Yiwen — Lost Writings佚文篇
孝武皇帝封弟為魯恭王。恭王坏孔子宅以為宮，得佚《尚書》百篇，《禮》三百，《春秋》三十篇，《論語》二十一篇，（聞）弦歌之聲，俱復封塗，上言武帝。武帝遣吏發取，古經《論語》，此時皆出。經傳也而有〔聞〕弦歌之聲，文當興於漢，喜樂得之祥也。當傳於漢，寢藏牆壁之中，恭王〔聞〕之，聖王感動弦歌之象。此則古文不當掩，漢俟以為符也。孝成皇帝讀百篇《尚書》，博士、郎吏莫能曉知，征天下能為《尚書》者。東海張霸通《左氏春秋》，案百篇序，以《左氏》訓詁造作百二篇，具成奏上。成帝出秘《尚書》以考校之，無一字相應者，成帝下霸於吏，吏當器辜大不謹敬。成帝奇霸之才，赦其辜，亦不（減）〔滅〕其經。故百二《尚書》傳在民間。孔子曰「才難」，能推精思，作經百篇，才高卓，希有之人也。成帝赦之，多其文也。雖奸非實，次序篇句，依倚事類，有似真是，故不燒滅之。疏一櫝相遣以書，書十數札，奏記長吏，文成可觀，讀之滿意，百不能一。張霸推精思至於百篇，漢世（實）〔寡〕類，成帝赦之，不亦宜乎！楊子山為郡上計吏，見三府為《哀牢傳》不能成，歸郡作上，孝明奇之，征在蘭台。夫以三府掾吏，叢積成才，不能成一篇。子山成之，上覽其文。子山之傳，豈必審是，傳聞依為之有狀，會三府之士，終不能為，子山為之，斯須不難。成帝赦張霸，豈不有以哉！
Emperor Wu enfeoffed his younger brother as King Gong of Lu. King Gong pulled down the house of Confucius to make it a palace, and got the lost Documents in a hundred chapters, the Rites in three hundred, the Chunqiu in thirty chapters, and the Analects in twenty-one chapters; and hearing the sound of strings and singing, he sealed and plastered it all up again and reported to Emperor Wu. Emperor Wu sent clerks to open it and take them out, and the old classics and the Analects all came out at this time. They were classics and traditions, and yet the sound of strings and singing was heard from them. Writing was to rise in Han, and this was the sign of joy and gladness at getting them. They were to be handed on to Han, and lay sunk and hidden in the wall, and King Gong heard them: it was the image of strings and singing when a sage king is moved. This then is that the old writings were not to be covered up, and that Han waited and took them for a tally. Emperor Cheng read the Documents in a hundred chapters, and none of the erudites and gentlemen clerks could make it out, so he summoned from all the world those who could handle the Documents. Zhang Ba of Donghai had mastered the Zuoshi Chunqiu. He looked into the prefaces of the hundred chapters and, with the glosses of the Zuoshi, made up a hundred and two chapters, completed them, and presented them. Emperor Cheng brought out the secret Shang shu and collated them against it, and not one character answered to it. The emperor handed Zhang Ba over to the officers, and the officers held that his crime amounted to grave want of care and respect. The emperor found Zhang Ba's talent remarkable, pardoned his crime, and did not destroy his classic either. So the Documents in a hundred and two chapters is handed down among the people. Confucius said, "Talent is hard to find." To be able to push out fine thought and make a classic of a hundred chapters is to be high and outstanding in talent, a man rarely to be had. The emperor pardoned him because he thought much of his writing. Though it was crooked and not the fact, it put chapters and sentences in order and leaned on the kinds of things, and had the look of being truly right, and so it was not burned and destroyed. Men send one another a whole case of petitions in writing, and submit a memorandum of a dozen tablets to the senior clerk, and of these hardly one in a hundred comes out fit to look at and satisfying to read. Zhang Ba pushed out fine thought as far as a hundred chapters, and in the age of Han there are few of his kind. That the emperor pardoned him, is it not fitting! Yang Zishan was the accounting clerk sent up by his commandery. He saw that the Three Offices could not finish the Ailao zhuan, so he went back to his commandery, made it, and presented it, and Emperor Ming found it remarkable and summoned him to the Orchid Terrace. Now with the aides and clerks of the Three Offices, talent heaped up in a mass, they could not finish one chapter. Zishan finished it, and the sovereign looked at his writing. How should Zishan's account be surely examined and right? Yet he leaned on what was handed down by hearsay and made it, and it had a shape. Gather the scholars of the Three Offices and in the end they could not do it; Zishan did it in a moment, and it was not hard. That Emperor Cheng pardoned Zhang Ba, how should it be without reason!
孝武之時，詔百官對策，董仲舒策文最善。王莽時，使郎吏上奏，劉子駿章尤美。美善不空，才高知深之驗也。《易》曰：「聖人之情見於辭。」文辭美惡，足以觀才。
In the time of Emperor Wu the hundred officials were ordered by edict to answer a question of policy, and the answer of Dong Zhongshu was the best. In the time of Wang Mang the gentlemen clerks were made to send up memorials, and the memorial of Liu Zijun was the most beautiful. Beauty and excellence are not empty; they are the proof of high talent and deep knowledge. The Yi says, "The feelings of the sage are seen in his words." The beauty or badness of writing is enough to see talent by.
永平中，神雀群集，孝明詔上《〔神〕爵頌》，百官頌上，文皆比瓦石，唯班固、賈逵、傅毅、楊終、侯諷五頌金玉，孝明覽焉。夫以百官之眾，郎吏非一，唯五人文善，非奇而何？孝武善《子虛》之賦，征司馬長卿。孝成玩弄眾書之多，善揚子雲，出入游獵，子云乘從。使長卿、桓君山、子云作吏，書所不能盈牘，文所不能成句，則武帝何貪，成帝何欲！故曰：玩揚子雲之篇，樂於居千石之官；挾桓君山之書，富於積猗頓之財。
In the years of Yongping the holy sparrows gathered in flocks, and Emperor Ming ordered by edict that a Shen que song be sent up. The hundred officials sent up their hymns, and the writing was all like tile and stone. Only the five hymns of Ban Gu, Jia Kui, Fu Yi, Yang Zhong, and Hou Feng were gold and jade, and Emperor Ming looked at them. Now out of the multitude of the hundred officials, with gentlemen clerks not one nor two, only the writing of five men was good. If this is not rare, what is? Emperor Wu liked the rhapsody Zixu and summoned Sima Changqing. Emperor Cheng delighted in the many books he handled and liked Yang Ziyun, and when he went out and came in, roaming and hunting, Yang Ziyun rode in attendance. If Changqing and Huan Junshan and Yang Ziyun had been clerks whose writing could not fill a tablet and whose sentences could not be finished, what would Emperor Wu have craved and what would Emperor Cheng have desired! Therefore it is said: to delight in the chapters of Yang Ziyun is a greater pleasure than to hold an office of a thousand bushels, and to carry the books of Huan Junshan under one's arm is a greater wealth than to pile up the riches of Yi Dun.
韓非之書，傳在秦庭，始皇嘆曰：「獨不得與此人同時。」
The book of Han Fei was handed on to the court of Qin, and the First Emperor sighed and said, "That I alone should not live in the same time as this man."
陸賈《新語》，每奏一篇，高祖左右，稱曰萬歲。夫嘆思其人與喜稱萬歲，豈可空為哉！誠見其美，歡氣發於內也。候氣變者，於天不於地，天，文明也。衣裳在身，文著於衣，不在於裳，衣，法天也。察掌理者左，不觀右，左，文明也。占在右，不觀左，右，文明也。《易》曰：「大人虎變其文炳，君子豹變其文蔚。」又曰：「觀乎天文，觀乎人文。」
When Lu Jia's Xin yu was presented, a chapter at a time, those about Gaozu called out ten thousand years. Now sighing and thinking of the man, and rejoicing and calling out ten thousand years: how could these be done for nothing! Truly they saw its beauty, and a glad breath came out from within. One who watches for changes in the breath does it by heaven and not by earth, and heaven is pattern and brightness. When robe and skirt are on the body, the figuring is put on the robe and not on the skirt, and the robe takes heaven for its pattern. One who reads the lines of the palm looks at the left and does not look at the right, and the left is pattern and brightness. Divination lies in the right and does not look at the left, and the right is pattern and brightness. The Yi says, "The great man changes like a tiger and his pattern is brilliant; the noble man changes like a leopard and his pattern is luxuriant." It says again, "Look at the pattern of heaven; look at the pattern of man."
此言天人以文為觀，大人君子以文為操也。高祖在母身之時，息於澤陂，蛟龍在上，龍炫耀；及起，楚望漢軍，氣成五采；將入咸陽，五星聚東井，星有五色。天或者憎秦滅其文章，欲漢興之，故先受命以文為瑞也。
This says that heaven and man take pattern for what they are seen by, and that the great man and the noble man take pattern for their bearing. When Gaozu was in his mother's body she rested on the bank of a marsh, and a scaly dragon was above her, and the dragon shone. When he rose up, Chu looked toward the army of Han, and its breath made five colors. When he was about to enter Xianyang, five planets gathered in the Dongjing, and the stars had five colors. It may be that heaven hated Qin for destroying its writings and wished Han to raise them up, and so when Han first received the command it took writing for its auspicious sign.
惡人操意，前後乖違。始皇前嘆韓非之書，後惑李斯之議；燔《五經》之文，設挾書之律。
In a bad man's bearing and purpose, front and back go against each other. The First Emperor first sighed over the book of Han Fei, and afterward was led astray by the counsel of Li Si: he burned the writings of the Five Classics and set up the law against carrying books.
《五經》之儒，抱經隱匿，伏生之徒，竄藏土中。殄賢聖之文，厥辜深重，嗣之及孫。李斯創議，身伏五刑。漢興，易亡秦之軌，削李斯之跡。高祖始令陸賈造書，未興《五經》。惠、景以至元、成，經書并修。漢朝郁郁，厥語所聞，孰與亡秦？王莽無道，漢軍雲起，台閣廢頓，文書棄散。光武中興，修存未詳。孝明世好文人，并征蘭台之官，文雄會聚。今上即（令）〔命〕，詔求亡失，購募以金，安得不有好文之聲！唐、虞既遠，所在書散；殷、周頗近，諸子存焉。漢興以來，傳文未遠，以所聞見，伍唐、虞而什殷、周，煥炳郁郁，莫盛於斯。天晏者星辰曉爛，人性奇者掌文藻炳。漢今為盛，故文繁湊也。
The Confucian scholars of the Five Classics held their classics and hid, and Fu Sheng and his like buried them away in the earth. To cut off the writings of the worthy and the sage was a crime deep and heavy, and the penalty for it reached his heirs down to his grandson. Li Si began the counsel, and his own body lay under the five punishments. When Han rose it changed the tracks of fallen Qin and pared away the traces of Li Si. Gaozu first had Lu Jia compose a book, but had not yet raised up the Five Classics. From Emperors Hui and Jing down to Emperors Yuan and Cheng, the classics were all put in order. How does the rich abundance of the court of Han, in what is heard of its words, compare with fallen Qin? Wang Mang was without the Way, and the armies of Han rose like clouds, and the Terrace offices fell to ruin and the documents were thrown away and scattered. Guangwu restored the line, and what was put in order and kept is not yet known in detail. The age of Emperor Ming loved men of letters, and they were summoned together to the offices of the Orchid Terrace, and the heroes of writing gathered. The present sovereign came to his command and by edict sought what had been lost, buying it up with gold. How should there not be a sound of loving writing! Tang and Yu are already far off, and the books that were there are scattered. Yin and Zhou are fairly near, and the masters remain. Since Han arose the writings handed down are not far off, and by what is heard and seen they are five times those of Tang and Yu and ten times those of Yin and Zhou, and for shining and blazing richness nothing flourishes more than this. When heaven is clear the stars are bright and glittering, and when a man's nature is rare the pattern on his palm is brilliant. Han now flourishes, and so its writings are many and crowded.
孔子曰：「文王既歿，文不在茲乎！」
Confucius said, "King Wen is dead. Is not writing here with me!"
文王之文，傳在孔子。孔子為漢制文，傳在漢也。受天之文，文人宜遵《五經》、六藝為文，諸子傳書為文，造論著說為文，上書奏記為文，文德之操為文。立五文在世，皆當賢也。造論著說之文，尤宜勞焉。何則？發胸中之思，論世俗之事，非徒諷古經、續故文也。論發胸臆，文成手中，非說經藝之人所能為也。周、秦之際，諸子并作，皆論他事，不頌主上，無益於國，無補於化。造論之人，頌上恢國，國業傳在千載，主德參貳日月，非適諸子書傳所能并也。上書陳便宜，奏記荐吏士，一則為身，二則為人。繁文麗辭，無上書文德之操。治身完行，徇利為私，無為主者。夫如是，五文之中，論者之文多矣。則可尊明矣。
The writing of King Wen was handed on and lies with Confucius. Confucius made writing for Han, and it is handed on and lies with Han. Having received the writing of heaven, the man of letters should follow the Five Classics and the Six Arts and make writing of them, make writing of the transmitted books of the masters, make writing by composing treatises and setting forth doctrines, make writing by presenting documents and submitting memoranda, make writing of the bearing of virtue in letters. Set up these five kinds of writing in the world, and all of them are to be counted worthy. The writing that composes treatises and sets forth doctrines ought to be toiled at the most. Why? Because it brings out the thought within the breast and discusses the affairs of the age, and is not merely reciting the old classics and carrying on the old writings. The treatise comes out of the breast and the writing takes shape in the hand, and it is not what a man who explains the classics and the arts can do. At the turn of Zhou and Qin the masters wrote together, and they all discussed other matters and did not sing those above, and there was no profit to the state and no help to its transforming. The man who composes treatises sings those above and enlarges the state, so that the state's work is handed on for a thousand years and the lord's virtue stands second beside the sun and moon, and this is not what the books and traditions of the masters can match. To present a document setting forth what is expedient, and to submit a memorandum recommending clerks and scholars, is first for oneself and second for others. Crowded writing and fine phrases have not the bearing of virtue in letters that presenting a document has. To order one's own person and make one's conduct whole, and yet follow gain for private ends, is to do nothing for the lord. If it is so, then among the five kinds of writing the writing of the man who discusses has the most. So that it is to be honored is clear.
孔子稱周曰：「唐、虞之際，於斯為盛，周之德，其可謂至德已矣！」
Confucius declared of Zhou, "At the turn of Tang and Yu it flourished in this. The virtue of Zhou may be called the utmost virtue!"
孔子，周之文人也，設生漢世，亦稱漢之至德矣。趙佗王南越，倍主滅使，不從漢制，箕踞椎髻，沉溺夷俗。陸賈說以漢德，懼以帝威，心覺醒悟，蹶然起坐。世儒之愚，有趙佗之惑；鴻文之人，陳陸賈之說。觀見之者，將有蹶然起坐，趙佗之悟。漢氏浩爛，不有殊卓之聲。文人之休，國之符也。
Confucius was a man of letters of Zhou. Had he been born in the age of Han, he would have declared the utmost virtue of Han as well. Zhao Tuo was king of Nanyue. He turned his back on his lord and did away with the envoys, did not follow the institutions of Han, sat with his legs sprawled and his hair in a mallet knot, and sank into the customs of the barbarians. Lu Jia argued with him by the virtue of Han and made him afraid by the emperor's majesty, and his heart woke and came to understanding, and he started up and sat straight. The folly of the Confucian scholars of the age has in it the delusion of Zhao Tuo, and the man of great writing sets forth the arguments of Lu Jia. Those who look and see them will have their starting up and sitting straight, the awakening of Zhao Tuo. The house of Han is vast and blazing, and yet it has no outstanding sound. The excellence of the man of letters is the tally of the state.
望丰屋知名家，睹喬木知舊都。鴻文在國，聖世之驗也。孟子相人以眸子焉，心清則眸子了，了者目文了也。夫候國占人，同一實也。國君聖而文人聚，人心惠而目多采。蹂蹈文錦於泥塗之中，聞見之者莫不痛心。知文錦之可惜，不知文人之當尊，不通類也。天文人文，文豈徒調墨弄筆為美麗之觀哉！
Look at a rich house and you know a famous family; see tall trees and you know an old capital. That great writing is in the state is the proof of a sage age. Mencius read men by the pupils of their eyes: when the heart is clear the pupils are bright, and their brightness is the brightness of the pattern of the eye. Now watching a state and divining a man are one and the same fact. When the ruler of a state is a sage, men of letters gather; when a man's heart is wise, his eyes have much color. If patterned brocade is trodden into the mud, none who hear of it or see it are not sick at heart. To know that patterned brocade is to be grudged, and not to know that the man of letters is to be honored, is not to reach through to the kind. The pattern of heaven and the pattern of man! How should pattern be merely mixing ink and playing with a brush to make a beautiful and lovely sight!
載人之行，傳人之名也。善人願載，思勉為善；邪人惡載，力自禁裁。然則文人之筆，勸善懲惡也。謚法所以章善，即以著惡也。加一字之謚，人猶勸懲，聞知之者莫不自勉。況極筆墨之力，定善惡之實，言行畢載，文以千數，傳流於世，成為丹青，故可尊也！
They set down men's conduct and hand on men's names. The good man wishes to be set down and thinks to put his strength into goodness; the crooked man hates to be set down and by his own strength forbids and cuts himself short. Then the brush of the man of letters urges the good and punishes the bad. The rules for posthumous names are the means of showing the good, and by the same means they show the bad. Add a posthumous name of a single character and men are still urged and punished by it, and none who hear and know it do not put out their own strength. How much more when the strength of brush and ink is spent to the full, the fact of good and bad is settled, words and conduct are all set down, the writings are counted by the thousand, and they are handed down and flow through the world and become vermilion and blue! Therefore it is to be honored!
揚子雲作《法言》，蜀富人齎錢千萬，願載於書，子云不聽。夫富無仁義之行，〔猶〕圈中之鹿，欄中之牛也，安得妄載！班叔皮續《太史公書》，載鄉里人以為惡戒。邪人枉道，繩墨所彈，安得避諱？是故子云不為財勸，叔皮不為恩撓。文人之筆，獨已公矣。賢聖定意於筆，筆集成文，文具情顯，後人觀之，（見）以〔見〕正邪，安宜妄記！足蹈於地，跡有好丑；文集於禮，志有善惡。故夫占跡以睹足，觀文以知情。「《詩》三百，一言以蔽之，曰：思無邪。」
When Yang Ziyun made the Fa yan, a rich man of Shu brought ten million in cash and wished to be set down in the book, and Yang Ziyun did not listen. Now one who is rich and has no conduct of kindness and right is a deer in a pen and an ox in a stall: how should he be set down at random! When Ban Shupi carried on the book of the Grand Historian, he set down a man of his own village as a warning against badness. When a crooked man bends the Way he is what the ink line strikes at: how should it be shunned and kept back? Therefore Yang Ziyun was not urged on by wealth and Shupi was not bent by favor. The brush of the man of letters is alone already impartial. The worthy and the sage settle their purpose in the brush, and the brush gathers and makes writing, and the writing is complete and the feeling is manifest, and men after them look at it and see the straight and the crooked: how should they record at random! When the foot treads on the earth the tracks are fair or ugly; when writing gathers in the rites the purpose is good or bad. Therefore one divines by the track and sees the foot, and looks at the writing and knows the feeling. "The three hundred Odes, covered in one word, are this: in thought there is no wickedness."
《論衡》篇以十數，亦一言也，曰：疾虛妄。
The chapters of the Lunheng are counted by tens, and they too are one word: it hates the empty and the false.