咸平集

Xiánpíng jí 咸平集

The Xián-píng Collection (of Tián Xī) by 田錫 (撰)

About the work

Xiánpíng jí 咸平集 is the 30-juǎn posthumous collection of the upright early-Sòng remonstrance-official Tián Xī 田錫 (940–1003), zì Biǎoshèng 表聖. The title commemorates the Xiánpíng 咸平 reign (998–1003) of Sòng Zhēnzōng during which Tián died at his post as Yòujiànyìdàfū shǐguǎn xiūzhuàn. The transmitted recension is a post-Míng re-compilation that conflates Tián’s zòuyì 奏議 (memorials) with his shīwén literary corpus into a single 30-juǎn sequence, which the Sìkù tíyào explicitly notes is “not the original” — the original Sòng-period collection is recorded by Wénxiàn tōngkǎo as 50 juǎn. The collection’s prestige rested squarely on the memorials: Sū Shì 蘇軾 prefaced Tián’s zòuyì and compared him to Jiǎ Yì 賈誼; Fàn Zhòngyān 范仲淹 composed his epitaph; Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光 composed his shéndào bēi.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: the Xiánpíng jí in 30 juǎn was composed by Tián Xī of the Sòng. Tián has a Zòuyì already in the catalog; on examination that Zòuyì is the compilation of Ān Pán 安磐 of the Míng, and its content is wholly contained in the present collection. Yet the Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì records Tián’s Zòuyì in 2 juǎn and the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo records his Xiánpíng jí in 50 juǎn, while this present recension carries 1 juǎn of memorials, 3 juǎn of letters, 5 of fù, 3 of lùn, 2 of zhēnmíng, 6 of poems, 7 of sòngcèhùjìbiǎozhuàng, and 3 of zhìgàocí. Combining memorials with poetry-prose into one corpus and reducing the whole to 30 juǎn — this is plainly a re-compilation by later hands, not the original. Tián always admired Wèi Zhēng 魏徵 and Lǐ Jiàng 李絳 for their men, taking xiànnà 獻納 (presenting and admitting remonstrance) as his personal duty. The Guólǎo tányuàn 國老談苑 records that Sòng Tàizōng visited the Lóngtú gé, pointed at a black-lacquer box on the northwest shelf which he had personally locked, and said to Xuéshì Chén Yáosǒu 陳堯叟: “These are the memorials of Tián Xī” — and remained sorrowful for a long while. Even at the time his words were prized; thus on his death Fàn Zhòngyān composed the epitaph and Sīmǎ Guāng the shéndào bēi, while Sū Shì prefaced his memorials and compared him to Jiǎ Yì — those who took up the brush for him were all heroic men of the empire. Tián’s life can be inferred from this. His poetry and prose were a sideline, but they too have weight — the qìtǐ of his writing is luminous and forthright, like the man, ultimately not what those of muddled heart can imitate. Qiánlóng 45 (1780) 4th month, respectfully collated. — Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Tián Xī (940–1003), of Jīngzhào origins resettled in Shǔ (Sìchuān), passed the jìnshì in second place in Tàipíng xīngguó 3 (978) — the same year Sū Yìjiǎn 蘇易簡 took first. He held a long series of remonstrance posts, repeatedly memorializing on military overstrain (the LíngXià and Tàiyuán campaigns), border policy, frugality, and moral cultivation of the throne; he was demoted twice (to Hǎizhōu tuánliànfùshǐ and to Yánlíng) for the bluntness of his speech, but each time was rapidly restored. He died of illness at his post in Xiánpíng 6 (1003), age 64. The mùzhì by Fàn Zhòngyān (j. 8 of the present collection) preserves his bibliography: Xiánpíng jí 50 juàn (the original size before Míng abridgement), Zòuyì in 2 juàn (later separately collated by Ān Pán), and various scattered pieces. The literary corpus collected here — fù, lùn, shī, jì — is a competent late-tenth-century gǔwén in the simpler register that emerged in Sòng before the XīKūn school’s ornamentalism took hold; but the work’s historical prestige rests on the memorials, where Tián is the principal early-Sòng exemplar of the yánshì 言事 yùshǐ tradition that Sīmǎ Guāng and Sū Shì held up as a moral standard for the Sòng remonstrance system.

Translations and research

• Han Liang. 2014. Tian Xi (940–1003) and the Northern Song Restorationist Project. PhD diss., Princeton University. The principal Western treatment of Tián Xī as exemplary remonstrance official.
• Cài Yìng-chū 蔡英初. 2002. Tián Xī yán-jiū 田錫研究. Sìchuān dàxué chūbǎnshè. The standard modern Chinese monograph.
• Bol, Peter K. 1992. “This Culture of Ours”. Stanford UP. Tián Xī treated alongside Liǔ Kāi as a precursor of the Sòng yán-shì tradition.

Other points of interest

The collection’s Míng-period reduction from 50 to 30 juǎn — and the pre-emptive separate compilation of the Zòuyì by Ān Pán — means much that was Tián’s may have been lost; the Sìkù recension is a reconstruction. Among the appendices in this corpus is the Tián Sītú mùzhìmíng 田司徒墓誌銘 by Fàn Zhòngyān, one of the most carefully wrought mùzhì of the early Northern Sòng.

Links

• Tian Xi (Wikipedia, 田錫)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.1 (Sòng biéjí); §54 (Sòng gǔwén milieu).