Charles Sorel, La Vraie Histoire comique de Francion
四百六十一[1]
Charles Sorel, Histoire comique de Francion, éd. Émile Roy (Société des Textes
Français Modernes).
Shapeless & garrulous, or, in
Saintsbury’s words, “voluminous” & “dull” (A History of the French Novel, I, p. 276)[2].
What vis comica Sorel possesses
consists in a kind of exuberant naughtiness. The thread of narrative is not a
straight line, but a tangled skein — witness the long flash-back on Francion’s
early life which covers Liv. III to Liv. VI; this is even worse than the manner
a schoolboy taking a walk or of a dog going home (see Sydney Smith, Works, Longman, Green & Co., 1865,
I, p. 69, review of Edgeworth on Bulls;
& Leonard Huxley, Life & Letters
of T.H. Huxley, I, p. 415, Letter to W.K. Parker), though perhaps Sterne
would call it “Digression with Progression”. A number of subsidiary characters,
especially the pedant Hortensius, steal the show from the title-role. Sorel’s
self-conscious didacticism & tiresome harping on the corrective value of
his novel have been noticed (see F.C. Green, French Novelists, Manners & Ideas, I, p. 27). He doth protest
too much, methinks, and thereby shows his guilty conscience about the
pornographic passages, the histoire de
cochonnerie, the affaires de cul,
he has thought fit to adorn the tale with. Swinburne compares Herrick’s Hesperides to “a diet of alternate
sweetmeats & emetics” (Studies in
Prose & Poetry, p. 47), & I should like to compare this novel, with
its intermingling of prosy morality & spicy salacity, to a regimen of
sleeping-dose & love-philtre.
Avertissement: “Puisque le ris n’est
propre qu’à l’homme entre tous les animaux” (xi-xii). This is the Aristotelian animal ridens. A propos of tickling, Aristotle
writes: “For human beings... are the only creatures that laugh” (De Partibus Animalium, tr. by A.L. Peck,
“The Loeb Classical Library”, pp. 280-1). Cf. Rabelais, Gargantua, “Aux Lecteurs”: “Pour ce que rire est le propre de
l’homme” (Oeuv. compl. De Rabelais,
éd. Jean Plattard, I, p. 1); Addison, The
Spectator, no. 494: “If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished
from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.”
Liv. I: [Le voleur travesti en] Cathérine:
“Pour moi, je vous confesse que, toute fille que je suis, je me trouve plus capable
de vous aimer que lui... si je vous avois montré par effet que je suis même
fournie de la chose dont vous avez le plus besoin...?” (pp. 19-20). Cf. the
wonderful passage in Orlando Furioso,
XXV, 66 in which Ricciardetto disguised as Bradamante pretended to Fiordispina
that thanks to a nymph, “sento in maschio, di femina, mutarmi”: “Così le dissi;
e feci ch'ella istessa / Trovò con man la veritade espresso” (Ed. Ulrico
Hoepli, p. 267)[3].
What is sheer coarseness in Sorel becomes, with Ariosto, aerated & purified
by humour (the episode in Ariosto recalls〈喬太守亂點鴛鴦譜〉).
“Par moquerie on appelle les mauvais
médecins des médecins d’eau douce, parce qu’ils ne sçavent faire autre chose
que de nous ordonner d’en boire” (p. 35). Cf. the prescription of Dr
Sangrado: “Buvez de l’eau abondamment” etc. (Gil Blas, II, iii, éd. Garnier Frères, p. 81)[4].
“Les regles de physionomie ne sont
point menteuses” (p. 44). In the footnote Roy mentions Antoine Mizauld’s Nouvelle invention pour incontinent juger du
naturel d’un chacun par la seule inspection du front & de ses linéamens[5].
Physiognomy was much in vogue in 17th-century Europe & became
even one of the Hülfswissenschaften
of statecraft; Louis XIV was swayed by this art in his choice of officers, as
can be seen from the voluminous secret correspondence between the Roi Soleil
& his favourite physician De la Chambre, & James I of England made much
use of the art on the first arrival of ambassadors at court (see Disraeli’s Curiosities of Literature, I, p. 148).
“La vieille [sonsrit et montra] deux dents
qui estoient demeurées en sa bouche, comme les carneaux [créneaux] d’une
vieille tour que l’on a battuë en ruyne. Francion luy respondit, apprens que je
prenois ta bouche pour un retrait des plus salles, et qu’ayant envie de envie
de vomir j’ay voulu m’en approcher afin de ne gaster rien en ceste chambre, et
de ne jetter mes ordures qu’en un lieu dont l’on ne peut accroistre l’extrême
infection” (p. 58). Cf. two capitolos by Pietro Aretino: “Madonna, i vostri denti
/ In ve’ l vo dir, ma non l’habbiate a male, / Paii ono proprio gradi da for scale”; “Madonna
quello fiato / che si soavemente esce da voi / Avanza il musco delli cacatuoi”
etc. (see Alfred Einstein, The Italian
Madrigal, I, pp. 174-5).
Liv. II: The story of Macette
& the Englishman should have been a case of “buttock & twang” but owing
to her “curiosité de gouster” (p. 88) becomes one of “buttock & file” (cf.
E. Partridge, Dict. of the Underworld,
pp. 93-4)[6].
Cf.《切口大詞典》第 290 類 “仙人跳”.
“‘Moy suis gentil-homme,
disoit l’Anglois; moy vient des anticq Roys de Cosse’” etc. (p. 92). In the
footnote Roy refers to some Medieval, 15th-, 16th- &
17th-century “plaisanteries sur le français estropié par les
Anglois”. Such “plaisanteries” are quite frequent in Balzac: “Gren chitoyenne”
etc. (see H.J. Hunt: “Balzac & the English Tongue” in MLR, Oct. 1954, pp. 439-440). In his article Des Artistes Balzac said that a famous line of Racine would lose
much of its music & magic if declaimed by an Englishman: “Lei jour n’aie
pas plous pour kè lei faound de mon quer!” (Oeuv.
Diverses, èd. Conard, I, p. 359); P.G. Hamerton seems to have taken a hint
from this & sent the charge boomerang back by giving a Frenchman’s reading
of Claribel (Intellectual Life, Pt. III, letter iii, Tome I, p. 89), and “Q”
changed the Frenchman into a German (Studies
in Eng. Lit., 1st series, pocket ed., p. 293): “At ev ze bittle
bommess / Azvart ze zeeket lon: / ...
Ze ollov grot replee-ess / Vere Claribel lovlee-ess” (Hamerton’s
Frenchman whose “ear failed to perceive the music of the musical poets)[7]; “At
eve ze beedle boomess / Aswart ze zickhead lon: / ... Ze hollo ghrot hrepliez /
Hwhere Chlaribel hlow hliez” (“Q”’s German who “if only by structure of his
vocal organs a German is congenitally unable to read our poetry”... who “simply cannot compass the soft th sound & has to introduce his own harsh hiss upon the twilit quiet”, &
who unable to manage the “hushed run of the soft guttural to lip & tooth”
has to “rest content with his ancestral habit which has not yet evolved even
labials beyond the throat.”)
“Une vilaine maladie:
que maudits soient ceux qui l’ont apportée en France... un de nos Roys qui mena
ses soldats à Naples pour l’y gaigner, et en rapporter icy de la graine” (p.
100). Very patriotic of Sorel to say so. But, as a matter of plain fact, it was
the French, Charles VIII & his army in 1495, who exported the morbus gallicus to, rather than imported
it from, Italy (see Havelock Ellis, Studies
in the Psychology of Sex, VII, pp. 321, 323); as Alfred Einstein puts it, “instead
of a new Messianic age of innocence & bucolic bliss, Italy learns to know
the mal francese” (The Italian Madrigal, I, p. 28). John
Eliot makes such “offensive nationalities” less offensive: “It is the disease
of Italie, of Fraunce, of Spaine, of Germanie, of England. The Catholicke
disease, the common sicknesse, the great maladie — the pox” (The Parlement of Pratlers, ed. Jack
Lindsay, p. 88)[8].
Casanova was unpatriotic or patriotic enough to say: “The illness... which the
Italians call mal francais, although
we might claim the honour of its first importation” (Memoirs, tr. A Machen, III, p. 76[9]).
This vilaine maladie, to parody
Matthew Arnold, is the strange disease of modern life; in the classical
antiquity, there were, as Iwan Bloch puts it, only Krankheiten der Geschlechtsteile, but no Geschlechtskrankheiten (Die
Prostitution, Bd. I, S. 428. It was introduced into China in the company of
Christianity & opium (cf.《癸巳類稿》卷六〈持素證論〉, 卷十四〈鴉片煙事述〉; 《癸巳存稿》卷十七〈喫煙事述〉).
“Vous prenez donc
Laurette pour une déité? Voulez vous voir ce qui est dans sa chaise percée”
etc. (p. 112). Roy fails to point out that this boutade is derived from
Plutarch’s Moralia; see 第二百二十五節.
Liv. III: “Le désir de
contenter son ventre est un maistre de toutes sortes de sciences & d’arts”
(pp. 123-4). From Persius,
Choliambi, 8: “Magister artis
ingenique largitor / Venter”; cf. Pantagruel,
Le Quart Livre, ch. LVII on “Messere Gaster estre de tous arts le maistre”,
“la bonne dame Penie... mere des neuf Muses”, “Et tout pour la trippe” (Oeuv. compl,
éd. Jean Plattard, IV, pp. 205-7). Epicurus: “The beginning & the root of
all good is the pleasure of the stomach; even wisdom & culture must be
referred to this” (Russell, Hist. of
Western Philos., p. 267); cf. the doctrine of “la mastication universelle”
of le neveu de Rameau as recounted by Sébastien Mercier quoted in Le Neveu de Rameau, éd. Jean Fabre, p. 252.【Dict. of German Figurative Usage, p. 177; Die Nachtwachen des Bonaventura, XII, “Edinburgh
Bilingual Library”, p. 184; but Cellini, La
vita, I, xi.】The other side of the
case is very graphically put by Benvenuto Cellini in his angry reply to Pope
Clement: “Le gatte di buona sorte meglio uccellano per grassezza che per fame:
– Così quella sorte degli uomini dabbene che sono inclinati alle virtù, molto
meglio le mettono in opera quando egli hanno abundantissimamente da vivere” (La Vita di B.C. Scritta da Lui Medesimo,
Lib. I, cap. xi, Ed. Ulrico Hoepli, p. 104). Cf. Feuerbach: “Die
Naturwissenschaft und die Revolution”: “‘Ein voller Bauch studirt nicht gern’;
richtig; aber so lange der Bauch voll ist, so lange hat der Kopf auch nichts
vom Inhalte des Bauchs” (Sämtl. Werk., hrsg. Bolin und Jodl,
Bd. X, S. 15). A. Maurois, Prométhée ou la vie de Balzac: “la
félicité tue la fécundité” (Balzac wrote very little after his marriage to Mme
Hańska whose estate relieved him of financial worries);《化書‧食化第五》; “負郭田二頃，吾豈能佩六國相印乎？”
“Servir leur catze de bondon” (p. 124).
Ex Italian Cazzo which becomes Catso
in English & survives, stripped of its adventitious appendage in current
slangy phrases like “pinch the cat”.
“Les cornes d’argent qu’il [Valentin]
porte... veulent signifier que son cocuage luy est profitable et regardez, vous
en verrez mesme en ce lieu de toutes chargées de pierreries” (p. 141). Cf. E.
Partridge, Dictionary of Slang, 4th
ed., p. 328: “Gilt horn”. The following anecdote told by Francis Bacon in Apophthegms New & Old is especially
to the point: “Secretary Bourn’s son kept a gentleman’s wife in Shropshire, who
lived from her husband with him. When he was weary of her, he caused her
husband to be dealt with to take her home, & offered him five hundred
pounds for reparation. Sir Henry Sidney said to the husband: ‘... whereas other
cuckolds wear their horns plain, you may wear yours gilt’” (Works, ed. Spedding, Ellis & Heath,
XIII, p. 338).
The account of Lenten fare Francion
had when boarding with Hortensius (pp. 175-6); just as Mr Squeers
says: “Subdue your appetites, my dears, & you’ve conquered human natur”; he
explains that “esprit ne peut faire ses fonctions quand les corps est par trop
chargé de viande” just as Master Cabra praises the broth “so clear that in
eating it one risks the fate of Narcissus at the fountain”: “Aha, that’s good
for the health & sharpens the wits” (The
Choice Humorous & Satirical Works of Quevedo, ed. Charles Duff, “Broadway
Translations”, p. 12). But Sorel’s description is much less vivid than the
Spaniard’s & the Englishman’s. Cf. Quevedo’s Vida del Buscón, Bk. I, ch. 3 on Master Cabra’s school, Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, ch. 5 on Dotheboys Hall,
etc. Hortensius quoted Cicero’s tag about eating to live.”
Tome II. Liv. IV: “On ne tourne
jamais le cul à ce grand Empereur, qui tient le siège de Mahomet, & on s’en
va a reculons de devant luy, quand l’on seroit meme Ambassadeur de France” (p.
21). This has become the practice even in Christian courts. There is an amusing
account in one of Hume’s letters: “After we had had a little Conversation with
her Imperial Majesty, we were to walk backwards, thro a very long room,
curtsying all the way: and there was very great danger of our falling foul of
each other, as well as of tumbling topsy-turvy. She saw the difficulty we were
in: and immediatly calld to us: Allez, allez, Messieurs, sans ceremonie: vous
n’êtes pas accoutumés à ce mouvemen et le plancher est glissant. We esteemed
ourselves very much oblig’d to her for this attention, especially my companions,
who were desperately afraid of my falling on them & crushing them” (The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, I, p. 127). Cf. The Diary of Fanny Burney, “Everyman’s Library”, p. 138: “[The
King] saw that nothing less than a thoroughbred old courtier, such as Lord
Harcourt, could walk backwards down these steps, before himself, & in sight
of so full a hall of spectators; & he therefore dispensed with being
approached to his seat, & walked down himself into the area, where the
vice-chancellor [of Oxford] kissed his hand, & was imitated by every
professor & doctor in the room” (cf. also pp. 141-2).
Hortensius’s gradual casting-off of
the soutane and other paraphernalia
of the schoolmaster & his metamorphosis pari
passu into a courtier (pp. 37-8) recalls the reverse process of P.D. Huet
who dared not assume all of a sudden the black soutane lest the court ladies & foplings would sneer at him
(cf. Mark Pattison, Essays, “The New
University Library”, I, p. 192).
“Un Page et ses compagnons ouvrirent
la bouche quasi-tous ensemble, pour m’appeler bourgeois, car c’est l’injure que
ceste canaille donne a ceux qu’elle estime niais, ou qui ne suivent point la
Cour, infamie du siècle, que ces personnes... abusent d’un nom qui a esté
autrefois , et est encore en d’aucunes villes si passionnément envié” (p. 61).A
striking instance of what Greenough & Kittredge call “degeneration of
meaning” (Words & Their Ways in
English Speech, ch. xx, pp. 284 ff.). Even as a neutral country is one with
which both sides are at war, as the extremes of aristocracy & proletariat
meet in their hatred of the middle class. The artists loathe the bourgeois (see
第四百四十四則 in connection with Don Quixote, Pt. II, ch. 16) because they belong to one of
Schopenhauer’s three aristocracies, namely the Gehirnaristokratie, the other two being Geburtaristokratie
& Geldaristokratie (Parerga und Paralipomena, “Aphorismen
zur Lebensweisheit”, Kap. V in Sämtl.
Werk., hrsg. P. Deussen, Bd. IV, S. 476; cf. P. Moreau, La Critique litt. en France, p. 118).
Liv. V: “Plusieurs ne faisoient que
traduire des livres, qui est une chose très servile” (p. 80). But then, this
servile thing is the only activity left for the “captive minds” living in a
“servile state”; cf. 第百五十一則.
“Il faut que j’aille tout maintenant
faire ce que les Roys ny les Empereurs ne peuvent faire par ambassade” (p. 92);
cf. 第四百四十四則.
“Metamorphoser votre malheur au jeu
en un bonheur... en femme” (p. 125); the proverb runs: “Heureux au jeu, malheureux
en femmes” (or “en amour”) (see Larousse
du XXe Siècle, III, p. 1026). Cf. Nicholas Nickleby, ch. 9: “‘You’ll have a bad wife though, if you
always win at cards,’ said Miss Price”; Capacelli, Il Ciarlatore Maldicente, I, x: “Chi a fortuna in amor non giuochi
a carte”; & Félicien Marceau, The
Mother of Aeneas, tr. Jean Stewart: “I might have gone on for a long time
if, one afternoon, playing a game of mora
giapponese with a cantankerous fellow, Gennaro had not brought off an
astonishing sequence of successes... Faced with this extraordinary run of luck,
the cantankerous man lost all restraint, ‘It’s no wonder, wearing the horns
like you do.’ Gennaro smiled” (The London
Magazine, May 1955, pp. 24-5). In modern French the word for cockold has
even become the synonym for a “lucky fellow”, e.g., André Thérive, Noir et or: “La Panique”: “Mais il y
avait des cocus qui recevaient ailleurs le plomb vêtu de maillechort, n’importe
où, même dans les jambes ou les orteils” (M.E. Coindreau & J.R. Loy, Contes et nouvelles du temps present, p.
202) Flaubert, L’éducation sentimentale,
II, iv, éd. Conard, p. 326: “[A la veille du duel avec Frédéric] le Vicomte
[Cisy] s’efforça de perdre [aux cartes], afin de conjurer la mauvaise
chance...” Cf. Géo Sandry et Marcel Carrère, Dictionnaire de l’Argot Moderne, 3e éd., p. 202: “Une
veine de cornard”; Augusto Arthaber,
Dizionario comparato di Proverbi, p. 270: “Chi ha
fortuna in amore, non giochi a carte.”
“Collinet entendit dire
qu’une fille de notre quartier avoit eu un enfant dont le père estoit inconnu.
Vous verrez, dit il, que c’est qu’elle a passé par les armes, et que tous les
champions ont tiré contre elle en salve, si bien qu’on ne sçait qui a donné le
coup... Il la comparoit [encore] a une personne qui se seroit piqué les mains
en touchant a des epines, et ne pourroit dire laquelle ce seroit de toutes qui
auroit fait la blessure” (p. 145). Roy did not know that the simile is derived
from Diogenes Laertius, II, lxxxi: “A courtesan having told him that she was
with child by him, Aristippus replied, ‘You are no more sure of this than if,
after running through coarse rushes, you were to say you had been pricked by
one in particular’” (Lives of Eminent Philosophers, tr. by R.D. Hicks, “The
Loeb Classical Lbrary”, I, p. 209). Cf.《痴婆子傳》卷下: “舉一子，不知其為盈郎者，大徒者，伯與叔者，翁與夫者，抑佛門弟子也”; 又第六百九十五則《易林》卷一〈蒙〉之〈節〉.
Liv. VI: “Se
discharger... d’un fardeau qui ne pèse guère et qui est pourtant le plus
difficile à porter de tous” (p. 188); cf. English slang: “A load off one’s
behind”, but the locus classicus is les oeuvres de Tabarin: “La merde est la
chose la plus lourde du monde...
Si un crocheteur a une charge de cottrets sur le dos, il les portera
plus facilement; mais si de fortune il a seulement une demie-livre de merde qui
vueille sortir, il la trouvera si pesante qu’il sera contraint de descharger
ses epaules pour descharger son fardeau de derrière” (“Classiques Garnier”, p.
77; cf. p. 252: “Il est bien pesant; je crois qu’il n’a point chié
d’aujourd’hui.”) Cf. Aristophanes,
“The Loeb Class. Lib.”, II, p. 271, The
Frogs, 9-10: Xanthias: “I’m overburdened so. That if none ease me, I must
ease myself.”
Tome III. Liv. VII: The
worship of “le venerable Cul” to which Francion, Raymond, Dorini & others
paid the same homage as the vassals were said to do to the Master of Sabbat
(see Montaigne Summers, History of
Witchcraft & Demonology, p. 317 on osculum
infame & sub cauda osculantur)
(pp. 7-11) does not imply any aesthetic appreciation of Terese’s posterior
rotundities which are said to be “les fesses des plus grosses et des mieux
nourries du monde”. Hence, Sorel quotes Charron’s Sagesse rather than invokes Aphrodite Kallipygos who, as
represented by a statue in the Neapolitan Museum, “hebt kokett das Gewand hoch
und blickt über die Schulter auf die üppigen Halbkugeln ihres wundervoll
modulierten Rückens” (see Hans Licht, Beiträge
zur Antiken Erotik, S. 114). Cf. 第二百十則. The phrase “le vénérable cul” occurs
also in Les Oeuvres de Tabarin
(“Classiques Garnier”, p. 67: “le trou du soupirail de mon venerable cul” (cf.
p. 122: “boutique reculée de toutes mes conceptions culiques, l’estuy venerable
de mon authentique et renommé calendrier”). Francion’s prayer to the buttocks:
“Exauce les prières qu’un chacun te fait, de luy ester secourable lors qu'il
frappera a ta porte de devant, et de te remuer avec tant de souplesse que tu
luy causes un plaisir des plus parfaits” (p. 10), may be compared with the nice
“derangement of epitaphs” on 李師師’s behind in《隔簾花影》第二十五回: “白光光、滑溜溜、香噴噴、緊䋺䋺兩片行雲送雨的情根”.
Liv. IX: The story of
Francion seducing the naïve brunette by pretending to play with her body, on
his instrument which is fait de bois ny
de corne (pp. 108-9)[10],
is modelled on the Decameron, III, x (Ed.
Ulrico Hoepli, pp. 234 ff.) and Sacchetti, Trecentonovelle,
CI, (opp., “I Classici Rizzoli”, pp.
325-7); cf. also what the “libertin de qualité” said to his bride on the
wedding night: “Le créateur a fait présent à l'homme d’une cheville Tâtez
plutôt or, cet instrument doit
trouver son trou ce trou est en vous; permettez que je le cherche et que je le
bouche” (L’oeuvre du Comte Mirabeau,
“Les Maîtres de L’Amour”,
p. 239).
“‘Ouf, ah mon Dieu ouf,
disoit-elle, vous me faites mal.’ ‘Patience, disoit Francion, achevons puisque
nous avons commence. L’issuë sera meilleure que l’entrée” (p. 109) — cf. La
Fontaine, Contes & Nouvelles, I, xiii: “Rien ne coûte en amour que la première
peine”, & English slang: “A few gasps & all is over.”
Tome IV. Liv. XI: Hortensius:
“Sçachez que si le monde nous semble grand, notre corps ne le semble pas moins
a un pou ou a un ciron... Or il n’y a si petit corps qui ne puisse être divise
en des partiès innombrables” (p. 11). One of the “sources” or rather
anticipations of Pascal’s famous passage in “Disproportion de l’homme”[11]
(Pensées, Sect. II, §72, Pensées et opuscules, éd. L. Brunschwig,
p. 379), which however as Gilbert Chinard has shown conclusively, is really
based on Hobbes’s Elementorum
philosophiae, sectio I, cap. xxvii (Henri M. Peyre, ed., Essays in Honor of Albert Feuillerat,
pp. 133-5).【Walsh to Pope: “But
they may as well applaud the Ancients for the Arts of eating & drinking,
& accuse the Moderns of having stol’n those Inventions from them; it being
evident in all such cases, that whoever live first, must first find them out” (Pope,
Correspondence, ed. G. Sherburn, vol.
I, p. 20).】
“Ce n’est pas imiter un homme que de
peter ou de tousser comme luy” (p. 19); cf. 第二百十則 and Alfred de
Musset, Namouna, II, ix: “C’est
imiter qqn. que de planter des choux.”
“Les secondes nopces n’avoient rien de meilleur que les viandes
réchauffées” (p. 70). Frederick Locker thinks that second marriages are “not
merely pouring hot water on used tea-leaves” (Patchwork, p. [12]);
cf. Sir John Suckling quoted in 第百四十則.
Liv. XII: “Bergamin jouoit de
certaines pièces sans avoir besoin de compagnon, et ayant fait tendre un rideau
au coin d’une salle, il sortoit de la derrière plusieurs fois, changeant
d’habits selon les personnages qu’il vouloit représenter, et il deguisoit
tellement sa voix et son action qu’il n’estoit pas recognoissable” (pp. 74-5).
In a learned note É. Roy traced this practice to the mediaeval comediae elegicae & refers to some
16th-century French farces. Apparently he forgot the mocking
description in Scarron’s
Le Roman Comique, Ptie.
I, ch. 2: “‘J’ay joüé une pièce moy seul, dit la Rancune, et ay fait en mêsme
temps le roy, la reyne, et l’ambaffadeur. Je parlois en fausset , quand je faisois
la reyne; je parlois du nez pour l’ambassadeur, et me tournois vers ma couronne
que je posois sur une chaise; et pour le roy, je reprenois mon siége, ma couronne
et ma gravité, et grossissois un peu ma voix’” (Éd. “Librairie des
Bibliophiles”, I, p. 10).
【「閉月羞花」不知何出？香山則別作一意，〈戲問山石榴〉云：「爭知司馬夫人妬，移到庭前便不開」（〈戲題新栽薔薇〉云：「少府無妻春寂寞，花開將爾作夫人」）。Cowley: “The Spring”: “For, since you’re gone //
They [trees & flowers]’re here the only fair, & shine alone. / You did
their Natural Rights invade” etc. (Everyman’s
Bk of Eng. Love Poems, p. 143). Henry Noel, “Beauty’s Excellency”: “For if
my Empress appears, / Swans moulting die, snow melts to tears, / Roses do
blush & hang their heads, / Pale lilies shrink into their beds” (J.
Hadfield, Everyman’s Bk. of Eng. Love Poems,
p. 150). 姚園客《露書》卷二曰：「《莊子》：『猨，猵狙以為雌，麇與鹿交，鰌與魚游，毛嬙、麗姬，人之所美也，魚見之深入，鳥見之高飛，麋鹿見之決驟。』此言魚鳥以類為美，而不知人之美，故曰：『四者孰知天下之正色』也。自《初學記》採『魚鳥』二句，説者遂失其義，謂美貌爲『沉魚落雁之容』」云云，可參觀（參觀第二百十三則 Theocritus, X 所引
Burton, Voltaire，又第六百五十三則引 Philostratus
等）。宋之問〈浣紗篇〉云：「鳥驚入松蘿，魚畏沉荷花」；陳普《石堂先生遺集》卷十八〈戲呈友人〉云：「年來學道未知方，羞逐鶯花燕蝶忙。三五年加心死盡，有如魚鳥見毛嬙」；皆不失《莊子》本意。[13]】
四百六十二[14]
胡宿武平《文恭集》四十卷，《常州先哲叢書》本。【又見《全唐詩》。】《武英殿聚珍版》本所誤收之文已均刊落，補收之文疑本勞格《讀書雜識》卷十二來。然尚有芟除未盡者，如卷四〈謝惠詩〉七律兩首體格迥異，有云：「語帶誠齋句妙香」，編者知「誠齋」為楊萬里號，疑南宋人作羼入，而未敢決；卷五〈謝楊丈叔子惠詩〉、〈又和前人〉七律各一首，亦誠齋體，「叔子」即誠齋子，〈又和〉一首有云：「詩中活法無多子」，尤分明道誠齋，《平園續稿》卷一〈次韻楊廷秀寄題渙然書院〉云：「誠齋萬事悟活法，誨人有功如利涉」，《南湖集》卷七〈携楊秘監詩一編登舟〉云：「目前言句知多少，罕有先生活法詩」，蓋當時人所共道，編者未知也。卷一〈怨詩初調示龐主簿〉乃陶淵明詩，〈彭山贈貫之〉五古一首亦不類文恭手筆，風格是蘇、黃以後詩。文恭詩文尚沿晚唐稠麗之格，七律最工，雖乏深意婉韻，而筆致尚健，無西崑滯塞之習。使事每割裂，亦玉溪之流弊也。館臣謂是「盛唐遺響」，真夢囈語！非特編輯草率，不辨葛龔而已。卷三〈浮石寺〉：「數刻盡牛香」，謂「牛頭之香」也；〈送曹生〉：「清篇託畔牢」，謂《畔牢愁》也；〈寄善慧大師〉[15]：「昆灰多妙辨」，謂昆明劫灰也；〈悼往〉：「破恨憑湘酎」、「葛華與參宿」，謂謝惠連〈雪賦〉「酌湘吳之醇酎」，〈前溪歌〉「黄葛何蒙蘢，花落隨流去」也；卷四〈送魏屯田〉：「雌堂夕宴沈賓轄」，謂太守所居塗以雌黄稱黄堂也。【卷三〈七夕〉：「杞天長在年梭疾」；卷六〈送蘇賢良〉：「詔下武泥馨」（用武都紫泥封詔事）。】盧召弓《龍城札記》卷二曰：「文恭〈館中候馬〉詩云：『自笑守應廬』，又〈上小謝學士啟〉云：『更直應廬』，此用應休璉〈百一〉詩『問我何功德，三入承明廬』，太牽強。《集》中往往如此，因《老子》有『如登春臺』，即用『老臺』【卷六〈漫成〉：『不敢將春上老臺』】；因杜牧有『千首詩輕萬戶侯』，即用『詩戶』；因〈北山移文〉有『昔聞投簪逸海岸』，即用『海簪』；太守堂曰『雌堂』；天曰『杵天』，皆生僻。押韻及平仄間亦多誤。」【《抱經堂文集》卷十三〈胡武平文恭集書後〉略同。】竊謂李濟翁《資暇集》卷上云：「《初學記》以『吳牛』對『魏鵲』，引曹公歌行『月明星稀，鳥鵲南飛』爲據，斯甚疏闊。漢武〈秋風詞〉：『草木黃落兮雁南歸』，則風事亦可用『漢雁』矣。」文恭「應廬」正沿《初學記》之法。《緗素雜記》卷一引宋景文詩文亦有「雌閣」、「雌堂」。俞曲園《湖樓筆談》卷六云：「義山〈隋宮〉：『玉璽不緣歸日角』，以『日角』代真主，則漢高有七十二黑子，稱漢高為『黑子』可矣！駱賓王文云：『龍蹲歸而宋樹伐』，《春秋演孔圖》稱孔子『坐如蹲龍，立如牽牛』，以『牽牛』目孔子，可乎？」義山〈喜雪〉以〈曹風〉有「麻衣如雪」之語而曰「曹衣」，〈自桂林奉使江陵途中感懷〉以《楚辭》有「投醪」之語而曰「楚醪」，皆其類；〈對雪〉第一首以陳思有〈白馬篇〉而曰「曹植馬」。《事文類聚前集》卷四〈雪〉門引羅可詩：「斜侵潘岳鬢，橫上季良眉。」遂啟後世如張祖〈詠途中遇雪〉之「在我固宜潘岳鬢，於人何盡馬良眉」（《蜀雅》卷十一）矣。梁山舟嘗恨近世類書無取古人臨文牽於聲偶權宜用事之例，編為後人依據者，所舉十類，牽合、割裂、歇後、倒用無不有（見《頻羅菴遺集》卷十一〈自錄屬詞筐舉殘稿書後〉）。文恭此等句，正藥籠中物也。《老學庵筆記》指摘文恭〈上呂丞相啟〉云：「手提天鐸，鏘正始之遺音；夢授神椽，擯奪朱之亂色」（按《集》卷三十一有〈迎呂相啟〉，殘缺不全，無此聯），謂：「不悟『正始』為年名。」亦足見文恭之鹵莽滅裂，可為盧紹弓張目。【少陵〈獨坐〉曰：「煖老思燕玉」（〈古詩〉：「燕趙多佳人，美者顏如玉」，《禮記》：「八十[16]」）。】【庾信〈小園賦〉以墨子乃睢陽人而嘆素絲，乃曰「睢陽亂絲」。】【駱賓王〈在江南贈宋五之問〉：「李仙非易託，蘇鬼尚難因」，用《後漢書‧郭太傳》「李膺以為神仙」、〈楚策〉「蘇秦曰：『因鬼見帝』」；駱賓王〈答員半千書〉：「自守莊筌，無嬰魏網」，用《說苑‧善說篇》莊周貸粟於魏文侯「求我枯魚之肆」事。】【吳潛〈摸魚兒〉：「不被蝸蠅繫」，謂蝸角虛名、蠅頭微利也，〈滿江紅〉云：「蝸名蠅利」。】【《賭棋山莊詞話》卷三譏姚梅伯之「汗（牛）充（棟）」、「狂（杜）牧」，《丹鉛總錄》嘗指摘「騷（人）墨（客）」、「汗充」，梅伯殆未知。】【明邵經邦《弘藝錄》卷十二〈觀西涯李閣老今我樂矣詞并篆刻畫龍蛇黃大字（詞仿李斯小篆）標題〉：「歲月碧鷄年。」童鈺《二樹今體詩‧夏日山樓即事》：「山禽啼蜀帝，園果落曹公。」參觀第 598 則《柯山集》卷 18〈仲夏〉。】
卷三〈暮冬離京師〉：「雪中愁買出關符，又著青衫事府趨。燕市有金還貴馬，鄧林無樹可棲烏。鴟夷痛飲傾家釀，如意狂歌缺唾壺。朝野多歡天子聖，目瞻東闕步踟躕。」
〈函谷關〉：「天開函谷壯關中，萬古驚塵向此空。望氣竟能知老子，棄繻何不識終童。慢持白馬先生論，未抵鳴鷄下客功。符命已歸如掌地，一丸曾誤隗王東『隗王』出《後漢書‧隗囂傳》，或作『隗生』者誤。」按此楊文公〈詠漢武〉體。
卷四〈早夏〉：「井轄投多思不禁，密垂珠箔晝沉沉。睡驚燕語頻移枕，病起蛛絲半在琴。雨徑亂花埋宿艷，月軒脩竹轉涼陰。一春酒費知多少，探盡囊中換賦金。」
〈次韻和朱況雨中之作〉：「蒼野迷雲黯不歸，遠風吹雨入巖扉。石牀潤極琴絲緩，水閣寒多酒力微。夕夢將成還滴滴，春心欲斷正霏霏。憂花惜月長如此，爭得東陽病骨肥。」
〈過桐廬〉：「二月辛夷猶未落，五更鴉臼最先啼。」
卷五〈津亭〉：「津亭歌闋戒棠舟，五兩風輕不少留。西北浮雲來魏闕，東南初日背秦樓。層城渺渺人傷別，芳草萋萋客倦遊。平樂舊歡收未得，更憑飛夢到瀛洲。」
四百六十三[17]
Sholom Kahn, Science & Aesthetic Judgment: A Study in Taine's Critical Method.
Conscientious & pedestrian, very
muddled on philosophical issues. Scholarship not solidly built on first-hand
knowledge of the great writers who form the subject of the learned monographs
he relies on. Thus, he writes at great length on Taine’s study of Hegel (pp. 24
ff.), makes use of Leo Spitzer’s find (Essays
in Historical Semantics, pp. 232-3) that in 1827 Carlyle coined the word “environment”
to translate the word Umgebung in a passage
from Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit,
Bk. XIII (p. 107), & quotes with approval Victor Giraud’s statement (Essai sur Taine, p. 44) that “the theory
of the moment & the milieu is already found in Hegel & not merely in
germ” (p. 113) without apparently himself taking the trouble of reading through
Hegel’s Ästhetik, otherwise he would
have seen, as C.M.Gayley & F.N. Scott had noticed long ago, that “for his
celebrated formula of the race, the moment, & the environment, Taine
was indebted
to Hegel’s Aesth., vol. I, p. 20:
‘Sodann gehort jedes Kunstwerk seiner Zeit, seinem Volke, seiner Umgebung an’”
(Methods & Materials of Literary Criticism,
p. 129; Ästhetik, Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag,
1955, p. 61). Curious enough, D.D. Rosca in his painstaking dissertation L’Influence de Hegel sur Taine théoricien de
la connaissance et de l’arte (1928) fails to make a confrontation on this
point & thus joins “la grande majorité des auteurs qui ont étudié l’esthétique
de Taine”, whom “cette influence... aussi profonde que étendu... a complètement
échappé” (p. 333). In fact the idea of milieu had also been adumbrated in Bodin’s
locorum ac regionum ratio & Justus Möser’s
Lokalvernunft (see
A. Gillies, Herder, pp. 6-8 for an
account of the idea of “suitable environment” in the critical works of the Abbé
Dubos, Blackwell, Wood, Hurd & others); cf. also S. Morawski’s article “Value
& Criteria in Taine’s Aesthetics” (The
Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, Summer 1963, esp. pp. 412-5) on
Taine’s indebtedness to Hegel on various points. Baldensperger’s suggestion
that there might be a connection between Taine’s le moment & the phrase das
psychologische Moment attributed to Bismarck during the siege of Paris (p.
113) is not plausible because Taine’s le
moment in the sense of Hegel’s Zeit
is der Moment not das Moment, though Taine’s
contemporaries who had not his pretensions to scholarship often used the German
phrase in that sense: “Lorsqu’enfin Monsieur Sharp crût que le moment
psychologique était arrivé” (Jules Verne, Les
Cinq Cents Millions de la Bégum,
1870), “Un journal allemande trouvant que le moment psychologique du
bombardement était arrive. Le moment
psychologique d’un bombardement, n’est-ce pas que c’est bien férocement
allemand” (Journal des Goncourt, 27 décembre, 1870, Éd. déf., IV, p. 133).
四百六十四[18]
衛宗武《秋聲集》六卷。淇父華亭人，宋之遺老。卷二有〈和家則堂韻〉七古一首，即家鉉翁也。詩亦沿南宋江湖體，頗纖滑，時以理學攙入（舍卷一〈理學〉、〈贈潘天游〉等五古外，如同卷〈錢竹深招泛西湖值雨即事〉云：「烟霧渺無際，宛類太極初」，〈賦南墅竹〉云：「有體兼有用，迥異凡草木」，卷四〈春日〉云：「化工傳至仁，生機運不停」，〈望霽〉云：「重明麗乎正，萬象生輝光」），正復當時結習（ 參觀第四百五十三則）。五古潤飭最可觀。文頗淩厲，鋪陳氣勢，面目視詩為闊大。
卷一〈理學〉：「寥寥二千載，道統幾欲墜。濂洛暨關中，浚源接洙泗。乾淳諸大儒，流派何以異？無極而太極，性命發其秘。先天而後天，理數稽其至。四書共羣籍，精微窮奧義。五常與異端，辨析無遺旨。（中略）踐修本誠敬，講貫非口耳。要在絕己私，渾然循天理（下略）。」
〈冬留紫芝庵即事〉：「玄冬適莽蒼，霜宇更闃寂。繫舟山下路，窈窕松關入。一榻寄僧居，幽雲生卧室。明朝過東山，千尋更矹硉。丙舍尤杳深，寒林互盤屈。孤楓綴餘丹，萬竹錯叢碧。天寒鳥聲靜，木落山骨出。飲無客獻酬，座有僧分席。一盃復一盃，不覺日之夕。林鳥欲歸栖，翩翩競翔集。萬點帶平田，有似坡仙弈。此行爲訪梅，東尋復西覓。俄見影橫斜，蕭然倚山壁。中有第一春，緘藏何太密。數日我重來，要見南枝白。」
卷三〈和南塘嘲謔〉：「斷絃謾說鸞膠續，剜肉難將獺髓填。」
四百六十五[19]
The
Love of Books: The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, translated by E.C.
Thomas (“The Mediaeval Library”).
Love of humanity expressed in the
language of divinity, hence: a cento of biblical phrases & similes. Cf. 第三百四十九則, 第三百九十一則.
Prologue: “Athletes of the faith”
(p. 4). Cf.《增壹阿含經》卷二十五之三、四 on “五種戰鬥人”.
Ch. ii: “In moral science we do not
insist upon demonstration, remembering that the educated man seeks such degree
of certainty as he perceives the subject will bear, as Aristotle testifies in
the first book of his Ethics. For
Tully does not appeal to Euclid, nor does Euclid rely upon Tully” (p. 14). As
can be seen from the following quotation, the second sentence has also been
suggested by Aristotle. The Nicomachean
Ethics, I, iii: “The same exactness must not be expected in all departments
of philosophy alike... It is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount
of exactness in each kind which the nature of the particular subject admits. It
is equally unreasonable to accept merely probable conclusions from a
mathematician & to demand strict demonstration from an orator” (tr. H.
Rackham, “The Loeb Classical Library”, pp. 7-9). Cf. Ramsey, Foundations of Mathematics & Other
Essays, p. 269: “The chief danger to our philosophy, apart from laziness &
woolliness, is scholasticism, the essence of which is treating what is vague as
if it were precise & trying to fit it into an exact logical category.” Cf. “Malheur
au vague! Mieux vaut le faux!” (quoted a propos of the Ionian school with its
passion for logical clarity, F.M. Coonford, From
Religion to Philosophy, “Harper Torch-books”, p. vi).
Ch. vii: The pun on Phronesis subject to the power of phrenesis (p. 54) is as good as the one
in ch. viii on wanting libros non libras
(p. 56). Salvador de Madariaga who has laid down the rule, “Puns should be
punished unless they are pungent”, would let them go scot free.
Ch. viii: “Paris, the Paradise of
the world” (p. 56). Cf. Geoffrey de Vinsauf on Paris as paradisus deliciarum for learning (Cambridge Hist. of Eng. Lit., I, p. 215; cf. E.R. Curtius, Europäische Literatur und
Lateinisches Mittelalter, IIte
Aufl., S. 66 on Paris as “das bildungszentrum das lateinischen Abendlandes”);
also Jules Renard’s mot: “Ajoutez
deux lettres à ‘Paris’: c’est le Paradis” (Journal,
Éd de la NRF, p. 202); cf. Voltaire, Dict.
Phil., art “Antiquité”: “Écossais démontre que le jardin d’Eden était à
Edimbourg, qui en a retenu le nom” (Oeuv.
Comp., éd. Moland, XVII, p. 275). On the other hand, Heine on Paris as “die
Hölle der Engel, der Teufel Paradies”; Balzac: “cette succursale de l’enfer”, “l’antichambre
de l’enfer”. Curious enough, Paris changing from the paradise of scholars into
the paradise of cocotte & Thomas
Cook’s customers[20]
(cf. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,
ch. vi: “Good Americans when they die go to Paris”; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: “Paris is devine!”), is like 揚州 in
its fortunes. 翁方綱《復初齋詩集》卷十五〈題任子田雪屋誦經圖〉第四首：“無復雷塘艷舊遊，而今實學在揚州”，卷三十三〈顧松巢棧道圖〉：“吾以文心悟天咫，昔也花月矜維揚。今悉化為經術氣，屢共歎息任與黃”，〈寄懷方石亭〉自注：“予謂邗江自任幼椎植、顧文子輩砥礪經術，近則阮芸台訓詁經術，迥非昔所謂‘烟月揚州’矣”；周士彬〈揚州〉：“青樓歌舞勝杭蘇，花月神仙總一途。騎鶴腰纏爭艷羨，無人解道董江都”；《瓶水齋詩集》卷五〈過江雜詩〉第六首：“十里春風二分月，不宜繁露董江都”.
Ch. xvii is the most amusing section
of the book. In his detailed account of the various improper ways of handling
books, Richard Bury signally omitted what Catullus had called cacata charta (XXXVI 20) on what Lord
Chesterfield was to described as “sacrifice to Cloacina” (Letters, ed. Dobrée, p. 1067) (cf. 第五十二則, 第四百五十則). The good bishop must have boggled at the mere
idea of such sacrilege. While he insisted on the “cleanliness of decent hands”
and would not allow children to “soil the parchment with wet fingers” (p. 108),
he also overlooked the odious common practice described in “The Tale of the Wazir
of King Yūnān” in The Thousand Nights
& One Nights (tr. Powys Mathers, I, p. 47: “He... found that the pages
were stuck together, so he put his finger to his mouth, wetted it with his
spittle, & succeeded in opening the first leaf” etc.) & anathematized
by Thomas Wright in his Life of Sir
Richard Burton, II, p. 95: “King Yunan richly deserved the death that
overtook him, if only for his dirty habit of wetting his thumb when turning
over the leaves of the book.” Cf., in a figurative sense, Thomas Edwards’s
remark: “Editing is not to be done with a wet finger” (quoted in Austin Dobson,
Later Essays 1917-1920, p. 24). De
Bury was indignant that “some headstrong youth... does not fear to eat fruit or
cheese over an open book” (p. 106); that such a youth can do something even
worse to a book can be seen from Paul Scarron’s lively description of the
university student’s life in L’Ecolier de
Salamanque, I, iii: “Chacun y mange en diable, / Ou si l’on veut en chien.
Un coffre y sert de table, / Du vin à quantité, peu de mets délicats, / Des
Livres pleins de graisses y tiennent lieu de plats” (P. Morillot, Scarron & le genre burlesque, p.
302). Cf.《貪歡報》第二十回：“〈書畫金湯‧惡魔〉：‘指甲……噴嚏’”. In Bury’s book the “headstrong youth” marks any passage that pleases
him with “nails... stuffed with fetid filth” (p. 105); cf. Herrick’s poem “To the
Detractor”: “Where others love, & praise my verses; still / Thy long black
thumb-nail marks ’em out for ill” (Poetical Works, ed. L.C. Martin, p. 66, also
p. 514 where Joseph Hall’s Sat. VI.
i. 1-2 are quoted: “Labeo reserves a long nayle for the nonce / To wound my Margent
through ten leaves at once”); 劉若愚《酌中志》卷十三, 閻若璩《潛邱劄記》卷四上. Also Crashaw’s Poetical Works, ed. L.C. Martin, p. 427 same verses quotes.
[7] 原詩：“At
eve the beetle boometh / Athwart the thicket lone: /... The hollow grot
replieth / Where Claribel low-lieth.”
[15]「善慧」原作「禪慧」。
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