1
臧榮緒吳苞徐伯珍沈麟士阮孝緒鄧郁陶弘景諸葛璩劉慧斐范元琰庾詵張孝秀庾承先馬樞
Zang Rongxu, Wu Bao, Xu Bozhen, Shen Linshi, Ruan Xiaoxu, Deng Yu, Tao Hongjing, Zhuge Qu, Liu Huifei, Fan Yuanyan, Yu Shen, Zhang Xiaoxiu, Yu Chengxian, and Ma Shu
2
臧榮緒
Zang Rongxu
3
臧榮緒，東莞莒人也。 祖奉先，建陵令。 父庸人，國子助教。
Zang Rongxu was a native of Ju in Dongguan. His grandfather Fengxian had served as magistrate of Jianling. His father Yongren had been an instructor at the Imperial University.
4
榮緒幼孤，躬自灌園，以供祭祀。 母喪後，乃著嫡寢論，掃灑堂宇，置筵席，朔望輒拜薦焉，甘珍未嘗先食。 純篤好學，括東、西晉為一書，紀錄志傳百一十卷。 隱居京口教授。
Orphaned in childhood, Rongxu worked his own garden to provide for ancestral offerings. After his mother's death he composed the Treatise on the Principal Mourning Quarters, kept the hall swept and furnished with mats and seats, and on the first and fifteenth of every month bowed and presented offerings there—never tasting delicacies before they had been offered. Sincere and devoted in scholarship, he compiled the histories of Eastern and Western Jin into a single work of one hundred ten scrolls of annals, records, treatises, and biographies. He lived in seclusion at Jingkou, where he taught.
5
齊高帝為揚州刺史，征榮緒為主簿，不到。 建元中，司徒褚彥回啟高帝稱述其美，以置秘閣。 榮緒惇愛五經，謂人曰：「昔呂尚奉丹書，武王致齋降位，李、釋教誡，並有禮敬之儀，因甄明至道。」 乃著拜五經序論。 常以宣尼庚子日生，其日陳五經拜之。 自號披褐先生。 又以飲酒亂德，言常為誡。 永明六年卒。 初，榮緒與關康之俱隱在京口，時號為二隱。
When the future Emperor Gao of Qi was regional inspector of Yangzhou, he summoned Rongxu to serve as chief clerk, but Rongxu did not accept. During the Jianyuan reign, Grand Marshal Chu Yanhui reported to Emperor Gao praising his work, and it was deposited in the imperial Secret Archive. Rongxu cherished the Five Classics with deep devotion. He told others: "Long ago Lü Shang received the cinnabar book; King Wu fasted and stepped down from his throne. The teachings of the Way and of Buddhism alike prescribe rituals of reverence, by which the supreme Way is clarified." On this basis he wrote the Preface and Discourse on Bowing to the Five Classics. He held that Confucius was born on a gengzi day; on that day each year he would display the Five Classics and bow before them. He took for himself the style Master Brown-Robe. He also held that wine corrupts virtue and made that a constant theme in his teaching. He died in the sixth year of Yongming. Earlier, Rongxu and Guan Kangzhi had both lived in seclusion at Jingkou, and people called them the Two Recluses.
6
吳苞字天蓋，一字懷德，濮陽鄄城人也。 儒學，善三禮及老、莊。 宋泰始中過江，聚徒教學。 冠黃葛巾，竹麈尾，蔬食二十餘年。 與劉瓛俱于褚彥回宅講授。 瓛講禮，苞講論語、孝經，諸生朝聽瓛，晚聽苞也。
Wu Bao, styled Tiangai and also known as Huaide, was a native of Juancheng in Puyang. He was trained in Confucian learning and excelled in the Three Rites as well as Laozi and Zhuangzi. During the Taishi era of Song he crossed south of the Yangtze and gathered students to teach. He wore a yellow ramie cap and carried a bamboo fly-whisk, living on vegetables for more than twenty years. Together with Liu Huan he lectured at Chu Yanhui's residence. Huan taught the Rites; Bao taught the Analects and the Classic of Filial Piety. Students attended Huan's lectures in the morning and Bao's in the evening.
7
僧岩，北海人。 寥廓無常，人不能測。 與劉善明友。 善明為青州，欲舉為秀才，大驚，拂衣而去。 後忽為沙門，棲遲山谷，常以一壺自隨。 一旦謂弟子曰：「吾今夕當死。 壺中大錢一千，以通九泉之路，蠟燭一挺，以照七尺之屍。」 至夜而亡。 時人以為知命。
Seng Yan was from Beihai. Boundless and unpredictable, he was beyond anyone's reckoning. He was a friend of Liu Shanming. When Shanming became governor of Qingzhou, he wished to nominate Seng Yan as a provincial candidate. Seng Yan was greatly alarmed, shook out his robes, and walked away. Later he suddenly took monastic vows and dwelt in mountain valleys, always keeping a jar at his side. One day he told his disciples: "I shall die tonight. In the jar are a thousand large coins to open the road to the Nine Springs, and one candle to light my seven-foot body. When night fell, he died. People of the time regarded this as foreknowledge of his fate.
8
蔡薈字休明，陳留人。 清抗不與俗人交。 李撝謂江學曰：「古人稱安貧清白曰夷，涅而不緇曰白，至如蔡休明者，可不謂之夷白乎。」
Cai Hui, styled Xiuming, was from Chenliu. Pure and aloof, he kept company with no ordinary men. Li Hang said to Jiang Xue: "The ancients called one who rests content in poverty and keeps himself pure yi, and one who is stained yet does not turn black bai. As for Cai Xiuming, can he not be called yi-bai?"
9
又有魯國孔嗣之字敬伯，宋時與齊高帝俱為中書舍人，並非所好。 自廬江郡守去官，隱居鍾山。 朝廷以為太中大夫，卒。
There was also Kong Sizhi of Lu, styled Jingbo, who in Song times had served with the future Emperor Gao of Qi as secretaries in the Palace Secretariat—neither man cared for the office. He resigned as administrator of Lujiang and lived in seclusion on Zhongshan. The court appointed him Grand Master of Splendid Happiness; he died in that post.
10
徐伯珍
Xu Bozhen
11
徐伯珍字文楚，東陽太末人也。 祖、父並郡掾史。 伯珍少孤貧，學書無紙，常以竹箭、箬葉、甘蕉及地上學書。 山水暴出，漂溺宅舍，村鄰皆奔走，伯珍累床而坐，誦書不輟。 叔父璠之與顏延之友善，還祛蒙山立精舍講授，伯珍往從學。 積十年，究尋經史，遊學者多依之。 太守琅邪王曇生、吳郡張淹並加禮辟，伯珍應召便退，如此者凡十二焉。 征士沈儼造膝談論，申以素交。 吳郡顧歡擿出尚書滯義，伯珍詶答，甚有條理，儒者宗之。 好釋氏、老、莊，兼明道術。 歲嘗旱，伯珍筮之，如期而雨。 舉動有禮，過曲木之下，趍而避之。 早喪妻，晚不復重娶，自比曾參。
Xu Bozhen, styled Wenchu, was a native of Taimo in Dongyang. Both his grandfather and father had served as commandery clerks. Orphaned and poor as a youth, Bozhen had no paper for calligraphy and often practiced writing on bamboo slips, zong leaves, plantain leaves, and the bare ground. When a mountain torrent burst out and flooded his house, the neighbors all fled, but Bozhen sat atop stacked beds and went on reciting his texts without interruption. His uncle Fan Zhi was a friend of Yan Yanzhi; Fan Zhi returned to Qumeng Mountain, built a hermitage, and taught there, and Bozhen went to study with him. After ten years he had mastered the classics and histories, and many traveling scholars came to rely on him. The administrators Wang Tansheng of Langye and Zhang Yan of Wu both honored him with official summonses; Bozhen would answer each call and then withdraw—twelve times in all. The recluse Shen Yi came to speak with him face to face and renewed their longstanding friendship. When Gu Huan of Wu Commandery raised obscure points in the Documents, Bozhen's replies were so well ordered that scholars looked to him as a model. He was drawn to Buddhism, Laozi, and Zhuangzi, and was also versed in Daoist arts. In drought years Bozhen would cast milfoil stalks; rain fell on the day he foretold. In bearing and movement he was scrupulously observant of ritual; passing beneath a bent tree, he would quicken his step to avoid it. He lost his wife early and never remarried in later years, comparing himself to Zeng Shen.
12
宅南九里有高山，班固謂之九岩山，後漢龍丘萇隱處也。 山多龍須檉柏，望之五采，世呼為婦人岩。 二年，伯珍移居之，階戶之間，木生皆連理。 門前生梓樹，一年便合抱。 館東石壁，夜忽有赤光洞照，俄爾而滅。 白雀一雙棲其戶牖，論者以為隱德之感焉。 刺史豫章王辟議曹從事，不就。 家甚貧窶，兄弟四人皆白首相對，時人呼為「四皓」。 建武四年卒，年八十四。 受業生凡千餘人。
Nine li south of his home stood a high mountain that Ban Gu called Jiuyan Mountain—the place where Longqiu Chang of Later Han had lived in seclusion. The slopes were thick with dragon-whisker cypress and arborvitae; seen from afar they shimmered in five colors, and people called the place Lady's Rock. In the second year of the reign he moved there; between his steps and doorways every tree that sprang up grew with interlaced trunks. A catalpa sprang up before his gate and within a year its trunk was thick enough to embrace. On the stone cliff east of his lodge, red light suddenly blazed through the night and then vanished. A pair of white magpies nested at his windows and doors; commentators took this as a sign responding to his hidden virtue. The Prince of Yuzhang, serving as regional inspector, summoned him as an aide in the Bureau of Deliberation, but he declined. His household was desperately poor; all four brothers sat facing one another with white hair, and people called them the Four Hoary Ones. He died in the fourth year of Jianwu, at the age of eighty-four. More than a thousand students studied under him in all.
13
伯珍同郡婁幼瑜字季玉，亦聚徒教授，不應徵辟，彌為臨川王映所賞異，著禮捃拾三十卷。
Lou Youyu of the same commandery, styled Jiyu, likewise gathered students to teach and declined all official summonses; Prince Ying of Linchuan especially admired him. He wrote Gatherings from the Rites in thirty scrolls.
14
沈麟士
Shen Linshi
15
沈麟士字雲禎，吳興武康人也。 祖膺期，晉太中大夫。 父虔之，宋樂安令。
Shen Linshi, styled Yunzhen, was a native of Wukang in Wuxing. His grandfather Yingqi had been a Grand Master of Splendid Happiness under Jin. His father Qianzhi had served as magistrate of Le'an under Song.
16
麟士幼而俊敏，年七歲，聽叔父岳言玄。 賓散，言無所遺失。 嶽撫其肩曰：「若斯文不絕，其在爾乎。」 及長，博通經史，有高尚之心。 親亡，居喪盡禮。 服闋，忌日輒流淚彌旬。 居貧織簾誦書，口手不息，鄉里號為織簾先生。 嘗為人作竹誤傷手，便流淚而還。 同作者謂曰：「此不足損，何至涕零。」 答曰：「此本不痛，但遺體毀傷，感而悲耳。」 嘗行路，鄰人認其所著屐，麟士曰：「是卿屐邪？」 即跣而反。 鄰人得屐，送前者還之，麟士曰：「非卿屐邪？」 笑而受之。
Linshi was clever and quick from childhood; at the age of seven he listened while his uncle Yue discoursed on arcane learning. When the guests left, he had forgotten not a word. Yue patted his shoulder and said: "If this tradition is not lost, will it not be through you?" When he grew to manhood he mastered the classics and histories and cherished a lofty, retiring spirit. When his parents died he observed mourning with full ritual propriety. After mourning ended, on each anniversary of a parent's death he wept for ten days on end. Living in poverty he wove bamboo curtains while reciting texts, never pausing with mouth or hand; neighbors called him Master Curtain-Weaver. Once, while making bamboo work for someone, he accidentally cut his hand and at once wept and went home. His fellow workers said: "This is no great injury—why weep?" He answered: "It does not hurt, but the body I received from my parents has been harmed—that is why I grieve." Once on the road a neighbor recognized the sandals he was wearing. Linshi said: "Are these yours?" He immediately went barefoot and turned back. The neighbor recovered the sandals and sent the man who had taken them back with them. Linshi said: "Aren't these yours after all?" He smiled and accepted them.
17
宋元嘉末，文帝令僕射何尚之抄撰五經，訪舉學士，縣以麟士應選。 不得已至都，尚之深相接。 及至，尚之謂子偃曰：「山藪故多奇士，沈麟士，黃叔度之流也，豈可澄清淆濁邪。 汝師之。」
At the end of the Yuanjia era, Emperor Wen of Song ordered Director He Shangzhi to compile the Five Classics and to seek out scholars; the district nominated Linshi. Unable to refuse, he went to the capital, where Shangzhi received him with great warmth. When he arrived, Shangzhi said to his son Yan: "Mountains and marshes always breed extraordinary men. Shen Linshi is of the same stamp as Huang Shudu—how could one try to clarify what is already pure or stir what is already still? Take him as your teacher."
18
麟士嘗苦無書，因遊都下，曆觀四部畢，乃歎曰：「古人亦何人哉。」 少時稱疾歸鄉，不與人物通。 養孤兄子，義著鄉曲。 或勸之仕，答曰：「魚縣獸檻，天下一契。 聖人玄悟，所以每履吉先。 吾誠未能景行坐忘，何為不希企日損。」 乃作玄散賦以絕世。 太守孔山士辟不應，宗人徐州刺史曇慶、侍中懷文、左率勃來候之，麟士未嘗答也。
Linshi had long lacked books; he therefore went to the capital, read through all four sections of the imperial library, and sighed: "What manner of men were the ancients?" Before long he pleaded illness and returned home, keeping company with no one. He raised his orphaned elder brother's son, and his righteousness was renowned throughout the district. When some urged him to take office, he answered: "Fish on the line, beasts in the pen—the world is all one pattern. The sage penetrates the arcane and therefore always treads auspicious ground before others. I truly cannot yet follow the exemplary path of sitting in forgetfulness—why should I not aspire to diminish myself day by day?" He then wrote the Rhapsody on Withdrawal into the Arcane to renounce the world. Administrator Kong Shanshi summoned him, but he did not respond. His kinsmen—Tanqing, regional inspector of Xuzhou; Huaiwen, palace attendant; and Bo, left commander—came to visit him, but Linshi never replied.
19
隱居余不吳差山，講經教授，從學士數十百人，各營屋宇，依止其側，時為之語曰：「吳差山中有賢士，開門教授居成市。」 麟士重陸機連珠，每為諸生講之。 征北張永為吳興，請麟士入郡。 麟士聞郡後堂有好山水，即戴安道游吳興，因古墓為山池也。 欲一觀之，乃往停數月。 永欲請為功曹，麟士曰：「明府德履沖素，留心山谷，是以被褐負杖，忘其疲病。 必欲飾渾沌以蛾眉，冠越客于文冕，走雖不敏，請附高節，有蹈東海死耳，不忍受此黔劓。」 永乃止。
He lived in seclusion on Wucha Mountain in Yuyu, lecturing on the classics; several hundred students followed him, each building a house nearby. A saying of the time ran: "On Wucha Mountain in Yuyu lives a worthy man; he opens his gate to teach and the neighborhood becomes a town." Linshi prized Lu Ji's Linked Pearls and often lectured on them for his students. Zhang Yong, Commander-in-chief for the North, was governor of Wuxing and invited Linshi to visit the commandery seat. Linshi had heard that behind the commandery hall lay fine landscape—the place where Dai Andao had visited Wuxing and fashioned hills and pools from old tombs. Wishing to see it once, he went and stayed several months. Yong wished to appoint him registrar. Linshi said: "Your Excellency's virtue is pure and unadorned; your heart rests in mountain valleys. That is why I wear coarse cloth and lean on my staff, forgetting my weariness and illness. If you insist on painting primordial simplicity with cosmetics and crowning a rustic from Yue in court robes, though I am no worthy man, I would rather cleave to noble principle— I would sooner throw myself into the eastern sea than endure this disfigurement." Yong then dropped the matter.
20
升明末，太守王奐，永明中，中書郎沈約並表薦之，征皆不就。 乃與約書曰：「名者實之賓，本所不庶。 中央無心，空勤南北。 為惠反凶，將在於斯。」
At the end of the Shengming era, Administrator Wang Huan recommended him; during Yongming, Secretariat Gentleman Shen Yue did the same. Imperial summons came, but he never accepted office. He wrote to Yue, saying: "Fame is but the shadow of substance— it was never what I sought. The court has no true intent; one toils in vain between north and south. Kindness turned to injury will come of this."
21
麟士無所營求，以篤學為務，恒憑素幾鼓素琴，不為新聲。 負薪汲水，並日而食。 守操終老，讀書不倦。 遭火燒書數千卷，年過八十，耳目猶聰明，以反故抄寫，火下細書，復成二三千卷，滿數十篋。 時人以為養身靜默所致。 制黑蝶賦以寄意。 著周易兩系、莊子內篇訓。 注易經、禮記、春秋、尚書、論語、孝經、喪服、老子要略數十卷。 梁天監元年，與何點同征，又不就。 二年，卒於家，年八十五。 以楊王孫、皇甫謐深達生死而終禮矯俗，乃自為終制，遺令：「氣絕剔被，取三幅布以覆屍。 及斂，仍移布於屍下，以為斂服。 反被左右兩際以周上，不復製覆被。 不須沐浴唅珠。 以本裙衫、先著褌，凡二服，上加單衣幅巾履枕，棺中唯此。 依士安用孝經。 既殯不復立靈座，四節及祥，權鋪席於地，以設玄酒之奠。 人家相承漆棺，今不復爾。 亦不須旐。 成服後即葬，作塚令小，後祔更作小塚於濱。 合葬非古也。 塚不須聚土成墳，使上與地平。 王祥終制亦爾。 葬不須軟車、靈舫、魌頭也。 不得朝夕下食。 祭奠之法，至於葬，唯清水一杯。」 子彝奉而行之，州鄉皆稱歎焉。
Linshi desired nothing for himself and devoted himself to serious study; he always sat at a plain desk and played an unadorned zither, never performing fashionable new pieces. He carried firewood and drew water, eating only on alternate days. He held to his principles until old age and never tired of reading. A fire destroyed several thousand scrolls of his library; yet past eighty his sight and hearing remained sharp. He copied from memory by lamplight in a fine hand and produced another two or three thousand scrolls, filling dozens of cases. People of the time believed this came from his life of quiet self-cultivation. He wrote the Rhapsody on the Dark Butterfly to give voice to his sentiments. He wrote commentaries on the Two Appendices of the Book of Changes and the Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi. He annotated the Classic of Changes, Book of Rites, Spring and Autumn Annals, Documents, Analects, Classic of Filial Piety, Record of Mourning Garb, and Essential Outline of Laozi— several dozen scrolls in all. In the first year of Liang's Tianjian reign, he was summoned together with He Dian, and again refused to serve. In the second year he died at home, at the age of eighty-five. Because Yang Wangsun and Huangfu Mi had deeply grasped life and death yet still ended by using funeral rites to reform vulgar custom, he drew up his own final arrangements and left instructions: "When breath fails, strip off the quilt and take three bolts of cloth to cover the body. When the body is prepared for burial, move the cloth beneath the corpse to serve as its shroud. Fold the quilt back over the left and right edges to wrap the top; do not prepare another covering quilt. Do not bathe the body or place pearls in the mouth. Use the skirt-robe and undergarments already being worn— two sets in all— and over them add a single outer garment, kerchief, shoes, and pillow. Nothing else goes into the coffin. Follow Huangfu Mi's practice of reciting the Classic of Filial Piety at the funeral. Once the body is encoffined, do not set up a spirit seat again; at the four seasonal observances and the end of mourning, simply spread mats on the ground and offer dark wine. Families have long used lacquered coffins— do not do so now. Funeral banners are not needed either. Bury immediately after the mourning garments are donned; keep the mound small; when a later joint burial is added, make another small mound by the riverbank. Joint burial is not the ancient way. Do not heap earth into a high tomb; let the surface lie level with the ground. Wang Xiang's funeral instructions were the same. At burial there is no need for cushioned hearses, spirit boats, or demon-mask escorts. Do not bring food offerings to the tomb morning and evening. For offerings, up to the time of burial, let there be only one cup of clear water." His son Yi carried out these instructions, and people throughout the province and countryside praised and admired him.
22
阮孝緒
Ruan Xiaoxu
23
阮孝緒字士宗，陳留尉氏人也。 父彥之，宋太尉從事中郎，以清幹流譽。
Ruan Xiaoxu, courtesy name Shizong, was a native of Weishi in Chenliu. His father Yanzhi served as Attendant-in-chief in the secretariat of the Song Grand Commandant and was widely praised for his integrity and competence.
24
孝緒七歲出繼從伯胤之，胤之母周氏卒，遺財百餘萬應歸孝緒，孝緒一無所納，盡以歸胤之姊琅邪王晏之母，聞者咸歎異之。 乳人憐其傳重辛苦，輒竊玉羊金獸等物與之。 孝緒見而駭愕，啟彥之送還王氏。
At seven, Xiaoxu was adopted by his father's younger cousin Yinzhi. When Yin's mother, Lady Zhou, died, a legacy of more than a million coins should have gone to Xiaoxu, but he accepted none of it and gave it all to Yin's elder sister—the mother of Wang Yan of Langye. All who heard of this marveled. His wet nurse, pitying the hardship of his role as heir, secretly stole jade sheep, gold beasts, and other valuables and gave them to him. When Xiaoxu saw them he was shocked; he told Yanzhi and had them returned to the Wang family.
25
幼至孝，性沈靜，雖與童兒遊戲，恒以穿池築山為樂。 年十三，遍通五經。 十五冠而見其父彥之，彥之誡曰：「三加彌尊，人倫之始，宜思自勖，以庇爾躬。」 答曰：「願跡松子於瀛海，追許由於穹穀，庶保促生，以免塵累。」 自是屏居一室，非定省未嘗出戶，家人莫見其面，親友因呼為居士。
From childhood he was deeply filial and quiet by nature; even when playing with other children, he always amused himself by digging ponds and building miniature mountains. At thirteen he had mastered all five classics. At fifteen he was capped and went to see his father Yanzhi, who admonished him: "With each of the three capping ceremonies you grow more honored— this is the beginning of human duty. You should strive to strengthen yourself and safeguard your life." He replied: "I wish to follow Master Pine to the isles of the eastern sea and pursue Xu You into deep mountain valleys, hoping to preserve this brief life and escape the burdens of the world. From then on he shut himself in a single room; except for the morning and evening greetings owed his parents, he never crossed the threshold. His own household scarcely saw his face, and relatives and friends called him "the Recluse."
26
年十六，父喪不服綿纊，雖蔬菜有味亦吐之。 外兄王晏貴顯，屢至其門，孝緒度之必至顛覆，聞其笳管，穿籬逃匿，不與相見。 曾食醬美，問之，雲是王家所得，便吐餐覆醬。 及晏誅，親戚咸為之懼。 孝緒曰：「親而不党，何坐之及。」 竟獲免。
At sixteen, when his father died, he wore no silk or ramie in mourning; even when plain vegetables tasted good, he would spit them out. His maternal cousin Wang Yan rose to wealth and power and came to his door again and again. Xiaoxu judged that Yan would surely come to ruin; whenever he heard Yan's pipes and drums, he would break through the hedge and flee, refusing to meet him. Once he ate a sauce that tasted unusually good; when he learned it had come from the Wang household, he spat out his meal and overturned the dish. When Yan was executed, his kinsmen all feared for Xiaoxu as well. Xiaoxu said: "One may be kin without sharing guilt— what offense could touch me?" In the end he was spared.
27
梁武起兵圍建鄴，家貧無以爨，僮妾竊鄰人墓樵以繼火。 孝緒知之，乃不食，更令撤屋而炊。 所居以一鹿床為精舍，以樹環繞。 天監初，御史中丞任昉尋其兄履之，欲造而不敢，望而歎曰：「其室雖邇，其人甚遠。」 其為名流所欽尚如此。 自是欽慕風譽者，莫不懷刺斂衽，望塵而息。 殷芸欲贈以詩，昉曰：「趣舍既異，何必相干。」 芸乃止。 唯與比部郎裴子野交。 子野薦之尚書徐勉，言其「年十餘歲隨父為湘州行事，不書官紙，以成親之清白。 論其志行粗類管幼安，比以采章如似皇甫謐」。
When Emperor Wu of Liang raised troops and besieged Jiankang, the family was too poor to cook; a servant secretly took firewood from a neighbor's tomb to keep the fire alive. When Xiaoxu learned of this, he refused to eat and ordered them instead to tear down the house for firewood. He made a single deer-hide couch his dwelling and surrounded it with trees. Early in Tianjian, the Censor-in-chief Ren Fang looked up his elder brother Lüzhi and wished to visit Xiaoxu but did not dare. Gazing from afar he sighed: "His dwelling is close, yet the man himself is far away." Such was the esteem in which eminent men held him. From then on, all who admired his reputation tucked away their calling cards, straightened their robes, and stopped at the sight of his dust— not daring to approach casually. Yin Yun wished to present him with a poem, but Fang said: "Our paths already diverge— why force an encounter?" Yin then gave up the idea. He kept company only with Pei Ziye, Director of the Ministry of Revenue. Ziye recommended him to Minister Xu Mian, saying of him: "From his teens, when he accompanied his father as acting governor of Xiangzhou, he refused to write on official paper so as to preserve his father's reputation for integrity. In aspiration and conduct he roughly resembles Guan You'an; in literary grace he is much like Huangfu Mi."
28
天監十二年，詔公卿舉士，秘書監傅照上疏薦之，與吳郡範元琰俱征，並不到。 陳郡袁峻謂曰：「往者天地閉，賢人隱。 今世路已清，而子猶遁，可乎？」 答曰：「昔周德雖興，夷、齊不厭薇蕨。 漢道方盛，黃、綺無悶山林。 為仁由己，何關人世？ 況僕非往賢之類邪？」 初，謝朏及伏暅應徵，天子以為隱者苟立虛名，以要顯譽，故孝緒與何胤並得遂其高志。
In the twelfth year of Tianjian, an edict ordered nobles and ministers to recommend scholars. Director of the Secretariat Fu Zhao submitted a memorial recommending him; he and Fan Yuanyan of Wu commandery were both summoned, and neither appeared. Yuan Jun of Chen commandery said to him: "In former times, when Heaven and Earth were shut, worthies went into hiding. Now the age is enlightened, yet you still withdraw— can that be right?" He replied: "In antiquity, though the Zhou dynasty rose, Boyi and Shuqi did not weary of bracken and ferns. When the Han dynasty was at its height, Huang and Qi felt no discontent in the mountains and forests. To practice benevolence is one's own choice— what has that to do with the state of the world? Besides, am I really the equal of those ancient worthies?" Earlier, when Xie Tiao and Fu Yong answered imperial summons, the emperor concluded that some recluses merely cultivated empty reputations to win conspicuous praise. For that reason Xiaoxu and He Yin were both allowed to fulfill their lofty aspirations.
29
後於鍾山聽講，母王氏忽有疾，兄弟欲召之。 母曰：「孝緒至性冥通，必當自到。」 果心驚而反，鄰里嗟異之。 合藥須得生人參，舊傳鍾山所出。 孝緒躬曆幽險，累日不逢。 忽見一鹿前行，孝緒感而隨後，至一所遂滅，就視，果獲此草。 母得服之遂愈，時皆言其孝感所致。
Later, while he was lecturing on Zhong Mountain, his mother Lady Wang suddenly fell ill, and his brothers wanted to send for him. His mother said: "Xiaoxu's filial nature reaches into the unseen— he is sure to come on his own." And indeed his heart suddenly stirred and he returned; neighbors marveled at it. To prepare the medicine they needed fresh ginseng, which tradition said grew on Zhong Mountain. Xiaoxu searched the deep and perilous places himself, going many days without finding any. Suddenly he saw a deer ahead; moved, Xiaoxu followed it until, at one place, it vanished. He went to look and indeed found the herb. His mother took it and recovered; everyone said at the time that this came of his filial devotion moving Heaven.
30
有善筮者張有道曰：「見子隱跡而心難明，自非考之龜蓍，無以驗也。」 及布卦，既揲五爻，曰：「此將為咸，應感之法，非嘉遯之兆。」 孝緒曰：「安知後爻不為上九。」 果成遯卦。 有道歎曰：「此所謂'肥遯無不利'，象實應德，心跡並也。」 孝緒曰：「雖獲遯卦，而上九爻不發，升遐之道，便當高謝許生。」 乃著高隱傳，上自炎皇，終於天監末，斟酌分為三品：言行超逸，名氏弗傳，為上篇； 始終不耗，姓名可錄，為中篇； 掛冠人世，棲心塵表，為下篇。 湘東王著忠臣傳，集釋氏碑銘、丹陽尹錄、研神記，並先簡孝緒而後施行。 南平元襄王聞其名，致書要之，不赴，曰：「非志驕富貴，但性畏廟堂，若使麏麚可驂，何以異夫驥騄。」
A skilled diviner named Zhang Youdao said: "I see you living in seclusion, yet your inner mind is hard to read. Unless I consult the tortoise shell and yarrow stalks, there is no way to test it." When the hexagram was cast and five lines had been counted, he said: "This will become Xian, Influence— a sign of responsive communion, not an omen of blessed withdrawal." Xiaoxu said: "How do you know the final line will not be the top nine?" It indeed became the hexagram Dun, Retreat. Youdao sighed and said: "This is what is meant by 'the well-fed retreat— nothing unfavorable.' The omen truly matches the virtue; mind and conduct are one." Xiaoxu said: "Though I received the Dun hexagram, the top nine line did not activate. On the path of ascending to distant heights, I ought at once to take my leave as Xu You did." He then wrote the Biographies of Lofty Recluses, from the Flame Emperor down to the end of Tianjian, which he judiciously divided into three grades: those whose words and deeds were transcendent but whose names were not preserved— the upper fascicle; those whose integrity never waned and whose names could be recorded— the middle fascicle; those who hung up their official caps in the human world yet kept their hearts beyond the dust— the lower fascicle. The Prince of Xiangdong wrote Biographies of Loyal Ministers and compiled Buddhist stele inscriptions, Records of the Mayor of Danyang, and Investigations of the Spirit; all were first sent to Xiaoxu for review before publication. Prince Yuanxiang of Nanping, hearing his name, sent a letter inviting him, but he did not go. He said: "It is not that I disdain wealth and rank out of pride; I am simply by nature afraid of the court. If roe deer and elk could be harnessed as carriage teams, how would that differ from pairing thoroughbreds?"
31
初，建武末，青溪宮東門無故自崩，大風拔東宮門外楊樹，或以問孝緒。 孝緒曰：「青溪皇家舊宅，齊為木行，東為木位。 今東門自壞，木其衰矣。」
Earlier, near the end of the Jianwu era, the east gate of Qingxi Palace collapsed for no apparent reason, and a great wind uprooted the willows outside the Eastern Palace gate. Some asked Xiaoxu what this meant. Xiaoxu said: "Qingxi is the former seat of the imperial house. Qi belonged to the Wood phase, and east is the direction of Wood. Now the east gate has collapsed on its own— Wood must be failing."
32
武帝禁畜讖緯，孝緒兼有其書，或勸藏之。 答曰：「昔劉德重淮南秘要，適為更生之禍，杜瓊所謂不如不知，此言美矣。」 客有求之，答曰：「己所不欲，豈可嫁禍於人。」 乃焚之。
Emperor Wu forbade the keeping of prognostic texts and weft writings; Xiaoxu happened to own such books, and some urged him to conceal them. He replied: "Long ago Liu De treasured the secret writings of Huainan and thereby brought on the disaster of being executed and reburied. As Du Qiong said, 'Better not to know'— that is fine counsel." When a guest asked for them, he replied: "What I would not want for myself, how could I pass off as another's misfortune?" He then burned them.
33
鄱陽忠烈王妃，孝緒姊也。 王嘗命駕欲就之遊，孝緒鑿垣而逃，卒不肯見。 王悵然歎息。 王諸子篤渭陽之情，歲時之貢，無所受納，未嘗相見，竟不之識。 或問其故，孝緒曰：「我本素賤，不應為王侯姻戚，邂逅所逢，豈關始願。」 劉歊曾以米饋之，孝緒不納，歊亦棄之。 末年蔬食斷酒，其恒供養石像先有損壞，心欲補之，罄心敬禮，經一夜忽然完復。 眾並異之。
The princess consort of the Loyal Martyr of Poyang was Xiaoxu's elder sister. The prince once ordered his carriage to visit him, but Xiaoxu broke through the wall and fled, refusing to meet him to the end. The prince sighed in disappointment. The prince's sons cherished the ties of maternal kinship and sent seasonal gifts, but Xiaoxu never accepted them. They never met, and in the end did not even know one another by sight. When someone asked why, Xiaoxu said: "I am by nature plain and lowly; I ought not to be kin by marriage to princes and marquises. What chance brought together was never what I originally wished for." Liu Huan once sent him rice as a gift; Xiaoxu would not accept it, and Huan threw it away as well. In his later years he ate only vegetables and abstained from wine. A stone image he had long worshipped had been damaged; wishing to repair it, he poured himself into reverent worship, and after a single night it was suddenly whole again. Everyone marvelled at it.
34
大同二年正月，孝緒自筮卦，「吾壽與劉著作同年」。 及劉杳卒，孝緒曰：「劉侯逝矣，吾其幾何。」 其年十月卒，年五十八。 梁簡文在東宮，隆恩厚贈，子恕等述先志不受。 顧協以為恩異常均，議令恭受。 門徒追論德行，諡曰文貞處士。 所著七錄、削繁等一百八十一卷，並行於世。
In the first month of the second year of Datong, Xiaoxu divined for himself and concluded, "My lifespan will end in the same year as Liu the Compiler." When Liu Yao died, Xiaoxu said, "Lord Liu has gone— how much time do I have left?" That same year, in the tenth month, he died at the age of fifty-eight. While Emperor Jianwen of Liang was crown prince, he heaped honors and generous posthumous gifts upon him, but his sons Shu and the others, citing their father's wishes, declined them. Gu Xie held that the imperial favor was extraordinary and fairly bestowed, and urged them to accept it with due respect. His disciples reviewed his conduct and virtue after his death and gave him the posthumous title Wen Zhen Recluse. His works, including the Seven Records and Eliminating Redundancy—one hundred eighty-one scrolls in all—circulated widely in his day.
35
初，孝緒所撰高隱傳中篇所載一百三十七人，劉歊、劉籲覽其書曰：「昔嵇康所贊，缺一自擬，今四十之數，將待吾等成邪。」 對曰：「所謂荀君雖少，後事當付鍾君。 若素車白馬之日，輒獲麟於二子。」 歊、籲果卒，乃益二傳。 及孝緒亡，籲兄絜錄其所遺行次篇末，成絕筆之意云。
Early on, among the one hundred thirty-seven figures recorded in the middle fascicle of the High Recluses that Xiaoxu compiled, Liu Huan and Liu Xu read the work and said, "Long ago Ji Kang's roll of praise was one name short of including himself— and now you have forty. Are you waiting for us to fill out the count?" He replied, "As the saying goes, though Lord Xun was young, later affairs would be entrusted to Lord Zhong. When the day of the plain carriage and white horses arrives, I shall find my qilin in the two of you." Huan and Xu did indeed die, and he then added two biographies. After Xiaoxu died, Xu's elder brother Jie recorded his remaining deeds at the end of the fascicle, carrying out his intention to make it his final work.
36
南嶽鄧先生名郁，荊州建平人也。 少而不仕，隱居衡山極峻之嶺，立小板屋兩間，足不下山，斷穀三十餘載，唯以澗水服雲母屑，日夜誦大洞經。 梁武帝敬信殊篤，為帝合丹，帝不敢服，起五嶽樓貯之供養，道家吉日，躬往禮拜。 白日，神仙魏夫人忽來臨降，乘雲而至，從少嫗三十，並著絳紫羅繡褂褲，年皆可十七八許。 色豔桃李，質勝瓊瑤，言語良久，謂郁曰：「君有仙分，所以故來，尋當相候。」 至天監十四年，忽見二青鳥悉如鶴大，鼓翼鳴舞，移晷方去。 謂弟子等曰：「求之甚勞，得之甚逸。 近青鳥既來，期會至矣。」 少日無病而終。 山內唯聞香氣，世未嘗有。 武帝后令周舍為鄧玄傳，具序其事。
Master Deng of Mount Heng was named Yu and came from Jianping in Jingzhou. From youth he held no office, living in seclusion on the steepest ridge of Mount Heng. He built two small plank huts and never set foot off the mountain. For more than thirty years he abstained from grain, drinking only stream water mixed with powdered mica while reciting the Scripture of the Great Cavern day and night. Emperor Wu of Liang revered and trusted him with exceptional devotion. Yu compounded elixir pills for the emperor, but the emperor did not dare take them. The emperor built the Five Peaks Tower to store them for veneration and, on auspicious Daoist days, went in person to worship there. One day the immortal Lady Wei suddenly descended to visit, arriving on clouds with thirty young attendants, all dressed in crimson and purple silk-embroidered jackets and trousers and each appearing about seventeen or eighteen years old. Their beauty rivalled peach and plum blossoms, their refinement surpassed fine jade. After speaking at length, she said to Yu, "You have the makings of an immortal; that is why I have come. I shall await you before long." By the fourteenth year of Tianjian, he suddenly saw two blue birds, each as large as a crane, beating their wings, calling, and dancing; only after a full watch had passed did they leave. He told his disciples, "The seeking is very toilsome; the obtaining is very effortless. The blue birds have now come— the appointed meeting has arrived." A few days later he died without illness. Only fragrance was heard within the mountain— the world had never known its like. Later the emperor had Zhou She compose a biography of Deng the Sage, recounting the whole affair in full.
37
陶弘景
Tao Hongjing
38
陶弘景字通明，丹陽秣陵人也。 祖隆，王府參軍。 父貞，孝昌令。
Tao Hongjing, courtesy name Tongming, was a native of Moling in Danyang. His grandfather Long served as a staff officer in a princely household. His father Zhen was magistrate of Xiaochang.
39
初，弘景母郝氏夢兩天人手執香爐來至其所，已而有娠。 以宋孝建三年景申歲夏至日生。 幼有異操，年四五歲，恒以荻為筆，畫灰中學書。 至十歲，得葛洪神仙傳，晝夜研尋，便有養生之志。 謂人曰：「仰青雲，睹白日，不覺為遠矣。」 父為妾所害，弘景終身不娶。 及長，身長七尺七寸，神儀明秀，朗目疏眉，細形長額聳耳，耳孔各有十餘毛出外二寸許，右膝有數十黑子作七星文。 讀書萬餘卷，一事不知，以為深恥。 善琴棋，工草隸。 未弱冠，齊高帝作相，引為諸王侍讀，除奉朝請。 雖在朱門，閉影不交外物，唯以披閱為務。 朝儀故事，多所取焉。
At first, Hongjing's mother, Lady Hao, dreamed that two celestial beings bearing censers in their hands came to where she was; afterward she conceived. He was born on the summer solstice of the jingshen year, the third year of the Xiaojian era of Song. From childhood he showed unusual character. At four or five he always used reed stalks for brushes, practicing writing by tracing characters in ash. By the age of ten he obtained Ge Hong's Biographies of Immortals and studied it day and night, at once forming the resolve to cultivate longevity. He told people, "When I look up at blue clouds and gaze at the white sun, I no longer feel that they are far away." His father was killed by a concubine, and Hongjing never married for the rest of his life. When he grew up, he stood seven feet seven inches tall, with bright and refined bearing, clear eyes and sparse brows, a slender frame, a long forehead, and prominent ears— from each ear canal more than ten hairs protruded about two inches; on his right knee were several dozen black marks forming the pattern of the Seven Stars. He read more than ten thousand scrolls and regarded not knowing even one thing as a deep shame. He was skilled at the zither and chess and accomplished in cursive and clerical calligraphy. Before he came of age, when Emperor Gao of Qi was chief minister, he was summoned as tutor-reader to the princes and appointed Gentleman Attendant at Court. Though he lived within the vermilion gates of power, he kept to himself and mingled with nothing outside, devoting himself solely to reading. From court ritual and precedent he drew much of what he used.
40
家貧，求宰縣不遂。 永明十年，脫朝服掛神武門，上表辭祿。 詔許之，賜以束帛，敕所在月給伏苓五斤，白蜜二升，以供服餌。 及發，公卿祖之征虜亭，供帳甚盛，車馬填咽，咸雲宋、齊以來未有斯事。 於是止于句容之句曲山。 恒曰：「此山下是第八洞宮，名金壇華陽之天，周回一百五十里。 昔漢有咸陽三茅君得道來掌此山，故謂之茅山。」 乃中山立館，自號華陽陶隱居。 人間書劄，即以隱居代名。
His family was poor, and his bid for a county magistracy went nowhere. In the tenth year of Yongming he removed his court robes, hung them at the Shenwu Gate, and submitted a memorial resigning his stipend. An edict approved his request and granted him bolts of silk; he was ordered to receive five jin of poria and two sheng of white honey each month from his locality for his regimen. When he set out, ministers and high officials saw him off at the Campaign-against-Barbarians Pavilion; the tents and provisions were lavish, and carriages and horses choked the road—all said that since Song and Qi there had never been such a send-off. Thereupon he settled on Mount Gouqu in Jurong. He always said, "Below this mountain lies the Eighth Grotto-Palace, called the Heaven of the Golden Altar and Flourishing Yang, circling one hundred fifty li in circumference. In Han times the Three Lords Mao of Xianyang attained the Way and came to oversee this mountain; that is why it is called Mount Mao." He then built a lodge midway up the mountain and styled himself Tao the Hermit of Huayang. In worldly correspondence he used Hermit in place of his personal name.
41
始從東陽孫游岳受符圖經法，遍曆名山，尋訪仙藥。 身既輕捷，性愛山水，每經澗穀，必坐臥其間，吟詠盤桓，不能已已。 謂門人曰：「吾見朱門廣廈，雖識其華樂，而無欲往之心。 望高岩，瞰大澤，知此難立止，自恒欲就之。 且永明中求祿，得輒差舛； 若不爾，豈得為今日之事。 豈唯身有仙相，亦緣勢使之然。」 沈約為東陽郡守，高其志節，累書要之，不至。
At first he received talisman charts and scripture methods from Sun Youyue of Dongyang, then travelled through all the famous mountains seeking immortal herbs. His body was already light and nimble, and by nature he loved mountains and streams; whenever he passed through brooks and valleys he had to sit or lie among them, chanting and lingering, unable to pull himself away. He told his disciples, "When I see vermilion gates and broad mansions, though I recognize their splendor and pleasure, I have no wish to go there. When I gaze at high cliffs and look down on great marshes, I know how hard it is to stay still—I always long to go to them. Moreover, when I sought office in the Yongming era, what I obtained was always awry; if it had not been so, how could I have achieved what I have today? Is it not only that my body bears the marks of immortality, but also that circumstance made it so?" When Shen Yue was governor of Dongyang, he admired his resolve and integrity and repeatedly sent letters inviting him, but Hongjing never came.
42
弘景為人員通謙謹，出處冥會，心如明鏡，遇物便了。 言無煩舛，有亦隨覺。 永元初，更築三層樓，弘景處其上，弟子居其中，賓客至其下。 與物遂絕，唯一家僮得至其所。 本便馬善射，晚皆不為，唯聽吹笙而已。 特愛松風，庭院皆植松，每聞其響，欣然為樂。 有時獨游泉石，望見者以為仙人。
Hongjing was broadly adaptable, modest, and careful; in advance and retreat he moved in accord with hidden design; his mind was like a bright mirror— encountering things, he grasped them at once. His speech had no troublesome errors; if any arose, he corrected them at once. At the beginning of the Yongyuan era he built a new three-storey tower: Hongjing lived on the top, his disciples in the middle, and guests came only to the bottom. He was thus cut off from the world; only one household servant could reach where he lived. Originally he was adept at horsemanship and archery, but in his later years he did neither, listening only to the sheng. He especially loved the wind in the pines; he planted pines throughout the courtyard, and whenever he heard their sound he took quiet delight in it. At times he wandered alone among springs and rocks, and those who saw him took him for an immortal.
43
性好著述，尚奇異，顧惜光景，老而彌篤。 尤明陰陽五行、風角星算、山川地理、方圖產物、醫術本草，著帝代年曆，以算推知漢熹平三年丁丑冬至，加時在日中，而天實以乙亥冬至，加時在夜半，凡差三十八刻，是漢曆後天二日十二刻也。 又以歷代皆取其先妣母后配饗地只，以為神理宜然，碩學通儒，咸所不悟。 又嘗造渾天象，高三尺許，地居中央，天轉而地不動，以機動之，悉與天相會。 云：「修道所須，非止史官是用」。 深慕張良為人，云：「古賢無比」。
By nature he loved writing, valued the strange and extraordinary, cherished the light of day, and in old age became all the more devoted to his work. He was especially versed in yin-yang and the five phases, wind horns, star calculation, mountains, rivers, and geography, regional maps and local products, medical arts and materia medica. He wrote An Imperial Chronology and, by calculation, determined that at the winter solstice of the third year of Xiping of Han, in the dingchou year, the added hour fell at midday— whereas Heaven in fact placed the winter solstice in yihai with the added hour at midnight; the total discrepancy was thirty-eight quarters of an hour. Thus the Han calendar lagged Heaven by two days and twelve quarters. He also held that every dynasty took its deceased mothers and empresses to share sacrifice with the Earth Spirit, believing this conformed to divine principle— a point eminent scholars and broadly learned Confucians all failed to grasp. He also once made an armillary sphere model about three feet high, with Earth at the center; Heaven revolved while Earth remained still—a mechanism drove it, and everything accorded with the heavens. He said, "What the cultivation of the Way requires is not merely what the historiographers use." He deeply admired Zhang Liang as a man and said, "Among the ancients there is none to compare."
44
弘景既得神符秘訣，以為神丹可成，而苦無藥物。 帝給黃金、朱砂、曾青、雄黃等。 後合飛丹，色如霜雪，服之體輕。 及帝服飛丹有驗，益敬重之。 每得其書，燒香虔受。 帝使造年曆，至己巳歲而加朱點，實太清三年也。 帝手敕招之，錫以鹿皮巾。 後屢加禮聘，並不出，唯畫作兩牛，一牛散放水草之間，一牛著金籠頭，有人執繩，以杖驅之。 武帝笑曰：「此人無所不作，欲學曳尾之龜，豈有可致之理。」 國家每有吉凶征討大事，無不前以諮詢。 月中常有數信，時人謂為山中宰相。 二宮及公王貴要參候相繼，贈遺未嘗脫時。 多不納受，縱留者即作功德。
Once Hongjing had obtained divine talismans and secret formulas, he believed the divine elixir could be perfected, but he lacked the necessary ingredients. The emperor supplied gold, cinnabar, azure malachite, realgar, and the like. Later he compounded flying elixir, white as frost and snow; upon taking it the body grew light. When the emperor took the flying elixir with verified effect, he honored Hongjing all the more. Whenever he received a letter from him, he burned incense and received it with reverence. The emperor had him compile a calendar; when it reached the jisi year he added a vermilion dot—it was in fact the third year of Taiqing. The emperor personally wrote an edict summoning him and bestowed on him a deer's-hide cap. Later the emperor repeatedly increased ritual invitations, but Hongjing never came out; he only painted two oxen— one turned loose among water and grass, one wearing a golden halter with a man holding the rope and driving it with a staff. Emperor Wu laughed and said, "This man can do anything; he wants to imitate the turtle that drags its tail in the mud—is there any way he can be brought here?" Whenever the state faced matters of fortune or misfortune, campaigns or great affairs, without fail they consulted him first. Several letters each month were regular, and people of the time called him the chancellor of the mountains. The two palaces and princes, dukes, and important persons paid visits one after another; gifts and presents never ceased for a moment. Most he did not accept; whatever he did keep he used for meritorious works.
45
天監四年，移居積金東澗。 弘景善辟穀導引之法，自隱處四十許年，年逾八十而有壯容。 仙書云：「眼方者壽千歲。」 弘景末年一眼有時而方。 曾夢佛授其菩提記雲，名為勝力菩薩。 乃詣鄮縣阿育王塔自誓，受五大戒。 後簡文臨南徐州，欽其風素，召至後堂，以葛巾進見，與談論數日而去，簡文甚敬異之。 天監中，獻丹于武帝。 中大通初，又獻二刀，其一名善勝，一名威勝，並為佳寶。
In the fourth year of Tianjian he moved his residence to Jijin East Stream. Hongjing was skilled in grain-abstaining regimen and daoyin exercises; from his retirement for about forty years, past eighty he still had a vigorous countenance. Immortal writings say, "Those whose eyes are square live a thousand years." In Hongjing's later years one eye was sometimes square. He once dreamed that the Buddha granted him the Record of Bodhi, naming him the Bodhisattva Victorious Power. Thereupon he went to the Ashoka Pagoda in Yin County to vow himself and received the five major precepts. Later when Jianwen held office at Southern Xuzhou, he admired his character and simplicity, summoned him to the rear hall, received him wearing a hemp headcloth, and after several days of conversation sent him away— Jianwen held him in deep esteem and wonder. During the Tianjian era he presented elixir to Emperor Wu. At the beginning of Zhongdatong he again presented two swords, one named Good Victory and one named Awesome Victory, both treasured blades.
46
無疾，自知應逝，逆克亡日，仍為告逝詩。 大同二年卒，時年八十一。 顏色不變，屈申如常，香氣累日，氛氳滿山。 遺令：「既沒不須沐浴，不須施床，止兩重席於地，因所著舊衣，上加生褲裙及臂衣靺冠巾法服。 左肘錄鈴，右肘藥鈴，佩符絡左腋下。 繞腰穿環結於前，釵符於髻上。 通以大袈裟覆衾蒙首足。 明器有車馬。 道人道士並在門中，道人左，道士右。 百日內夜常然燈，旦常香火。」 弟子遵而行之。 詔贈太中大夫，諡曰貞白先生。
Without illness, knowing he was due to depart, he calculated in advance the day of his death and even composed a farewell poem announcing his demise. In the second year of Datong he died at the age of eighty-one. His complexion did not change; bending and stretching were as usual; fragrance lingered for days, wafting thick through the mountain. His final instructions: "Once I am gone, no bathing is needed and no couch required— only lay two layers of matting on the ground; over the old clothes I am wearing, add fresh trousers, skirt, sleeve-garments, felt cap, headcloth, and ritual vestments. Place a scripture bell at the left elbow and a medicine bell at the right elbow; wear talismans strung at the left armpit. Wrap around the waist, thread through rings, and knot in front; pin talismans on the hair knot. Cover entirely with a great kasaya robe as a quilt, veiling head and feet. Include chariots and horses among the burial objects. Place both lay Daoists and ordained priests inside the gate, with lay adepts on the left and priests on the right. For a hundred days, burn lamps every night and incense every morning." His disciples followed these instructions to the letter. By edict he was posthumously made Grand Master of the Palace, with the posthumous title Master Zhenbai.
47
弘景妙解術數，逆知梁祚覆沒，預製詩云：「夷甫任散誕，平叔坐論空。 豈悟昭陽殿，遂作單于宮。」 詩秘在篋裏，化後，門人方稍出之。 大同末，人士競談玄理，不習武事，後侯景篡，果在昭陽殿。
Hongjing had a profound grasp of numerology and divination. Anticipating the fall of the Liang, he wrote a prophetic poem: "Yifu indulged recklessness and release; Pingshu sat debating the void. Who dreamed that Zhaoyang Hall would turn into a barbarian ruler's court?" He kept the poem hidden in a casket, and only after his death did his disciples slowly release it. In the final years of Datong, scholars competed in talk of abstruse doctrine while ignoring martial training; when Hou Jing seized power afterward, the prophecy was fulfilled precisely at Zhaoyang Hall.
48
初，弘景母夢青龍無尾，自己升天，弘景果不妻無子。 從兄以子松喬嗣。 所著學苑百卷，孝經、論語集注、帝代年曆、本草集注、效驗方、肘後百一方、古今州郡記、圖像集要及玉匱記、七曜新舊術疏、占候、合丹法式，共秘密不傳，及撰而未訖又十部，唯弟子得之。
Once, Hongjing's mother dreamed of a tailless azure dragon rising to heaven from her own person; Hongjing in fact never took a wife and left no sons. A patrilateral cousin adopted his nephew Song Qiao to continue the line. He authored the Hundred Fascicles of the Academy of Learning, commentaries on the Classic of Filial Piety and the Analects, dynastic chronologies, a commentary on the Materia Medica, effective prescriptions, the Hundred Recipes from the Elbow, gazetteers of ancient and modern prefectures, illustrated compendia, the Jade Casket Record, treatises old and new on the seven luminaries, divination manuals, and alchemical formulas— all withheld from circulation— as well as ten unfinished works. Only his disciples ever obtained them.
49
靈和寺沙門釋寶亮欲以納被遺之，未及有言，寶志忽來牽被而去。 蔡仲熊嘗問仕何所至。 了自不答，直解杖頭左索繩擲與之，莫之解。 仲熊至尚書左丞，方知言驗。
Baoliang, a monk of Linghe Temple, meant to give him a padded quilt but had not yet said so when Baozhi suddenly appeared, snatched the quilt, and walked off. Cai Zhongxiong once asked how high he would climb in his official career. Without answering, Liaozi took a rope tied to the left of his staff and tossed it to him; nobody could make sense of it. Only when Zhongxiong became Left Vice Director of the Masters of Writing did he realize the prophecy had come true.
50
永明中，住東宮後堂，從平旦門中出入。 末年忽云：「門上血污衣」，褰裳走過。 至郁林見害，果以犢車載屍出自此門，舍故閹人徐龍駒宅，而帝頸血流於門限焉。
In the Yongming era he lived in the rear hall of the Eastern Palace and passed in and out through Pingdan Gate. Near the end of his life he suddenly exclaimed, "Blood on the gate will stain one's garments," then hitched up his robe and rushed past. When Emperor Yulin was killed, a bullock cart carrying his corpse indeed passed out through this very gate and halted at the house of the former eunuch Xu Longju, and the emperor's blood ran from his neck onto the gate threshold.
51
梁武帝尤深敬事，嘗問年祚遠近。 答曰：「元嘉元嘉。」 帝欣然，以為享祚倍宋文之年。 雖剃鬚髮而常冠帽，下裙納袍，故俗呼為志公。 好為讖記，所謂志公符是也。 高麗聞之，遣使齎綿帽供養。
Emperor Wu of Liang revered him above all and once asked how long his dynasty would endure. He replied, "Yuánjiā, Yuánjiā." The emperor was pleased, interpreting the phrase to mean he would reign twice as long as Emperor Wen of Song. Although tonsured, he habitually wore cap and hat with skirt and robe, which is why people called him Master Zhi. He was fond of writing prophecy scrolls, known as the Talismans of Master Zhi. Hearing of him, Goguryeo dispatched envoys with padded caps as tribute offerings.
52
天監十三年卒。 將死，忽移寺金剛像出置戶外，語人云：「菩薩當去。」 旬日無疾而終。 先是琅邪王筠至莊嚴寺，寶志遇之，與交言歡飲。 至亡，敕命筠為碑，蓋先覺也。
He died in the thirteenth year of Tianjian. When he was nearing death, he abruptly had the temple's vajra statue moved outside and told those present, "The bodhisattva is departing." Ten days later he passed away, with no prior sickness. Earlier, Wang Yun of Langye visited Zhuangyan Temple, where Baozhi joined him in cheerful conversation and wine. When Baozhi died, the emperor commanded Yun to write his epitaph— he had seen it coming.
53
諸葛璩
Zhuge Qu
54
諸葛璩字幼玫，琅邪陽都人也。 世居京口。 璩幼事征士關康之，博涉經史。 復師征士臧榮緒，榮緒著晉書，稱璩有發擿之功，方之壺遂。
Zhuge Qu, style name Youmei, came from Yangdu in Langye. For generations his family resided at Jingkou. As a youth he studied with the recluse Guan Kangzhi and mastered a wide range of classical and historical texts. He later studied under the recluse Zang Rongxu, who in his History of Jin praised Qu's talent for uncovering hidden facts, likening him to Hu Sui.
55
齊建武初，南徐州行事江祀薦璩於明帝，言璩安貧守道，悅禮敦詩，如其簡退，可揚清厲俗，請辟為議曹從事。 帝許之。 璩辭不赴。 陳郡謝朓為東海太守，下教揚其風概，餉穀百斛。 梁天監中，舉秀才，不就。
Early in the Jianwu era of Qi, Jiang Si, acting for Southern Xuzhou, recommended Qu to Emperor Ming, praising his contented poverty, moral steadfastness, love of ritual, and devotion to poetry; deeming such self-effacing integrity fit to ennoble public morals, he asked that Qu be summoned as Attendant of the Discussion Bureau. The emperor granted the request. Qu refused the appointment and did not go. When Xie Tiao of Chen commandery served as Administrator of Donghai, he issued a proclamation praising Qu's moral bearing and sent him a hundred hu of grain. Under the Liang, during Tianjian, he was nominated as a xiucai but declined to serve.
56
璩性勤於誨誘，後生就學者日至。 居宅狹陋，無以容之。 太守張友為起講舍。 璩處身清正，妻子不見喜慍之色，旦夕孜孜，講誦不輟，時人益以此宗之。 卒於家。 璩所著文章二十卷，門人劉暾集而錄之。
Qu devoted himself tirelessly to teaching, and young scholars arrived each day to study with him. His home was too narrow and shabby to accommodate them. The prefect Zhang You erected a lecture hall for him. He lived with upright purity; neither wife nor children ever saw him show pleasure or vexation; day and night he taught and recited without rest, and the world honored him all the more for it. He died at home. His writings, twenty fascicles in all, were gathered and copied by his disciple Liu Tun.
57
劉慧斐
Liu Huifei
58
劉慧斐字宣文，彭城人也。 父元直，淮南太守。 慧斐少博學，能屬文，起家梁安成王法曹行參軍。 嘗還都，途經尋陽，游于匡山，遇處士張孝秀，相得甚歡，遂有終焉之志。 因不仕，居東林寺。 又於山北構園一所，號曰離垢園，時人仍謂為離垢先生。
Liu Huifei, style name Xuanwen, came from Pengcheng. His father Yuanzhi served as Administrator of Huainan. From youth Huifei was widely learned and adept at writing; he began his career as Acting Adjunct in the Law Bureau under the Prince of Ancheng of Liang. Once, on his way back to the capital, he passed through Xunyang and wandered on Mount Lu, where he met the recluse Zhang Xiaoxiu; they became fast friends, and he resolved to spend the rest of his life there. He therefore withdrew from office and made his home at Donglin Temple. North of the mountain he also built a garden called the Garden of Departing Defilement, and people came to call him the Master of Departing Defilement.
59
慧斐尤明釋典，工篆隸，在山手寫佛經二千餘卷，常所誦者百餘卷。 晝夜行道，孜孜不怠，遠近欽慕之。 簡文臨江州，遺以几杖。 論者雲，自遠法師沒後將二百年，始有張、劉之盛矣。 元帝及武陵王等書問不絕。 大同三年卒。
Huifei was especially versed in Buddhist scriptures and skilled in seal and clerical script; in the mountains he hand-copied more than two thousand fascicles of sutras, and more than a hundred fascicles he recited regularly. Day and night he practiced the Way without slackening, and people far and near looked up to him. When Jianwen governed Jiangzhou, he sent Huifei a seat and staff as gifts. Commentators said that nearly two hundred years after Master Huiyuan's death, the eminence of Zhang and Liu had at last returned. Emperor Yuan, the Prince of Wuling, and others wrote to him in an unbroken stream. He died in the third year of Datong.
60
慧斐兄慧鏡，安成內史。 初，元直居郡得罪，慧鏡曆詣朝士乞哀，懇惻甚至，遂以孝聞。
Huifei's elder brother Huijing served as Interior Secretary of Ancheng. At first Yuanzhi committed an offense while serving in the commandery; Huijing went again and again to court officials to plead for mercy with the deepest earnestness, and thereby won renown for filial devotion.
61
子曇淨字元光，篤行有父風，解褐安成王國左常侍。 父卒于郡，曇淨奔喪，不食飲者累日，絕而又蘇，每哭輒嘔血。 服闋，因毀成疾。 會有詔士姓各舉四科，曇淨叔父慧斐舉以應孝行，武帝用為海寧令。 曇淨又以兄未為縣，因以讓兄，乃除安西參軍。
His son Tanjing, style name Yuanguang, was steadfast in conduct and inherited his father's ways; upon entering office he became Left Regular Attendant in the Principality of Ancheng. When his father died while serving in the commandery, Tanjing hurried home for the funeral; for days on end he ate and drank nothing, fainting and coming to again, and each time he wept he brought up blood. When the mourning period ended, his body had been broken by grief. When an edict ordered each gentry house to recommend men in four categories, his uncle Huifei nominated him for filial conduct, and Emperor Wu appointed him magistrate of Haining. Because his elder brother had not yet received a county appointment, Tanjing yielded the magistracy to him and was instead made Aide of Anxi.
62
父亡後，事母尤淳至，身營餐粥，不以委人。 母疾，衣不解帶，及母亡，水漿不入口者殆一旬。 母喪權瘞藥王寺，時天寒，曇淨身衣單布衣，廬於瘞所。 晝夜哭臨不絕聲，哀感行路，未期而卒。
After his father died he tended his mother with the utmost devotion, preparing her meals and porridge himself and never leaving the work to others. When she fell ill he never loosened his clothes at her bedside; after she died he took neither food nor drink for nearly ten days. He had his mother provisionally buried at Medicine King Temple; though the weather was bitterly cold, Tanjing wore only a single layer of cloth and kept a mourning hut at the grave. Day and night he wept at the grave without pause; travelers were moved by his grief, and he died before the mourning year was complete.
63
范元琰
Fan Yuanyan
64
范元琰字伯珪，一字長玉，吳郡錢塘人也。 祖悅之，太學博士征，不至。 父靈瑜，居父憂以毀卒。 元琰時童孺，哀慕盡禮，親黨異之。 及長好學，博通經史，兼精佛義，然謙敬不以所長驕人。 祖母患癰，恒自含吮。 與人言常恐傷物。 居家不出城市，雖獨居如對賓客，見者莫不改容憚之。
Fan Yuanyan, style name Bogui, also called Changyu, came from Qiantang in Wu commandery. His grandfather Yuezhi was summoned to serve as Erudite of the Imperial Academy but declined to go. His father Lingyu, while mourning his own father, died from the ruin of excessive grief. Yuanyan was still a small child, yet he mourned with full propriety, and relatives and neighbors marveled at him. When he grew up he loved learning, mastered the classics and histories, and was also well versed in Buddhist teaching, yet he remained modest and never lorded his talents over others. When his grandmother had an abscess, he always sucked it out himself. In speaking with others he always feared to cause hurt. He kept to his home and did not go into the city; even when alone he behaved as though guests were present, and all who saw him changed countenance and stood in awe.
65
家貧，唯以園蔬為業。 嘗出行，見人盜其菘，元琰遽退走。 母問其故，具以實答。 母問盜者為誰，答曰：「向所以退，畏其愧恥，今啟其名，願不泄也。」 於是母子秘之。 或有涉溝盜其筍者，元琰因伐木為橋以度之，自是盜者大慚，一鄉無復草竊。
The family was poor, and he supported himself only by growing garden vegetables. Once when he went out, he saw someone stealing his cabbages; Yuanyan quickly turned away and left. His mother asked why, and he told her the whole truth. When his mother asked who the thief was, he answered, "I withdrew because I feared shaming him; now that you ask his name, I beg you not to disclose it." Thereupon mother and son kept the secret between them. When someone crossed a ditch to steal his bamboo shoots, Yuanyan cut wood and built a bridge so they could cross; after that the thieves were deeply ashamed, and the whole village gave up petty theft.
66
齊建武初，徵為曹武平西參軍，不至。 于時始安王遙光為揚州，謂徐孝嗣曰：「曹武參軍，豈是禮賢之職。」 欲以西曹書佐聘之，會遙光敗，不果，時人以為恨。 沛國劉瓛深加器異，嘗表稱之。 天監九年，縣令管慧辯上言義行，揚州刺史臨川王宏辟命，不至。 卒於家。
Early in the Jianwu era of Qi he was summoned to serve as Aide on Cao Wu's Pacify-West campaign but declined to go. At that time Prince Shi'an of Shi'an was inspector of Yangzhou; he said to Xu Xiaosi, "An aide under Cao Wu— is that a post fit for honoring a man of worth?" He meant to engage Yuanyan as Western Bureau Secretary, but Shi'an's faction fell before it could happen; people of the time counted it a loss. Liu Huan of Pei held him in high esteem and once submitted a memorial commending him. In the ninth year of Tianjian the magistrate Guan Huibian reported his moral conduct; Prince Linchuan Hong, inspector of Yangzhou, offered him an appointment, but he did not accept. He died at home.
67
庾詵字彥寶，新野人也。 幼聰警篤學，經史百家，無不該綜。 緯候書射，棋算機巧，並一時之絕。 而性托夷簡，特愛林泉，十畝之宅，山池居半。 蔬食弊衣，不修產業。 遇火，止出書數簣坐于池上，有為火來者，答云：「唯恐損竹」。 乘舟從沮中山舍還，載米一百五十石。 有人寄載三十石，及至宅，寄載者曰：「君三十斛，我百五十斛。」 詵默然不言，恣其取足。 鄰人有被誣為盜，見劾妄款。 詵矜之，乃以書質錢二萬，令門生詐為其親，代之酬備。 鄰人獲免謝詵，詵曰：「吾矜天下無辜，豈期謝也。」
Yu Shen, style name Yanbao, came from Xinye. From childhood he was clever and alert and devoted to learning; among the classics, histories, and the hundred schools there was nothing he had not mastered. In astronomy, apocryphal texts, calligraphy, archery, chess, calculation, and mechanical ingenuity he was unmatched in his time. Yet his temperament was easy and plain; he especially loved woods and streams, and of his ten-acre home, hills and ponds took up half. He ate plain vegetables and wore threadbare clothes and did not pursue wealth or property. When a fire broke out, he carried out only a few bundles of books and sat on the pond; when someone came because of the fire, he replied, "I only fear damage to the bamboo." Returning by boat from a lodge on Mount Ju, he loaded a hundred and fifty shi of rice. Someone asked to ship thirty shi along with him; when they reached home the fellow said, "Your thirty hu, my hundred fifty hu." Shen remained silent and let him take as much as he pleased. A neighbor had been falsely accused of theft and, when impeached, confessed under duress to crimes he had not committed. Shen took pity on him, pawned his books for twenty thousand cash, and had a student pose as the man's kinsman to pay the compensation on his behalf. When the neighbor was cleared and came to thank him, Shen said, "I pity every innocent person under heaven. How could I have expected thanks?"
68
梁武帝少與詵善，及起兵，署為平西府記室參軍，詵不屈。 平生少所遊狎，河東柳惲欲與交，拒而弗納。 普通中，詔以為黃門侍郎，稱疾不起。 晚年尤遵釋教，宅內立道場，環繞禮懺，六時不輟。 誦法華經，每日一遍。 後夜中忽見一道人自稱願公，容止甚異，呼詵為上行先生，授香而去。 中大通四年，因寢忽驚覺，曰：「願公復來，不可久住。」 顏色不變，言終而亡，年七十八。 舉室咸聞空中唱「上行先生已生彌陀淨域矣」。 武帝聞而下詔，諡貞節處士，以顯高烈。
In his youth Emperor Wu of Liang had been on good terms with Shen; when he raised an army he appointed Shen recorder of the Pacify-the-West headquarters, but Shen refused the post. He had few intimate associates in his life; Liu Yun of Hedong sought his friendship, but Shen declined and would not accept him. During the Putong era he was ordered to serve as Gentleman Attendant at the Yellow Gates, but he pleaded illness and did not take up the post. In his later years he devoted himself especially to Buddhism; he established a chapel in his home and circled it in worship and repentance six times a day without interruption. Each day he recited the Lotus Sutra once through. Later one night he suddenly saw a Daoist priest who called himself Master Yuan; the man's bearing was strikingly unusual. He addressed Shen as Master Shangxing, gave him incense, and left. In the fourth year of Zhongdatong he woke with a start from sleep and said, "Master Yuan has come again; I cannot remain long." His face did not change; when he had finished speaking he died, at the age of seventy-eight. Everyone in the household heard a voice in the air declare, "Master Shangxing has been born into Amitabha's Pure Land." When Emperor Wu heard of it he issued an edict, giving Shen the posthumous title Reclusive Gentleman of Pure Integrity to honor his exalted character.
69
詵所撰帝曆二十卷，易林二十卷，續伍端休江陵記一卷，晉朝雜事五卷，總抄八十卷，行於世。
Shen authored the Imperial Calendar in twenty scrolls, the Forest of Changes in twenty scrolls, a continuation of Wu Duanxiu's Record of Jiangling in one scroll, Miscellaneous Matters of the Jin Dynasty in five scrolls, and General Extracts in eighty scrolls, all of which circulated widely.
70
子曼倩字世華，亦早有令譽。 元帝在荊州，為中錄事。 每出，帝常目送之，謂劉之遴曰：「荊南信多君子。」 後轉諮議參軍。 所著喪服儀，文字體例，老子義疏，算經及七曜曆術，並所制文章，凡九十五卷。 子季才有學行，承聖中，位中書侍郎。 江陵平，隨例入長安。
His son Manqian, styled Shihua, also won an excellent reputation at an early age. While Emperor Yuan was in Jingzhou, Manqian served as Central Recorder. Whenever Manqian went out, the emperor would watch him depart and say to Liu Zhilin, "South of Jing truly has many men of worth." Later he was transferred to the post of Advisory Aide. His writings—the Mourning Rites Ceremonies, Textual Norms, an exegesis of Laozi, the Calculation Classic and the arts of the Seven Luminaries calendrics, together with his own compositions—amounted to ninety-five scrolls in all. His son Jicai was a man of learning and integrity; during the Chengsheng era he served as Vice Director of the Palace Secretariat. When Jiangling fell he was taken to Chang'an along with the others.
71
張孝秀
Zhang Xiaoxiu
72
張孝秀字文逸，南陽宛人也。 徙居尋陽。 曾祖須無，祖僧監，父希，並別駕從事。
Zhang Xiaoxiu, styled Wenyi, was from Wan in Nanyang. His family moved to Xunyang. His great-grandfather Xu Wu, his grandfather Sengjian, and his father Xi had all served as staff officers under regional vice governors.
73
孝秀長六尺餘，白皙美鬚眉，仕州中從事史。 遇刺史陳伯之叛，孝秀與州中士大夫謀襲之，事覺，逃于盆水側。 有商人置諸褚中，輾轉入東林。 伯之得其母郭，以蠟灌殺之。 孝秀遣妻妾，入匡山修行學道。 服闋，建安王召為別駕。 因去職歸山，居於東林寺，有田數十頃，部曲數百人，率以力田，盡供山眾。 遠近歸慕，赴之如市。
Xiaoxiu stood more than six chi tall, with fair skin and handsome beard and brows; he served as a staff officer in the provincial administration. When the regional inspector Chen Bozhi rebelled, Xiaoxiu and the province's literati plotted to seize him; when the plot was discovered he fled to the banks of the Pen River. A merchant hid him in a trunk and, conveyed from place to place, he eventually reached Donglin. Bozhi captured his mother, Lady Guo, and killed her by pouring molten wax down her throat. Xiaoxiu dismissed his wife and concubines and went to Mount Kuang to practice the Way. After his mourning period ended, Prince Jian'an summoned him to serve as vice governor's aide. He then resigned and returned to the mountains, living at Donglin Temple; he owned several dozen qing of farmland and several hundred household retainers, whom he set to farming and whose entire yield he gave to the monastic community. People from near and far admired him and flocked to him in crowds.
74
孝秀性通率，不好浮華，常冠谷皮巾，躡蒲履，手執並閭皮麈尾，服寒食散，盛冬臥于石上。 博涉群書，專精釋典。 僧有虧戒律者，集眾佛前，作羯磨而笞之，多能改過。 善談論，工隸書，凡諸藝能，莫不明習。 普通三年卒，室中皆聞非常香。 梁簡文甚傷悼焉，與劉慧斐書，述其貞白雲。
Xiaoxiu was frank and unpretentious and disliked show; he usually wore a grain-husk cap and reed sandals, carried a birch-leather fly-whisk, took cold-food powder, and even in the depth of winter slept on bare stone. He read widely and devoted himself especially to Buddhist scripture. When monks violated the precepts he assembled the community before the Buddha, held a formal ecclesiastical proceeding, and had them flogged; many thereby reformed. He was an accomplished speaker, skilled at clerical script, and proficient in every art he touched. He died in the third year of Putong, and everyone in the room smelled an extraordinary fragrance. Emperor Jianwen of Liang grieved deeply over his death and wrote to Liu Huifei praising his pure and upright character.
75
庾承先
Yu Chengxian
76
庾承先字子通，潁川鄢陵人也。 少沈靜有志操，是非不涉於言，喜慍不形於色，人莫能窺也。 弱歲受學于南陽劉虯，強記敏識，出於群輩。 玄經釋典，靡不該悉； 九流七略，咸所精練。 辟功曹不就，乃與道士王僧鎮同游衡嶽。 晚以弟疾還鄉里，遂居土臺山。 梁鄱陽忠烈王在州，欽其風味，要與遊處，令講老子。 遠近名僧，咸來赴集，論難鋒起，異端競至，承先徐相酬答，皆得所未聞。 忠烈王尤所欽重。
Yu Chengxian, styled Zitong, was from Yanling in Yingchuan. From youth he was quiet and resolute; he did not speak of others' faults, joy and anger never showed on his face, and no one could read his thoughts. In his early youth he studied under Liu Hu of Nanyang; his powerful memory and quick wit set him above his contemporaries. Dark learning and Buddhist scripture—there was none he had not mastered thoroughly; the Nine Currents and the Seven Summaries—he had trained in them all. When summoned as merit officer he declined; he then traveled Mount Heng with the Daoist Wang Shenzhen. Later, when his younger brother fell ill, he returned to his native place and settled on Mount Tutai. When Prince Zhonglie of Poyang was regional inspector he admired Chengxian's character, invited him to keep company, and had him lecture on the Laozi. Eminent monks from near and far all came; sharp debate arose and unorthodox views poured forth, yet Chengxian answered each point at leisure, and everyone heard things they had never encountered before. Prince Zhonglie held him in especially high regard.
77
中大通三年，廬山劉慧斐至荊州，承先與之有舊，往從之，荊陝學徒因請承先講老子。 湘東王親命駕臨聽，論議終日，留連月餘，乃還山。 王親祖道，並贈篇什，隱者美之。 其年卒，刺史厚有贈賻。 門人黃士龍讓曰：「先師平素食不求飽，衣不求輕，凡有贈遺，皆無所受。 臨終之日，誡約家門，薄棺周形，巾褐為斂。 雖蒙賚及，不敢輕承教旨，以違平生之操。 錢布輒付使反。」 時論高之。
In the third year of Zhongdatong, Liu Huifei of Mount Lu came to Jingzhou; Chengxian had known him of old and went to join him, and students in Jing and Shan asked Chengxian to lecture on the Laozi. Prince Xiangdong came in person to listen; debates ran all day, and he stayed for more than a month before Chengxian returned to the mountain. The prince saw him off in person and also gave him poems, which recluses admired. He died that same year, and the regional inspector gave a generous funeral gift. His disciple Huang Shilong declined, saying, "Our late master in life did not seek to eat his fill or dress in finery; he never accepted anything that was given him. On his deathbed he charged his household to give him a plain coffin with rounded corners and to bury him in cap and brown robes. Though we have received these gifts, we dare not lightly accept them in violation of his instructions and his lifelong principles. We therefore return the money and cloth to the messenger at once." Contemporaries praised this highly.
78
馬樞字要理，扶風郿人也。 祖靈慶，齊竟陵王錄事參軍。
Ma Shu, styled Yaoli, was from Mei in Fufeng. His grandfather Lingqing had served as recording secretary on the staff of Prince Jingling of Qi.
79
樞數歲而孤，為其姑所養。 六歲，能誦孝經、論語、老子。 及長，博極經史，尤善佛經及周易、老子義。 梁邵陵王綸為南徐州刺史，素聞其名，引為學士。 綸時自講大品經，令樞講維摩、老子、周易，同日發題，道俗聽者二千人。 王欲極觀優劣，乃謂眾曰：「與馬學士論義，必使屈服，不得空立客主。」 於是數家學者，各起問端。 樞乃依次剖判，開其宗旨，然後枝分派別，轉變無窮，論者拱默聽受而已，綸甚嘉之。
Shu lost his father when he was still a child and was raised by his paternal aunt. At the age of six he could recite the Classic of Filial Piety, the Analects, and the Laozi. When he grew up he mastered the classics and histories, and was especially adept at Buddhist scriptures and the exegesis of the Changes and Laozi. When Prince Shaoling Lun of Liang was governor of South Xuzhou, having long heard of his reputation, he invited him to serve as a scholar on his staff. Lun himself lectured on the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra while assigning Shu to lecture on the Vimalakīrti Sutra, the Laozi, and the Changes on the same day; two thousand monks and laymen came to listen. The prince wished to test every side to the limit and said to the assembly, "In debating doctrine with Scholar Ma you must try to defeat him; do not merely play at guest and host in empty ceremony." Several groups of scholars then each opened with challenging questions. Shu answered them one by one, stated each school's central doctrine, then branched into finer distinctions in endlessly shifting turns; the debaters could only bow in silence and listen, and Lun was greatly pleased.
80
尋遇侯景之亂，綸舉兵援台，乃留書二萬卷付樞。 樞肆志尋覽，殆將周遍，乃喟然歎曰：「吾聞貴爵位者以巢、由為桎梏，愛山林者以伊、呂為管庫，束名實則芻芥柱下之言，翫清虛則糠秕席上之說，稽之篤論，亦各從其好也。 比求志之士，望塗而息，豈天之不惠高尚，何山林之無聞甚乎。」 乃隱于茅山，有終焉之志。
Soon afterward the rebellion of Hou Jing broke out; Lun raised an army to relieve the capital and entrusted twenty thousand scrolls of books to Shu. Shu read through them at will until he had nearly covered the whole collection, then sighed and said, "I have heard that those who prize rank and office treat Chao and Xu as shackles, while those who love mountains and forests treat Yi and Lü as mere storekeepers; those who bind themselves to fame treat Laozi's words as chaff, while those who play at purity treat Confucian doctrine as bran—yet when one weighs serious doctrine, each follows his own inclination. Yet now those who seek a higher purpose turn back at the threshold—has Heaven no favor for the lofty-minded? Why are the mountains and forests so utterly forgotten?" He then withdrew to Mount Mao, resolved to end his days there.
81
樞少屬亂離，凡所居處，盜賊不入，依託者常數百家。 目精洞黃，能視闇中物。 有白晏一雙，巢其庭樹，馴狎橺廡，時至几案，春來秋去，幾三十年。 太建十三年卒。 撰道覺論行於世。
From youth Shu lived through disorder; wherever he settled bandits did not intrude, and several hundred households regularly sought refuge with him. His pupils were bright yellow and he could see in the dark. A pair of white swallows nested in the tree in his courtyard, grew tame enough to perch on the eaves and verandas and even come to his desk; they returned every spring and departed every autumn for nearly thirty years. He died in the thirteenth year of Taijian. He wrote the Treatise on Awakening to the Way, which circulated widely.
82
【論】
Discussion
83
論曰：夫獨往之人，皆稟偏介之性，不能摧志屈道，借譽期通。 若使夫遇見信之主，逢時來之運，豈其放情江海，取逸丘樊？ 不得已而然故也。 且岩壑閑遠，水石清華，雖復崇門八襲，高城萬雉，莫不蓄壤開泉，髣佛林澤。 故知松山桂渚，非止素玩，碧澗清潭，翻成麗矚。 掛冕東都，夫何難之有。
The essay observes: Men who walk alone are all endowed with an uncompromising nature; they cannot bend their will or twist the Way to borrow repute in hope of advancement. Had they met a ruler who truly trusted them and arrived in a propitious age, would they still have given themselves to rivers and seas or sought their ease on hills and in groves? They did so only because they had no choice. Moreover, cliffs and ravines are quiet and remote, water and stone clear and splendid; even where gate towers rise in tiers and high walls stretch for miles, every estate opens springs and hoards soil until it seems almost a woodland park. One sees that pine hills and cassia islets were not simple pastimes alone—jade brooks and clear pools became splendid objects of admiration. To hang up one's official cap in the Eastern Capital—what difficulty would there be?