Cuìqú zhāigǎo 翠渠摘稿
Selected Manuscripts from the Kingfisher Channel by 周瑛 (撰), 林近龍 (編)
About the work
A disciple-selected anthology in 7 juǎn (with 1 juǎn bǔyí) drawn from the larger Cuìqú lèigǎo 翠渠類稿 of Zhōu Yīng 周瑛 (1430–1518), zì Liángshí 梁石, hào Cuìqú 翠渠 of Pútián 莆田. Selected for printing by his disciple Lín Jìnlóng 林近龍 — hence zhāigǎo (“plucked manuscripts”). The 1 juǎn of bǔyí (supplement) was added in two waves: by Zhōu’s 7th-generation descendant Wéibiāo 維鑣 in Kāngxī wùzǐ (1708) and his 8th-generation descendant Chéng 成 in Yōngzhèng rénzǐ (1732), the latter further appending Zhōu’s own self-composed epitaph. Zhèng Yuè 鄭岳 (KR4e0151) praises his prose as húnhòu yǎjiàn (thick, elegant, sturdy) and his verse as gédiào gāogǔ (style and tone, high and ancient).
Tiyao
Cuìqú zhāigǎo in 7 juǎn, with Bǔyí in 1 juǎn — by Zhōu Yīng of the Míng. Yīng, zì Liángshí, self-styled Méngzhōngzǐ, also called Cuìqú, native of Pútián. Chénghuà jǐchǒu (1469) jìnshì; reached Sìchuān yòu bùzhèngshǐ. Record in Míngshǐ Rúlín zhuàn. The poetry-prose collection he wrote was called Cuìqú lèigǎo; this present is his disciple Lín Jìnlóng’s selection-and-copy committed to print, hence called zhāigǎo. Zhèng Yuè’s biography of Yīng calls his wénzhāng húnhòu yǎjiàn, shī gédiào gāogǔ — “in prose thick-and-elegant-and-sturdy, in poetic style high-and-ancient”. Yīng also once made the juéjù line Lǎo qù guī píng dàn shí rén huò wèi zhī — “in old age returning to the plain-flat, time’s men may not know it” — then his self-positioning lay not in fányīn rùjié (busy notes and packed measures) striving for vulgar harmony. Zhū Yízūn’s Míng shī zōng, Shěn Déqián’s Míng shī biécái jí, Zhèng Wángchén’s Púfēng qīnglài jí all carry Yīng’s Lǚshuāng cāo yuèfǔ (Frost-Walking yuèfǔ), saying its words are yuàn ér bù nù (resentful but not angry), enough to correct Hán Yù (Chānglí)‘s failure; this collection does not include it — either at the time of Lín Jìnlóng’s selection his choosing-or-cutting was shīdàng (off-the-mark) and it was missed in error? At the end is appended 3 shuō, 1 xù, 18 poems — collectively 1 juǎn — this is from Kāngxī wùzǐ (1708) when his 7th-generation grandson Wéibiāo transcribed from the family record to supplement the zhāigǎo’s missing pieces; his 8th-generation grandson Chéng also in Yōngzhèng rénzǐ (1732) obtained Yīng’s self-composed epitaph and supplemented it at the end. Zhāng Xǔ’s funerary biography of Chén Xiànzhāng calls Yīng a Xiànzhāng disciple, but Chéng strongly argued against this — examining the two men’s collections, [they were] shǐ hé ér zhōng kuí (initially joined and finally estranged); Xǔ and Chéng’s statements each grasp at one side. Compiled and presented in the seventh month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Compilers as usual.
Abstract
A documentary anchor for two debates in mid-Míng Lǐxué history. First, the status of Zhōu Yīng vis-à-vis Chén Xiànzhāng (KR4e0108): Zhāng Xǔ’s funerary biography of Chén lists Zhōu as a Báishā student; Zhōu’s 8th-generation descendant Chéng in Yōngzhèng rénzǐ (1732) forcefully denied this on textual evidence; the Sìkù judgement — shǐ hé ér zhōng kuí (“originally joined and finally estranged”) — splits the difference and is one of the cleanest Sìkù statements on the limits of Báishā discipleship as a category. Second, the absence of the Lǚshuāng cāo (a famous yuèfǔ praised by Zhū Yízūn, Shěn Déqián, and Zhèng Wángchén as correcting Hán Yù’s failure) from Lín Jìnlóng’s selection is flagged by the Sìkù as a likely editorial blunder — one of the rare zhāigǎo-style anthology-deficiencies explicitly noted in the tíyào tradition.
The two-stage supplement (Wéibiāo 1708 → Chéng 1732) is unusual: Kāng-xī-era family-line recovery, Yōng-zhèng-era addition of the self-written epitaph (鄭岳-quoted in the Púyáng wénxiàn). The Cuìqú lèigǎo full text is not extant; this zhāigǎo is the principal surviving witness to Zhōu’s writings.
The 履霜操 (Frost-Walking Lament) absent from the present collection is a yuèfǔ on the Yǐn Jífǔ 尹吉甫 / Bó Qí 伯奇 step-son tradition (Hán Yù’s earlier version is the Lǚshuāng cāo in Chānglí xiānshēng jí). The Sìkù note is one of the cleanest tíyào criticisms of a selection-anthology in the Míng biéjí section.
CBDB id 34575 confirms 1430–1518.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976: notice of Zhōu Yīng.
- Míng shǐ j. 282 (Rú-lín 1) — Zhōu Yīng biography.
- Huáng Zōng-xī, Míng-rú xué-àn j. 6 — Zhōu under the Bái-shā xué-àn (the placement Chéng-line descendants contested).
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí) and §31.4 (Míng Lǐ-xué).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù note on the missing Lǚshuāng cāo — and the editors’ explicit speculation that Lín Jìnlóng’s zhāi (plucking) erred in omitting it — is one of the most striking yīpiān shī xuǎn (single-piece selection failures) flagged in the Míng biéjí tíyào corpus. The poem’s afterlife in the Qīng anthology tradition (Zhū Yízūn, Shěn Déqián, Zhèng Wángchén) gave it a fame that the WYG recension cannot deliver.