Zhou Xuan 周宣

Zhou Xuan, courtesy name Konghe, was a native of Le'an and became a commandery clerk. The Administrator Yang Pei dreamed that someone said to him, 'On the 1st day of the 8th month Lord Cao will arrive; he will surely give you a staff and have you drink medicinal wine,' and he had Zhou Xuan divine it. The Yellow Turbans had risen at the time, and Zhou Xuan replied that a staff is what raises up the weak and medicine is what cures people's illnesses, so on the 1st day of the 8th month the rebels would surely be wiped out. When the day came, the rebels were indeed defeated. Records, Wei 29 §47

Later Liu Zhen of Dongping dreamed that a snake grew four legs and lived in a hole inside his gate, and he had Zhou Xuan divine it. Zhou Xuan said that this was a dream about the state, not a matter of his household, and that women who had become bandits would be put to death. Before long the female bandits Zheng and Jiang were both suppressed. The text adds that this was because a snake is an omen of women, and legs are not proper to a snake. Records, Wei 29 §48

When Emperor Wen said he had dreamed that two tiles from the roof of a palace hall fell to the ground and turned into a pair of mandarin ducks, and asked what it meant, Zhou Xuan answered that someone in the inner palace would die a sudden death. When the emperor said he had only been deceiving him, Zhou Xuan said that a dream is only the mind, so that if one describes it in terms of images, good and ill fortune can at once be divined; before he had finished speaking, the Prefect of the Yellow Gates reported that palace women had killed one another. Records, Wei 29 §49

Shortly afterward Emperor Wen said that he had again dreamed of a blue-green vapor stretching from the earth to the sky, and Zhou Xuan answered that a noblewoman of the realm would die unjustly. By then Emperor Wen had already sent an envoy with a sealed edict to Empress Zhen; hearing Zhou Xuan's words he regretted it and sent someone after the envoy, but he could not catch up. The Biographies of Empresses and Consorts record that Emperor Wen sent an envoy to Empress Zhen ordering her death in the 6th month of the 2nd year of Huangchu (221). Records, Wei 29 §49–50Records, Wei 5 §20

Emperor Wen also asked the meaning of a dream in which he rubbed the characters on a coin to make them disappear, only for them to become even clearer. Zhou Xuan, looking downcast, did not answer, but when pressed he replied that this was in itself His Majesty's family affair, and that although His Majesty wished in his heart to do so, the Empress Dowager would not allow it, which was why the characters grew clearer even as he tried to wipe them out. At that time Emperor Wen wanted to punish his younger brother Cao Zhi for his offenses, but under pressure from the Empress Dowager he went no further than reducing his rank. Emperor Wen made Zhou Xuan a Gentleman of the Household attached to the Grand Astrologer. Records, Wei 29 §50–51

When someone asked him to divine a dream in which he had seen a chugou (a dog woven of straw) three times, Zhou Xuan said the first time that he would get fine food, the second time that he should take care because he would fall from a carriage and break his leg, and the third time that he should keep careful watch because his house would catch fire, and all came about as he said. When the man said that in fact he had not dreamed at all any of the three times but had been testing him, Zhou Xuan said that the spirits had moved him to speak, so it was no different from a true dream. Asked why the divinations had differed, he explained that a straw dog is an object used in sacrifices to the gods, so at first one gets the leftovers of the sacrificial food; when the sacrifice is over it is run over by carriages; and after it has been run over it is carried off to become firewood. Records, Wei 29 §52–54

Chen Shou wrote that Zhou Xuan's dream interpretations were generally of this kind and that eight or nine out of ten came true, so that people of the time compared them with Zhu Jianping's physiognomy. He said that the other instances of their efficacy would not be listed one by one. Zhou Xuan died at the end of Emperor Ming's reign. Records, Wei 29 §54

In his assessment Chen Shou said that Hua Tuo's medicine and diagnosis, Du Kui's music, Zhu Jianping's art of physiognomy, Zhou Xuan's dream interpretation and Guan Lu's divination were truly all subtle and singular skills and extraordinary feats of art. He added that Sima Qian had written the biographies of Bian Que, Cang Gong and the diviners in order to broaden knowledge of strange things and bring wonders to light, and that he was therefore preserving these records here. Records, Wei 29 §86