai’i, 2002). Treats the Gǔjīn shànyán as a source-text for the Shìshuō tradition.
  • Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §62 (zhì-rén / zhì-guài genres).

Other points of interest

The surviving Rìnán 日南 (northern Vietnam) anecdote — Zhāng Zhòng 張重’s witty response to the emperor’s question whether the sun is seen from the north in the southern frontier — became a topos of late-medieval geographical writing on the southern provinces and is the principal early literary document of the conceit that the sun could be viewed from any direction in Jiāozhǐ — a topos with strong implications for the imagination of the southern frontier. The fragment is also one of the few surviving early specimens of qīngtán-style wit translated to a court-audience setting.

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