闻言促谏:春秋时代社会转型中的礼乐坚守

Persuasion or Admonition Following Wen Yan:Rites and Music Adhered in Social Change of the Spring and Autumn Period

春秋时代,在贤臣大夫的谏君行为中,有一种以“臣闻(之)”和其他“自称+闻(之)”等领起的征引现象,可称之为“闻言”。这些“闻言”大多具有常理性质,均是以第三方权威话语的形式出现,实为贤臣大夫试图通过“重提”礼乐社会中的贵族共识,来建构自身话语的权威性、合理性、合法性,进而捍卫礼乐制度的政治表述,具有很强的现实指向。这种征引现象是三代咨议和谏言传统的衍生,根植于施舍聚民、以家代国式的中国早期国家产生方式。虽因时势与说服对象的不同,征引“闻言”会产生不同效果,而且“闻言”呈现出渐次退场的态势,但其价值并非仅限于当时。作为早已存在的公共话语,“闻言”借由贤臣谏君的特殊场域被“重提”与阐述,加之史官在场载录以及后续整理、保存、传播的助力,明确了其作为公共话语的重要价值,进而在中国传统文化中被经典化,获得了恒久的生命力。

In the Spring and Autumn period,when offering their persuasion or admonition to monarchs,wise officials usually began with“Wen yan..”(闻言,meaning“People say...;It is heard...or I hear...”Most of the hearsay was commonsense in nature,presented in the form of third-party authoritative discourses.With strong practical implications,they were actually political expressions cited to give authority,rationality,and legitimacy to what the speakers were offering,by reminding the aristocratic consensus in the society of rites and music,so as to defend the system of rites and music.Being a derivative of the tradition of advising,this fashion was rooted in the early Chinese way of state formation,which was characterized by helping so as to gather people and replacing the country with family.The use of wen yan format did have some effects,and yet showed a gradual withdrawing tendency.Its value,however,was not just limited to the time.Through a particular situation in which wise ministers gave advice or admonition to monarchs,wen yan format was borrowed to iterate and elaborate on what were actually long-standing public discourses,and with the assistance of historians'on-site records and subsequent organization,preservation,and dissemination of words,the importance of those aphorisms or maxims as public discourses has been since then emphasized and accepted,and then they are canonized in traditional Chinese culture with eternal vitality.