This title is found in 15 handbooks to 1802, all melodies apparently related. The tablature in Xilutang Qintong (1549)⁴ is closely related for the first six sections or so, after which it adds material

Wen du literally means to ask to be ferried over a body of water, but this has become a standard expression for asking for advice. Qu Yuan (or Ch'ü Yüan, 332-295 BC; see below) was famous as an upright minister not properly appreciated. His suicide at the Mi-luo River is still commemorated in the Dragon Boat Festival of the 5th of the 5th lunar month.

At least two other qin pieces, also in qiliang mode, concern Qu Yuan: Li Sao (Falling into Grief, his best known poem), and Zepan Yin (Marshbank Melody), based on the Chu Ci poem Yu Fu.⁵ The theme of the latter is very close to that of Qu Yuan Wen Du.

Qu Yuan's suicide at the Miluo River, still commemorated in the Dragon Boat Festival on the 5th of the 5th lunar month, is recounted in the Record of History, Chapter 84. Qu Yuan, banished to the south, meets a fisherman on a riverbank. The fisherman, surprised at seeing a high official in such a low state, advises Qu Yuan to be more accommodating, but Qu Yuan says that the world has grown too foul for him to be able to live in it. He then writes the long poem Embracing the Sand,⁶ epitomized by the line "Phoenixes are penned up in cages while common birds soar free", embraces a rock, and leaps to his death.

Zheyin makes no attribution; Zha Fuxi says it has Song dynasty folk origins. The lyrics are not related to Li Sao or Huaisha Fu.

 
Zheyin Shizi Qinpu Preface ⁷

The Beyond-Sounds Immortal says,

as for this melody, it is not known where it originated. It is not in the Royal Ancestor's Handbook. It is thought that while the sage (Qu Yuan) was exiled to the barbarous southern region, not knowing where to go, he asked a fisherman to take him (across the river), and so this was created.

 
Section titles⁸

00.00   1. Expelled to the barbarous south
01.03   2. The wilderness ferry is a dangerous obstruction<
01.54   3. The old fisherman asks his name
02.24   4. (Qu Yuan) reports his bitterness
02.47   5. A lonely person in exile
03.19   6. The gentleman's grief extends 10,000 miles (, as he worries about his king)
03.50   7. (Sounds of) the delicate Canglang river
04.13   8. The ever-changing situation
04.33       Closing harmonics
05.01       End

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. 7845.70 has only 屈原 Qu Yuan. (Return)

2. For more on qiliang mode see Shenpin Qiliang Yi and Modality in Early Ming Qin Tablature. (Return)

4. See the recording by Yao Gongjing following his father Yao Bingyan's reconstruction (Return)

5. See the illustrations for the Chu Ci (楚辭, Songs of the South) poem Yu Fu. (Return)

6. 11716.35 懷沙賦 Huaisha Fu is the fifth of the Nine Pieces (九章 Jiu Zhang, attributed to Qu Yuan) in the Chu Ci. See David Hawkes, The Songs of the South, Penguin Classics, p.169ff.
(Return)

7. The original Chinese preface can be seen under 屈原問渡.
(Return)

8. The original Chinese section titles can be seen under 屈原問渡. The original lyrics are not yet online.
(Return)

Return to the Zheyin Shizi Qinpu index or to the Guqin ToC.