The Works of Li Qingzhao, Prose 2.1 through 2.5

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After a delay in which I came down with various interesting illnesses, we return to The Works of Li Qingzhao, freely available via De Gruyter's Library of Chinese Humanities in Mandarin and English and via several publication formats, including two open access options (the pdf appears to be better formatted than the ebook). This week we're reading the prose chapter: 2.1 through 2.5, inclusive.

This collection uses footnotes and end notes to explicate the work. A few of this week's poems have footnotes, so look out for that.

CLP has an episode on Li Qingzhao you might find relevant.

Comments

Re: 2.3 金石錄後序 Afterword to Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone

[x_los]

Afterword to Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone

What is this book, Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone, in thirty chapters? It is a work written by Zhao Defu [Mingcheng]. Taking as his subject two thousand inscriptions carved on bronze vessels and stelae dating from the Three Dynasties of high antiquity all the way down to the Five Kingdoms of recent times, including both interior and exterior inscriptions on bells, ding tripods, steamers, li tripods, basins, water ves- sels, wine beakers, and grain containers, as well as those concerning the lives of both eminent officials and obscure scholars found on rounded or rectangular stelae, he corrected their errors, distinguished the authentic from the spurious, and evaluated their historical value. He composed colophons on all those inscriptions that suffice either to affirm the Way of the sages or to emend mistakes in the historiographical record. The contents are rich indeed. The calamities suffered by Wang Ya and Yuan Zai show that there is no difference between hoarding works of art and hoarding pepper.1 Likewise, both Changyu and Yuankai were sick men. What does it matter that one was obsessed with money and the other with the Zuo Commentary?2 Their sicknesses went by different names, but their delusion was the same.

It was in the xinsi year of the Jianzhong period [1101] that I married into the Zhao family. At that time, my late father was serving as vice director of the Ministry of Rites, and the grand councilor [her father-in- law, Zhao Tingzhi] was vice director of the Ministry of Personnel. My husband, twenty-one years old, was a student in the National University. The Zhaos and Lis are undistinguished families that have always been poor. On the leave days of the first and fifteenth of every month, when he requested holiday leave, we would pawn some clothes to raise five hundred cash. Then we’d walk to Xiangguo Monastery to buy fruits and rubbings of inscriptions. We’d take them home, sit down together, and spread them out, savoring them. We felt that we were living in the har- monious era of Getianshi.1 Two years later, my husband came out to serve as an official. We then resolved to eat vegetarian meals and wear clothes of coarse cloth, so that we might fulfill our intent to gather from every distant place and remote region as many of the empire’s ancient inscrip- tions and rare engraved works as we could. As the days and months passed, our collection grew. The grand councilor stayed in the imperial city, and many of our relations worked in the palace libraries and archives. They had access to lost odes, little-known histories, and such books as those recovered from the walls of Lu and the tomb of Ji.2 When we came upon such rare works, we exerted ourselves to make copies of them. Once awakened to the flavor of this activity, we could not stop. Later, when- ever we came upon a piece of calligraphy or a painting by a celebrated artist, whether ancient or recent, or a precious vessel from the Three Dynasties, we would take off a layer of clothing to pawn for it. I re- member that once during the Chongning period [1102–6] someone brought a peony painting by Xu Xi [10th c.] to show us. He was asking two hundred thousand for it. In those days it would have been hard even for young persons in eminent officials’ families to come up with such a sum. The man left it with us for two days, but we finally decided we could not purchase it and returned it to him. Afterward, my husband and I looked at each other dejectedly for several days.

Later, we lived in seclusion in our hometown for ten years.1 By manag- ing our expenses carefully, we had more than enough for food and cloth- ing. Then my husband served successively as prefect in two separate places, and we devoted all of his salary to purchasing books and writing materials.2 Whenever we obtained a new book, the two of us would col- late together, comparing other editions, then produce a corrected copy with a new title page. When we obtained a calligraphic scroll, painting, or ritual bronze, we would also pore over it to amuse ourselves, identify- ing any defects we could find. Our custom was to limit ourselves to the duration of one candle per night. In this way, we were able to gather works with a quality of paper and completeness in their texts and brush- work that were superior to those of other collectors. It happens that I have a good memory, and in the evenings after dinner we would sit in our hall named Returning Home and brew tea.3 We’d point to a pile of books and, choosing a particular event, try to say in which book, which chapter, which page, and which line it was recorded. The winner of our little contest got to drink first. When I guessed right, I’d hold the cup high and burst out laughing until the tea splattered the front of my gown. I’d have to get up without even taking a sip. Oh, how I wished we could grow old living like that! So even though our lives were fraught with apprehensions and poverty, what we valued and strove for was never compromised. When our books were complete, we built a library in Returning Home, with large cabinets marked with numbers. We arranged the books ac- cordingly inside. Whoever wanted a book to read would have to get a key and record the book’s number in a log before taking it out. If the borrower made the slightest mark or smudge on a page, it was his or her responsibility to repair or clean it. We were no longer as easygoing as at first. In this way, what had started as an amusement turned into a source of vexation. I couldn’t stand it, so I decided that we would eat no more than one meat dish per meal and dress in no more than one colored gar- ment at a time. I wore no pearls or feathers in my hair and kept no gilded or embroidered article in my household. Whenever we came across a book of any kind whose text had no lacunae and was free of misprints, we would buy it on the spot to use as a back-up copy. Our family special- ized in the study of the Classic of Changes and the Zuo Commentary, and so our collection was particularly complete with regard to scholarship on those two works. Eventually, books were scattered all over our desks and were stacked in piles on our pillows and mats. Our thoughts met with those in the books, and our minds communicated with their authors. Our eyes went forth among their pages, and our souls were enriched by them. Certainly the joy that they gave us was superior to that of dancing girls or raising dogs and horses.

In the bingwu year of the Jingkang period [1126], when my husband was serving as prefect of Zichuan, we heard that the Jin armies had at- tacked our capital. We had no idea what to do. We gazed at our overflow- ing boxes and brimming trunks with both fond attachment and distress. We knew they would not be ours for long. In the third month of the dingwei year of Jianyan [1127], we hurried south for my mother-in-law’s funeral. Realizing that we could not take all those superfluous things with us, we first set aside the large printed books, then we set aside the paintings with multiple panels, and then we set aside the ancient vessels with no inscriptions. Finally, we set aside books in National University editions, ordinary paintings, and all heavy vessels. But even after these many reductions, we still traveled with fifteen carts of books. When we reached Donghai, we crossed the Huai River in a string of boats. Then we crossed the Yangzi River and arrived at Jiankang [Nanjing]. We had left under lock and key more than ten rooms of books and other items at our old residence in Qingzhou. We planned to return the following year and transport them south by boat. But in the twelfth month, the Jin sacked Qingzhou. The more than ten rooms of belongings were reduced to ashes.

In the ninth month of the wushen year of Jianyan [1128], my husband came out of mourning and was appointed prefect of Jiankang. His ap- pointment ended in the third month of the following year.1 We prepared a boat to take us to Wuhu and into Gushu, intending eventually to find a new place to live along the Gan River. But in the fifth month, when we had reached Chiyang, my husband received an imperial command ap- pointing him prefect of Huzhou and was summoned for an audience before the imperial throne.2 So we decided to make our home in Chiyang, with my husband going on by himself in response to the summons. On the thirteenth day of the sixth month, he was packed and, having left our boat, sat on the bank. Dressed in coarse clothes with a kerchief around his head, his mood that of a tiger on the prowl, his eyes darting and flashing, he looked toward our boat and bid farewell. I was in a ter- rible state of mind and shouted to him, “What shall I do if I hear the town is threatened?” He pointed at me and answered from afar, “Go with the crowd. If you must, discard the household belongings first, then our clothes, then the books and paintings, and then the ancient vessels. But the ritual vessels, be sure to take them with you wherever you go. Live or die with them. Don’t forget!” With this, he galloped off. Hurrying toward his destination, he paid no attention to the summer heat and, as a result, fell ill. By the time he reached the traveling court, his sickness was serious. A letter from him at the end of the seventh month informed me that he was confined to bed. I was frightened, knowing that, as he was high-strung by nature, any illness would be dangerous. If he developed a fever, he was bound to take cooling medicines, and then his condition would become worse. I had our boat untied and sailed day and night to be with him, covering three hundred li a day. By the time I arrived, he had in fact taken large doses of bupleurum and scutellaria.3 His fever was constant now, and he had also developed dysentery. His condition was beyond treatment. I wept bitterly and was too upset to ask what plans he had made for me after he was gone. On the eighteenth day of the eighth month [of 1129], he could no longer get up. He picked up a brush and wrote out a poem. When he finished the poem, he died. He had no final instructions regarding “dividing up the incense or selling sandals.”

After I buried him, I had nowhere to go. The court had dispatched the empress and palace ladies to
a separate location, and it was said that crossing the Yangzi River would soon be prohibited. At the time, I still had twenty thousand books, two thousand folios of inscriptions on metal and stone, and enough utensils and bedding to receive a hundred guests. My other superfluous things were comparable in quantity. I my- self was very sick, and my breathing was extremely weak. I thought of my late husband’s brother-in-law [Li Zhuo], who was vice minister of the Ministry of War and was then protecting the empress at Hongzhou. I dispatched two trusted clerks to him, sending along a portion of our pos- sessions with them for safekeeping. In the twelfth month of 1129, the Jin armies sacked Hongzhou, and everything I had sent was lost. The books that had been ferried across the Huai River in a string of boats were turned into smoke and clouds. All I had left were a few small, light- weight scrolls of calligraphy inscriptions; manuscript copies of the works of Li Bai, Du Fu, Han Yu, and Liu Zongyuan; A New Account of Tales of the World and Discourses on Salt and Iron; a few dozen mounted rubbings of stone inscriptions from the Han through Tang dynasties; some ten bronze vessels from the Three Dynasties; and a few cases of manuscripts from the Southern Tang. From time to time I would amuse myself with these during my illness. These were the only remnants I had left, as I lay sick in bed.

It was impossible to go farther up the Yangzi River, and moreover the invaders’ movements were unpredictable. My younger brother Hang was serving as reviser in the Law Code Office, and so I decided to go seek refuge with him. By the time I got to Taizhou, the prefect there had fled. When I got to Shan, I proceeded over land. I discarded my clothes and beddings as I hurried to Huangyan, where I hired a boat and set out to sea, hoping to catch up with the traveling court.1 At the time the emperor had docked at Zhang’an. I followed the imperial ship to Wenzhou and from there went back to Yue. In the twelfth month of the gengxu year [1130], when the officials were dismissed, I proceeded to Quzhou. In the third month of the xinhai year of Shaoxing [1131], I went again to Yue. In the renzi year [1132], I returned to Hangzhou.

Previously, when my husband was extremely ill, a certain Academician Zhang Feiqing came to see him bringing a jade pitcher that he then took away with him. The pitcher was actually made of jade-like stone. I do not know who started the rumor, but it was falsely said that there was talk of “an imperial behest of gold.”3 Some even said there was going to be a secret inquiry into the matter. I was terrified. I did not dare to speak out, but I also did not dare do nothing. I decided that I would take all my household’s bronze vessels and other objects and present them to the traveling court. By the time I got to Yue, the emperor had already moved to Siming.4 I did not want to keep those things in my house, and so I stored them all in Shan, together with the book manuscripts. Subse- quently, when the imperial army was rounding up rebels, what I had stored there was all taken away. Later, I heard that it ended up in the household of the old general Li. Of “the remnants I had left,” fifty or sixty percent was now lost. All that remained were some six or seven boxes of calligraphy, paintings, inkstones, and ink. I could not bear to put them anywhere else, so I kept them beside my bed, where I’d open them occasionally. At Kuaiji (Yue), I resided in a place owned by a local named Zhong.5 One night, a thief broke in through a wall and carried five of my boxes off. I was so grief-stricken I thought I’d die, and I offered a handsome reward to get them back. Two days later my landlord, Zhong, brazenly produced eighteen scrolls, asking for the reward. So I knew the thief was not far away. I tried everything I could to recover the rest, but nothing would free it up. Today I know that eventually Wu Shuo, the assistant fiscal commissioner, bought everything for a low price. At this point, seventy or eighty percent of “the only remnants I had left” was lost. What remained were just one or two random and fragmentary vol- umes that did not make any complete title or set, together with just a few common calligraphy manuscripts. Yet I still treasured them as if they were my life itself. How foolish I am!

Today when I chance to open one of my books, it is like meeting an old friend. I remember when my husband sat in Quiet Governance Hall in Donglai.1 Each folio of an inscription was mounted on scented paper and tied with a silken cord. Ten folios were bound together as a single volume. Every day in the evening, after the clerks had gone home, my husband would add editorial collations to two inscriptions and would write a colophon for one. Of the total of two thousand inscriptions, only 502 have colophons. Today the brush strokes in his colophons still look freshly made, but the tree trunks beside his grave are already thick. How sad it is!

Re: 2.3 金石錄後序 Afterword to Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone

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Formerly, when Xiao Yi was conquered at Jiangling, he did not regret the loss of his kingdom, but he did destroy his books and paintings [so that his enemies would not obtain them]. When Yang Guang was over- thrown at Jiangdu, he did not bemoan his own death, but he did arrange to take his books and paintings with him into the afterlife.2 Isn’t it so that what a person naturally treasures he will never forget, even in death? In my case, is it that Heaven considers me too insignificant to possess these alluring things? Or is it that my husband has consciousness in the after- life and still prizes these things so tenaciously that he won’t let them re- main behind in this world? Why else would they be so difficult to acquire but so easy to lose?

From the time I was two years younger than Lu Ji when he wrote his rhapsody until I was two years older than Qu Yuan when he perceived the error of his ways, that is, in thirty-four years, how numerous have been the worries and losses I have suffered!1 Nevertheless, possession is always followed by loss, just as the act of gathering always gives way even- tually to dissolution. It is a fundamental principle of things. One man loses a bow; another man finds it. What does it matter? The only reason I have taken the trouble to record all this here is to warn persons of later generations who are learned and fond of ancient things.

[see endnote]

Re: 2.3 金石錄後序 Afterword to Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone

[x_los]

‘ding tripods, steamers, li tripods,’ ?

‘colophons on all those inscriptions that suffice either to affirm the Way of the sages’ ? so just–salutary moral shit?

A scholar so inclined could get something out of this and working with Anglosphere writing on misers such as the titles cited in Our Mutual Friend (lives of the misers, et al)

‘The Zhaos and Lis are undistinguished families that have always been poor.’ Bitch you JUST SAID—

‘ Once awakened to the flavor of this activity,’ curious phrasing

This is dumb to say but it really is interesting that someone in 1134 has a concept of earlier writing as *ancient*.

I still don’t have a clear concept of these nobles’ functional relationships to their ancestral homes: the extent to which they live there, their relationship to these places’ rents and governance.

The transition into this ‘no more than one meat dish’ bit was awkward in the intro, and it’s awkward now. It seems to relate to frugality in order to buy books, the theme of this section of the essay, but to have an strange causal relationship to the rest of the paragraph it sits in.

What IS the Zuo Commentary?

“Formerly, when Xiao Yi was conquered at Jiangling, he did not regret the loss of his kingdom, but he did destroy his books and paintings [so that his enemies would not obtain them]. When Yang Guang was over- thrown at Jiangdu, he did not bemoan his own death, but he did arrange to take his books and paintings with him into the afterlife.” This is the stupidest shit I ever heard, I am appalled

I think you can read her husband as careless, but perhaps also read both of them as completely unprepared for and ignorant of the scale of the coming conflict. And honestly, who can prepare for or immediately gauge and adapt to that level of crisis? Ought we to live in expectation of it?

Re: 2.3 金石錄後序 Afterword to Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone

[superborb]

Dictionary defns: ding is ancient cooking cauldron with two looped handles and three or four legs, li is ancient ceramic three-legged vessel used for cooking with cord markings on the outside and hollow legs.

Zuo Commentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuo_Zhuan