The Sorrowful Song of the Hu Jia: The Story of Cai Wenji

Cai Wenji (dates of birth and death unknown), personal name Yan, was from Yu County in Chenliu and the daughter of Cai Yong, a great literary figure of the Eastern Han dynasty. A rare female talent in the history of Chinese literature, she excelled in music, literature, and calligraphy. The story of her identifying a broken string by ear at the age of six has been passed down through the ages. Her life was full of hardship: after marrying Wei Zhongdao, she was widowed, then captured during wartime and taken to the Southern Xiongnu, where she remained for twelve years and bore two sons. After Cao Cao unified the north, he paid a large ransom to bring her back, giving rise to the famous story of “Wenji’s Return to Han.” Her five-character “Poem of Sorrow and Anger” is China’s first autobiographical long narrative poem written by a scholar. Though there are doubts about whether the qin song “Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute” is truly hers, it vividly conveys her cultural journey between the Hu and Han peoples. After returning to Han, she transcribed more than four hundred works left by Cai Yong, making an indelible contribution to the preservation of Chinese culture.