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Wang Dongfeng: Returning Du to Du: Reorganizing Ancient Books to Restore the Original Text

Wang Dongfeng 13:08, May 7, 2024 Source: China Social Science Daily National Social Science Fund

The author is the person in charge of the later funded project of the National Social Science Fund, "The National Library collects the proofreading of the Song version of" The Poems of Du Gongbu Collected in Different Sectors ", and an associate professor of the School of Teacher Education of Changjiang Normal University

Ancient books are an important carrier of Chinese excellent traditional culture and an important cultural resource to promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. "Three books are written, and the fish become the Lu, and the virtual become the tiger". In the long process of copying and engraving, the ancient text will inevitably appear corruption. The Song edition of "Fenmenjizhu Du Gongbu's Poems" (hereinafter referred to as "Fenmenjizhu") collected by the National Library has high documentary value and academic value, but there are some errors and flaws in the text and layout. In order to "return Du to Du, and return Zheng to Zheng" in the collation of ancient books, we must be precise and meticulous in the selection of the base copy, the school copy, and the collation method.

Reason for finishing

The Song Dynasty is known as "thousands of scholars have paid attention to Du". The prosperity of block printing has greatly facilitated the publication and dissemination of the results of Du's collection. However, there are only 19 existing Du's collections carved in the Song Dynasty (two of which are still in doubt), and only two of them, Fenmenjizhu, are complete. Other Du's collections printed in the Song Dynasty are incomplete or have missing pages to supplement.

Fenmen Jizhu is an engraved edition of Jianyangfang in the Southern Song Dynasty. It is "elegantly carved, and is the best of the original", but there are many errors and flaws. The summary of the Continuation of Siku Quanshu says: "It seems that this book was compiled without the help of scholars. It was purely written by booksellers in the street. It was crude and criticized by scholars." After careful reading of the text, we found that there were many problems in this book. First, there are omissions and re emergence of Du Fu's poems recorded, such as Volume IV, "Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems of Qinzhou", which is actually 16 poems, one of which is missing. In Volume 12 "Zhuang You", under "The country's horse is exhausted with millet beans", the sentence "official chickens lose rice and sorghum" is omitted; In Volume 20, "Sending the Secretary of the Third and Fifth Five Year Plan of Senior High School", the sentence "Sad in the middle of tragedy" is dropped under "Also like a participant". Some poems are recorded repeatedly before and after, such as "Farewell to Cui Du Shuiweng Going down the Gorge" in Volume IX "Foreign Clan Gate", and see Volume XXI "Farewell Gate" again. Second, there are many mistakes in the notes of the collection, such as the following in the volume 15 "Flying the Flag": "The material returns and bows down." Wang Zhu's note: "Bao Zhao (according to the poem): Bow down and scatter horseshoes." According to the note: Wang Zhu's note is wrong. This is not Bao Zhao's poem, but Cao Zhi's White Horse. Third, the categories are trivial and inappropriate. The editors divided Du's poems into 72 categories, such as Rain and Snow Gate and Moon Gate, based on the themes expressed in Du's poems. However, because the categories are too trivial, Du's poems written at the same time and place were forcibly divided into different volumes. For example, the "Five Songs of Jiangtou" in the "Flower Gate" of Volume XIV only records three topics of "Lilac", "Lichun" and "Gardenia", but includes two topics of "Flower Duck" and "Plum" in the "Bird Gate" of Volume 23.

However, as the earliest existing paper documents of Duji carved in Song Dynasty, Fenmenjizhu has a high literature value and academic value in preserving the variant texts of Duji, collating the versions, and compiling the lost old annotations. The anthology of Du carved in the Song Dynasty, handed down from generation to generation, is mostly in chronological edition and split edition, but rarely in classified edition. This book belongs to classified edition, which provides convenience for researchers to study Du's poems according to the theme and content of poems. This book also contains a large number of pseudo annotations of Du's poems (mainly the annotations of Wang Zhu and Su Shi). From the perspective of literature reference, these pseudo annotations also have certain data value. From the perspective of the history of edition study of Du Fu's poems, this book is a transitional book between "Du Fu's poems of different categories" and "Du Fu's poems of different categories", which has important value in edition study.

Based on the above considerations, the collation and collation of "Fenmenjizhu" is not only to provide rich raw materials and ideological resources for academic circles to study the excellent traditional Chinese culture, but also to better protect ancient books, make full use of ancient books, and serve today's cultural construction.

Selection base

In the process of spreading ancient books, there are often several different versions due to copying, re engraving, annotation, proofreading and other reasons. Therefore, the first step in collating ancient books is to search widely for different versions, and then, through careful comparison, determine the base copy to be used for collation as the basis for collation. Whether the selection of the original copy is correct or not plays a decisive role in the quality of ancient book collation. Generally speaking, the principle of determining the original is that the time is relatively old, the content is complete, the engraving is excellent, the circulation is easy to get, and the error is less.

There are three existing editions of "Fenmen Jizhu" carved in the Song Dynasty, all of which belong to the same edition. They are respectively Pan Zongzhou's edition collected by the National Library and Weng Tonghe's edition collected by the Shanghai Library, both of which are full editions; The Library of Congress of the United States has only three volumes of Fu Zengxiang's remnant Song edition, which has not been reproduced or copied in later generations. At the beginning of the 20th century, when Zhang Yuanji compiled and printed the First Edition of the Sibu Series, he borrowed the Pan Zongzhou Collection collected in the National Library as the base copy. Later, the Continuation of Siku Quanshu and the Reconstruction of China were all photocopied with the Pan Collection as the base copy. The collections of Shanghai Library are not easy to obtain because they are precious cultural relics. The quality of the photocopies of the Complete Book of Renewal Siku is poor. The characters in the book with many strokes and dark ink or background color are often pasted together and cannot be recognized. In the process of photocopying, the Sibu Serials reduced the original book size to 32, and described and supplemented the missing parts of the original book. Only the "China Rebuilding Rare Edition" is a photocopy of the original copy, highly maintaining the "excellent printing" characteristics of the original copy, and easy to get. Therefore, by comparing the various editions, we selected the photocopy of "The Good Edition of Chinese Reconstruction" as the base copy when sorting out the "Fenmen Jizhu".

Screening the School

The collation of ancient books is to put the original copy in the field of the author's creation again, and correct various errors in the circulation process of the original copy through other relevant documents, including the errors of words and sentences, the confusion of chapters, etc., in order to restore the correct face of its text. Therefore, in the selection of the school version, it is necessary to select the literature that has directly or indirectly affected the base version.

Du Ji was known as "Thousand Family Notes" in the Song Dynasty, but most of the proofreading and annotation results cited by various books overlap; The literature of Duji produced after the Song Dynasty is also numerous, but the collation value of these late Duji literature is far less than that of the early Duji variant literature. Fen Men Ji Zhu was compiled on the basis of the previous "Genre Zeng Guang Ji Zhu Du Shi", "Genre Zeng Guang Shi Zhu Du Gong Bu Shi", and "Wang Zhuangyuan Ji Bai Jia Zhu Bian Du Ling Shi Shi Shi Shi Shi" (hereinafter referred to as "Bai Jia Zhu"), and the annotations cited by it are mostly found in the "New Publication Xiao Ding Ji Zhu Du Shi", which is close to the book's age and has good quality of collation. Later, the Yuan version of "Ji Qian Jia Zhu Classifies Du Gongbu's Poems" (hereinafter referred to as "Qian Jia Zhu") and "Huang Shi Bu Qian Jia Zhu Chronicles Du Gongbu's Poetry History" (hereinafter referred to as "Du Shi Bu Zhu") were closely related to "Fen Men Ji Zhu". In addition, in the second year of Emperor Renzong Baoyuan of the Northern Song Dynasty (1039), Wang Zhu, a scholar of the Imperial Academy, took Du's collections from the old collections of the secret mansion and others, and compiled them into 20 volumes of Collection of Du Gongbu. In the fourth year of Zhijiayou (1059), Wang Qi, the governor of Suzhou, reorganized the edition of Wang Zhu's Duji, which is called the "Two Wangs Edition" by later generations. This book is the ancestor of all Du Ji's works, from which Du Ji's works of comments, notes, chronicles, classification and classification came out later. Qiu Zhao'ao's Detailed Notes to Du Fu's Poems in the Qing Dynasty widely collects the achievements of scholars in the previous dynasties, especially in the Song Dynasty, and carefully quotes them, which is recognized as the epitome of Du Fu's notes by the academic community. Although the First Edition of the Four Part Series is the same version as the original copy, it describes and repairs some words that are missing or missing in the original copy when photocopying, and corrects some errors, so it also has some collating value. Zhao Cigong is the most cited annotator in Fenmen Jizhu, while Lin Jizhong's Du Shi Zhao Cigong's Interpretation, Compilation and Correction in Succession (hereinafter referred to as Lin Jizhao's Annotation) has a high academic level. In addition, "Fenmenjizhu" is a special book for Du Fu's poetry literature, rather than a comprehensive compilation, collation and annotation version. Therefore, the above several books are selected as the proofreading version when collating.

Be cautious in proofreading

The purpose of ancient book collation is to preserve the truth, so it is not appropriate to lightly change the characters. However, in order to restore the original appearance of ancient books, sometimes the characters have to be revised, so serious scholars will take a rigorous and prudent attitude when collating. For example, Peng Shuxia, a scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty, said in the Dialectical Preface to the Yinghua School of Literature that when he was twelve or thirteen years old, he copied the True Record of Emperor Taizu, and there was a word "Que", the source of the rise and fall of governance, which thought it must be "chaos", but it was not collated. Later, he got a good copy, which was originally the word "hu". It is precisely because of his prudent attitude towards the collation of ancient books that Peng Shuxia has made remarkable achievements in his book The Dialectics of Yinghua in Wenyuan. The General Catalogue of Siku Quanshu commented that "Shuxia's book is precise in assessment" and "is a model for collation".

Most of the proofreading results cited in Fenmenjizhu, such as adding or deleting words, changing words, or adjusting word order, are not quoted from the original text. Therefore, when proofreading and sorting out, any proofreading words in the original text that are different from those in the other text but have the same meaning will not be proofread. However, if there are obvious errors in the text of the original proofreading notes, or the text is different from that of other texts, the proofreading notes shall be based on other texts. For example, in Ancient Cypress, "When the moon rises cold, the snowy mountain is white." The proofreading: "Snow, the original work, Xuan, is misspelled. It is revised according to the annotations, Du Ji of the Song Dynasty, and Jiu Jia Zhu."

Most of the literature cited in Fenmenjizhu was wrongly written. In order to preserve the original appearance of the original copy, it was not changed, but it was explained in the proofreading notes. For example, "From the Post House to the East Village Cottage, Two Poems, One of them": "The mountain scenery is close." Wang Zhu notes: "Jiang Yanfu: There is a bird path in the wind and smoke." The proofreading: "According to: the note is wrong, it is not Jiang Yanfu. It is from Xie Tiao's poem" Temporary Envoy Xiadu sends a new forest to Beijing at night to present to his colleagues in the west. "There are many titles of the literature cited by the province. In order to facilitate readers' review and avoid redundancy, All shall be completed in parentheses, and shall not leave school. For example, Memories of Li Bai in Spring: "Qingxin Yu Kaifu." Wang Zhu's note: "(For) Xiao Yangzhou Scholars Table: Ci Fu is fresh." Wang Zhu's note cited the title without the word "Wei". If it is not supplemented, it would be mistaken for Xiao Yangzhou Scholars Table, whose author is actually Ren Fang. Another example is the Forty Rhymes of Sending an Emissary to Bohua in Liuxia Prefecture: "The worldly wisdom is still unknown." Wang Zhu notes: "Ji Kang's Book of Breaking off Friendship with Mountain Juyuan says that the worldly wisdom is too complicated for seven reasons."

Title and postscript recorded on the last page of Volume 14 Author/picture provided

Author/photo of the incomplete Song Dynasty edition of "The Collection of Du Gongbu's Poems in Different Sectors" in the Library of Congress

There was a phenomenon of mixed use of complex and simple characters in the Song Dynasty's printed editions, as was the case in Fenmen Jizhu. If there are no words, no words, no words, no words, no words, no words, no words, no words, no words, no words, no words, no words. The interchangeable characters that are different from his original copy should not be changed. According to this collation principle, Tang Zhang Shoujie pointed out in the "Historical Records Justice · On Words Example" that "the characters in History and Han have been inherited for a long time. If the word 'Yue' is used for 'saying'... it cannot be changed." However, in order to facilitate readers' understanding, some interchangeable characters should be out of school. For example, Bian, "Bai Jia Zhu" and "Du Shi Bu Zhu" made "discrimination". Checked by: "Press: Bian Tongbian."

In the process of specific collation, if there are many kinds of literature to choose from, you should carefully study and select them carefully, so as to retain the original appearance of the original copy to the maximum extent. For example, "Moving to Hengzhou" means "moving away to study sores". The word "yan" is obviously a character error caused by the circulation of the text, which should be revised. The word "yan" was written as "yu" in the Yuan version of Qian Jia Zhu, and "jian" in the Lin Ji Zhao Zhu. From the perspective of the form, the "research" of the original is more similar to the "font", so the "Lin Ji Zhao Zhu" was selected for collation instead of "Qian Jia Zhu". Another example is "Send Liu Shidi the Judge Again", "Whip first and don't stay". Note: "Liu Kun wrote to his brother's uncle, saying:" The owl is waiting for the day when he sleeps, and will fight against the enemy. He often fears that his ancestors will be born before me. "Note: This passage was said by Liu Kun when he took the post of director of the prefecture in the sixth year of Yuankang (296) of Emperor Hui of Jin, and his brother Guo Yi had already died in the eighth year of Taikang (287) of Emperor Wu of Jin. The word" uncle "should be a mistake in the text. The Book of Jin · Biography of Liu Kun is "old", and the New Word of the World · Praise No. 8 is "old", which can be changed. However, "uncle" and "old" should be homophones and errors, and the original text should be the word "old", so when collating and sorting out, we took the new words of Shi Shuo and Liu Xiao's annotation instead of Jin Shu Liu Kun's biography.

Du Fu and Du Fu's poems are typical representatives of Chinese excellent traditional culture. As an early edition of Du Fu's poetry anthology, the Song edition of Du Fu's poetry anthology has important historical, literary, documentary and artistic values. The collation of ancient books should correct the errors and errors in the text, so that more people can accurately understand the humanistic spirit, values and ideological system contained in ancient books, so as to enhance the sense of identity and pride in the excellent traditional Chinese culture, and improve national self-esteem and self-confidence.

(Editor in charge: Jin Yi, Huang Wei)