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Tao Yuanming
- Qin Shi #94		 陶淵明 1
琴史 #94 2

Tao Yuanming (365 - 427), style name 元亮 Yuanliang, nicknamed 陶潛 Tao Qian, is "generally considered one of the two or three greates pre-Tang poets." 3 He was from 潯陽柴桑 Chaisang in Xunyang, an area near Jiujiang, on the south bank of the Yangzi river in Jiangxi province.

He once wrote the following famous couplet, called Poem on a Stringless Qin:4

但識琴中趣， If one just knows the inner significance of the qin,
何勞絃上聲？ Why make the effort to put on the strings and make sounds? This attitude has often been criticized. Comments about him in Qinshu Daquan include the following.

Folio 16, #53 (Su Dongpo critices this couplet in his Collected Writings)
Folio 20B, #115 (Wen Xiang writes about a beautiful qin said to have belonged to Tao)

Tao Yuanming is connected to a number of qin melodies:

Gui Qu Lai Ci
Tiantai Yin
Tao Yuan Chun Xiao
Peilan (very tangential)
Zhao Yin (very tangential)

His biography in Qin Shi begins as follows,

Tao Qian, style name Yuanming, was from Chaisang in Xunyang.... Further details in preparation.

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1 ICTCL, Giles, etc. (Return)

2 (Return)

3 ICTCL p.766 (Return)

4 Qinshu Daquan has a number of entries on this theme. See

Folio 18, #15 and #25
Folio 19A, #24 to #30
(Return)

5 (Return)

6 (Return)

7 (Return)

8 (Return)

9 (Return)

10 (Return)

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