an original which must have been compiled by Confucius from the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw of Loo. On the subsequent preservation of that text it is not necessary to enter, excepting in so far as the early history of the three commentaries is concerned. When the authority of them was once established, there was a succession of scholars who from dynasty to dynasty devoted themselves to the illustration of them, the Works of hundreds of whom are existing at the present day. It may not be possible for us to determine the exact reading, of names especially, in every paragraph, and there may be lacunæ in other paragraphs, and some paragraphs perhaps were lost before the three texts were transcribed; but the text as formed from them must in my opinion be considered, notwithstanding its various readings, as a fair reproduction of what Confucius wrote, a sufficient copy of the Work by which he felt that posterity would judge him.
I proceed in the next section to describe the three early commentaries, after which we shall be prepared to estimate the value of the Work itself.
SECTION IV.
THE THREE EARLY COMMENTARIES ON THE CH‘UN TS‘EW.
1. Of the three early commentaries the first which made its appearance in the Han dynasty, and incomparably the most important, was that of Tso, The commentary of Tso.or of Tso-k‘ëw, for the opinions of scholars differ both as to the surname and the name of the author.[1] The account of it given by Pan Koo is—that Tso K‘ëw-ming
- ↑ It is a common opinion, which Mr. Wylie (General Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 6) endorses without hesitation, that the ‘Narratives of the States’ was by the same author as the Commentary about which we are inquiring; and we have the testimony of Sze-ma Ts‘ëen’s autobiographical letter to a friend (漢書六十二,司馬遷傳第三十二), as to his surname being Tso-k‘ëw, and name Ming (左丘失明,厥有國語; and again, 左丘明無目). Our Tso would then have the surname of Tso-k‘ëw. This is still held by many. Choo E-tsun particularly insists on it as a point ‘exceedineg clear,’ and explains the dropping of the K‘ëw (丘 or 邱) from a superstitious feeling not to be always repeating the name of the Master (孔邱). Pan Koo appears to have considered the simple Tso to be the surname and K‘ëw-ming the name; and there are many who concur with him. Others maintain that the surname was simply Tso, and that the name has been lost. So it is virtually now, for the Work is simply called the Tso Chuen. On these disputes about the surname and name, Hwang Tsih (黃澤; Yuen dynasty) says with truth:—左邱明,或謂姓左邱,名明,非傳春秋者,傳春秋者蓋姓左,而失其名,愚謂去古既遠,此以爲是,彼以爲非,又焉有定論.
22]
