E78 一门父子三词客，千古文章四大家

E78 一门父子三词客，千古文章四大家

课程导读

在上节课中，我们了解到苏家于二月安抵京城，并在僻静处买了一栋房子。一切安顿之后，父子三人便恭候朝廷任命了。今天这节课，我们就将进入第五章的最后部分，看一看朝堂上的三苏将如何发挥自己的才干？对这文名日盛的苏氏父子，当世文坛又有什么见解呢？

英文原文

Happily, the father was appointed an examiner of scripts in the department of archives, without examinations, according to his wish, and later was given a post in a bureau to compile a history of the lives of the emperors of the dynasty.

It was a writer's job and he accepted it gladly.

But then the question came up how truthful these lives of the emperors should be, the emperors being the ancestors of the reigning ruler.

Su Shün took the view that this was strictly a historian's job and a historian should not gloss over the faults even of one's ancestors.

There was a dispute.

In a paper preserved in his Collected Works today, Su Shün said, "I hear that some colleagues have petitioned to Your Majesty, saying that the ancestors may have had personal blemishes, but that if they were no concern of the state, these should be struck off the records ....

We are not establishing a code of ceremonies or moral conduct for the future generations to follow.

It is a historian's duty to record all that they did, regardless of good and bad, to the end that posterity may learn of the truth.

If it is the intention of the court to present and preserve idealized, complimentary portraits of the ancestors, I cannot regard this as part of my duty.

The author of Han History recorded all that happened.

If we now emulate his example, we shall be able to show that their personal weaknesses were easily outweighed by the great things that they accomplished, and we shall have a record that the future generations may regard as honest and reliable."

The reputation of the three Sus as scholars and writers had now steadily risen.

They were friends of the most famous writers of the land, their poems and essays were greatly admired, and the family was already known as a literary phenomenon.

The brothers were just over twenty, and youth sometimes acted as a handicap for a genius.

Vivacious, irrepressible, ambitious, Su Tungpo felt like a thoroughbred impatiently pawing the ground, ready to break into whirlwind speed to conquer the world.

But he had a silent partner, Tseyu, and an old father, deep in intellectual penetration, uncompromising in spirit, and socially aloof in character, who held the pair of thoroughbreds in check.