Huànchuān jí 浣川集
The Huàn-chuān Collection by 戴栩 (撰)
About the work
Huànchuān jí is the 10-juǎn Sìkù reconstitution (from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn) of the biéjí of the Yǒngjiā poet and Yè Shì-school prose-stylist Dài Xǔ 戴栩 (jìnshì 1208), one of the secondary figures attached to the Sìlíng 四靈 circle of Wēnzhōu.焦竑’s Jīngjí zhì recorded the original at 18 juǎn; the present 10 juǎn are what could be salvaged.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: the Huànchuān jí in 10 juǎn was composed by Dài Xǔ of the Sòng. Xǔ, zì Wénzǐ — Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo, citing Wáng Zàn, gives the zì as Lìzǐ 立子; which is correct is not known — a man of Yǒngjiā. Took the jìnshì in Jiādìng 1 (1208), became Erudite of the Imperial Academy, advanced to Imperial Secretariat-Drafter, was made out as Prefect of Línjiāngjūn but did not take up the post; later he was reappointed as Adjutant of the Húnán Pacification Commission. Jiāo Hóng’s Guóshǐ jīngjí zhì lists his Huànchuān jí in 18 juǎn. We note that Xǔ has a quatrain reading “Of late, the ten thousand realms of mind are washed clean, / I laugh and rename Xiéchuān 斜川 as Huànchuān 浣川” — evidently the title he took for himself after retirement, after which the collection was named. The transmitted edition has long been lost; we now collect from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, edit and arrange it into 10 juǎn. Xǔ was a fellow-townsman of Xú Zhào 徐照, Xú Jǐ 徐璣, Wēng Juǎn 翁卷, Zhào Zǐzhī 趙紫芝 and the rest, so his poetic pài is close to the Sìlíng; yet his diction and line-construction tend to be carved-and-chiselled in their craft, whereas the Sìlíng specialised in pure leanness — they are of one source but different streams, each finding what was nearest its nature. As to his prose method, he was a disciple of Yè Shì and held to his master’s transmission point for point; thus his polished freshness is most like the Shuǐxīn jí KR4d0294. Among his works the discourses on Sage-Learning and on frontier-defense, with the various memorials, set forth their case earnestly; in the late phase of the Yǒngjiā school it can be said he yet carried the standard. The one objection: in the period when Shǐ Míyuǎn 史彌遠 ruled the state, Xǔ presented him flattering verse repeatedly; yet when Hú Zhīróu 胡知柔, for opposing Míyuǎn over the affair of King Jǐ, was demoted to Xiàngtái, Xǔ wrote him a parting poem expressing deep regret — front and back as if running on two different tracks. Of old, Hán Yù 韓愈, in his letter to Lǐ Shí, prefect of Jīngzhào, praised him deeply; but when he wrote the Shùnzōng shílù he listed Lǐ’s crimes in full. That literary men’s earlier and later judgements diverge is not unheard of; but that within a single short period one face can both smile and weep, the rain capsize and clouds invert — surely this means the man was inwardly attached to the favourites and outwardly leagued with the qīngliú? The man himself is hardly worth speaking of, but it is permissible to take his work for its literary art. The Jīngyì kǎo lists his Wǔjīng shuō zhù but says it is lost; examining the present text we find only his judgement that the Zhōulǐ was a rough sketch of the Duke of Zhōu’s not necessarily fully implemented in his own day — a view of some discernment — and his theses that the Shī was wrecked by Wèi Hóng’s preface, the Chūnqiū misled by the Gōngyángzhuàn, the Yì corrupted by the inter-mingling of Sage-attributed line-, hexagram-, and image-statements, and the Shū spoiled by the muddling of the Confucian house’s preface and zhuàn with the strips themselves. By and large these are the leftover spittle of the late-Sòng habit of casually deriding the Hàn classicists, and may stand or fall as they will. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 9th month. Chief Editors (subject) Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Chief Collator (subject) Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Dài Xǔ is one of the late-Yǒng-jiā 永嘉 figures: a jìnshì of 1208 (Jiādìng 1), a direct disciple of Yè Shì KR4d0294, and a fellow-townsman of the Sìlíng 四靈 quartet (Xú Zhào, Xú Jǐ, Wēng Juǎn, Zhào Shīxiù 趙師秀). His prose carries Yè Shì’s gǔwén — analytical, sinewy, statecraft-minded — into the next generation; his memorials on the corruption of the militia-summons system, on the defense of the lower Yangtze, and his treatises on Sage-learning and on frontier garrisons remain valuable as observers’ documents on late-Jiādìng malaise. As poet he occupies a hinge between the Yǒngjiā Sìlíng and the Jiānghú school: closer than the Sìlíng to deliberate craft and more elaborated diction. The Sìkù editors note (with disapproval) that during Shǐ Míyuǎn’s chancellorship he sent Shǐ flattering verses while also writing a sympathetic farewell to Shǐ’s victim Hú Zhīróu 胡知柔, treating him as morally equivocal but salvaging him for his letters. The original 18-juǎn collection (so 焦竑) was lost; the present 10-juǎn recension is the Sìkù reconstitution from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn (collated 1781). The dating bracket spans the start of his career (1208) to the Sìkù reconstitution (1781).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. The work is principally consulted by specialists in the Yǒng-jiā school and in late-Sòng poetic history.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.1 (Sòng biéjí reconstitutions from Yǒnglè dàdiǎn).