Sima Qian (司馬遷) & "Biographies of Jesters" (or Guji Liezhuan 滑稽列傳)

〈滑稽列傳第六十六〉*

孔子曰：「六蓺於治一也。〔一〕禮以節人，樂以發和，書以道事，詩以達意，易以神化，春秋以義。」太史公曰：天道恢恢，豈不大哉！談言微中，亦可以解紛。－《史記三家注》‧史記卷一百二十六

*索隱按：滑，亂也；稽，同也。言辨捷之人言非若是，說是若非，言能亂異同也。
〔一〕正義言六蓺之文雖異，禮節樂和，導民立政，天下平定，其歸一揆。至於談言微中，亦以解其紛亂，故治一也。

Never had the word “humor” managed to find its equivalent in the Chinese language until Lin Yu-Tang (林語堂, the author of the voluminous work in English, Moment in Peking 京華煙雲) coined the phrase “youmo” (幽默). The notion of humor, the comic, or eutrapelia has long existed in the Chinese culture, but with a slightly different definition in its cultural context, the notion has, for thousands of years, been known and worded as “guji” (滑稽).

As annotated here, gu (滑) stands for conflict or difference of opinion, while ji (稽) designates concord or agreement. The oxymoronic combination of the two characters aims to tell of the preposterous nature of a situation or verbal delivery. The phrase guji therefore originally refers to the sophistic rhetoric to right the wrong or to wrong the right. By a twist or spin on a remark, a guji (here used as an adjective) orator is able to conceal contradiction in agreement or to reveal agreement in contradiction (How strikingly similar its use is to that of irony!).*

In his Records of the Grand Historian (史記, the first Jizhuanti-style history of China), Sima Qian (the best-known “Prefect of the Grand Scribe” 太史令, hence the honorific title 太史公), the Father of Chinese Historiography, highly praises the witty skill and tact in conversation and what it may achieve, through an analogy between guji and the Confucian Six Arts (liuyi 六蓺, namely 六藝).**

According to Confucius, the Six Arts, though each takes on a unique approach, eventually reaches their mutual, ultimate goal (presumably, integrity or the identity of junzi 君子). Sima Qian’s analogy insinuates that guji, as an alternative orator’s virtue which deviates from the plain-and-honest speaking principle and differs from the authority-confronting historian attitude, may with subtlety serve the same purpose of advising a monarch, settling a discord, and reaching a consensus (now we see how the idea of “smoothing out” fits!).

*Another etymological interpretation of guji is that gu (with an alternative pronunciation hua2) means “smooth (as an adjective), to smooth out (as a verb), accordingly, to proceed;” while ji means “rough (said of a surface, as an adjective), to roughen (as a verb), consequently, to stop a process.” By this interpretation, guji refers to the gift of glibness and eloquence that “smooths out the rough” or “roughens the smooth,” namely, to manipulate minds and situations through the manipulation of language. The basic implication of the spin-doctor image remains the same.

**A similar idea to the Seven Liberal Arts as subsumed under the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, astronomy, music, geometry) that essential fields of studies help impart norm and knowledge and help develop a sound mind. The Confucian Six Arts include etiquette (li 禮), music (yue 樂), archery (she 射), charioteering (yü 御), literacy and calligraphy (shu1 書), reckoning and mathematics (shu4 數).