The following is another short story in Classical Chinese written by a Korean scholar in the days of Choseon Dynasty. As was the case with the text presented in my previous, and very first, post here in my corner of Substack, this Classical Chinese text, too, is found in the learner Kyoyang Hanmun (敎養漢文) from Sungkyunkwan University Press (2nd edition, 6th print, 2005) . Have you not yet read this first post, please you may do so by clicking here. The text here presented and translated by yours truly here is, as you can judge yourselves, of a more morally uplifting and less vulgarly jocular in nature. The text at hand is furthermore considerably shorter.

The text comes, as per the learner, from the Veritable Records (實錄 Shillok) of King Seonjo (宣祖, 1552 - 1608, r. 1567 - 1608). In fact, I could retrieve the original text online, from King Seongjo’s Revised Veritable Records (宣祖昭敬大王修正實錄 Seonjo Sogyeongdaewang Sujeong Shillok), which is in reality merely a part of an entry noted down on a particular day of King Seongjo’s reign, see this link. The part as presented by the learner (which I will render in two halves here below with each half followed by its translation into English) is slightly altered by changing certain characters into the name of the protagonist and entering a grammatical subject where the original does not mention one (Classical Chinese prose tends to be rather economically composed: If the author is of the opinion that a certain grammatical part is clear from the context, he easily dispenses with it in writing).

The entire entry is presented on this site as a cholgi (卒記) in honour of the prominent scholar and statesman Yi Hwang 李滉 (1501 - 1570). Such a cholgi may be considered an obituary in some way, although, of course, back in those days when texts were basically reserved to the most important and eminent subject matters, the existence of such cholgi (卒記) commemorating a particular person may be perceived as, firstly, a reinforcement of that figure’s importance and prominence during -and even beyond!- his lifetime. The additional fact that the cholgi concerned found its way in a document as important and as intertwined with the royal, central government as the Veritable Records underlines the vast influence of the deceased official-cum-scholar that his underlings still may put to good use for their political advancement. We now have reached the stage at which we ought to present the text with translation, which will clearly show the kind of positive appraisal that was posthumously conferred upon Yi Hwang, whose pen name was T’oegye (退溪).

李退溪先生, 居留漢城, 隣家有栗樹, 數枝過墻, 實熱落庭.

Master Yi T’oe-gye, while residing in Hanseong,1 (had) a neighbour in whose garden there was a chestnut tree, several branches of which hung over the enclosure (above T’oe-Gye’s garden). (When) the nuts grew ripe they fell in (T’oe-gye’s) garden.

先生, 恐兒童取食, 每自手拾, 投於牆外. 其潔白如此.

Master (T’oe-gye), fearing that children might take and eat (the fallen chestnuts), constantly picked them up by himself and threw them over the enclosure.2 Such was his integrity.