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殖氏志怪記

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Text ID
KR3l0150
Date
340–500
Dynasty
東晉-劉宋

Zhíshì zhìguài jì 殖氏志怪記

Master Zhí’s Records of Anomalies by 闕名 (Zhíshì 殖氏, surname only)

About the work

A zhìguài 志怪 anomaly-account collection by an Eastern-Jìn / early LiúSòng compiler known only by the surname Zhí 殖, lost as a unitary work and surviving in only two extremely short fragments collected by Lǔ Xùn 魯迅 in Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén 古小說鉤沈. The text under this id is therefore essentially a vestigial entry: of all ten texts in the present batch, this is the most fragmentary.

Tiyao

Lost; no original 提要; fragments only.

Abstract

Only two surviving citations of the Zhíshì zhìguài jì are known. (i) The Xiè Mó 謝謨 fragment, preserved in Běitáng shūchāo 書鈔 j. 144: “The Zōngzhèngqīng 宗正卿 Xiè Mó 謝謨 of Kuàijī, drinking alone at night from a wǎn (bowl) in his chamber, suddenly saw a person — zhuīfā tǎnbì 椎髮袒臂 (top-knot, bare-armed) — come to drink, and refuse to leave after emptying the jar; Xiè Mó, taking him for a thief, drew his sword and pursued him.” (ii) A second, even shorter fragment of four characters — “kèxīng tōngzuò” 客星通坐 (“a guest-star passed across his seat”) — preserved in Běitáng shūchāo j. 20, evidently the closing portmanteau of an astrological-anomaly anecdote whose body is lost.

The collection is securely attested in the Suí shū Jīngjí zhì (子部·小說家) under the entry “Zhìguài jì, X juǎn, Zhíshì” (juàn-count corrupt across the witnesses; the Jiù Táng shū and Xīn Táng shū monographs agree). It is grouped by Lǔ Xùn and by Lǐ Jiànguó’s Tángqián zhìguài xiǎoshuō shǐ §6 with the second-tier post-Gān-Bǎo zhìguài corpus: alongside Zǔ Táizhī 祖臺之 Zhìguài, 曹毗 Cáo Pí Zhìguài (cf. KR3l0144), Kǒngshì Zhìguài (KR3l0149 by 孔約), and Zǔ Chōngzhī 祖沖之 Shùyì jì.

The author is known only by surname (Zhí 殖, a rare clan-name, possibly from the Zhí 殖 / Zhí 植 Qí-state lineage attested in Zuǒzhuàn). Modern scholarship (Lǐ Jiànguó) has not securely identified him. The frontmatter records persons: 闕名 (Anonymous) with a parenthetical clarification that the catalog attribution is to Zhíshì; no person-note is created for the bare surname.

The dating bracket adopted here (340–500) is conservative: the lower bound reflects the assumed Eastern-Jìn placement based on the company the work keeps in the Suí shū listing, and the Xiè Mó fragment’s internal date (Xiè Mó is a documented mid-4th-c. Kuàijī figure, a Xièshì collateral to Xiè Ān 謝安); the upper bound is set at the conventional late-5th-c. consolidation of the major LiúSòng / Qí zhìguài corpora before the Liáng catalog tradition.

This entry is provided in full despite the extreme fragmentariness, because the work is securely attested in the Suí shū and the two surviving citations are textually unambiguous; readers interested in the collection’s literary profile should consult Lǔ Xùn’s reconstruction and Lǐ Jiànguó’s commentary.

Translations and research

  • Lǔ Xùn 魯迅. Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén 古小說鉤沈 — the two fragments are reproduced here.
  • Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國. Táng-qián zhì-guài xiǎoshuō shǐ 唐前志怪小說史 (Tiānjīn jiào-yù, rev. 2005), §6, treats the Zhí-shì zhì-guài jì in the second-tier zhì-guài group.
  • Wáng Guóliáng 王國良. Liù-cháo zhì-guài xiǎoshuō kǎo-lùn 六朝志怪小說考論 (Wén-shǐ-zhé chū-bǎn-shè, 1988).
  • Níng Jiā-yǔ 寧稼雨, ed. Zhōng-guó wén-yán xiǎo-shuō zǒng-mù tí-yào 中國文言小說總目提要 (Qí-Lǔ 1996), s.v.
  • No European-language treatment of the Zhí-shì zhì-guài jì in its own right has been located; the work is mentioned in passing in Campany, Strange Writing (SUNY 1996), p. 78, in the inventory of lost zhì-guài collections.

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