Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue: An Annotated Translation of Wu Yue Chunqiu by Jianjun He

Author:Jianjun He [He, Jianjun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, China, Literary Criticism, Asian, Chinese, Literary Collections
ISBN: 9781501754364
Google: Nc_1DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell
Published: 2021-04-15T13:33:42+00:00

吳越春秋越王無余外傳第六

CHAPTER 6

The Outer Tradition of King Wuyu of Yue

Introduction

This is the first chapter of the second half of the text, which focuses on the histories and stories of Yue, especially the legends of the Yue king Goujian.

Although the title of the chapter refers to King Wuyue of Yue, it in fact consists of the myths and tales of Yu, the legendary ruler from high antiquity and the ancestor of the Yue people. The chapter begins with the mythical birth of Yu, whose mother was impregnated by swallowing a pearl barley grain and gave birth to Yu by opening her side. Again we see chenwei source texts dominate the story of Yu; Yu’s dream of a spirit who told him the location of the mountain god’s text for regulating flooding and the nine-tailed white fox who helped Yu make his marriage decision were probably adopted from lost Han chenwei writings. Sima Qian’s biography of Yu in the Shiji, interestingly, is not used as a primary source.

The language of the WYCQ chapter is also different from the language in Sima Qian’s record of Yu. Sima Qian relied heavily upon Shangshu 尚書, The Book of Antiquity, and the language of his record is old, plain, and difficult to understand. By comparison, the language of this WYCQ chapter is more ornamented and descriptive, with attention to details and the moods of the characters. While the Shangshu essay “Yugong” 禹貢 is completely copied in Sima Qian’s Shiji, it is not included in WYCQ, probably because the essay is a plain record of the geographical differences between the nine regions Yu settled, and offers little joy to readers.

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