University of Virginia Library

Preface

This volume is the result of a long-standing mutual interest in the Han
and immediately post-Han periods. Although the idea for this book
came much later, we first met at the University of Washington, where
history and literature students habitually invaded each other's
disciplines with relative impunity. During a conversation in Madison,
Wisconsin in the summer of 1985, we decided to identify a project that
would lend itself to being undertaken jointly by two people with
separate interests in literature and social and economic history and a
shared love of classical Chinese texts. The fascicles devoted to empresses
and consorts in Records of the Three States presented themselves as
an obvious choice, for in addition to meeting these criteria, they offered
a sampling from each of the three divisions of the text and dealt with
a common theme. We also had in mind a complete translation of
Records of the Three States, and it seemed to us that this initial
publication would provide an opportunity to test ideas and approaches,
as well as to seek criticism that could guide us in the larger work. Finally,
we thought that translating these fascicles would serve as a tribute to
the women in our own lives, to whom this effort is dedicated. Would
that the project could have been carried out under such circumstances
as we enjoyed in our graduate student days! Instead, we have contrived
to work separately in places as scattered as Bamako, Beijing, Boise,
Boulder, Falls Church, Hong Kong, Madison, Reykjavík, Sarajevo,
Shenyang, Taipei, and Yuma, with only a handful of opportunities to
work briefly together in any of these cities.

While the three fascicles and prolegomenon offered here deal with
issues relating to women during the Three States period, it has not been
our intention to write a history of women. Such a history is unquestionably
needed, and Records of the Three States contains much
valuable information on third-century Chinese society. We can only
hope that we have made the way a bit smoother for those better
qualified than we for such an undertaking.

We have benefited from the help and guidance of many. Among those
who have read and commented on all or portions of the manuscript

at various stages in its development are Jeff Howard, Hsing I-tien,
David N. Keightley, William H. Nienhauser, Jr., Melvin P. Thatcher, and
Stephen H. West. We would especially like to thank Rafe de Crespigny,
Albert Dien, Anne Kinney, and David Roy. Their wise and generous
counsel immeasurably improved the final work. Where we failed to
heed that counsel, and the work has consequently fallen short, we are
of course to blame. Others who offered guidance or information include
Ho Tze-chuan, Ch'en Shun-cheng and Lü Zongli. Their help was
critical to enlightening us on specific points. J. Michael Farmer assisted
with computer-related questions and ran the character count that
appears in Appendix II. Francis Stanton of Eagle Eye Maps crafted the
maps. We are also grateful to the Vilas Foundation and the Graduate
School Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
for their financial support, to Patricia Crosby of the University of
Hawai‘i Press for her advice and encouragement, and to our editors
Victoria Scott and Masako Ikeda for their careful reading and helpful
suggestions.

A special expression of gratitude is due our mentors in classical
Chinese language and literature, especially Father Paul L-M Serruys and
David R. Knechtges. Father Serruys imbued us with an appreciation
of the importance of rigor in reading and understanding classical
Chinese, while Professor Knechtges showed us that such rigor should
not be incompatible with an elegant rendering into English that conveys
a sense of the beauty of the original. We cannot claim to have achieved
their standards, but as Father Serruys would say, "Even a cow can catch
a rabbit sometimes." We hope these pages contain a bunny or two.

In closing, we wish to express our gratitude to three gentlemen whose
contributions have greatly influenced our efforts and whose example
will be sorely missed as our work continues. The writings of Professor
Miao Yue on the Three States era are well known and widely
appreciated. Perhaps less well known are his generosity with foreign
scholars and his interest in their understanding of the literature of the
period. As is obvious from the Notes, we are beholden to him not only
for his own contributions but also for those of the scholars he trained.
Similarly, the Notes reveal our debt to Achilles Fang and his translation
of those portions of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governing
(Zizhi tongjian) concerned with the Three States. The passages from
Records of the Three States translated in Fang's work have often proved
valuable. Finally, it is with gratitude, and sorrow, that we note our
indebtedness to Jack L. Dull, whose high standards, ever-questioning
mind, and deep sense of integrity have informed this effort. Demanding
teacher, valued colleague, and cherished friend, he is greatly missed.