Húshān jí 湖山集
The Hú-shān (Lake-and-Mountain) Collection by 吳芾 (撰)
About the work
Húshān jí 湖山集 in 10 juǎn is the surviving recension of the literary collection of Wú Fú 吳芾 (1104–1183, zì Míngkě 明可, self-styled Húshān jūshì 湖山居士, of Táizhōu Xiānjū). The original collection — by Wú’s son Hóngbāo’s report and Zhōu Bìdà’s 周必大 preface (1203) — comprised 25 juǎn of shīwén + 3 juǎn of chángduǎnjù (lyric) + 1 juǎn biéjí + 8 juǎn of memorials + 3 juǎn of Hé Táo poems + 3 juǎn of appendices + 8 juǎn of the Dāngtú xiǎojí — and the Sòng shǐ biography reports yet another configuration (5 juǎn memorials + 30 juǎn shīwén). The original was lost; the Sìkù editors reconstructed the present 10-juǎn recension from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fragments, retaining Zhōu Bìdà’s preface as the guàn.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào: the Húshān jí in 10 juǎn was composed by Wú Fú of the Sòng. Fú’s zì was Míngkě, self-styled Húshān jūshì, of Táizhōu Xiānjū. Jìnshì of Shàoxīng 2 (1132); held office to Lǐbù shìláng, served as prefect of several jùn, and retired with the title Lóngtúgé zhíxuéshì. His record is in the Sòngshǐ biography. While Mìshūshěng zhèngzì, Fú was impeached and dismissed for not aligning with Qín Huì. Later, when the Jin army approached the river, Fú submitted a memorial — “Advance, no retreat” — requesting Gāozōng to make a temporary halt at Jiànkāng to bind the hopes of the Central Plains. In his commands of jùn he gave many beneficent administrations; he was no mere literary man.
His poetic talent was abundant — pouring forth like a wave, gushing like a spring, marvels without end. Though he sometimes errs by being too easy or fluent, this is altogether different from coarse rusticity or decadent slackness. Pieces such as the Wǎn yuánshī Zōngzé (Eulogy on the Marshal Zōngzé) are particularly forceful, sweeping, and constitute a school of their own. According to his self-statement in the collection, Fú was born in the year jiǎshēn — Chóngníng 3 (1104). At the beginning of Jiànyán (1127) he was not yet thirty, and his brush was already this strong. He retired in seclusion for over ten years, near eighty, gradually inclining to the plain and the harmonious — the Hé Táo poems must have been composed at this time, and they too show a special air of leisured serenity.
The collection contains a poem sent to Zhū Yuánhuì 朱熹: “Master, in this Dào / your subtle place is already attained. / You still wish to transmit it to later students, / making them hear what they have not heard. / I have long admired you; / would dearly like to see you, and very diligently so.” This shows that in his last years he too rather wished to attach himself to the jiǎngxué (Cheng-Zhu Lǐxué discussion-circles); but his poetic phrasing was elegant and refined — by no means like the rhymed yǔlù of the jiǎngxué schools.
Zhōu Bìdà’s collection contains a preface to Fú’s Húshān jí, calling it 25 juǎn + chángduǎnjù 3 juǎn + biéjí 1 juǎn + memorials 8 juǎn + Hé Táo shī 3 juǎn + appendices 3 juǎn + Dāngtú xiǎojí 8 juǎn. The běnzhuàn says memorials 5 juǎn + shīwén 30 juǎn — the juǎn-counts disagree between sources. The original is lost, with no way to verify. The present recension is taken from scattered entries in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn under various rhymes, edited and arranged into 10 juǎn; the Hé Táo poems are merged in, and Bìdà’s original preface is retained at the head. The Sòng shǐ says Fú’s prose was bold, healthy, severe, and orderly — his miscellaneous prose too must have been worth reading; alas, the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn has already lost most of it; only one memorial and one preface have been recovered, attached to the last juǎn to preserve a sketch of the whole. Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 9th month, respectfully collated.
Abstract
Wú Fú is a representative second-rank Southern-Sòng official whose interest is precisely his independent stance against Qín Huì 秦檜’s appeasement program: while serving in the Mìshūshěng during the Shàoxīng era he was impeached and dismissed for refusing to join Qín’s faction, and later — when the Jurchen Jin armies threatened the Yangtze line — submitted a memorial demanding that Gāozōng stop at Jiànkāng (Nánjīng) rather than withdraw further south, an unusual statement for an official who would have to face Qín Huì on returning to court. He served as prefect of multiple zhōu (notably Dāngtú, where in 1167 he sponsored the printing of the Gūxī jūshì qiánjí of Lǐ Zhīyí 李之儀 KR4d0110) and retired with the Lóngtúgé zhíxuéshì honor.
The poetic career runs in two phases. The earlier phase (mid-1120s through 1160s) is documented by the Wǎn Zōngzé and other gǔshī memorial poems; the later — after his sixteen-year retirement noted by Zhōu Bìdà — yields the Hé Táo (matching Táo Yuānmíng) cycle, written in his late seventies. The poem to Zhū Xī cited in the Sìkù tíyào is one of the tantalizing late-life signs that Wú attempted to associate himself with the emerging Cheng-Zhu Dàoxué movement, though he never became a Lǐxué figure proper.
The original collection (25+ juǎn per Zhōu Bìdà’s preface; differing figure in Sòngshǐ) was lost between Sòng and Qīng. The Sìkù editors reconstructed the present 10-juǎn recension from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The dating bracket reflects the active composition window: the earliest pieces from the early Jiànyán era (1127, when he was first active in office) through his death in 1183.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located in Western languages.
- (For context on Wú’s printing of Lǐ Zhī-yí’s collection, see Susan Cherniack 1994, “Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China,” HJAS 54.1.)
Other points of interest
The reconstructed nature of the present recension — recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn in the late eighteenth century — means that the surviving Húshān jí is a fragment of what Wú’s son originally compiled and what Zhōu Bìdà’s 1203 preface described. The preface itself is one of the principal contemporary biographical documents.
Links
- Wu Fu (Wikipedia, zh)
- Sòngshǐ j. 387 (biography of Wú Fú).