Yúncūn jí 雲村集
Cloud Village Collection by 許相卿 (撰)
About the work
The literary collection of Xǔ Xiàngqīng 許相卿 (1479–1557), zì Bótái 伯台, hào Yúncūn 雲村, of Hǎiníng 海寧 (Zhèjiāng). The catalog records 14 juǎn; the Sìkù WYG recension is the author’s own selection — Xǔ’s own preface explicitly states that he qì qí tuōyí bùkě dúzhě, cún qí yú kě dúzhě (“threw out what was loose, lost, and unreadable; kept what remained that was readable”). The collection is also known as Yúncūn wénjí 雲邨文集. Xǔ is the author of the ShǐHàn fāngjià 史漢方駕 (a juxtaposed-reading of Shǐjì and Hànshū), already separately recorded in the Sìkù. The Sìkù tíyào reads the collection as that of a dǔshí jūnzǐ (“honest, substantial gentleman”) — without the late-Míng qiúmíng ruòkě (“thirsting for name like thirst”) affliction.
Tiyao
Yúncūn wénjí in 10 juǎn — by Xǔ Xiàngqīng of the Míng. Xiàngqīng has the ShǐHàn fāngjià — already recorded. This collection is the author’s own zìdìng (self-fixed) selection — jiǎnzé pōjīng (“the selection-choosing is rather refined”). His own preface says: “I threw out what was loose, lost, and unreadable; I kept what remained that was readable.” His own quatrain on the matter says: “Yúncūn bìnglǎo yǔ duō hāng; zàocì shī chéng jué Sòng qiāng. Huánsù GuānYuán lùn fēnggé; shíyí tán shàng shù jīngchuáng” (“Cloud-village old-and-sick — my words mostly stammer; in haste a poem is formed — utterly cutting off the Sòng tune. Tracing back upward to Guān(-zhōng) and Yuán(-zhōu), I discuss style; on the shíyí terrace I plant a tasselled flag”). This shows he held what he had learned as not yet sufficient, and wished to advance toward seeking the Táng masters. Now examining his poetry — broadly the modern-style (jìntǐ) makes up the majority. The five-character has the air of the Dàlì (大歷, 766–779) period; the seven-character moves between Chén Shīdào 陳師道 and Chén Yǔyì 陳與義 — one can call it zìzhī zhī shěn (“knowing himself with precision”). His memorials are qiēshí (cutting and substantial); his prose style is cáiyǎ jié (elegant-clipped and refined-cleanly). It also has much yǒudào zhī yán (“words of the man of the Way”), without the late-Míng qiúmíng ruòkě (“thirsting for name as for water”) affliction — surely a dǔshí jūnzǐ. After his return to fields, his letter to Wáng Zǐyáng 王子揚 says: “shílǜ gēngqiē, bùgǎn yǐ guī wéi xìng” (“at-this-time my anxieties are deepened — I dare not regard returning-home as a blessing — for now news daily startles, the affair-and-circumstance daily grows perilous; morning-and-evening I think of the north as I once longed for the south”). This quánquán jūnguó zhī yì (“careful, tightly held loyalty-to-ruler-and-state”) — compared with those who say “qùguó yīshēn qīng sì yè, gāomíng qiāngǔ zhòng yú shān” (“leaving the state, my single self light as a leaf; lofty name a thousand ages heavy as a mountain”) — the distance is more than fivefold. Compiled and presented in the second month of Qiánlóng 42 (1777). Compilers as usual.
Abstract
Xǔ Xiàngqīng of Hǎiníng was a Zhèngdé–Jiājìng jìnshì (Zhèngdé 12 / 1517 jìnshì) who left office and retired to his hometown around the time of the Dàlǐyì 大禮議 controversy. The Sìkù tíyào treats the collection primarily as a moral-character document: Xǔ is presented as a dǔshí jūnzǐ whose post-retirement letters show quánquán concern for the state — explicitly contrasted by the Sìkù with the type that valorizes lightness-of-self and weight-of-name. The collection’s literary interest is primarily in (i) the zòuyì (memorials) — qiēshí in idiom and substance; (ii) the jìntǐ (modern-style) regulated and quatrain verse that the tíyào attributes to the Dàlì-period five-character style and the Chén Shīdào / Chén Yǔyì seven-character lineage; (iii) post-retirement guītián prose.
Date bracket: Xǔ’s 1517 jìnshì through his death in 1557 (CBDB 34660 confirms 1479–1557; catalog meta agrees).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
- Míng shǐ j. 193 — Xǔ Xiàng-qīng appears in connection with the Dà-lǐ-yì memorialists.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí).