Ouyang Xiu – Lingguan zhuan – Biographies of Jesters

Ouyang Xiu’s 歐陽脩 (1007-72) ‘Lingguan zhuan’ 伶官傳 (Biographies of Jesters) in the New History of the Five Dynasties is a key primary source for Chinese accounts of jesters at the court of Tang Zhuangzong 後唐莊宗 (r. 923-26), with particular emphasis on Jing Xinmo 鏡新磨 (Newly Polished Mirror), but also including, for example, Zhou Za 周匝 (Going Round in Circles).  Some of these anecdotes have already been featured here, see below for illustrated examples.  

Worth mentioning too a single account of a jester’s intervention in the biography of Li Maozhen, also in the New History, see the references below.  

REFERENCES

`Lingguan zhuan’ 伶官傳, in Xin Wudai shi 新五代史 (New History of the Five Dynasties), by Ouyang Xiu 歐陽脩 (1007-72) and others, fol. 37, Siku Quanshu 四庫全書 (Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 1987), vol. 279, pp. 228a-31a.

There is a digital version of the Chinese text at the Chinese Text Project. 

Translation: Ouyang Xiu 歐陽脩 (1007-72), ‘Biographies of Court Musicians and Actors’, in Historical Records of the Five Dynasties, trans. Richard L. Davis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 309-15.

For the anecdote featured in Li Maozhen’s biography:

Xin Wudai shi 新五代史 (New History of the Five Dynasties), by Ouyang Xiu 歐陽脩 (1007-72) and others, fol. 40, Siku Quanshu 四庫全書 (Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 1987), vol. 279, p. 249b.  

Translation: Ouyang Xiu 歐陽脩 (1007-72), ‘Miscellaneous Biographies: Li Maozhen’, Historical Records of the Five Dynasties, trans. Richard L. Davis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 346-47.