Twice ToldShen Kuo, Bu bitan: the Zhong Kui item
- Language
- Chinese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 18 October 2026
Shen Kuo (1031 to 1095) wrote the Bitan and then a supplement, the Bu bitan, whose items are headed as additions to a numbered juan of the main book. This one is headed “supplement to juan 26, one item”. It gives the dream story as the text of a colophon on a scroll in the palace and then adds Shen Kuo’s own reading. The Siku print has no punctuation; the punctuation below is ours.
禁中舊有吳道子畫鍾馗，其卷首有唐人題寄[記?]曰：明皇開元講武驪山，歲翠華還宮，上不懌，因痁作，將逾月，巫醫殫技，不能致良。忽一夕，夢二鬼，一大一小。其小者衣絳犢鼻，屨一足，跣一足，懸一屨，搢一大筠紙扇，竊太真紫香囊及上玉笛，遶殿而奔。其大者戴帽，衣藍裳，袒一臂，鞹雙足，乃捉其小者，刳其目，然後擘而啖之。上問大者曰：「爾何人也？」奏云：「臣鍾馗氏，即武舉不捷之士也。誓與陛下除天下之妖孽。」夢覺，痁苦頓瘳，而體益壯。乃詔畫工吳道子，告之以夢，曰：「試為朕如夢圖之。」奉旨，恍若有覩，立筆圖訖以進。上瞠視久之，撫几曰：「是卿與我同夢，爾何省耳一真哉[?]。」道子曰：「陛下憂勞宵旰，以衡石妨膳，而痁得犯之，果有蠲邪之物，以衛聖德。」因蹈舞，上千萬歲壽。上大悅，勞之百金，批曰：「靈祇應夢，厥疾全瘳，烈士除妖，實須稱獎。因圖異狀，頒顯有司。歲暮驅除，可宜徧識，以祛邪魅，兼靜妖氛。仍告天下，悉令知會。」熙寧五年，上令畫工摸搨錢[鐫?]板，印賜兩府輔臣各一本。是歲除夜，遣入內供奉官梁楷就東西府給賜鍾馗之象。觀此題相記，似始於開元時。皇祐中，金陵上元縣發一塚，有一石志，乃宋征西將軍宗懿母鄭夫人墓，漢大司農鄭衆女也。懿有妹名鍾馗。後魏有李鍾馗，隨[隋]將喬鍾馗、楊鍾馗。然則鍾馗之名，從來亦遠矣，非起於開元之時，始有畫耳。鍾馗字一作鍾葵。
Translation
The palace formerly held a scroll of Zhong Kui by Wu Daozi. At its head is a colophon by a man of the Tang. It says:
In the Kaiyuan years Minghuang held manoeuvres at Mount Li. When the imperial banners returned to the palace that year, the emperor was unhappy. A malaria fever came on and lasted nearly a month. Shamans and physicians used up their skills and could do him no good. One night he dreamed of two ghosts, one big and one small. The small one was dressed in red short breeches, with one foot shod and the other bare, and a shoe hanging from him; he carried a large bamboo-and-paper fan stuck in his belt, and he had stolen Taizhen’s purple perfume pouch and the emperor’s jade flute and was running round the hall with them. The big one wore a cap and a blue robe, with one arm bare and his feet wrapped in leather. He seized the small one, scooped out its eye, then tore it apart and ate it. The emperor asked the big one, “Who are you?” He answered, “Your servant is Zhong Kui, a man who failed the military examination. I have sworn to rid Your Majesty of the monsters of the world.”
When the emperor woke, the fever had gone at once and he felt stronger than before. He summoned the painter Wu Daozi, told him the dream and said, “Try to draw it for me as I dreamed it.” Wu Daozi took the order, seemed to see it before his eyes, and at once painted the picture and presented it. The emperor stared at it a long time, patted the table and said, “You and I had the same dream” [the next words in the print are unclear; the other Wikisource text has “how can it be so like?”]. Daozi said, “Your Majesty works late and early, and state papers have cost you your meals, and so the fever got in. There truly is a being that clears away evil, to guard your virtue.” He then performed the ceremonial dance of homage and wished the emperor a thousand times ten thousand years. The emperor was delighted, rewarded him with a hundred in gold, and wrote a rescript: “The spirits answered in a dream and my illness is wholly gone. A brave warrior has driven out a monster and truly deserves commendation. So the unusual figure has been painted and is issued to the offices. At the year’s end, when evil is driven out, everyone should know it, to ward off demons and calm the foul air. Let it be announced to all under heaven, and let everyone be informed.”
In the fifth year of Xining (1072) the emperor ordered painters to copy the scroll and print it from blocks, and gave one print each to the ministers of the two offices. On New Year’s eve of that year he sent the palace attendant Liang Kai to hand out Zhong Kui images to the eastern and western offices.
Judging from this colophon, it seems to start in the Kaiyuan period. But in the Huangyou years a tomb was opened at Shangyuan county in Jinling, with a stone epitaph. It was the tomb of Lady Zheng, mother of Zong Yi [Que], General Who Campaigns in the West of the Song, and daughter of Zheng Zhong, Grand Minister of Agriculture of the Han. Zong had a younger sister named Zhong Kui. There was also a Li Zhongkui of the Later Wei, and the Sui generals Qiao Zhongkui and Yang Zhongkui. So the name Zhong Kui has long been around and did not begin in Kaiyuan; only the picture began then. Zhong Kui is also written with the characters 鍾葵.
Notes
- Shen Kuo does not say who wrote the colophon or when, and he does not say whether he saw the scroll himself; he writes only that it is kept in the palace and that “at its head” there is the colophon.
- 題寄: the print appears to read 寄, not 記. Wikisource’s other text of the Bu bitan reads 題記, and Shen Kuo’s own next sentence calls it 題相記. We translate “colophon”.
- 犢鼻屨: the small ghost’s dress is hard to render. 犢鼻 names a short, loincloth-like garment; the print puts 屨, “shoe”, after it, and the next clauses say one foot is bare and one has a shoe hanging. We punctuate 衣絳犢鼻，屨一足，跣一足，懸一屨 and give red short breeches, one foot shod, one bare, and a shoe hanging; the Wikisource text punctuates 衣絳，犢鼻屨，一足跣，一足懸一屨, and the clause is uncertain.
- 爾何省耳一真哉: the Siku print reads this way and we cannot make it parse; the translation leaves the words unrendered. Wikisource’s other text reads 是卿與朕同夢耳，何肖若此哉, “you and I had the same dream, so how can it be so like?”.
- 錢板: the print has 錢板 (“coin block”); 鐫板, “carved block”, is what the sense wants, and that is how the other Wikisource text reads.
- 宗懿 for the general: the Siku page reads 懿; the Song shu and the Bitan juan 24 page name the general 宗慤 (Zong Que).
- 隨將: the print writes 隨 for the dynasty name 隋.
- The colophon’s closing edict (“announced to all under heaven”) is the only place in the text that links the picture to the year-end exorcism; Shen Kuo’s own next sentence is the 1072 reprint.