Qu Yuan

Also known as Qu Ping · Zheng Ze · Ling Jun · Sanlu Dafu

Qu Yuan, personal name Ping and courtesy name Yuan, belonged to a branch of the Chu royal house; in the Li Sao he calls himself Zhengze and Lingjun. As Left Counsellor to King Huai of Chu he drafted orders at court and dealt with envoys of other states, until slander by the Shangguan grandee led the king to distance him; the Fisherman poem in the Songs of Chu (Chuci) calls him Master of the Three Wards. King Huai ignored his advice not to go to Qin and died a captive there, and under King Qingxiang the chief minister Zilan had Qu Yuan slandered again, so that he was banished. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) says he wandered the riverbanks, wrote Embracing Sand and drowned himself in the Miluo River. Wang Yi's Eastern Han commentary on the Chuci credits him with twenty-five pieces, including the Li Sao, Nine Songs, Heavenly Questions and Nine Pieces. Jia Yi, passing the Xiang River en route to Changsha, wrote a rhapsody lamenting him.