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Preface — Why these family instructions were written序致

Yanshi Jiaxun (The Family Instructions of Master Yan) 顏氏家訓 · Yan Zhitui · Late 6th century · 2 passages · 340 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 min

Yanshi Jiaxun (The Family Instructions of Master Yan) Complete in one volume Twenty chapters of family instruction left to his descendants by Yan Zhitui, a scholar of the end of the Northern and Southern dynasties. He was born under Liang and survived as a wanderer through four states — Western Wei, Northern Qi, Northern Zhou and Sui — and he wrote, in his own words, "to set the household in order and to wake the sons and grandsons." It runs from teaching children, brothers, a second wife, the ordering of a house, bearing and speech, learning, writing, name and reality, and knowing when one has enough, on to the examination of characters and books, the sounds of speech, the many arts of calligraphy and painting and archery and divining and the zither and go, and at last to his last charge on how his own burial was to be conducted. The passage where he sees the sons of the noble houses of Liang, of whom the proverb ran, "If he can climb into a carriage without falling out, he can be a court compiler," left after the troubles to plough the fields and tend horses, and says that "a thousand myriad piled up in goods is not so good as a small skill about the person"; and the passage that "he who learns while young is like the light of the rising sun, and he who learns when old is like a man walking at night with a candle in his hand," both come from here. Every book of family instruction after it takes this one for its ancestor.

1To put the household in order and lead the children after me

夫聖賢之書，教人誠孝，慎言檢迹，立身揚名，亦已備矣。魏、晉已來，所著諸子，理重事複，遞相模斅，猶屋下架屋，牀上施牀耳。吾今所以復爲此者，非敢軌物範世也，業以整齊門內，提撕子孫。夫同言而信，信其所親；同命而行，行其所服。禁童子之暴謔，則師友之誡不如傅婢之指揮；止凡人之鬬鬩，則堯、舜之道不如寡妻之誨諭。吾望此書爲汝曹之所信，猶賢於傅婢寡妻耳。

The books of the sages and the worthies teach men sincerity and filial duty. They teach care in speech and restraint in conduct, and how to stand on one's own feet and make a name. In this they are already complete. Since the Wei and the Jin, the many masters' books (子書) that have been written repeat the same reasoning and go over the same matters, each copying the one before it. It is like raising a roof under a roof, or setting a couch upon a couch. If I now write yet another, it is not that I dare to set a pattern for the world. It is to put my household in order and to rouse the children who come after me. The same words are believed when they come from one who is close; the same command is obeyed when it comes from one the heart follows. To stop a child's rough play, the warnings of teachers and friends are worth less than the pointing hand of his nurse. To stop ordinary men from quarreling, the way of Yao and Shun is worth less than a wife's admonishing. I hope only that this book will be believed by you, my sons, and so stand higher than the nurse and the wife.

2Fatherless at nine — why I leave these twenty chapters

吾家風教，素爲整密。昔在齠齔，便蒙誘誨；每從兩兄，曉夕溫凊，規行矩步，安辭定色，鏘鏘翼翼，若朝嚴君焉。賜以優言，問所好尚，勵短引長，莫不懇篤。年始九歲，便丁荼蓼，家塗離散，百口索然。慈兄鞠養，苦辛備至；有仁無威，導示不切。雖讀《禮傳》，微愛屬文，頗爲凡人之所陶染，肆欲輕言，不脩邊幅。年十八九，少知砥礪，習若自然，卒難洗蕩。二十已後，大過稀焉；每常心共口敵，性與情競，夜覺曉非，今悔昨失，自憐無教，以至於斯。追思平昔之指，銘肌鏤骨，非徒古書之誡，經目過耳也。故留此二十篇，以爲汝曹後車耳。

The manners and the teaching of my house were always upright and strict. Long ago, when I was shedding my milk teeth, I was already being guided and instructed. With my two elder brothers I attended my parents' bedside morning and evening. My walking kept to the rule and my steps to the measure, my words were steady and my face composed, and I was grave and careful as though appearing before a stern father. My parents granted me kind words and asked what I cared for, urging on what was short in me and drawing out what was long, and nothing they said was without earnest warmth. I was barely nine when I lost my father. The household broke apart, and a hundred mouths were left desolate. My kind elder brother took me in and raised me, and he bore every bitterness and hardship; but he had kindness without severity, and his teaching did not cut deep. I did read the Book of Rites and the Zuo Commentary, and I came to like writing a little. Yet I was much stained by ordinary men. I gave rein to what I wanted, spoke lightly, and did not keep myself trim. At eighteen and nineteen I began to know a little of grinding and polishing myself, but the habits had already become like my nature, and in the end they were hard to wash away. After twenty my great faults grew rare. Still my heart and my mouth were always at war, my nature and my feelings always contending. At night I saw what had been wrong in the morning, and today I repented yesterday's fault, and I pitied myself that, having had no teaching, I had come to this. When I look back on the guidance of those early days, it is cut into my flesh and carved into my bone. It was not like the warnings in old books, which pass before the eye and go by the ear. So I leave these twenty chapters, to be the cart that follows behind for you.

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