Yìmíng jí 佚名集（角賦·服議）
Anonymous Collection — Rhapsody on the Horn; Memorial on Mourning Dress (Reconstructed)
About the work
A reconstructed collection (jíyìběn 輯佚本) of two short texts by an unidentified author, preserved in a single juǎn in Zhāng Pǔ’s 張溥 Hàn Wèi Liùcháo bǎisān jiā jí 漢魏六朝百三家集 compilation. The source file contains no attribution — no personal name, style name, or authorial signature appears anywhere in the text. The two pieces are:
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〈角賦〉 (Jiǎo fù, Rhapsody on the Horn) — a brief rhapsodic description of the jiǎo 角, the military signal horn. The text traces the instrument to the Yellow Emperor’s legendary assembly of ministers on Mount Tai (太山), comparing its sound to the cry of twin phoenixes, the roar of paired dragons. Cited in Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 juǎn 338.
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〈夫沒歸宗未嫁而亡為服議〉 (Fū mò guī zōng wèi jià ér wáng wèi fú yì, Memorial on Mourning Dress for a Woman Who Returns to Her Natal Clan after Her Husband’s Death and Dies Before Remarrying) — a ritual legal opinion (yì 議) on the question of what mourning grade the brothers of such a woman owe her. The author rules that the brothers should observe zhōu 周 (one-year) mourning, while the husband’s remaining kin owe her nothing, since she returned at her mother-in-law’s bidding. The parallel case of Lady Zhuang of Wei (Wèi Zhuāng Jiāng 衛莊姜) and Chen Gui 陳媯 (Zuǒzhuàn) is cited as precedent. Cited in Tōngdiǎn 通典 juǎn 99.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This text is an extra-catalog reconstruction not included in the Sìkù quánshū 四庫全書.
Abstract
The pairing of a musical fù with a ritual mourning opinion suggests the collection may represent the surviving fragments of an Eastern Jin court scholar or ritual official, but no direct attribution has been located. The Tōngdiǎn cites ritual debates of this type (mourning for women who returned to their natal clan after widowhood) in the context of Jin dynasty (Jìn 晉, 265–420 CE)礼学 discussions, making a Western or Eastern Jin date plausible. The Tàipíng yùlǎn excerpt on the horn instrument is similarly characteristic of Six Dynasties encyclopaedic fù production. Zhāng Pǔ 張溥 (1602–1641 CE; see 漢魏六朝百三家集) grouped this anonymous fragment among the other Jin-period collections in his compilation, which is consistent with a Jin dynasty provenance, though the assignment cannot be verified.
No substantial biographical or textual information has been located in standard reference works. No Wilkinson entry exists for this anonymous work.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Tōngdiǎn 通典 juǎn 99 (mourning ritual citations)
- Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 juǎn 338 (horn instrument citations)