A small volume of ancient Chinese musical notation was recently rediscovered after sleeping silently in the Old Library of St John's College, Cambridge for nearly 210 years. In December 2013 Dr Joseph McDermott, an expert in Chinese history and a Fellow at St John's, suggested I should examine 'that odd little Chinese book' in the Old Library, and with great curiosity I did so the next day. When Kathryn McKee, the Special Collections Librarian, carefully brought the book to me, I realised almost immediately that it might be a very rare volume of Congche notation printed in China around 1770. According to some specialists in Chinese music, including Professor Yingshi Chen and Professor Yuqing Zhao, the book may be unique.
在英国剑桥大学圣约翰学院老图书馆静静地沉睡了近210年之后，一本中国古乐谱的小册子最近被重新发现。2013年12月，圣约翰学院院士、中国历史专家周绍明（Joseph McDermott，1945-2022）博士建议我去老图书馆看看“那本奇怪的中国小书”。当特藏图书管理员凯瑟琳·麦基（Kathryn McKee）小心翼翼地把书拿给我时，我几乎立刻意识到，这可能是1770年左右在中国印刷的一册非常罕见的工尺谱集。根据一些中国音乐专家的说法，包括陈应时（1933-2020）教授和赵玉卿教授等，该书很可能已经是孤本。
How did such an unusual Chinese book end up at St John's? From the information on his Wikipedia page and his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, James Inman, who signed and donated the book to the Library, was a mathematician who seems to have had nothing to do with China or music. Further research, however, reveals that he was 'appointed as replacement Astronomer (the original astronomer, suffering from severe seasickness, was discharged en route to Australia) on HMS Investigator under Captain Matthew Flinders charting Australian waters in 1803-4'. Life was far from uneventful:
The Rolla picked up the survivors and cargo and headed for China from Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour), Australia, on 22 September 1803, arriving at Whampoa in Canton (present-day Guangzhou), China, on 14 December. After staying there for a few weeks Inman returned to England early in 1804, with most of the crew, on the East India Company's ship Warley, as part of the British China Fleet. During this voyage, the fleet's valuable trading cargo made it a target for Napoleon's forces in the Indian Ocean, resulting in a confrontation with a French squadron under the control of Admiral Durand Linois at the entrance to the Straits of Malacca on 15 February 1804. Typically, a lightly armed merchant fleet would have turned and fled, but instead its commanding officer, Commodore Nathaniel Dance, manoeuvred his ships into defensive formation and ordered several to hoist the British ensign in an effort to trick the French into thinking they were facing British warships.
Amazingly, the ruse worked - Linois turned tail and fled, and was pursued by Dance until the convoy was safe. Dance was later knighted by King George III, while Linois had a less illustrious career: after being reprimanded by Napoleon, he returned to sea, where he suffered a series of humiliating defeats against weaker opponents before being captured in 1806, ironically after he mistook a British naval squadron for a merchant convoy.
令人惊讶的是，这个诡计居然得逞了——利诺斯掉头逃跑，丹斯紧追不舍，直到船队安全为止。丹斯后来被英王乔治三世封为爵士，而利诺斯的职业生涯则没有那么辉煌：在受到拿破仑的训斥后，他回到了海上，在那里他遭遇了一系列耻辱性的失败，而对手都比较弱。1806年他被俘，具有讽刺意味的是，当时他把一支英国海军中队误认为是一支商船队。
Meanwhile, Inman and the Warley arrived safely back in Britain on 14 August 1804. Having gained a BA at St John's College in 1800, achieving the highest score in the final Mathematics examination, Inman returned to the College in 1805 to study for his MA and was elected a Fellow. During his years at Cambridge he donated a box of Chinese books, including the music volume, to St John's College Library. It is almost certain that he acquired them during his stay in China.
不久后，英曼和沃利号于1804年8月14日安全返回英国。英曼于1800年在圣约翰学院获得学士学位，并在数学期末考试中取得了最高分。他于1805年回到圣约翰学院攻读硕士学位，并当选为院士。在剑桥学习期间，他向圣约翰学院图书馆捐赠了一箱中文书籍，其中包括这本音乐小册子。几乎可以肯定，这些书籍是他在中国逗留期间获得的。
Why was an astronomer and later a professor of Mathematics at the Royal Naval College attracted to this small music book? I think that besides Inman's wide range of interests, which we can easily infer from his biography, the subtle relationship between mathematics, astronomy and music in Western as well as Chinese traditional culture might have been another important reason.
The graph of ' Six Lǜ Six Lǚ' from an ancient Chinese astronomy book donated to the College by Inman.
“六律六吕图”摘自另一本由英曼捐赠的主要关于中国古代天文的书籍
As in ancient Greece and medieval Europe, the Chinese people once believed that mathematics, astronomy, calendars and music, especially the musical temperament, were all closely associated. The graph of 'Six Lǜ Six Lǚ', from an ancient Chinese astronomy book also donated by Inman, typically interprets such a special relationship. The character '宫' in the centre of the graph represents the tonic 'do' with a symbolic meaning of kingship, and the characters in the twelve grids of the middle circle are the pitch names of the twelve semitones ('黄钟'=C,’大吕’=C#, '太簇'=D, etc). The characters in the outer circle represent the sequence of generated pitches indicated by the lines in the inner circle, which can be calculated mathematically. For example, ‘林钟‘G is a fifth higher than ‘黄钟’C, '太簇'D is a fifth higher than '林钟'G, and so on. The characters outside the circles are the names of the twelve months in a year that were believed to be related to the twelve musical pitches (e.g. January corresponds to ‘太簇‘D), and of course the movement of the stars. By the way, in China, the Pythagoras-like tuning was first recorded around the seventh century BC in a thesis on edaphology called 'Guanzi Diyuan'.
与古希腊和中世纪欧洲类似，中国古人曾经认为数学、天文、历法和音乐（特别是音律）等都是紧密联系的。从另一本亦由英曼捐赠的中国古代天文书籍中摘录的“六律六吕图”，很典型地反映了这种特殊的关系：画面中间的“宫”字代表主音“Do”，同时也具有王权的象征意义。而中间一圈十二个格子中的汉字则分别代表十二音（黄钟若为C、则大吕为C#、太簇为D……）的律名。然后，外圈的汉字表示生律的顺序，根据内圈直线所指，通过数学计算可得：若黄钟为C，上方五度为林种G，再上方五度为太簇D等等。圆圈之外是一年中十二月的名称，对应于十二律高（例如一月对应于太簇D），同时当然也与天体运动密切相关。应该顺便提及的是，在古代中国，与毕达哥拉斯五度相生律相似的记载最早见于公元前七世纪的《管子·地员》，一篇关于土壤学的文章。
Consequently, it is not surprising that Inman acquired a small music book together with large volumes about Chinese astronomy, geography and history. The music book is titled Xian Di Pipa Pu, which means 'the music score for Chinese flute and pipa' (also known as the Chinese lute). There is a table of contents with a short foreword, and then a page containing a condensed introduction to three instruments: Xiao (a kind of Chinese recorder), Di (Chinese flute) and Sanxian (three-stringed Chinese lute). The following eight pages include scores of thirteen pieces of music in Congche notation, one of the popular notation methods in traditional China, which used Chinese characters to represent musical notes and was named after two of the characters frequently used: '工' gōng representing 'mi' and ‘尺’ chě representing 're’.
因此，英曼很可能与其它关于中国天文、地理和历史等方面的书籍一并，购买了这本音乐小册子，这也就不足为怪了。该书题为《弦笛琵琶谱》，即为中国笛和琵琶等管弦乐器而准备的乐谱。翻开封面后的第一页是包含简短序言的目录页，随后第二页简单介绍了三件中国乐器：箫、笛和三弦。接下来的八页是以中国古代常用的很多种记谱法之一——工尺谱记写的十三首乐曲。工尺谱用汉字来表示音符的唱名，以其中常用的两个字“工”（代表“mi”）和“尺”（读作chě，代表“re”）来命名。
'The discovery of this rare volume of pre-modern Chinese musical notation might contribute a great deal to current research and performance of traditional Chinese music', according to Zhiwu Wu, my former classmate and a Professor of Chinese Music at Xinghai Conservatory in Guangzhou. One of the most frustrating problems in Chinese music is the shortage of reliable scores handed down from the past, so this book will be a valuable addition to the existing pool of literature. We should rejoice that james Inman survived his difficult voyage bringing these books from China to Britain. Certainly, we should also be grateful that the Library of St John's College has carefully kept this book for centuries, not only serving the relevant scholars but also, after 210 years of silence, providing us with a good opportunity to learn more about Chinese culture and music.
“这本罕见中国古谱的重新发掘，很可能会对当前的中国传统音乐研究和表演起到十分关键的作用。”笔者的老同学、时任中国广州星海音乐学院教授吴志武博士说道，他即将对此展开更深入具体的研究。众所周知，中国音乐史中最突出的问题之一便是缺乏可靠的记谱流传。而这本小册子将有望成为对于当前有限文献的宝贵补充。我们真应该庆幸英曼从他曲折的探险经历中幸存下来并从中国带回了这么宝贵的资料。当然，我们也应该感谢圣约翰学院图书馆如此细心地保管了它们两个多世纪，不仅造福了相关领域的学者们，更在沉寂了210年后为我们创造了接触更多中国传统文化和音乐的好机会。
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