Xumu — Preface敘目
淮南子名安，厲王長子也。長，高皇帝之子也。其母趙氏女，為趙王張敖美人。高皇帝七年討韓信於銅鞮，信亡走匈奴，上遂北至樓煩。還過趙，不禮趙王。趙王獻美女趙氏女，得幸，有身。趙王不敢內之於宮。為築舍于外。及貫高等謀反發覺，并逮治王，盡收王家及美人，趙氏女亦與焉。吏以得幸有身聞上，上方怒趙王，未理也。趙美人弟兼因辟陽侯審食其言之呂后，呂后不肯白，辟陽侯亦不強爭。及趙美人生男，恚而自殺。吏奉男詣上，上命呂后母之，封為淮南王。暨孝文皇帝即位，長弟上書願相見，詔至長安。日從游宴，驕蹇如家人兄弟。怨辟陽侯不爭其母於呂后，因椎殺之。上非之，肉袒北闕謝罪，奪四縣，還歸國。為黃屋左纛，稱東帝，坐徒蜀巖道，死於雍。上閔之，封其四子為列侯。時民歌之曰：「一尺繒，好童童；一升粟，飽蓬蓬。兄弟二人，不能相容。」上聞之曰：「以我貪其地邪？」乃召四侯而封之：其一人病薨，長子安襲封淮南王，次為衡山王，次為廬江王。太傅賈誼諫曰：「怨讎之人，不可貴也。」後淮南衡山卒反如賈誼言。初，安為辨達，善屬文。皇帝為從父，數上書，召見。
The Huainanzi was named An, and he was the son of Chang, King Li. Chang was the son of Emperor Gao. His mother was a daughter of the Zhao clan, and she had become a beauty of Zhang Ao, king of Zhao. In the seventh year of Emperor Gao the emperor attacked Han Xin at Tongdi. Xin fled and ran to the Xiongnu, and the emperor went on north as far as Loufan. Coming back he passed through Zhao, and he did not treat the king of Zhao with courtesy. The king of Zhao offered him a beautiful woman, the daughter of the Zhao clan. She won his favor and was with child. The king of Zhao did not dare bring her into the palace, and built a house for her outside. When the plot of Guan Gao and the rest came to light, the king too was seized and tried, and all the king's household and his beauties were taken in, and the daughter of the Zhao clan was among them. The officers reported to the emperor that she had won his favor and was with child, but the emperor was then angry with the king of Zhao and did not attend to it. Jian, the younger brother of the beauty of Zhao, spoke of it to Empress Lu through Shen Yiji, the Marquis of Biyang, but the empress was not willing to lay it before the emperor, and the Marquis of Biyang did not press the matter either. When the beauty of Zhao had borne a boy, she killed herself in her anger. The officers took the boy up and brought him to the emperor, and the emperor commanded Empress Lu to be a mother to him and enfeoffed him as king of Huainan. When Emperor Xiaowen ascended the throne, his younger brother Chang (長) sent up a writing asking to see him, and by edict he was brought to Chang'an. Day after day he followed him in roaming and feasting, and was proud and unruly as brothers of one household are. He bore a grudge against the Marquis of Biyang for not having contended for his mother before Empress Lu, and so he beat him to death with a mallet. The emperor held this wrong, and Chang bared his upper body at the northern gate tower and begged pardon for his crime. Four counties were taken from him, and he went back to his state. He set up the yellow canopy and the plume on the left and called himself the Eastern Emperor. For this he was charged and moved to Yandao in Shu, and he died at Yong. The emperor pitied him and enfeoffed his four sons as ranked marquises. At that time the people sang of it and said, "One foot of silk is fine and full enough; one sheng of millet is full enough to fill. Two men who are brothers cannot make room for each other." The emperor heard it and said, "Do they say that I coveted his land?" Then he called the four marquises and enfeoffed them. One of them fell sick and died. The eldest son, An, succeeded to the fief as king of Huainan; the next became king of Hengshan; and the next became king of Lujiang. The Grand Tutor Jia Yi remonstrated and said, "A man who bears a grudge cannot be held in honor." Later Huainan and Hengshan did at last revolt, as Jia Yi had said. In the beginning An was discerning and quick, and good at putting together writings. The emperor was of his father's generation, and An often sent up writings and was called in to audience.
孝文皇帝甚重之，詔使為《離騷賦》，自且受詔，日早食已。上愛而秘之。天下方術之士多往歸焉。於是遂與蘇飛、夜尚、左吳、田由、雷被、毛被、伍被、晉昌等八人，及諸儒大山、小山之徒，共講論道德，總統仁義，而著此書。其旨近《老子》，淡泊無為，蹈虛守靜，出入經道。言其大也，則燾天載地，說其細也，則淪於無垠，及古今治亂存亡禍福，世間詭異瓌奇之事。其義也著，其文也富，物事具類，無所不載，然其大較歸之於道，號曰《鴻烈》。鴻，大也；烈，明也，以為大明道之言也。故夫學者不論《淮南》，則不知大道之深也。是以先賢通儒述作之士，莫不援采以驗經傳。以父諱長，故其所著，諸「長」字皆曰「脩」。光祿大夫劉向校定撰具，名之《淮南》。又有十九篇者，謂之《淮南外篇》。自誘之少，從故侍中、同縣盧君受其句讀，誦舉大義。會遭兵災，天下棋峙，亡失書傳，廢不尋修，二十餘載。建安十年，辟司空椽，除東郡濮陽令，覩時人少為《淮南》者，懼遂凌遲，於是以朝餔事畢之間，乃深思先師之訓，參以經傳道家之言，比方其事，為之注解，悉載本文，并舉音讀。典農中郎將弁揖借八卷刺之，會揖身喪，遂亡不得。
Emperor Xiaowen held him very weighty, and by edict had him compose the Lisao fu. From the moment he received the edict he had it done by the time the morning meal was over. The emperor loved it and kept it hidden away. Many of the gentlemen of recipes and arts under heaven went and gave themselves to him. Then, with eight men, Su Fei, Ye Shang, Zuo Wu, Tian You, Lei Bei, Mao Bei, Wu Bei and Jin Chang, and with the Ru called Dashan and Xiaoshan and their followers, he discoursed together on the Way and virtue and gathered up benevolence and rightness, and wrote this book. Its purport is close to the Laozi: bland and doing nothing, treading the empty and keeping the still, going out and in among the constant ways of the Way. Speak of its greatness, and it covers heaven and bears up earth; speak of its fineness, and it sinks into the boundless. It reaches to the order and disorder of old times and now, to surviving and perishing, to misfortune and fortune, and to the strange and rare affairs of the age. Its meaning is plain and its writing rich. Things and affairs are furnished by kind and there is nothing it does not carry, yet its great outline comes home to the Way. It was named the Honglie. Hong is great and lie is bright, for they held it to be words that greatly make the Way bright. So if one who learns does not discourse on the Huainan, he does not know the depth of the great Way. For this reason there is no worthy of former days, no Ru who has run through learning, no gentleman who writes, who does not draw upon it to test the classics and their traditions. Because his father's name was Chang, in all that he wrote the character chang was everywhere written xiu. Liu Xiang, Grandee of Glorious Rank, collated and settled it and put it in order, and named it the Huainan. There are also nineteen chapters, which are called the Huainan waipian. From the time You was young he received the phrasing and the reading of it from the former Palace Attendant, Master Lu of his own county, and recited and took up its great meaning. Then he met with the calamity of war, and all under heaven stood facing one another like pieces on a board. Writings and traditions were lost, and for more than twenty years it was laid aside and not sought out or worked on. In the tenth year of Jian'an he was appointed aide to the Minister of Works and made magistrate of Puyang in Dong commandery. Seeing that few men of the time worked on the Huainan, and fearing that it would at last fall away, he took the hours when the morning and evening business was done and thought deeply on the teaching of his former master. He compared it with the classics and their traditions and with the words of the school of the Way, matched it against the affairs in the text, and made notes and explanations for it, setting down the whole of the text and giving the sounds and the readings as well. Bian Yi, General of the Household for Agriculture, borrowed eight rolls and copied them, but Yi died, and they were lost and could not be got back.
至十七年，遷監河東，復更補足。淺學寡見，未能備悉，其所不達，注以「未聞」。唯博物君子覽而詳之，以勸後學者云爾。
In the seventeenth year he was moved to be overseer of Hedong, and again he went over it and filled it out. His learning was shallow and his seeing narrow, and he could not make it complete in every part; where he did not reach through, he noted, "I have not heard." He only hopes that gentlemen of wide knowledge will look upon it and make it full, and so urge on those who learn in days to come.