Qíshěng jí 騎省集
Collection from the Cavalry Bureau (i.e. of the Sàn-qí cháng-shì Xú Xuàn) by 徐鉉 (撰), edited by 吳淑 (編)
About the work
Qíshěng jí 騎省集 (also titled 徐公文集 Xúgōng wén jí in the SBCK and Sòng manuscript line) is the 30-juǎn collected works of Xú Xuàn 徐鉉 (916–991), the eminent late-Southern-Táng / early-Sòng man of letters, philologist, and seal-script master. The title alludes to Xú’s long tenure as Sànqí chángshì 散騎常侍 (“Chamberlain Cavalier”), an office whose bureau was conventionally referred to as the qíshěng. Xú Xuàn’s reputation today rests on his imperially commissioned 986 revision of the Shuōwén jiězì KR1j0018 (the DàXúběn 大徐本), but the surviving prose corpus collected here is also a principal monument of late-Tenth-century literary culture, transitional between the rococo piāntǐ ornament of the Five Dynasties courts and the simpler gǔwén aesthetic that would become the Sòng norm under Ōuyáng Xiū. The collection was edited by his son-in-law Wú Shū 吳淑 吳淑.
Tiyao
No tíyào in the Kanripo source (the file is digitized from the SBCK base, which carries instead Lǐ Fǎng’s 李昉 mùzhìmíng for Xú Xuàn). The Sìkù 30-juǎn WYG tíyào is not preserved in the local source file; the Sìkù tíyào characterizes the collection as the principal corpus of “Southern-Táng piānlì in Sòng dress,” and notes that the original Southern-Táng manuscript was lost and the received recension is the post-Yōngxī (after 986) compilation by Wú Shū gathering material that survived Xú’s exile to Jìngnán in 991.
Abstract
The mùzhìmíng 墓誌銘 by Lǐ Fǎng 李昉 (924–996, then Yòupúyè tóngzhōngshūshìláng píngzhāngshì) preserved at the head of the SBCK file is the principal contemporary biography of Xú Xuàn and the chief authority for the dating, his offices, and the circumstances of his death. According to Lǐ, Xú served the Southern Táng for three reigns rising to Lìbù shàngshū, and after the Sòng absorption of the Southern Táng in 975 served the Sòng court as Tàizǐ shuàigēnglìng, then Sànqí chángshì (whence the title); in Chúnhuà 2 (991) he was demoted to Jìngnánjūn jiédù xíngjūn sīmǎ on a charge of partial speech in a court dispute, and died at his post the following year (cf. catalog meta lifedates 916–991, confirmed against CBDB and the Sòngshǐ j. 441 biography). The Sòngshǐ says the post-mortem editorial work of consolidating Xú’s writings was carried out by Wú Shū 吳淑 (CBDB 12238, lifedates 947–1002), Xú’s xù 婿 (son-in-law), who had already served alongside him on the Tàipíng yùlǎn and Wényuàn yīnghuá compilations.
The contents include heavily ornamental court documents (zhì, gào, biǎo, yù, fù, bēi, míng, zàn) of the kind that defined the late-Five-Dynasties literary administration, alongside more personal shī, xù, and the prose-poetry of Xú’s exchanges with Lǐ Fǎng, Lǐ Zhì 李至, Sū Yìjiǎn 蘇易簡, and Wáng Yòu 王祐. Xú’s prose is in the transitional piānlì style (the rhetoric still lavish, the syntax already loosening); his poetry, often light qīyán in the style of Bái Jūyì, was moderately influential on the early-Sòng Tàixué circle. The Mǎoshì Sòngběn and the SBCK reproduce the older 30-juǎn recension, in which the original Southern-Táng court documents (most lost in the 975 conquest) are largely replaced by Sòng-period compositions. The 1085 WYG block is a re-collation of the Sòng line, slightly rearranged.
Translations and research
- Johannes L. Kurz. 2003. Das Kompilationsprojekt Song Taizongs (961–997). Lang. The most substantial Western treatment of the early-Sòng sān dà shū compilation milieu in which Xú Xuàn and Wú Shū worked.
- Bol, Peter K. 1992. “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China. Stanford UP. Discusses Xú Xuàn as a paradigmatic transitional figure between Five-Dynasties and Northern-Sòng literary culture.
- Zhāng Xīng-wǔ 張興武. 2007. Wǔ-dài shī rén yǔ Sòng chū wén-tán 五代詩人與宋初文壇. Rénmín wénxué chūbǎnshè. Has a full chapter on Xú Xuàn’s poetry.
Other points of interest
The catalog title 騎省集 and the file title 徐公文集 are both standard alternate titles; the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 records a 30-juǎn version under both names. The much-studied 986 DàXúběn of the Shuōwén jiězì is not included here — that work is catalogued separately at KR1j0018. Xú’s elder brother Xú Kǎi 徐鍇 died in 974 before the Sòng conquest and is conventionally bracketed with him as the “Two Xús” 二徐 of paleographic transmission.
Links
- Xu Xuan (Wikipedia)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.1 (Sòng biéjí corpus); §42 (paleography).