鳧藻集

Fúzǎo jí 鳧藻集

The Wild-Duck-and-Algae Collection by 高啟 (撰)

About the work

Fúzǎo jí 鳧藻集 in five juǎn is the WYG recension of the prose collection of Gāo Qǐ 高啟 (1336–1374). The title Fúzǎo — literally “wild duck and water-algae”, a self-deprecating allusion to small floating decorative things — is the author’s own. The collection comprises lùn, jì (juǎn 1), xù (juǎn 2–3), zhuàn, zàn, zhēn, míng, fù, tí, bá, píngshǐ (juǎn 4), and miscellaneous prose with mùzhìmíng, āicí, shūjiǎn (juǎn 5). The closing piece is the Wèi fūrén Sòngshì mùzhìmíng 魏夫人宋氏墓誌銘 — the tomb-inscription for the mother of the Sūzhōu prefect Wèi Guān 魏觀, written shortly before Gāo’s execution in the Wèi Guān shàngliáng wén affair. The SBCK companion is KR4e0030 Gāo tàishǐ Fúzǎo jí. The text is uniquely opened by the Qiánlóng imperial counter-essay Yùzhì dú Gāo Qǐ Wēiài lùn 御製讀高啟威愛論, refuting Gāo’s opening lùn.

Tiyao

The Fúzǎo jí in five juǎn — by Gāo Qǐ of the Míng. Qǐ has his verse collection, separately entered in the catalog. In the Táng age, those who composed gǔwén aimed at correcting popular style — so those who formed a jiā produced magnificent works; those who did not form a jiā fell into the strange and obscure. In the Sòng age, those who composed gǔwén aimed at venerating the former masters — so after Ōu, Sū, Wáng, Zēng [Ōuyáng Xiū, Sū Shì, Wáng Ānshí, Zēng Gǒng] and on into the Yuán, those who formed a jiā could not entirely abandon the school traditions, but those who did not form a jiā still preserve some standards. Qǐ at the early Míng — his verse was richly talented and vigorous, excellent at imitating the ancients; he was a giant of his age. But his gǔwén was not particularly famous. Yet, born at the end of Yuán and not far from the Sòng, he still preserves the discipline of the elders — not what those of the post-Hóng-xuān era, gradually drifting into the fūkuò rǒngtà 膚廓冗沓 styles called táigé tǐ 臺閣體, could reach. This collection — we do not know by whom it was edited; comparing it with his verse collection, it is probably also a selection fixed by Qǐ himself. At the end is the Wèi fūrén Sòngshì mùzhìmíng — Lady Wèi was the mother of Sūzhōu zhīfǔ Wèi Guān 魏觀. Examining the Míng shǐ biography, Qǐ was sentenced on the charge of having written Wèi’s shàngliáng wén — so this is a work of his final year. Thus his life’s gǔwén is exhausted in this collection. Originally there was no printed edition; when Zhōu Chén 周忱 was Sūzhōu xúnfǔ he first obtained a manuscript copy from Zhōu Lì 周立 — whose paternal aunt was Qǐ’s wife. In Zhèngtǒng 9 (1444), jiānchá yùshǐ Zhèng Shìáng 鄭士昂 of Qiántáng also obtained a copy from Zhōu Chén, and accordingly ordered jiàoshòu Zhāng Sù 張素 to collate and cut it; Zhōu Chén wrote a preface for it. The present copy was cut by Jīn Tán 金檀 of Tóngxiāng in Yōngzhèng wùshēn (1728), based on the Zhèng [Shìáng] copy with errors corrected — much improvement on the original. Jīn Tán is the one who annotated Qǐ’s verse collection; so he printed this collection together as a single yījiā wánshū. Compiled and presented respectfully in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778).

Abstract

The Fúzǎo jí is the principal prose collection of Gāo Qǐ; its survival is more precarious than the Dàquán jí / verse collection because no early printing existed before Zhōu Chén’s discovery of a manuscript at Sūzhōu in the 1430s. The transmission chain is: Gāo’s own (lost) manuscript → kept by his wife’s nephew Zhōu Lì of Sūzhōu → manuscript copy obtained by Zhōu Chén (1430s) → 1444 cut at Sūzhōu by Zhèng Shìáng with Zhōu Chén preface → corrected and recut at Tóngxiāng in 1728 by Jīn Tán as part of his integrated Gāo Qǐ printing programme. The WYG five-juǎn recension descends from the Jīn Tán cut. The closing piece — Wèi fūrén Sòngshì mùzhìmíng — is the principal documentary connection between Gāo’s prose and the Wèi Guān affair that ended his life; the Míng shǐ takes it as evidence in the prosecution.

The Sìkù editors’ literary-historical positioning of Gāo’s prose — closer to Sòng than to mid-Míng táigé style — is a calibrated judgement: not as accomplished as his verse, but valuable as a documentary witness to a pre-táigé / pre-HóngXuān (post-Hóngwǔ / Xuāndé) prose ideal. Wilkinson, Chinese History, §28.4, follows this assessment.

The unique paratext of the WYG is the Qiánlóng imperial Yùzhì dú Gāo Qǐ Wēiài lùn 御製讀高啟威愛論 placed before the table of contents. The essay refutes the opening Wēiài lùn 威愛論 (on the political application of wēi — awe, dread — vs ài — love, benevolence) at the head of juǎn 1: Hónglì agrees with Gāo’s general point but rejects his stronger claim that wēi alone suffices for governance, arguing that kuān (leniency) and měng (severity) must be balanced. The imperial counter is one of the most direct late-Qiánlóng Sìkù interventions on a single piece by an executed Hóngwǔ-era author.

Translations and research

• F. W. Mote. The Poet Kao Ch’i, 1336–1374. Princeton: PUP, 1962. Ch. 7 on Gāo’s prose and the Wèi Guān affair.
• L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Entry on Gāo Qǐ (vol. 1, pp. 696–698).
• Jīn Tán 金檀, edition with annotated verse and prose (Yōng-zhèng wù-shēn / 1728).
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng bié-jí) and §43.7 (Hóngwǔ literary purges).

Other points of interest

The Qiánlóng Yùzhì dú Gāo Qǐ Wēiài lùn — the imperial counter-essay placed at the head of the WYG Fúzǎo jí — is unusual in the Sìkù tradition for engaging substantively with a single prose piece by a Hóngwǔ-era literary figure. Hónglì’s argument that kuān must moderate měng rather than měng govern alone is, in its political theology, an explicit Qiánlóng-era backing-away from the more punitive Hóngwǔ approach Gāo had implicitly criticised.

Links

• Gao Qi (Wikipedia)
• Sìkù tíyào, Kyoto Zinbun digital edition
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).