《燕丹子》与《史记·荆轲传》之关系

Relation of Prince Dan of Yan State to Biography of JING Ke in The Records of the Grand Historian

长期以来,古小说《燕丹子》的成书年代一直令学界感到困惑并不断引发争议,由此牵涉到《燕丹子》与《史记·荆轲传》之关系及其在中国小说史上的定位等相关问题。事实上,《燕丹子》并非出自秦、汉人之手,更非先秦古书,而是南朝江淹假托史事讽喻建平王景素的拟作,其写作时间当在宋后废帝元徽二年(474)江淹被黜吴兴之前。至于此事不为世人知晓,主要是因为江淹碍于现实因素有意隐瞒了自己的作者身份,从而导致了一千五百年来《燕丹子》成书之谜。

There have been constant debates on the formation time of the fiction Prince Dan of Yan State, an issue that concerns its relation with Biography of JING Ke in TheRecords of the Grand Historian and its status in the history of Chinese fiction. It is discovered that the book was not written by someone from Qin or Han Dynasty, nor before Qin, but by JIANG Yah in the Southern Dynasties, who used it to allude to the King LIU Jing-su, and the time should be 474, before the author was dismissed from his office. The reason it has not been known to the later generations lies in that JIANG deliberately concealed his authorship to avoid trouble, which hence caused the mystery of the book ever since.