Kim Jeong-hui: The Complete Poems, Volume 10, Part 2 — The Star Master’s Thousand-Year Leisured Land

Poems 19–36 from the Wandang Jeonjip, Volume 10

This is Part 2 of the complete English translation of Kim Jeong-hui’s poems from the Wandang Jeonjip, Volume 10; it covers entries 19 through 36, which close the Danyang topographic sequence and move through a wide arc of social and occasional verse before arriving at the installment’s historical centerpiece: four farewell poems to the governor departing for Jeju Island.

The Danyang topographic sequence that opened Volume 10 concludes with its final two entries here — Sain Rock (舍人巖) and Suun Pavilion (水雲亭). From poem 21 onward, the social-literary mode of Volume 9’s pre-exile years resumes: inscriptions on paintings and rubbing albums, farewells to officials taking distant posts, poems sent to literary companions in Beijing and Korea. The heptasyllabic quatrain continues as the exclusive form across all 18 entries.

The installment’s organizing event is poem 30 — four farewell poems to the governor departing for Tamna (乇羅 = Jeju Island’s ancient Korean name). These poems demonstrate Kim’s scholarly command of Jeju’s history: its Tamna kingdom and the traditional ruler title of Star Master (星主), its geographical position on the 37th parallel, its citrus cultivation as a subtropical marker, its succession of ancient names across Chinese historical sources (聃牟羅, 耽浮羅). He is sending someone else to a place he knows from documents, and his attention is that of a scholar examining a historical problem. The retrospective irony — that Kim himself will be exiled there — belongs to later reading.

Around this centerpiece: two poems about the painter and essayist Weng Fanggang (覃溪), through inscriptions on Huang Tingjian’s Selected Poems and a rubbing album of Su Dongpo’s Stone Bell Mountain essay; poems to the Yangzhou painter Gai Qi and the Chinese poet Zhang Cha’nong; a border farewell to the Jongseong governor with its attention to old steles and Sushen arrowheads; and a birthday set for the literary veteran Poktong.

舍人巖 (Sain Rock)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile given the Danyang location.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: The penultimate poem in the Danyang topographic sequence, at a rock formation called Sain Rock (舍人巖 / 사인암 — “Scholar-Official Rock”).

Original text:

怪底靑天降畵圖。俗情凡韻一毫無。人間五色元閒漫。格外淋漓施碧朱。

Translation: Cinemawords

How strange that the blue sky has sent down a painting; not a hair of worldly feeling or common rhyme. The five colors of the human world are originally purposeless: extraordinarily dripping — blue-green and vermilion applied.

Reading notes:

怪底 (how strange that) opens the poem as a response to an apparently impossible fact: the sky seems to have dropped a painting onto the earth. The rock formation at Sain Rock has the quality of a painted composition — its arrangement of colors and forms is too organized, too composed, to seem purely geological.

“Not a hair of worldly feeling or common rhyme” — the rock contains neither ordinary social sentiment nor the conventions of the poetic tradition. It has escaped both of these dominating orders. The five colors (五色) of the human visual world — the palette of human art — are described as 元閒漫 (originally purposeless or carelessly scattered). Against these, the rock’s “extraordinarily dripping blue-green and vermilion” are applied from elsewhere, from a different authority.

The poem completes what the sequence has been arguing since Hambyeon Tower in poem 2: the natural landscape reads like a painting, but it is a painting better than any human painter could produce.

水雲亭 (Suun Pavilion)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile given the Danyang location.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: The final poem of the Danyang topographic sequence, at Water-and-Cloud Pavilion (水雲亭 / 수운정).

Original text:

秋雨濛濛鶴氣橫。松針石脉滿山明。試從一笠亭中看。環珮泠泠樹頂生。

Translation: Cinemawords

Autumn rain misty — crane energy lying horizontal; pine needles and stone veins filling the mountain bright. Try looking from inside the one-hat pavilion: jade-pendant sounds, clear and cold, arising at the treetops.

Reading notes:

The sequence’s final poem closes on sound rather than sight. 環珮泠泠 (jade-pendant sounds, clear and cold) — the sound of the jade pendants that court officials wear at their belts, clinking gently. The poem transfers this sound from the human ceremonial world to the treetops: what arises at the treetops of the pavilion is not merely wind through pine needles but the quality of clear, refined, measured sound that those pendants produce. The landscape has appropriated the court’s sonic register.

“The one-hat pavilion” (一笠亭) — a pavilion so small it is compared to a single bamboo hat (笠). From inside this minimal shelter, surrounded by misty rain and the mountain’s brightened pine and stone, the listener perceives the treetops producing court-bell clarity. The sequence that began at Hambyeon Tower with the metaphor of reading a painting ends here at the final pavilion with a metaphor of listening to court music — the Danyang landscape has been fully translated into the vocabulary of literary and official culture.

題山谷詩選後。是携入燕中者也。 (Inscribed After the Selected Poems of Huangshan Valley — This Was Carried into Beijing)

Period: Period uncertain; content places this in the context of the Beijing literary network, likely pre-exile.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A poem inscribed in a copy of the Selected Poems of Huang Tingjian (黃庭堅, 1045–1105, pen name Huangshan Valley / 山谷 — the Song dynasty poet and calligrapher), which was brought to Beijing. The source note specifies: “Huang Tingjian’s birthday is in the sixth month. Weng Fanggang (覃溪 / 担溪) has collation works and commentaries on Huang’s poems.”

Original text:

夾帒春風萬里遲。蘇齋參聞舊論詩。一生口吸西江水。壽日如今又並時。山谷生辰在六月。翁覃溪有黃詩校述等作。

Translation: Cinemawords

Tucked in a bag, spring wind — ten thousand li delayed; at the Su Studio, participating in hearing old discussions of poetry. One lifetime — the mouth absorbing the West River water: the birthday is now again at the same time.

Reading notes:

蘇齋 (Su Zhai / the Su Studio), on first appearance in this installment: Weng Fanggang’s study in Beijing, named for his devotion to Su Dongpo; the center of the Beijing scholarly world Kim entered during the 1809 visit.

The poem’s center is Huang Tingjian’s famous statement about poetry: “Reading books for one lifetime is not worth a single mouthful of Jiangxi water” — meaning that direct immersion in the great tradition surpasses bookish study. Kim’s phrase “one lifetime, the mouth absorbing the West River water” (一生口吸西江水) inverts this: the lifetime and the absorbed water become one continuous act. The Selected Poems volume, carried across ten thousand li to Beijing, is the occasion that brings Kim’s own study and the Su Studio discussions into alignment with Huang Tingjian’s birthday in the sixth month.

題羅兩峯梅花幀 (Inscribed on a Silk-Mounted Plum Painting by Luo Liangfeng)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: An inscription on a plum blossom painting by the Yangzhou painter Luo Ping (羅聘, 1733–1799, on first appearance: one of the “Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou,” known for ghost paintings and ink-plum works; styled Liangfeng / 兩峰).

Original text:

朱草林中綠玉枝。三生舊夢證花之。應知霧夕相思甚。惆悵蘇齋畵扇時。

Translation: Cinemawords

In the red-herb forest, green jade branches; three lifetimes’ old dream verifying the flower. Should know: the misty evening’s longing is deep; melancholy — at the Su Studio with the painted fan.

Reading notes:

朱草 (red herb) = a mythological auspicious plant associated with immortal landscapes; used here to create the backdrop for the plum’s jade-green branches, placing the painting in a realm simultaneously natural and cosmological.

“Three lifetimes’ old dream” (三生舊夢) = the Buddhist concept of karmic connection across multiple lifetimes; one’s profound aesthetic response to the plum blossom suggests a bond formed in previous existences. The flower “verifies” (證) this connection — the painting becomes evidence.

“At the Su Studio with the painted fan” closes the poem in a specific social memory: the Su Studio was where painted fans were exchanged and appreciated, and the connection between Luo Ping’s plum painting and the Su Studio atmosphere produces a melancholy of separation — from that world, from the Beijing circle, from the moments of shared aesthetic recognition.

題梅花小扇。贈高陽使君。 (Inscribed on a Small Plum-Blossom Fan — Given to the Magistrate of Goyang)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A poem inscribed on a small fan decorated with plum blossoms, given to the magistrate of Goyang (高陽 / 고양) County, near Seoul.

Original text:

到處春風五馬前。婆娑數樹托因緣。爲他一段淸如許。但愛梅花不愛錢。

Translation: Cinemawords

Everywhere spring wind before the five horses [official procession]; a few swaying trees entrusting to karmic conditions. For that single quality of purity like this: only loving plum blossoms, not loving money.

Reading notes:

五馬 (five horses) = the classical designation for a county magistrate’s official procession, established in the Han dynasty regulations. The magistrate’s procession is preceded by spring wind — a gentle, auspicious image of official movement.

“Only loving plum blossoms, not loving money” is the poem’s gift-with-lesson: the plum’s defining quality is that it blooms in the cold, before all other flowers, indifferent to seasons of prosperity. Kim is giving the magistrate a fan that embodies this quality, implying the magistrate’s administration should match it. The fan inscription doubles as the gift itself and as a statement of what the gift means to embody.

題李墨庄獨行小照。卽寄贈小蕤朴君者也。二首 (Inscribing on Li Muk-jang’s Small Solo Portrait — To Be Sent as a Gift to Sosae Bak — Two Poems)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile given the Beijing context.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines each; two poems.

Occasion: Inscriptions on a small portrait of the Chinese literary figure Li Muk-jang (李墨庄 — on first appearance: a Chinese scholar with the pen name Ink Manor / 墨庄, who had been an envoy to the Ryukyus and had a portrait at Mount Tai; Kim met him at Fayuan Temple in Beijing), to be sent as a gift to a Korean person named Pak (朴君) with the pen name Sosae (小蕤 / “Small Pistil”). Source notes identify Muk-jang’s studio as “Studying Bamboo Studio” (師竹齋) and Pak’s pen name as also including “Studying Ink” (師墨).

Original text:

其一 獨行忽忽將何之。涉海登山無不宜。萬里蒼茫雲水際。鍾聲落月夢還時。與余相逢於法源寺。蒼茫雲水。爲王惕甫題語。

其二 墨庄師竹君師墨。墨是墨庄竹底爲。竹義從君無覓處。空諸所有是吾師。墨庄號師竹齋。君又號師墨。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Walking alone, with purpose — going where? Crossing seas, climbing mountains — nothing inappropriate. Ten thousand li, vast and hazy, at the edge of clouds and water: bell sound, falling moon — the time of returning dreams. [We met at Fayuan Temple. “Vast and hazy clouds and water” — a phrase inscribed by Wang Tipfu.]

II

Muk-jang studies bamboo, you study ink; the ink is what Muk-jang’s bamboo is [made] for. The meaning of bamboo — following you, nowhere to look for it: emptying all possessions — that is my teacher. [Muk-jang’s studio is called “Studying Bamboo Studio.” You are also called “Studying Ink.”]

Reading notes:

The two poems work as paired perspectives on a single portrait passed between three people. Poem I reads the portrait itself: a man walking alone through vast distances, crossing seas and climbing mountains, arriving at the liminal moment of bell-sound and falling moon when dreams return. The image “clouds and water” (雲水) is, as the source note indicates, a phrase from Wang Tipfu’s inscription — Kim is incorporating someone else’s language into his own poem, a form of literary collage similar to the collected-ancient-verse poem in Volume 9.

Poem II is a wordplay meditation. Li Muk-jang (Ink Manor) studies bamboo in his “Studying Bamboo Studio”; Pak studies ink (with the pen name Studying Ink / 師墨). The argument: ink is what the bamboo brush produces; but the deepest meaning of bamboo cannot be found even by following Pak’s expertise in ink — because “emptying all possessions” (空諸所有), the Buddhist emptying of all acquired knowledge, is the actual teacher. The poem gives the gift and then immediately empties the gift of its apparent meaning.

送鍾城使君 二首 (Farewell to the Magistrate of Jongseong — Two Poems)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile given the mainland context.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines each; two poems.

Occasion: Farewell to the magistrate being posted to Jongseong County (鍾城 / 종성), an extremely remote border county in the far northeast of Joseon Korea, near the Tuman River and Manchuria. The source note identifies an old stele (公嶮碑) in the area that has been stripped of rubbings by people, though its base still retains the four characters 高麗之境 (the borders of Goryeo).

Original text:

其一 秋風送客出邊頭。盖馬山光着遠愁。天上玉堂回首處。雙旌應過幘溝婁。

其二 苔篆剝殘漫古墟。高麗之境問何如。公嶮碑爲人剝去。石根尙有高麗之境四字。 尋常石砮行人得。此是周庭舊貢餘。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Autumn wind sending off the guest departing for the border region; Gaema Mountain’s light bearing distant sorrow. Where one looks back at the heavenly Jade Hall [prestigious post]: the double flag-banners should be passing through Jaegoru.

II

Moss-covered seal script, flaked and eroded, spread over the ancient ruins; the Goryeo borderlands — how are they now? [The Gongheom Stele has been stripped by people. The base still has the four characters “borders of Goryeo.”] Ordinary stone arrowheads — travelers find them: these are the remaining tributes of the Zhou court’s old [eastern territories].

Reading notes:

The two poems divide the farewell’s attention: the first addresses the journey itself and the loss of a prestigious capital posting (the “Jade Hall” = the Hongmungwan or Chiphyeonjeon, prestigious literary offices); the second turns to the destination’s historical significance.

石砮 (stone arrowheads) = the ancient stone-tipped arrows of the Sushen people (肅愼 / 숙신), which appear in classical Chinese records as tribute brought to the Zhou court from the northeastern territories. Kim encountered these arrowheads as a scholarly interest in Volume 9 (poem 66, the Stone Arrow poem); here they reappear as something travelers still find on the ground in Jongseong — connecting the present-day official’s posting to a continuous deep-history of the northeast.

The source note’s detail — that the Gongheom Stele has been stripped of rubbings (a common fate for famous steles) but the base still retains the four characters of Goryeo’s border inscription — is characteristic of Kim’s epigraphic attention. Even in a farewell poem, the state of the stele matters.

看山 (Looking at the Mountain)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile (1840–1856).

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: An occasional poem looking at an autumn mountain.

Original text:

山與大癡寫意同。匡廬詩偈杳難窮。都無冬夏靑蒼氣。陡壑脩林一樣紅。

Translation: Cinemawords

The mountain shares the same “writing the idea” as the Great Fool [Huang Gongwang]; Lushan’s poetry and Buddhist verses — obscurely hard to exhaust. Altogether without the green-blue of summer and the grey-blue of winter: steep ravines and tall forests — uniformly red.

Reading notes:

大癡 (Great Fool) = Huang Gongwang (黃公望, 1269–1354), on first mention in this installment: the great Yuan dynasty landscape painter, whose art name was Great Fool. His 寫意 (xieyi / writing-the-idea) style — expressive, capturing the spirit rather than the details — is what the mountain shares.

匡廬 (Kuanglu) = the classical name for Lushan in Jiangxi, the mountain associated with Tao Yuanming, Su Dongpo, and Buddhist thinkers. “Its poetry and Buddhist verses hard to exhaust” means the mountain has been the subject of so much writing that no visitor can fully account for it.

The poem’s autumn observation is precise: “altogether without the green-blue of summer and the grey-blue of winter.” The mountain in autumn has dropped its seasonal tones entirely, entering a state of uniform red that belongs to no established category. This uniformity is not a loss but an achievement of simplicity that the 寫意 mode of landscape painting also seeks.

走題覃翁石鍾山記帖面 (Quickly Inscribing on the Title Page of Weng Fanggang’s Stone Bell Mountain Essay Rubbing Album)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile given the reference to Weng Fanggang’s studio.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A poem inscribed on the title page of a rubbing album containing Weng Fanggang’s (覃溪/담계) essay on Su Dongpo’s famous Stone Bell Mountain (石鍾山記) piece. The Lanting (蘭亭 — Wang Xizhi’s legendary calligraphic preface, 353 CE, on first mention in this installment: the canonical standard for Chinese calligraphy) provides the calligraphic lineage frame.

Original text:

重拈七百五年苔。得自蘭亭篆勢來。誰識淋漓元氣處。千山明月篆烟廻。

Translation: Cinemawords

Picking up again 705 years of moss; obtained from the Lanting’s seal-script force coming through. Who recognizes the dripping vital energy? A thousand mountains, bright moon — seal-script smoke returning.

Reading notes:

“705 years of moss” — counting from Wang Xizhi’s Lanting Gathering (353 CE) through the centuries to the time of Weng Fanggang’s essay. The calligraphic tradition is figured as accumulated geological time: the moss that grows on stones over centuries is the same material as the historical deposit of calligraphic energy from Wang Xizhi forward.

The “seal-script force” (篆勢) coming from the Lanting: Kim follows Weng Fanggang’s argument that Wang Xizhi’s brushwork derives from the older seal-script (篆書) tradition — that the Lanting’s cursive elegance has the structural force of the ancient seal script underneath it. Su Dongpo’s Stone Bell Mountain essay and Weng’s commentary on it are additional nodes in this chain of transmission.

“Who recognizes the dripping vital energy?” — the question is rhetorical. Only those who understand the full calligraphic lineage can perceive what the rubbing album contains. “Seal-script smoke returning” = the ancient brush-energy circulating back through the landscape, the tradition making itself visible in the present.

題雲外居士夢偈後 三首 (Inscribed After the Dream Verses of the Cloud-Outside Layman — Three Poems)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile (1840–1856).

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines each; three poems.

Occasion: Three poems inscribed after the Dream Verses (夢偈) of the Cloud-Outside Layman (雲外居士 — an unidentified person with this literary name). The three poems form a meditation on the recurring image of “the blue mountain, one dot of blue” (靑山一點靑).

Original text:

其一 中底外邊一一形。山光開闔叩玄扃。夢醒雲散知何處。還有靑山一點靑。

其二 拈起靑山一點靑。機鋒觸處啓雲扃。萬里烏雲天際夢。百千燈攝百千形。

其三 或似花形似樹形。華嚴樓閣不關扃。夢中雲外無遮住。信手拈來一點靑。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Inside and outside — each form, one by one; mountain light opening and closing, knocking at the mysterious bolt. Dream awakening, clouds dispersing — where to know? Still there: the blue mountain, one dot of blue.

II

Picking up the blue mountain’s one dot of blue; the Chan mechanism-sharp-point touching opens the cloud-bolt. Ten thousand li — the Wuyun [rubbing collection], a dream at heaven’s horizon; a hundred thousand lamps gathering a hundred thousand forms.

III

Some like flower-form, some like tree-form; the Avatamsaka’s towers and pavilions — the bolt not fastened. In the dream, outside the cloud — nothing blocking: casually picking up one dot of blue.

Reading notes:

The three poems use a single image — 靑山一點靑 (blue mountain, one dot of blue) — as a Chan teaching object. The image first appears as what remains after the dream dissolves (I), then becomes the thing picked up and used as the mechanism of awakening (II), then becomes the thing casually recovered from a completely un-obstructed field (III).

The 烏雲 (Wuyun rubbing collection), on first appearance in this installment: Weng Fanggang’s famous collection of calligraphic rubbings — here the “Wuyun” appears as part of the second poem’s imagery, connecting the dream-landscape to the specific artifacts of the Beijing scholarly world.

华严楼阁 (Avatamsaka towers and pavilions) = the interpenetrating cosmic architecture described in the Avatamsaka Sutra (華嚴/화엄경), where all spaces contain all others without obstruction. “The bolt not fastened” means the door to this architecture stands open.

The three poems together chart the movement from the sudden recognition that something persists through dissolution (I) through the active use of that something as a teaching (II) to the natural ease with which it is available when one stops seeking it (III).

作槐根小築圖。寄張茶農。圖作雪意。 (Making a Painting of a Small Studio at the Acacia Root, Sent to Zhang Cha’nong — the Painting Has a Snow Quality)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile given the reference to the Chinese literary network.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines. One character is missing (缺) in the source between 惟 and 雪裏來.

Occasion: Kim painted a small picture of a studio structure built at the base of a large acacia tree, with a snowy atmosphere, to send to the Chinese poet and official Zhang Cha’nong (張茶農, on first appearance: Zhang Wentao / 張問陶, 1764–1814, styled Tea Farmer / 茶農; a prominent Qing official and poet known for his prolific, unconventional verse and independent spirit).

Original text:

小築亭亭百尺槐。拈毫萬里一徘徊。料知濃綠偏宜夏。海客惟 缺 雪裏來。

Translation: Cinemawords

The small structure, graceful and tall — the hundred-foot acacia; taking up the brush, ten thousand li — one lingering. Knowing the deep green is especially suited to summer: the sea traveler only [one character missing in source] — comes in the snow.

Reading notes:

The poem documents a gift of a painting: Kim paints a studio under a tall acacia (槐 / 괴나무) tree, given the quality of snow (圖作雪意 — the painting carries a snow atmosphere). The paradox: the acacia is particularly beautiful in summer’s deep green, but the painting depicts it in snow. The recipient (Zhang Cha’nong, “the sea traveler” — from Kim’s Korean perspective, China is across the water) receives the winter version of a summer tree.

The one missing character between 惟 and 雪裏來 — the source’s gap — is preserved here. The line’s meaning is clear: Zhang comes (in the poem, comes to the acacia) only through snow — possibly meaning only through the winter-mood painting, or only through winter weather. The missing character likely modified when or how he comes.

“Taking up the brush, ten thousand li” — Kim paints across the distance; the brush action links Seoul to wherever Zhang is.

別乇羅伯之任 四首 (Farewell to the Governor of Tamna Departing for His Post — Four Poems)

Period: Content clearly places this before Kim’s own Jeju exile (1840); the poem describes sending another official to Jeju, not Kim’s own exile. Likely pre-exile composition, despite the poem’s placement in Volume 10.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines each; four poems. Source note: [주-D001] 海 : 渡 — the character 海 (sea) in poem 4 has a variant reading 渡 (crossing/ford).

Occasion: Four farewell poems to the governor (伯 — senior official) being posted to Tamna (乇羅 / 탐라 — the ancient Korean name for Jeju Island). The poems are extensively annotated with Kim’s scholarly knowledge of Jeju’s history: the Tamna kingdom and its traditional Star Master (星主) ruler title; the Yuan dynasty’s Army-and-People General Management Office on the island; its citrus cultivation and subtropical latitude; its numerous ancient names in Chinese historical records.

Original text:

其一 城東一別小池頭。葱盖弧南博遠遊。星主千年間暇地。耽羅國主。古稱星主。 軍民摠管卽君侯。元時立軍民摠管府。

其二 鐵罋西防又土門。分明籌策壯邊垣。鰅魚海上纔廻節。說文。鰅魚出東暆。卽今江陵。 朱紱今移橘柚園。

其三 極高卅七線途匀。河尾連躔度析津。木奴不過瀛洲植。緯帶淮南可比 隣。緯度與淮南同帶。故橘 海 渡。亦爲枳。

其四 聃牟於古亦耽浮。儒李城空枕海頭。隋書。聃牟羅在百濟海中。韓文。海外流水耽浮羅之國。唐書儋羅國王儒李都羅來朝。皆指耽羅而聲近相變。 要足 去聲 九韓風土志。魯花遺蹟若爲求。風土記九韓之目。耽羅則居其一。元時置達魯花赤。 [主-D001: 海 : 渡]

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Parting at the city’s east side, by a small pool; the blue-green canopy arcs south — planning a distant journey. The Star Master’s thousand-year leisured land: the Army-and-People General Manager is your lordship. [The ruler of Tamna. Anciently called Star Master. / In the Yuan period, the Army-and-People General Management Office was established.]

II

Cheolgwan [Iron Defense] in the west, also Tomun [Earth Gate]; clearly planning strategies to strengthen the border walls. The 鰅 fish at sea — the season just turning: the red official ribbons now move to the citrus garden. [The Shuowen says the 鰅 fish comes from Dong Yi, present-day Gangreung.]

III

Exactly at the 37-degree latitude line, the road even; the river’s end connecting through [celestial] stations, traversing to Beijing. The citrus tree [wooden slave] only grows in Yeongju [Jeju]: the latitude belt comparable to Huainan as neighbor. [The latitude is in the same belt as Huainan. Hence citrus trees crossing from there also become bitter oranges.]

IV

In ancient times, Tamna was also called Tambu; King Yuri’s city empty, resting at the sea’s head. Wishing to fully [examine] the Nine Han Topography: the Darughachi’s traces — how to seek them? [Historical sources: the Sui Shu, Han Yu’s writings, and the Tang Shu all record various ancient names for Tamna. / The Nine Han Topography lists Tamna as one of the nine Han peoples. / In the Yuan period the Darughachi (達魯花赤) were placed there.] [Variant reading: 渡 (crossing) in place of 海 (sea)]

Reading notes:

Four farewell poems that are simultaneously a scholarly monograph on Jeju Island. Kim sends the governor off equipped with a historical and geographical orientation that most Joseon officials would not possess: the Tamna kingdom’s ancient ruler title (Star Master / 星主), its administrative history through the Mongol Yuan period, its position on the 37th parallel aligning it with the Huainan region of China, its citrus cultivation (木奴 / “wooden slave” = the classical poetic term for citrus trees), its successive ancient names (聃牟羅, 耽浮羅, 聃羅) across the Chinese dynastic histories.

星主 (Star Master) = the traditional title of Tamna’s ruler, preserved in Korean and Chinese historical texts; unlike mainland Korean kingdoms, Tamna maintained its own political structure until late in the Goryeo period.

木奴 (wooden slave) = the classical poetic designation for citrus trees, from the story of Li Heng of the Three Kingdoms period, who called his thousand citrus trees “a thousand wooden slaves.” Citrus only grows in subtropical climates; the poem notes that Jeju’s latitude matches Huainan (the Huai River region being the northernmost natural range of citrus cultivation in China), though the note adds: citrus trees that cross the sea or latitude belt “become bitter oranges” — a classical observation from the Yanzi Chunqiu about how environment transforms species.

The Darughachi (達魯花赤, Korean: 달루가치) were the Mongol supervisors placed in vassal territories during the Yuan period. Their abbreviated form (魯花) appears in the final poem’s question: how would one find their traces on Jeju today? Kim is asking the governor to do historical fieldwork that he himself cannot do.

The irony available in retrospect: these four poems represent Kim’s pre-exile knowledge of Jeju, assembled from historical texts. The island he describes from outside will later be the island he inhabits from inside.

寄野雲居士 (Sent to Wild Cloud Layman)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile given the reference to the Beijing scholarly circle.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A poem sent to Gai Qi (蓋琦, 1744–1816, on first appearance: Qing dynasty painter, pen name Yeyun / Wild Cloud; known for figure paintings, ghost paintings, and landscapes; part of the Yangzhou scholarly circle), who possessed an ancient ivory court tablet (笏) and a Song dynasty Lanting inkstone with Weng Fanggang’s small-character inscription on the reverse.

Original text:

古木寒鴉客到時。詩情借與畵情移。烟雲供養知無盡。笏外秋光滿硯池。先生舊藏古牙笏。又有宋蘭亭硯。硯背刻蘇齋仿玉枕小字。較陳香泉本。更佳。

Translation: Cinemawords

Old trees, cold crows — when the guest arrives; poetic feeling borrowed, painting feeling shifting. Clouds and mist as offerings — knowing it is without end: beyond the [ivory] tablet, autumn light filling the inkstone pool.

Reading notes:

The source annotation introduces two objects: an ancient ivory court tablet (牙笏 — the ceremonial tablet held by officials in court, later collected as antiquities) and a Song dynasty inkstone engraved with the Lanting on one face and Weng Fanggang’s imitation of the Jade Pillow small characters (玉枕小字) on the reverse. These objects frame the poem’s space: the official’s ceremonial past (the tablet) and the calligraphic present (the inkstone).

“Poetic feeling borrowed, painting feeling shifting” — at Gai Qi’s studio, the two arts exchange qualities. Poetry borrows from painting’s visual mode; painting takes on poetry’s emotional register. This mutual borrowing is the ground of the literati studio culture these two men shared.

“Beyond the tablet, autumn light filling the inkstone pool” — the final image: the old ivory tablet, a relic of official ceremony, no longer performs its ceremonial function but serves now as the framing boundary for the inkstone’s seasonal light.

題岱覽卷面 二首 (Inscribed on the Title Page of the “Viewing Mount Tai” Volume — Two Poems)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile given the reference to the Beijing scholarly network.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines each; two poems.

Occasion: Two poems inscribed on the cover of a book or rubbing album titled “Viewing Mount Tai” (岱覽 / 대람), given to Kim by Cho Hui-ryong (彝齋 / 이재), who had brought it from China. Source notes indicate Li Muk-jang’s Mount Tai ascent portrait and the remaining Qin stele characters from Bixia Temple are also referenced. The two calligraphic characters of the title 岱覽 are identified as the work of “Yi Muk-gyeong” in an ancient clerical script style.

Original text:

其一 五嶽胷中未折磨。玉皇頂上怳親過。行𢄑萬里搜光怪。織女支機更若何。彝齋以此書及河源志携歸。割愛相贈。故借用支機故事。

其二 登岱圖餘又此書。碧霞殘石當車渠。墨卿隷古西京法。借勢秦松漢栢於。李墨庄登岱圖。曾於法源寺中看過。碧霞廟秦碑殘字。爲余所藏。伊墨卿岱覽二隷字甚奇古。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

The Five Peaks not yet fully worked through in the breast; at the Jade Emperor’s Peak — dazedly as if personally having passed. Traveling bags ten thousand li seeking brilliant marvels: the Weaving Girl’s support machine — furthermore, how? [Cho Hui-ryong brought this book and the Hao-yuan Chronicles home; generously giving them up to gift me. Hence borrowing the Weaving Girl Support Machine story.]

II

Beyond the Mount Tai ascent picture, this book too; the remaining stone from Bixia Temple — comparable to clam-agate [precious gem]. [Yi] Muk-gyeong’s clerical script in the ancient Western Capital [Qin-Han] method: borrowing the force of Qin pines and Han cypresses. [Li Muk-jang’s “Mount Tai Ascent Picture” I previously saw at Fayuan Temple. The remaining characters of the Qin stele at Bixia Temple — I own them. The two clerical script characters of “Viewing Mount Tai” by Yi Muk-gyeong are very ancient and unusual.]

Reading notes:

The Weaving Girl’s support machine (支機石): In a Chinese legend, the traveler Zhang Qian floated by raft to the Milky Way and there received from the Weaving Girl a stone used to support her loom. The stone was later identified in earthly locations, establishing a connection between the cosmic and terrestrial. Kim invokes this story because Cho Hui-ryong’s generous gift of the rare book — generously parting with something precious — resembles the Weaving Girl’s gesture.

車渠 (clam-agate) = one of the Buddhist Seven Treasures, a precious gem; used to characterize the value of the remaining Qin stele characters from Bixia Temple on Mount Tai.

“Borrowing the force of Qin pines and Han cypresses” (秦松漢栢): the ancient trees that have stood on Mount Tai since the Qin and Han dynasties, representing millennia of historical continuity. Yi Muk-gyeong’s clerical script draws on this same depth of historical authority.

寄泊翁壽朝 四首 (Sent to Poktong for His Birthday Celebration — Four Poems)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile (1840–1856).

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines each; four poems.

Occasion: Four birthday poems sent to Poktong (泊翁 / “Anchored Elder,” a literary companion who appeared extensively in Volume 9, poems 73, 100, and 117) for his birthday celebration (壽朝 — longevity ceremony). The source note in poem 2 confirms: “The Elder’s poems have already exceeded 30,000.”

Original text:

其一 不計他鄕與故鄕。只要三萬六千觴。試看鐵柱淸堅甚。百折磨過石敢當。

其二 大年恰到放翁時。萬首詩還三倍之。翁詩已過三萬首。 天遣翁來知有意。使人解讀謫仙詩。

其三 頭上恩輝世世偏。梨花村舍墨因緣。朅來碧海鯨魚手。不減腸肥腦滿年。

其四 二十年來無一哦。江山如此任嘲呵。今朝忽覺情懷弱。優鉢曇花現則那。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Not counting other villages or hometown; only needing 36,000 cups of wine [for a full life]. Try seeing: how pure and firm is the iron pillar — a hundred twists and grindings — the Stone Dare to Stand.

II

Great age just reaching the “Old Farmer” [Lu You] era; ten thousand poems — still three times that [30,000+]. [The Elder’s poems have already exceeded 30,000.] Heaven sending the elder here — knowing there is a purpose: enabling people to understand and read the “exiled immortal’s” [Li Bai’s] poems.

III

The grace-light above the head, generation after generation favoring; pear blossom village cottage — ink karmic conditions. The blue sea whale-fishing hand coming now: not diminishing the fat-bellied, full-brained year.

IV

In twenty years, not a single verse [from me]; with mountains and rivers like this — let them mock and laugh. This morning, suddenly feeling the spirit weakened: when the udumbara flower appears — then what?

Reading notes:

A birthday sequence that constitutes a portrait of vigorous literary old age. Poem I’s 石敢當 (Stone Dare to Stand) = the traditional stone talisman inscribed with these three characters and placed at road crossings or building corners for protection; used here as a figure for Poktong’s immovable persistence through adversity.

放翁 (Old Farmer) = Lu You (陸游, 1125–1210), the Song dynasty poet who wrote an extraordinary number of poems — Poktong’s 30,000+ poems exceed even this benchmark by three times. 謫仙 (exiled immortal) = Li Bai’s designation, given by He Zhizhang when he first encountered the poet’s work.

Poem IV’s 優鉢曇花 (udumbara flower) = the mythological flower that blooms only once every 3,000 years. Kim uses it to say: this birthday poem is as rare as the udumbara — Kim has not composed for twenty years (a self-deprecating exaggeration), and the effort required by the birthday occasion has weakened him. “When the udumbara flower appears — then what?” is the poem’s final question: even rare, precious things happen — and then what comes after?

玉筍峰 (Jade-Shoot Peak)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile given the Danyang location.

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A single poem at Jade-Shoot Peak (玉筍峰 / 옥순봉) — distinct from the two poems in poem 5 of Part 1. This second poem about the same peak approaches it from a different angle.

Original text:

照映空江月一丸。如聞萬籟起蒼寒。人間艸木元閒漫。不學芙蓉與牧丹。

Translation: Cinemawords

Reflected and mapped in the empty river — the moon, one sphere; as if hearing ten thousand sounds arising in the dark coldness. Ordinary grass and trees of the human world are simply purposeless: not learning from the lotus or the peony.

Reading notes:

Where the first Jade-Shoot Peak poems (poem 5, Part 1) argued through comparison — the peak surpassing all ordinary vegetation, the peak’s force matching a calligrapher’s brush-energy — this single poem argues through refusal. The peak “does not learn from the lotus or the peony” (不學芙蓉與牧丹). The lotus and peony are the two most celebrated flowers in the Chinese tradition: the lotus for Buddhist purity, the peony for worldly wealth and rank. The peak imparts from neither model, pursues neither kind of beauty.

This refusal is the poem’s aesthetic position: the best natural objects are not those that resemble cultural ideals but those that simply exist with the force of their own character. The moon reflected in the river, the ten thousand sounds of the cold — these accompany the peak without explaining it.

道中口號 (Improvised on the Road)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile (1840–1856).

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A travel poem composed impromptu while riding through a highland area.

Original text:

槲林一帶隱茆關。古道無人秖亂山。上下梯田新燒遍。雪鸙飛過馬蹄間。

Translation: Cinemawords

A belt of oak forest hiding the thatched gate; the ancient road — no one — only disordered mountains. Terraced fields above and below, newly burned all over: a snow partridge flying past between the horse’s hooves.

Reading notes:

One of the installment’s most precisely observational poems. Four lines render four successive perceptions while riding on horseback: the oak belt and hidden gate, the empty road and disordered mountains, the burned terraced fields, and then the sudden intrusion of the snow partridge (雪鸙 — likely the hazel grouse or a related mountain bird) flying between the horse’s hooves.

The burned terraced fields (上下梯田新燒遍) are the trace of slash-and-burn agriculture common in Korean highlands — the fields cleared by burning before the spring planting. Against this black, scorched landscape, the partridge appears as an event: too low for proper flight, briefly startling, moving between the horse’s legs rather than above them. The poem’s final image is entirely specific to one moment of travel that no other poem would record.

扶旺寺 二首 (Buwangsa Temple — Two Poems)

Period: Period uncertain; likely pre-exile or post-exile (1840–1856).

Form: Heptasyllabic quatrain (七言絶句), 4 lines each; two poems.

Occasion: Two poems at Buwangsa Temple (扶旺寺 / 부왕사), a Buddhist temple. This temple also appears in Volume 9 (poem 89).

Original text:

其一 佛光峰影互因依。黃葉林中一磬微。山鳥元來多舌相。蒼松也是白雲非。

其二 苦海茫茫回首處。幾般熱惱幾般閒。白雲流水還平地。未信從前石路艱。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Buddha-light and peak-shadow mutually dependent; in the yellow-leaf forest — one faint gong-sound. Mountain birds originally have the many-tongue appearance: the blue-green pine — also a case of white cloud negation.

II

The sea of suffering, vast and boundless — looking back; how many kinds of burning vexation, how many kinds of leisure. White clouds and flowing water returning to level ground: not believing the stone road before was difficult.

Reading notes:

The two poems approach the temple from complementary Buddhist perspectives. Poem I is about natural phenomena as teaching: the Buddha-light and peak-shadow are “mutually dependent” (互因依) — a direct invocation of the dependent origination principle. Mountain birds have “many-tongue appearance” (多舌相) — a Buddhist descriptor from the sutra tradition for the ability to teach in many forms simultaneously; the mountain birds’ chattering is this natural teaching. “The blue-green pine — also a case of white cloud negation” is a Chan observation: the pine, which does not turn yellow in autumn and does not drop its needles, negates the impermanent white clouds — it demonstrates what persists through the clouds of impermanence.

Poem II moves from the ascent to the descent. The “sea of suffering” (苦海) is the Buddhist metaphor for samsara. Looking back from the flatlands, the stone mountain road — which seemed so arduous during the climb — is now unbelievable: “not believing the stone road before was difficult.” The poem makes no claim that suffering is unreal; it observes that the memory of effort dissolves once the effort is complete, which is itself a teaching about the nature of retrospective experience.

The installment’s arc runs from the final frames of the Danyang painting-scroll (poems 19–20) through a wide field of social and scholarly exchange to the four Jeju farewell poems at its center (poem 30) — and from there through more social verse to the Buwangsa Temple poems’ Buddhist close. What the group reveals, taken together, is the range of simultaneous registers Kim operated in during the pre-exile years: the scenic excursion, the Beijing scholarly network, the Korean official world, the epigraphic and antiquarian attention, and the Buddhist-meditative mode all active at once. Part 3 continues this pre-exile social world through the long sequence of poems that precedes the exile’s beginning at poem 100.