E51 文人字号，言简意丰

E51 文人字号，言简意丰

课程导读

上节课我们讲到，苏东坡与弟弟子由之间深厚的手足之情，伴随他们走过人生路上顺逆荣枯的种种。本节课中，我们将会讲到传统中国文化中关于姓名字号的讲究。苏家作为书香世家，每个人的名字背后，都有着怎样的意蕴呢？面对西方读者，林语堂先生又会如何为他们上一堂中国传统文化课？

英文原文

At this point it is convenient to state the various names of the three Sus.

In accordance with ancient custom, a Chinese scholar has several names.

Besides the family name he has a legal personal name (ming) with which he signs his own signature in all letters and official registrations.

He has a courtesy name (tse) by which he should be addressed orally and in writing by his friends.

The usual way of addressing a person formally is by his courtesy name without his family name, with "Mr." added to it.

In addition many scholars adopt special poetic names (hao) on various occasions as names for their libraries or studies—names that are often used in their seals, and by which they are popularly known once they become famous.

Others are sometimes referred to by the names of their collected works.

A few who rise to a position of national importance are referred to by the name of their home town.

(A Chinese Wendell Willkie might have been known as "Indiana Willkie", and F.D.R. would have been entitled to be called "Hyde Park Roosevelt".)

A great many eminent officials received also a posthumous honorific title.

Su senior's personal name was Shün; his courtesy name, Mingyun; and the poetic name by which he was commonly known, Laochuan, which came from the name of his family cemetery.

The elder son was Su Shih; his courtesy name was Tsechan, and his poetic name, Tungpo.

This last comes from his poetic title, "Recluse of Tungpo", the name he adopted for himself when he was living in banishment on the Eastern Slope (Tungpo) of Huangchow.

This in time became the name by which he was and is popularly known all over China.

Chinese records usually refer to him as "Tungpo", without "Su", or sometimes as "Mr. Tungpo".

His complete works sometimes go by his posthumous title of Wen Chung Kung or "Literary Patriotic Duke", the title conferred on him by the emperor about seventy years after his death.

Poetic critics sometimes refer to him with great respect by his home district: as Su Meichow.

The younger brother's name was Su Cheh, his courtesy name Tseyu; in his old age, living in retirement, he styled himself "the Old Recluse on the Bank of the Ying River".

He was therefore sometimes referred to in Chinese works as Su Yingpin, and sometimes as Su Luancheng, Luancheng being the title of his collected works and of the district of the remote ancestry of the Su family, situated near Chengting, south of Peking, whence the family had come to live at Meichow two hundred years earlier.

As one Chinese name per person is more than enough for the Western reader to follow, I shall always call the father Su Shün, the elder son Su Tungpo, and the younger son Su Tseyu, following the prevailing Chinese practice.

The confusion arising from so many names adopted by one scholar takes up a great deal of the time of a student doing research in Chinese history.

In Su Tungpo's time at least eight persons had the same name, Mengteh, which meant that the person's mother, before she conceived, had dreamed that she had a boy.