He Guan Zi (鶡冠子) · Volume 1

鈇器原歸厚德將【開卷首義即雲王鈇非一世之器者厚德隆俊也注以王鈇為法制引賈誼言權勢法制人主之斤斧謂專任法制不以厚德將之而欲以持久難哉是其説雖雜刑名未嘗不歸於道德固非若黃老之專務清靜亦不至如申韓之流為慘礉也】雜刑匪獨老和黃朱評陸注同因顯栁謗韓譽兩不妨完帙倖存書著楚失篇卻勝代稱唐【宋陸佃既為之註解復序雲鶡冠子楚人居深山以鶡羽為冠號曰鶡冠子其書雜黃老刑名要其宿時若防亂而無家然竒言奧防亦毎毎而有自博選至武靈王問凡十有九篇而退之讀此雲十有六篇者非全書也朱子評韓文雲漢唐皆以為道家者流公謂其辨施於國家功德豈少而栁子厚作辨則曰得其書而讀之言盡鄙淺所見不同如此朱子雖不置可否然其書具在栁説不免過當朱子又云漢藝文志有鶡冠子一卷而唐志雲三卷謂漢時遺缺至唐而全以今書校之卷雖唐増於漢而篇則宋増於唐茲本既完備無缺佃注亦世所罕見自應重刋以廣流傳】帝常師處王友處【帝者與師處王者與友處亦其博選篇中語】戒合書紳識弗忘

The royal instrument of rule must in the end be led by thick virtue. [The very first line of the book says that the king's instrument (the legal authority in the ruler's hands, which Jia Yi likened to the ruler's axe) is not a tool of a single morning or a single age, and must rely on thick virtue to raise up the outstanding. The commentary explains the royal instrument as the system of laws, citing Jia Yi: power and law are the ruler's axes; if one relies only on law and does not lead it with thick virtue, it is hard to last. So although its teaching is mixed with xingming (the school that uses punishments and the matching of name and reality to control subordinates, from which Shen Buhai and Han Fei later came), in the end it still returns to Dao and De; it is neither like Huang-Lao (the art of government falsely attributed to the Yellow Emperor and Laozi) devoted only to quiet nonaction, nor does it fall into the harshness and cruelty of Shen and Han.] It is mixed with xingming, and is not only of the Huang-Lao line. The comments of Zhu Xi and the commentary of Lu Dian bring this out; Liu Zongyuan's denunciation and Han Yu's praise may both stand side by side. The whole book survives, and the book was written by a man of Chu; Han Yu said some chapters were missing, but compared with the Tang, which spoke only of sixteen chapters, it is now actually fuller. [In the Song, Lu Dian both wrote a commentary on it and wrote a preface saying: Heguanzi was a man of Chu who lived deep in the mountains and made a cap of the feathers of the he bird, and so was called Heguanzi. This book mixes Huang-Lao and xingming, and in its final purport it often seems scattered and without a school (the base text has "fang" in place of "san", scattered, in the Siku edition), yet it often has extraordinary words and profound meanings (the base text has "ao fang" where the Siku edition has "ao zhi"). From the Bo Xuan to the King Wuling's Questions it has nineteen chapters, but Han Yu, reading this book, said sixteen chapters, which is not the complete text. Zhu Xi, commenting on Han's writing, said: the Han and Tang regarded it as of the Daoist stream, but Master Han said that its arguments, put into practice in a state, would have no small merit; Liu Zongyuan wrote a "Discrimination," saying that when he got the book and read it, its words were all vulgar and shallow. The two held very different views. Though Zhu Xi did not give a verdict, the book is still there, and Liu's view goes too far. Zhu Xi also said: the Han Treatise lists one volume of Heguanzi, the Tang Treatise lists three volumes, and some say it was incomplete in the Han and complete by the Tang; check against the present text, and in terms of volumes the Tang had more than the Han, but in terms of chapters the Song has more than the Tang. This edition is already complete without gaps, and Lu Dian's commentary is also rare in the world, so it should naturally be recut, so that it may be spread more widely.] The emperor stays with teachers, the king stays with friends. ["The emperor stays with teachers, the king stays with friends" is also a line from the Bo Xuan chapter.] These lines should be written on one's sash and kept in mind and not forgotten. (The imperial poem begins its line with these seven characters, and the Siku edition is the same; if there was another couplet before it, it is not seen in the present text.)

鶡冠子十有六篇其詞雜黃老刑名其博選篇四稽五至之說當矣使其人遇其時援其道而施於國家功德豈少哉學問篇稱賤生於無所用中流失船一壺千金者餘三讀其辭而悲之文字脫繆為之正三十有五字乙者三減者二十有二注十有二字雲

The Heguanzi has sixteen chapters in all, with the wording mixed with Huang-Lao and xingming. Its statement in the Bo Xuan chapter of the four checks (four kinds of verification) and the five arrivals (five kinds of people who can come to join) is correct. If this man had met his moment and applied his Way (in this book it means both the origin of the myriad things and the Way of governing that can be applied in a state) in a state, would his merit have been small? The Learning chapter says: it is cheap because it cannot be put to use; when a boat is lost in midstream, one gourd is worth a thousand in gold. I read this passage three times and grieved for it. Where the text was missing or wrong, I corrected thirty-five characters, transposed three places, deleted twenty-two places, and added twelve characters of notes, as above.

鶡冠子楚人也居於深山以鶡為冠號曰鶡冠子其道踳駮著書初本黃老而末流迪於刑名傳曰申韓厲名實切事情其極慘礉少恩而原於道德之意蓋學之有如此者也故曰孔墨之後儒分為八墨離為三嗚呼可不慎哉此書雖雜黃老刑名而要其宿時若防亂而無家者然其竒言奧防亦毎毎而有也自博選篇至武靈王問凡十有九篇而退之讀此雲十有六篇者非全書也今其書雖具在然文字脫繆不可考者多矣語曰書三寫魚成魯帝成虎豈虛言哉餘竊閔之故為釋其可知者而其不可考者輒疑焉以俟博洽君子陸佃撰

Heguanzi was a man of Chu who lived deep in the mountains and made a cap of the feathers of the he bird, and so was called Heguanzi. His Way is mixed and impure; at the beginning of his writing it is rooted in Huang-Lao, but in the lower reaches it goes into xingming. The tradition says: Shen and Han made name and reality strict and close to affairs, and pushed it to an extreme so that it became cruel and lacking in kindness, yet they traced it back to the idea of Dao and De. That the faults of learning could come to this (the base text has a private-use missing character after "xue zhi"; the Siku edition has "bi", fault). So it is said: after Confucius and Mozi, the Confucians divided into eight schools, and the Mohists split into three. Alas, can one fail to be careful! Though this book is mixed with Huang-Lao and xingming, in its final purport it often seems scattered and without a school (the base text has "fang" where the Siku edition has "san", scattered); yet it often has extraordinary words and profound meanings (the base text has "ao fang" where the Siku edition has "ao zhi"). From the Bo Xuan chapter to the King Wuling's Questions it has nineteen chapters, but Han Yu, reading this book, said sixteen chapters, which is not the complete text. Now although the book is all here, the places where the wording is missing or wrong and cannot be checked are still many. The common saying goes: copy a book three times, and "fish" becomes "Lu," and "emperor" becomes "tiger"; is this an empty saying? I privately pity it, so what could be made to make sense I have explained, and what could not be settled I have left in doubt, for learned gentlemen. Written by Lu Dian.