The ''Book of Song'' (''Sòng Shū'') is a historical text of the
Liu Song Dynasty of the
Southern Dynasties
The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered as ...
of
China. It covers history from 420 to 479, and is one of the
Twenty-Four Histories
The ''Twenty-Four Histories'' (), also known as the ''Orthodox Histories'' (), are the Chinese official dynastic histories covering from the earliest dynasty in 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century.
The Han dynasty official Sima Qia ...
, a traditional collection of historical records. It was written in 492–493 by
Shen Yue
Shen Yue (; 441–1 May 513), courtesy name Xiuwen (休文), was a Chinese historian, music theorist, poet, and politician born in Huzhou, Zhejiang. He served emperors under the Liu Song Dynasty, the Southern Qi Dynasty (see Yongming poetry), a ...
from the
Southern Qi dynasty (479–502).
The work contained 100 volumes at the time that it was written, but some volumes were already missing by the time of the
Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
. Later editors reconstructed those volumes by taking material from the ''
History of the Southern Dynasties
The ''History of the Southern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. It contain 80 volumes and covers the period from 420 to 589, the histories of Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang dy ...
'', plus a few works such as the ''Historiette of Gao'' by Gao Jun, though many of those volumes were no longer in their original condition.
History
The ''Book of Song'' was based on records compiled beginning in the Liu Song. He Chentian 何承天 (370-447) was commissioned by the imperial court of the time in 439. He compiled biographies and also treatises on astronomy and music. Compilation was later continued by Shan Qianzhi 山謙之 (fl. 440-456), and Xu Yuan 徐爰 (394-475). The Qi court commissioned Shen Yue in 487 to complete the Book of Song.
Contents
The first ten ''juan'' are annals of the Liu Song emperors, 30 ''juan'' contain treatises, and 60 ''juan'' are dedicated to biographies.
Translations
There are no known full translations to English. Dien includes partial translations of The Disputation at Pengcheng, a conflict in present-day
Xuzhou. Dien compares the Northern Wei and Liu Song accounts of this one in a long series of conflicts between the two states. The Liu Song account is included in volume 59 of the Book of Song. Holcombe translates a fragment of volume 54 on a land petition.
References
External links
Book of Song 《宋書》Chinese text with matching English vocabulary
History books about the Northern and Southern dynasties
Southern and Northern Dynasties literature
Twenty-Four Histories
5th-century history books
Liu Song dynasty
Sixteen Kingdoms
5th-century Chinese books
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