A substantial quantity of bamboo manuscripts was unearthed from Han tomb no. 40 at Ding county 定縣 in Hebei 河北. Amongst these is the Wen zi 文子 dating from 58 B.C. This is, thus, evident that the Wen zi was in existence long before Gao You 高誘 wrote his commentary on the Huainan zi 淮南子. The hypothesis suggested by previous scholars that the editor of the Wen zi made use of Gao You's commentary in emending the text of the Huainan zi is now seen to be untenable. This article is a study of the relation between the Wen ziand Gao You's commentary on the Huainan zi. Instance are adduced to show that in doing his commentary Gao You made use of the Wen zi variants as glosses. Where he deliberately chose not to do so, there are cases in which his judgment may be questioned.