南嶽總勝集 3.60

3.60

吾家距衡山二百里而遙。嘗以秋八月為親祈年。重繭山下頓首嶽詞。其後復往禱登祝融峯。欲作一書紀其勝蹟。以曠岣嶁。太史志頗詳且衣食於犇走未遑也。然先人邱壠皆在衡山支麓。桑梓松楸極不忘焉。泰山之麓則　先君子遺愛。長留　先慈窀穸所寄。余為書院主講。是以蒐輯成帙。名曰岱覽。然積十餘年而其書未成。蓋山經水志編纂為難。況又簿書鞅掌乎。頃當量移海州。聞其俗朴政簡或有餘間。卒成此書。亦未可知。而衡山之書。則非歸田後躡履懷鉛摩。以歲月不能成也。適孫淵如觀察。以宋本南嶽總勝集見示。向無善槧。因急付梓以廣其傳。余作吏江南十年矣。非特鄉國雲山遠在二千里外。即岱下林泉。疇昔負土安硯之地。曾不得一伸拜埽。載訪朋儕。倘得抽身就間往來衡岱之間。既以訂岱覽之闕遺。亦將以是集與曠志參考。而成衡山之記載矣。是則余桑梓松楸之懷所欲遂。而幾幾乎不可必得者也。付刻緣起詳孫序中。其欵式悉仍宋本之舊。壬戌春正月既望。善化唐仲冕跋。

My home is some two hundred li distant from Hengshan. I once prayed for my parents' longevity in the eighth autumn month, traveling on calloused feet to the foot of the mountain to prostrate myself at the Yue Shrine. Later I again went to pray, climbing Zhurong Peak, wanting to compose a book recording its scenic traces, but because the Goulou [gazetteer] by the Grand Historian Kuang was rather detailed and I was busy rushing about to earn food and clothing, I had no leisure for it. However, the graves of my ancestors are all on the spur ridges of Hengshan, so my thoughts never depart from the native place of my family's pines and catalpas. The foot of Mount Tai is where my late father's enduring benevolence remains and where my late mother is laid to rest. When I served as the head lecturer at the academy, I therefore compiled a work entitled Dailan (A Look at Mount Dai). Yet after accumulating materials for over ten years, that book is not yet completed. Compiling mountain classics and water treatises is difficult indeed, and how much more so when entangled in official paperwork! Recently I was transferred to Haizhou; hearing that its customs are simple and administrative duties light, I might perhaps find spare leisure to finish this book at last—one cannot tell. But as for a book on Hengshan, unless I return to my fields, tread in straw sandals, hold brush and lead, and spend years working on it, it cannot be achieved. Just then, Surveillance Commissioner Sun Yuanru showed me a Song edition of the Zongsheng ji. Formerly there was no good printed edition, so it was promptly sent to the woodblocks to broaden its transmission. I have been an official in Jiangnan for ten years now. Not only are the clouds and mountains of my home commandery two thousand li away, but even the forests and springs below Mount Dai—where in former days I carried earth and set up my inkstone—have seen me unable to sweep the graves once or visit my companions again. If I could extricate myself to find leisure and travel back and forth between Hengshan and Mount Dai, I could both correct the omissions in the Dailan and, using this collection in consultation with Kuang's gazetteer, complete a record of Hengshan! This is what my affection for the pines and catalpas of my home wishes to fulfill, yet it is something almost impossible to ensure. The origin of this woodblock printing is detailed in Sun's preface. The layout and format follow entirely the old style of the Song edition. On the day after the full moon of the first month in spring, the renxu year [1802], colophon by Tang Zhongmian of Shanhua.