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Cai Wenji

Daughter of Cai Yong, carried off to the Southern Xiongnu for twelve years and ransomed by Cao Cao, whose Poems of Grief and Anger are preserved in the History of the Later Han

Also known as CaiYan

Cai Wenji, personal name Yan, came from Yu in Chenliu and was the daughter of the scholar Cai Yong, learned, eloquent and skilled in music according to the *History of the Later Han* (*Hou Hanshu*). Her first husband, Wei Zhongdao, died leaving no children, and she returned to her family. In the turmoil of the Xingping years she was seized by nomad horsemen and passed to the Worthy King of the Left of the Southern Xiongnu, bearing two sons in twelve years there. Cao Cao, her father's old friend, ransomed her with gold and jade and married her to Dong Si, and later won Dong Si a pardon from a death sentence. Her father's four thousand scrolls being lost, she wrote out some four hundred pieces from memory without error. She wrote two *Poems of Grief and Anger* (*Beifen shi*), which the *Hou Hanshu* quotes in full; the *Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute* (*Hujia shiba pai*) appears only in Song collections, and its authorship is still debated.

Life and times

  1. UnknownBornHanThree Kingdomslate Eastern Han
  2. 195Cai Wenji Returns to HanTook partAfter twelve years in the northern steppes, Cai Wenji returned to Han, transcribing lost classics from memory.
    1. Twelve Years of Cai Wenji ExileCaptured amid wartime upheaval, Cai Wenji lived twelve years in the northern steppes among the Southern Xiongnu.
    2. Cao Cao Ransoming Cai Wenji Home208Ransomed by Cao Cao, Cai Wenji transcribed four hundred lost classical treatises entirely from memory.
    3. Nomad Flute Songs and Sorrow Poem208Pouring wartime trauma and maternal parting into the epic Poem of Sorrow and Indignation and Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute.
  3. UnknownDied

Works

  1. Literature · Poetry22
    1. Poem of Sorrow and IndignationThree KingdomsCai Wenji's long autobiographical poem: abducted north, ransomed home, forced to leave her sons
    2. Poem of Sorrow and Indignation · Part IThree KingdomsFive-character text of Cai Yan's poem: Dong Zhuo's massacres and her capture by nomads
    3. Poem of Sorrow and Indignation · Part II (Sao Form)Three KingdomsThe sao-style version of Cai Yan's poem, her grief set on a bleak steppe of nomad pipes
    4. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad FluteThree KingdomsEighteen-stanza qin song ascribed to Cai Yan: captivity, return and leaving her sons behind
    5. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 1Three Kingdoms
    6. +17 more
      1. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 2Three Kingdoms
      2. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 3Three Kingdoms
      3. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 4Three Kingdoms
      4. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 5Three Kingdoms
      5. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 6Three Kingdoms
      6. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 7Three Kingdoms
      7. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 8Three Kingdoms
      8. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 9Three Kingdoms
      9. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 10Three Kingdoms
      10. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 11Three Kingdoms
      11. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 12Three Kingdoms
      12. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 13Three Kingdoms
      13. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 14Three Kingdoms
      14. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 15Three Kingdoms
      15. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 16Three Kingdoms
      16. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 17Three Kingdoms
      17. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Section 18Three Kingdoms
  2. Literature · Sayings1
    1. Heaven Is Unkind: Cai Wenji's LamentThree KingdomsAphorism from Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: a cry against Heaven's cruelty in war
  3. Stage · Pieces1
    1. Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute1597, in the Lüqi XinshengTraditionally credited to Cai Wenji, it survives as a qin song and as an instrumental piece, both in eighteen sections

Family tree

  1. Direct kin
    Cai Yong
    Father
    Cai Wenji

Connections

  1. Interactions1
    1. Cao CaoSocial: Wenji's ransom and return · 155 CE–220 CECao Cao Ransoming Cai Wenji Home