从汉代宾客之盛衰谈班固《答宾戏》之主旨

An Explanation of the Theme of Ban Gu's Da Bin Xi with a View to the Vicissitudes of Guests in the Han Dynasty

对班固《答宾戏》的主旨,学界存在不同的阐释。《答宾戏》与东方朔《答客难》、扬雄《解嘲》之间存在"互文性",班固与东方朔、扬雄对"大汉"与"战国"的认识是截然不同的。他借主客问答来批评二人"处皇代而论战国,曜所闻而疑所觌"。汉初游士宾客繁盛,武帝一面打开选拔官吏的通道,让士人有为官的途径,一面采用极端严厉的手段诛灭游士宾客。此后每况愈下,宾客甚至沦落为鸡鸣狗盗之徒。这是东方朔、扬雄二人作文的背景。而东汉光武帝、明帝、章帝都大力推崇儒学,再次抑制豪侠宾客。崇儒抑侠成为主流的价值观,马援、冯衍都表现出这样的态度,这也体现在《答宾戏》中。《答宾戏》既为作者"专笃志于儒学,以著述为业"确立合理的思想根基,也为当时的士人指出"立德"、"立言"的正道。

There are different explanations on the theme of Ban Gu’s Da Bin Xi(答宾戏,Reply to a Guest’s Banter),an important work in Han Dynasty.Although there is"intertextuality"among Ban Gu's Da Bin Xi,DongfangShuo's Da KeNan(答客难,Answer to a Guest’s Challenge)and YangXiong’s JieChao(解嘲,Self-Consolation),the authorshave completely different views on“Da Han”(大汉,the Great Han Dynasty)and"Zhan guo"(战国,the Warring States).Ban Gue criticized the host and the guest in the form of the dialogue for“cherishing memories of the Warring States in such a magnificent era and flaunting what is heard while disbelieving what is seen”.Early Han Dynasty was teemed with roaming scholars and hangers-onto aristocrats.EmperorWu of Han opened channels for them to fill government official positions on the one hand,and t ook ext remely severe measures to wipe them out on the other hand.From then on,the group went frombad to worse,and was reduced even to a band of scoundrels.Such is the context in which DongfangShuo and Yang Xiong composed their pieces.In contrast,Emperor Guangwu,Emperor Ming and Emperor Zhang of the Eastern Han Dynasty highly revered Confucianism while suppressing such hangers-on as the gallant men again.Admiring the Confucian school and suppressing the gallantswordsmen was the general social value,which was also reflected in Ban Gu!Da BinXS.This work not only establisheda logicalideologicalfoundation for BanGu’s devotion to Confucianism,but also blazed the the right way to"establishing morality and expounding ideas"for his contemporary scholars.