Qu Yuan Quotes

Qu Yuan himself would never have imagined that he would generate ironies that would last for over two thousand years of China’s history. The ironies are twofold. For one, everyone knows Qu Yuan as a “poet patriot”, but in his poetry his theme is clearly “leaving” his country. He protected Chu against Qin, but it was Qin that unified China after he was gone. Qin created the first true Chinese nation that would inspire patriotic love. For another, his songs of Chu are deep and elaborate, written in a style that commoners would be quite unable to read, but he has become a universal folk hero. The Dragon Boat Festival, in his honor, is an occasion for national celebration all across the country. Chinese from Qin applaud him as much as those from Chu; the uneducated and the educated together drink to his name.

China’s Dragon Boat Festival in June honors Qu Yuan, an official who drowned himself in 278 B.C. to protest corruption in the Spring and Autumn Period.

Dans le rituel, les Écrits Réels sont transcrits en caractères spécifiques étrangers, appelés yun-tchouan (sceaux nuageux), assez semblables aux idéogrammes chinois archaïques. Ces tchen-wen apparaissent pour la première fois dans un ouvrage de Lou Sieou-tsing, le T’ai-chang t’ong-hiuan ling-pao tchong-kien-wen ( Tao-tsang 190), où l’on trouve également leur « traduction » : ce sont des formules évoquant les souffles des cinq points cardinaux (les neuf souffles de l’Est, les trois souffles du Sud, l’unique souffle du Centre, etc.) et les divinités (ti ou Lao-kiun ) correspondantes. Nous avons comparé ces textes à d’autres écrits du canon taoïste, où ils portent généralement le titre de Yuan-che wou-lao tche-chou tchen-wen , et nous avons ainsi pu constater qu’ils n’avaient guère changé. 1973 - Rituel Taoiste

the Dragon Boat Festival, a holiday with grim origins. A great patriot, Qu Yuan, drowned himself after his wrongful exile, and his anguished friends threw sticky rice into the river to distract the fish from nibbling on his body. To honor him, Chinese people ate zhongzhi and watched dragon boat races on the anniversary of his death.