I wrote to let you know how much you
mean to me. Yesterday I saw you walking and laughing with your friends and I
hope that soon you’d want me to walk along with you, too. I love you so I
painted you a sunset to close your day; likewise, I whispered a cool breeze to
refresh you. I waited but you never called. However, I just kept on loving you.
Last night, I saw tears trickling down
you cheeks. I knew you were hurt and unhappy; consequently, I wanted so much to
comfort you. Unfortunately, you didn’t think of Me nor ask for My help. To ease
your pain, I spilled moonlight onto your face and made the stars burn their
brightest, but you were so filled with self-pity, you didn’t even notice.
This morning, I exploded a brilliant
sunrise into glorious morning to cheer you up. But you woke up late and rushed
off to school unaware of it. My sky became cloudy and My tears were the rain.
I Love you, I truly and really care. I
try to essay the intensity of My love not only in the silence of the green
meadows but also in the splendor of the blue sky. The wind whispers My concern
throughout the treetops; in addition, I spill it into the vibrant colors of all
flowers. I shout My love to you in the thunder of the great waterfalls;
furthermore, I compose love songs for the birds to sing to you. I warm you with
the clothing of My sunshine and I perfume the air with Nature’s sweet scent. My
love for you is deeper than any ocean and it is greater than any need in your
heart. If you’d only realize how much I love and care.
My Father sends His love. I want you
to meet Him – He cares, too. So, please call on Me soon. No matter how long it
takes, I’ll wait because I love you.
Korean folklore recalls the tale of a woodcutter who encounters a tiger
in the woods. Fearing that he would soon
be the tiger’s dinner, he exclaimed:
“You must be my long lost brother!
Our mother cried for you when you left home. She had dinner ready for you every night,
waiting for your return. Sadly, out
mother has just passed away. How happy
she would have been had she known you are alive and well!” The woodcutter took out his handkerchief and
pretended to wipe at his eyes. The tiger
turned away, as tears fell down his cheeks, leaving the woodcutter unharmed.
Every year thereafter, on Chesa, the memorial day of the woodcutter’s
mother’s death, an offering appeared on her grave - sometimes a peasant, or even his mother’s
favorite mountain berries. The
woodcutter did not know where these offerings came from.
One year, the
woodcutter noticed that the customary offering had not been placed on his
mother’s grave, and he wondered what had happened. Out from the bush, three
baby tigers appeared, carrying offerings.
They approached the woodcutter and cried: “You must be our uncle! Mother tiger is gone now, and we know how
important it is for her to honor grandmother by bringing an offering to her
Chesa table beside her grave. We are
here to bring offerings for our grandmother in loving memory of our mother.” The
woodcutter noticed that his face had turned suddenly warm and realized that it
was his own tears streaming down his cheeks.
Formerly there
lived in the province of Cholla, in the town of Namwon, a magistrate's son
named Yi Mong-Yong. He had much literary talent, and grew up to be a handsome
young man.
One beautiful morning, Master Yi Mong-Yong called his servant, Pangja,
and asked him to show him a place where he might see wild flowers. Pangja led
him to a summer pavilion near a bridge called "Ojak-kyo," or the
"Magpie Bridge." The view from the bridge was as beautiful as the
summer sky, and thus was named after the tale of the Herdboy and the Weaving
Maid.
Looking at the distant mountains, Yi Mong-Yong caught sight of a young
maiden swinging beneath one of the trees. He asked Pangja about the lovely
maiden and her attendant. He replied that she was Ch'unhyang (Spring Fragrance),
a daughter of Wolmae (Moon Plum), the retired kisaeng entertainer. Pangja related to his young master that this young
girl was not only beautiful but also virtuous. Yi Mong-Yong insisted that
Pangja inform Ch'unhyang that he wished to meet her. "Don't you know the
butterfly must pursue the flower, and the geese must seek the sea?"
retorted Ch'unhyang.
The wind blew back her hair and long ribbon over her rosy face, and she
glowed with virtue and happiness. "This good fortune is offered me today.
Why wait until tomorrow? Should I not speak to this pretty girl now?" Yi
Mong-Yong said to himself.
Just then Ch'unhyang, frightened at being watched, jumped down from her
swing and ran toward her house. Stopping under a peach tree at her garden gate
she plucked a blossom and kissed it, her lips and cheeks redder than the bloom,
and was gone. Pangja urged his master to hasten home so that his father might
know nothing of his adventure, and then punish Pangja for allowing Yi Mong-Yong
to wander so far. The youth returned home in a trance, and went immediately to
sit at dinner with his parents.
With the meal finished, Yi Mong-Yong went to his room, lit a candle, and
opened a book. Reading proved impossible. The words blurred before his eyes and
every word and every character was "Spring" and
"Fragrance"- Ch'unhyang, Ch'unhyang, Ch'unhyang. Calling Pangja, he
said, "Tonight I must see Ch'unhyang. Did she not say that the butterfly
must pursue the flower?"
They went to Ch'unhyang's house, stopping under the peach tree in the
garden as they approached. At that moment Ch'unhyang's mother was telling her
daughter that she had had a dream in which a blue dragon coiled itself around
Ch'unhyang's body and, holding her in its mouth, flew up to the sky. Looking
up, instead of the dragon in the clouds, the girl's mother saw a dragon on
earth, for Yi Mong-Yong walked out of darkness and spoke to her.
On learning the purpose of his visit she called Ch'unhyang to meet the
young yangban, and Yi Mong-Yong asked Ch'unhyang's mother for the hand of her
daughter. The old woman, thinking her dream had come true, gladly consented,
and said, "You are a yangban's son and Ch'unhyang is the daughter of a
kisaeng, so there cannot be a formal marriage. If you give us a secret marriage
contract, writing your pledge not to desert her, we shall be contented."
Yi Mong-Yong seized a brush and set down the following lines: "The
blue sea may become a mulberry field, and the mulberry fields may become the
blue sea, but my heart for Ch'unhyang shall never change. Heaven and earth and
all the gods are witnesses."
In their sleep that night they dreamed of Mandarin ducks swimming
together. For several nights he visited his beloved, until she teased him,
saying that he should go home and study hard to become a great official like
his father. Unfortunately, their time together did not last.
Not long after the secret marriage, the servant brought Yi Mong-Yong a
message saying that his father, newly appointed to the King's cabinet, was
being recalled to the capitol. Yi Mong-Yong, who was to accompany his father,
went that evening to Ch'unhyang and told her the bad news. The young couple was
forced to say a tearful goodbye at the Magpie Bridge. "Since there is no
way to change our fate, let us embrace and part," said Ch'unhyang,
throwing her arms around her lover.
She then gave him a ring. "This is my token of love for you. Keep
it until we meet again. Go in peace, but do not forget me. I shall remain
faithful to you and wait here for you to come and take me away to Seoul."
With these words, they parted.The new Namwon magistrate arrived soon afterward,
and among his first words to his servant were, "Bring me Ch'unhyang, the
pretty girl I have heard of."
"This is difficult sir," replied the retainer, "for she
is already married secretly to Yi Mong-Yong, the son of the former
magistrate." Angered, the new magistrate ordered Ch'unhyang summoned at
once. Too terrified to disobey an order by the magistrate, Ch'unhyang
accompanied the servant. The magistrate looked at her attentively. "I
heard much of you in Seoul, and today I see you are very beautiful. Will you
come to me?"
Choosing her words carefully, Ch'unhyang replied, "I am committed
to Yi Mong-Yong. That is why I cannot do as you ask. The King has sent you here
to take care of the people. You have a heavy responsibility to the throne. It
would be better to fulfill your duties and apply justice according to the laws
of the country." Ch'unhyang's defiance enraged the magistrate, and he
ordered her taken to prison. "Why put me in prison?" Ch'unhyang
protested, "I have done no wrong. A married woman must be faithful to her
husband, just as a magistrate should be faithful to the king." This merely
served to anger the magistrate further, and before long Ch'unhyang found
herself in a prison cell.
Meanwhile, Yi Mong-Yong had arrived in Seoul, where he studied hard and
learned all the famous Chinese classics. He passed the government examinations
with the highest distinction, thereby qualifying for a position in the king's
service. In congratulating him after the munkwa examinations, the king asked Yi
Mong-Yong. "Do you wish to be a magistrate or a governor?"
"I should like to be appointed amhaengosa," replied Yi
Mong-Yong. Yi Mong-Yong, as an amhaengosa, traveled around the country with his
attendants, disguised as beggars. They inquired everywhere after the needs of
the people in order to assess the quality of local districts' administrations.
Soon he arrived near Namwon, and came to a small farming village where the
people were planting rice.
While working, the peasants sadly chanted: "We come out in the
scorching heat, plough our fields, sow our seeds, and make the rice grow. First
we must pay tribute to the king, give a part to the poor, a part to travelers
who come knocking at our doors, and save money for ancestral services. This
would be all right if the magistrate did not squeeze us for even more, leaving
us with hardly anything to eat."
Much interested, Yi Mong-Yong approached and said, "I have heard
that the magistrate of Namwon has married Ch'unhyang and that they live
together happily."
"How dare you speak like that?" retorted one of farmers.
"Ch'unhyang is faithful, true and pure, and you are a fool to speak thus
of her and that tyrant, who is cruel to her. No, her fate is even worse than
that because the son of the former magistrate seduced and deflowered that poor
girl, and then abandoned her, never coming back to see her. He is a bastard,
the son of a dog, the son of a pig!"
The farmer's anger shocked Yi Mong-Yong. He found that many villagers
felt the same way. The local yangban aristocrats shared the people's wrath. Yi
Mong-Yong happened on a spot where some yangban were having a picnic, comparing
poems and conversing on a hillside. He listened as a scholar presented a poem
railing against the unjust provincial government. When he was done, another
picnicker said, "These are sad days! I've heard that a young woman called
Ch'unhyang is to be executed in two or three days." "Oh! This
Magistrate is a wretch!" said another.
"He is thinking only of overpowering Ch'unhyang, but she is like
the pine and bamboo, which never change. She has remained faithful and true to
her husband."
Another added, "She was married to the son of the old magistrate.
What a pig her husband is! He abandoned the poor girl." These comments
made Yi Mong-Yong, weary and ashamed, hasten to Namwon.
Meanwhile, Ch'unhyang, in prison all this time, remained faithful to the
memory of Yi Mong-Yong. She had grown thin, feeble, and sick. One day she had a
dream, in which she saw her house. In her garden, the flowers that she had
planted and loved had faded. The mirror in her room was broken. Her shoes were
hanging on the lintel of the door. She called to a blind man who happened to be
passing by her cell window, and asked him the significance of her dream.
"I shall tell you what it means. These dried flowers shall bear
fruit, the noise of the broken mirror will be heard throughout the world, and
the shoes on the door indicate a large crowd visiting to offer
congratulations."
Ch'unhyang thanked the blind man and prayed that his prophecy would come
true. In reality, however, Ch'unhyang's doom was near. That very day the evil
magistrate called his attendants together and said to them, "In three days
I shall celebrate a great feast, to which I wish to invite all the magistrates
of the nearby towns, and on that day Ch'unhyang shall be executed.
"Meanwhile, Yi Mong-Yong arrived in the town and went to
Ch'unhyang's house. At first, her mother did not recognize him. "I do not
know who you are," she said. "Your face reminds me of Yi Mong-Yong,
but your clothes are the clothes of a beggar." "But I am Yi
Mong-Yong," said he.
"Oh!" she
gasped. "Every day we have waited for you, but alas, in two or three days
Ch'unhyang will be dead."
"Listen to me, Mother," replied Yi Mong-Yong. "Even
though I am a miserable beggar, I still long for Ch'unhyang, and I want to see
her.
"With Yi Mong-Yong following, she knocked at the prison window,
calling her daughter, who was asleep. Awakened, Ch'unhyang asked immediately if
anyone had seen Yi Mong-Yong or heard news of him.
The mother replied that in place of Yi Mong-Yong, a beggar had come who
claimed he was Yi Mong-Yong, and was there now to see her.
Yi Mong-Yong appeared at the window and Ch'unhyang looked at him. It
seemed to make no difference to her that he was badly dressed, and seemed to
have failed at life in Seoul. Instead, she reached for him through the bars and
struggled to be as close to him as possible.
"I may be a beggar in dress," replied Yi Mong-Yong, "but
I have no beggar's heart!"
"Dear heart," said Ch'unhyang, "how hard your journey
must have been. Go back with my mother and get some rest. Only please - since I
am under a sentence of death and must die tomorrow after the feast - come to my
window again in the morning so I may have the joy of seeing you once more
before I die."
Yi Mong-Yong went home and slept in Ch'unhyang's room. But the next
morning, when his mother-in-law opened the door, she was surprised to find that
he was gone. In fact, he had gone early to collect his attendants, all
disguised as beggars like himself. He gave them strict orders. Then, as the
magistrate received his guests and presided over the banquet, Yi Mong-Yong
managed to get into the palatial office compound and approach the host.
"I am a poor man," he said, "and I am hungry. Please,
give me something to eat." It was customary in Korea, during big feasts in
the countryside, for a number of beggars to show up for handouts, but the
furious magistrate commanded his servants to kick the intruder out.
Then Yi Mong-Yong entered the palace a second time, by climbing on the
shoulders of his servants and going over the wall. The first guest he
encountered was the magistrate of Unbong, named Pak Yong-Jang. He said to him,
"I am hungry, could you not let me have something?" Yong-Jang,
feeling some compassion called one of the kisaengs and asked her to bring something to the beggar.
Yi Mong-Yong then addressed Yong-Jang: "I am obliged to you for
giving me good food, and I wish to repay you with a little poem." Then he
extended a paper on which Yong-Jang read the lines:
This beautiful wine in golden goblets
Is the blood of a thousand people
This magnificent meat on these jade tables
Is the flesh and marrow of a thousand lives
Burning in this banquet hall,
The tears of the hungry people
Pour from their sunken eyes.
Even louder than the noisy song of these courtesans
Resound the complaints of the oppressed peasants.
Yong-Jang, greatly alarmed, cried, "It is against us," and he
passed the paper to the host, who asked, "Who wrote this poem?"
"It is the young beggar," said Yong-Jang, pointing to Yi Mong-Yong,
but he was frightened, thinking that whoever wrote such a poem must be more
than a common beggar. Rising up, he suddenly pretended to have urgent business
elsewhere and fled. The other officials likewise sprang to their feet and
stampeded out of the room, only to be stopped by Yi Mong-Yong's men, who were
waiting outside with their swords. The officials soon understood that the
beggar-poet was in fact an amhaengosa. As they cowered together in a corner of
the courtyard, Yi Mong-Yong revealed his ma-p'ae and ordered the magistrate's
runners to fetch Ch'unhyang from her cell and to say to her, "The King's
envoy has sent for you. He is going to hear your case and pronounce judgment.
In the jail, Ch'unhyang was greatly frightened.
"Oh!" she cried. "I am going to die! Please, may I see my
mother?" Ch'unhyang's mother ran to her daughter. "Mother, now is the
hour of my death. Where is Yi Mong-Yong?"
"The King's officer is waiting. Do not stop to chitchat!"
snapped the runners, and before Ch'unhyang's mother could speak, they carried
her away to the magistrate's courtyard. They removed the woodencangue from around her neck and
placed her in the presence of the Royal Secret Inspector, who, sitting behind a
screen, questioned her sternly: "If you do not love the magistrate, will
you love me and come to me, the King's envoy? If you refuse I shall order my
men to strike off your head immediately."
"Alas!" exclaimed Ch'unhyang. "How unhappy are the poor
people of this country! First the injustice of the magistrate, then you, the
King's Inspector, who should help and protect the unhappy people - you think
immediately to condemn to death a poor girl whom you desire. Oh, how sad we common
people are, and how pitiful it is to be a woman!"
Yi Mong-Yong then ordered the courtesans to untie the cords that bound
the hands of Ch'unhyang. "Now raise your head, and look at me," he
said to her.
"No," she answered, "I shall not look at you, I shall not
listen to you. Cut my body into pieces if you like, but I shall never go to
you."
Yi Mong-Yong was deeply touched. He took off his ring and ordered a
courtesan to show it to Ch'unhyang. She saw that was the very ring she had
given to her husband Yi Mong-Yong and, lifting her eyes, recognized her lover.
"Oh," she cried in joy and surprise. "Yesterday my lover
was only a beggar and today he is the King's officer!"
Yi Mong-Yong ordered a sedan chair to be brought at once and saw that
Ch'unhyang was safely carried home. The people shouted joyfully and cheered for
Ch'unhyang and Yi Mong-Yong. Then he summoned the magistrate of Namwon and
said, "The King gave you instructions to feed the people well, and instead
you fed upon them. I condemn you in the name of the King to forfeit your
position. I banish you to a faraway island without meat, without wine, and
without company. I give you permission to eat the wild grass till your stomach
repents for the way you have fed off the people of Namwon!"
When all this was done, Yi Mong-Yong took his bride back to Seoul and
wrote out the story Ch'unhyang as an appendix to his official report. The King
read it and was surprised to find such fidelity in a country girl of low birth.
He made her ach'ungnyolpuin, or a faithful wife, and declared that her
loyalty was proof that she was just as good as any yangbandaughter, even though
her mother was a lowly kisaeng, and that her conduct should be a model for all women. Ch'unhyang was
then officially presented to the parents of Yi Mong-Yong, and they accepted her
as a proper daughter-in-law. In time, Ch'unhyang bore three sons and two
daughters, and they all lived happily for many years come.
