Appendix V - Yü Hsin and Ssu-ma Ch'ien

Summary

Lines 275–8 are the most extended allusion in the ‘Lament’. They clearly involve a comparison between the author and Ssu-ma Ch'ien; the problem is to tell what the two writers had in common. All that is known about Ssu-ma Ch'ien's birth is that, as he himself says, he was born in Lung-men (Shih chi 130.15; Chavannes, I, xxv). On the other hand, the historian gives us considerable information on his father T'an's death: returning from a journey, he found his father dying at Loyang. T'an urged him to write the history he himself had longed to write, and to serve in the hereditary post of Grand Recorder (or ‘Historian’) in such a way as to reflect credit on his family. Yü Hsin's father died, not at Loyang, but at Chiang-ling; then where among all these details is the similarity?

The answer is suggested by the very lack of information about Ssu-ma Ch'ien's birth. Since Yü Hsin was obviously not born at Lung-men (in Shensi), the only other possibility that suggests itself is that Yü felt that the dates of their births were somehow similar. We can calculate from Yü-wen Yu's preface to the collected works that Yü Hsin was born in 513 A.D., the year kuei-ssu of the 60-year cycle. We note that 148 B.C. was also a kuei-ssu year. Ssu-ma Ch'ien's birthdate is unknown.