Notes from the Thatched Cottage of Close Scrutiny, Volume One

Notes from the Thatched Cottage of Close Scrutiny, Volume One

Ji Yun

Writing is meant to elucidate principles, and all scholars can do this through writing. Then is the so-called Great Way really so profound and unfathomable, so secret and incommunicable, like the mind-seal of Buddhism or the oral formulas of Daoism?

The essential principles inherent in all things and affairs are what we call the Way. Thus the Way exists between Heaven and Earth like mercury spilled upon the ground, every drop perfectly round; like the moon reflected upon water, visible everywhere. From governing a state and bringing peace to the world down to a single affair, object, word, or deed, traces of the Way are present everywhere. Writing is merely one of its manifestations.

At the highest level of writing are the Book of Songs, the Book of Documents, the Book of Rites, the Book of Music, the Book of Changes, and the Spring and Autumn Annals; these are where the Way finds its lodgment. Below them are the histories of successive dynasties; below those, the writings of worthy men; below those, the collected works of the various schools. These too form one branch of literature, and their words are sufficient to illuminate principle.

Still lower are unofficial histories, anecdotal records, romances, and tales. At first glance they may seem to have nothing to do with the Way, yet the “Treatise on Literature” in the Book of Han classified such writings as a school of their own, and bibliographies throughout the ages have continued to record them. Can they all be dismissed merely because some of their contents are strange or fantastic? Their words too can illuminate principles. Although they cannot be ranked among the higher forms of writing, their underlying purpose may still approach the proper Way and may not be without benefit to social morals and the hearts of men.

Ji Yun, Duke Wenda of Hejian, spent many years serving in the imperial academies and secretariats. His writings are grand in spirit and may rightly be called the work of one of the great pens of his age. Some say that Duke Wenda delighted in humor and wit, and that whether joking, laughing, praising, or scolding, whatever came to his hand naturally became splendid prose.

Now that I have read his Jottings from the Thatched Cottage of Close Scrutiny, I find its contents plain and substantial, its form orderly and rigorous, and its central purpose consistently directed toward encouraging goodness and punishing evil. Is this not what people mean when they say that “the sage excels at distinguishing right from wrong”? Though its literary form is fiction, it reads almost like official history.

Duke Wenda himself said:

“It does not overturn right and wrong as does Biyun; it does not conceal private grudges as does The Journey of Zhou and Qin; it does not depict talented young men and beautiful women as does The Story of Yingying; and it does not dwell upon obscenity as does Secret Anecdotes of the Han. I hope upright gentlemen will not disdain it.”

Surely these are merely Duke Wenda’s modest words.

Duke Wenda’s grandson, Ji Shufu, came south to Lingnan to serve as an official. Many people asked him for copies of this book, so he decided to have it reengraved and reprinted. Shufu is sincere, cautious, and learned; diligent in administration and caring toward the people. He is an excellent official and has not disgraced the family tradition of his grandfather.

Written and respectfully examined by Zheng Kaixi of Longxi, in the spring of the yiwei year, the fifteenth year of the Daoguang reign.