雪坡集

Xuěpō jí 雪坡集

Snow-Slope Collection by 姚勉 (撰), 姚龍起 (編)

About the work

The literary collection of Yáo Miǎn 姚勉 (1216–1262), the zhuàngyuán of the Bǎoyòu 寳祐 1 (1253) examination — the very candidate whose ten-thousand-word policy essay at the palace audience won the top rank — compiled posthumously by his nephew Yáo Lóngqǐ 姚龍起. Fifty juàn in five categories (memorials and policy responses; lecture-pieces; fù rhapsodies; poetry; miscellaneous prose). Yáo Miǎn died young (at 46), and his collection is one of the most direct documents of late-Sòng zhuàngyuán literary culture and of the bureaucratic experience of an outspoken young official navigating the late-Lǐ-zōng / early-Dù-zōng court — including his polemics against the chancellor Dīng Dàquán 丁大全 and his troubling congratulatory qǐ to Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道. The Sòngshǐ contains no biography of Yáo Miǎn, making the Xuěpō jí the principal documentary source for his life.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Xuěpō wénjí, fifty juàn, was composed by Yáo Miǎn of the Sòng. Miǎn, zì Shùzhī 述之, also zì Chéngyī 成一, a man of Gāo’ān 髙安. In Bǎoyòu 寳祐 1 (1253) he was selected as top candidate (kēdì 擢等) by his cífù 詞賦, and at the palace audience his ten-thousand-word policy essay (tíngduì wànyán cè 廷對萬言策) won the first rank. He was appointed Proofreader of the Imperial Library (Jiàoshūláng 校書郎) with concurrent appointment as Crown Prince’s Companion (Tàizǐ shèrén 太子舍人). The Sòngshǐ contains no biography of him, and the bibliographic section of that work likewise fails to record [the collection]. The present recension was compiled by his nephew Yáo Lóngqǐ 姚龍起, and consists in all of seven juàn of memorials, court-audience responses, statements, and policy replies; two juàn of lecture-pieces (jiǎngyì 講義); one juàn of rhapsody; eleven juàn of poetry; and twenty-nine juàn of miscellaneous prose.

Miǎn received his poetic training from Lè Léifā 樂雷發, and his verse has a real source in this tradition. Although his poetry verges in places on the coarse-and-bold, it is dropping-and-spacious, possessed of qì 氣; his prose, too, is dignified-elegant and worth reading, free of the yǔlù vulgarity that marks the late-Sòng. Copies in circulation had been exceedingly rare, and were grievously corrupt and lacunary. We have here used the texts preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 to collate-and-supplement each piece; pieces not preserved in the Dàdiǎn are kept as in the old collection. At the head of the collection there is a preface by Wén Jíwēng 文及翁 calling Miǎn “magnanimously possessed of remarkable principles, in office only as Proofreader of the Qīnggōng [Crown Prince’s establishment]”; and another preface by Fāng Féngchén 方逢辰 also calling him “a rare worthy of Ruìzhōu” 瑞之竒士.

Observing what Miǎn submitted as confidential memorials, court-audience submissions, and the various tíngduì essays — discussing the abuses of contemporary government, refuting the perfidies of the chief ministers — they are everywhere upright and unbending. Only in juàn 22 is there a piece Congratulating the Chancellor Jiǎ Qiūhè 賀丞相賈秋壑啟 [Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道] with the title-note “gēngshēn 庚申, 5th month, 16th day”. On consulting the Sòngshǐ: in Lǐzōng’s Kāiqìng 開慶 1 (1259), 12th month, Jiǎ Sìdào memorialized the lifting of the siege of Èzhōu 鄂州; in Jǐngdìng 景定 1, 1st month, the edict was issued praising Jiǎ Sìdào’s merits; in the 4th month, he was summoned to court. Gēngshēn is Jǐngdìng 1 (1260), and the qǐ was therefore composed in that year. Compared to his confidential memorial attacking Dīng Dàquán 丁大全, the two are as if from different hands — truly a flaw in the white jade. Yet the end of the qǐ contains many lines of admonitory exhortation; this still answers to the “playing the final pure note at the close” intent. It thus differs to some degree from Liú Kèzhuāng’s 劉克莊 fawning panegyrics for the sake of advancement.

Respectfully collated, third month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Chief-Compiler Officers (ministers) Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Chief-Collation Officer (minister) Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Xuěpō jí is the principal document of Yáo Miǎn’s career, since the Sòngshǐ contains no biography of him. Yáo’s career was short — jìnshì zhuàngyuán in 1253, dead in 1262 at age 46 (47 suì) — but unusually documentary in self-representation: the seven juàn of memorials and policy responses preserve a sustained record of his court interventions against the chancellor Dīng Dàquán 丁大全 (in power c. 1257–1259) and his subsequent recall after Dīng’s fall. The gēngshēn (1260) congratulatory qǐ to Jiǎ Sìdào that the Sìkù editors identify as a “flaw in the white jade” is in fact a recurrent feature of late-Sòng career memoria: Jiǎ Sìdào, fresh from the (fictionalized) victory at Èzhōu, was at that moment unavoidable in Hángzhōu court society, and Yáo Miǎn’s congratulatory text, while including admonitory passages at its close, marks the transition point at which late-Lǐ-zōng court rectitude began to compromise with the rising JiǎSìdào order.

The two prefaces by Wén Jíwēng 文及翁 (preface dated Jǐngdìng 5 [1264], summer 6th month jiǎzǐ 甲子) and Fāng Féngchén 方逢辰 (the Jiāofēng 蛟峰 scholar; preface dated Jǐngdìng guǐhài 癸亥, autumn 8th month) frame Yáo Miǎn as a qíshì 竒士 of remarkable principle whose early death at 46 was an irreparable loss. Wén Jíwēng’s preface explicitly compares him to Chén Liàng 陳亮 (the zhuàngyuán of Shàoxī 紹熙 4, who likewise died before being properly used), and to that comparison Fāng Féngchén adds the verdict that Yáo Miǎn’s was “a remarkable spirit of Ruìzhōu”. The collection’s title “Snow-Slope” (Xuěpō 雪坡) is taken from Yáo’s hermitage in Gāo’ān.

The collection was compiled posthumously by Yáo Lóngqǐ 姚龍起, Miǎn’s nephew (cóngzǐ 從子). The recension that came down to the Sìkù editors was severely corrupt and incomplete; the editors restored it from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn, producing a Qīng critical recension that is now the standard. The composition window for the writings is 1253 (the zhuàngyuán policy essay) through 1262 (his death).

For Yáo Miǎn’s place in late-Sòng literary culture, see Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §63 on examination-success and zhuàngyuán careers, and Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (1992) on the late-Sòng career networks of jìnshì zhuàngyuán literati.

Translations and research

• John W. Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examinations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; rev. ed. SUNY Press, 1995) — places Yáo Miǎn’s 1253 ten-thousand-word policy essay in the context of zhuàng-yuán policy-essay practice.
• Wú Yùzhēn 吳郁芳, “Yáo Miǎn shēng-píng kǎo-shù” 姚勉生平考述, Jiāng-xī shèhuì kē-xué 江西社會科學 (1996, no. 4) — the principal modern Chinese-language biographical reconstruction.
• Yáo Miǎn jí 姚勉集, ed. Cáo Jīnjī 曹金鸡 et al. (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2012) — modern critical edition based on the WYG recension.

Other points of interest

The Xuěpō jí preserves one of the most extensive sets of policy-response essays by a zhuàngyuán of the Lǐzōng era. The tíngduì wànyán cè in juàn 1 — the original ten-thousand-word essay that won Yáo the first rank in 1253 — is an unusually full surviving specimen of the genre and is widely cited in studies of late-Sòng examination practice. The collection also contains lecture-pieces (jiǎngyì 講義) from Yáo Miǎn’s brief tenure as Crown Prince’s Companion (太子舍人), which is one of the few first-hand documentary sources for the curriculum used in late-Sòng heir-apparent instruction.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1184.1, p1.
• CBDB person 27644 (Yáo Miǎn)
• CBDB person 533718 (Yáo Lóngqǐ)