Kim Jeong-hui: The Complete Poems, Volume 9, Part 8 — Sixteen Panels for Oh Nanseol and the Close of Volume Nine

Poems 131–152 from the Wandang Jeonjip, Volume 9

This is Part 8, the final installment of the complete English translation of Kim Jeong-hui’s poems from the Wandang Jeonjip, Volume 9; it covers entries 131 through 152.

Volume 9 ends in a formal contraction. The heptasyllabic regulated verse that dominated Parts 6 and 7 gives way, from poem 141 onward, to the pentasyllabic quatrain — four lines of five characters, the briefest canonical Chinese verse form. What had required 56 characters now takes 20. The shift is not a casualness of composition; the installment’s most demanding entry, poem 145, contains sixteen such quatrains with a prose preface, accompanied by detailed source annotations for each panel. The brevity is intentional, matched to the form of the painting panels it serves.

That centerpiece is the only explicitly dated poem in Volume 9: sixteen quatrains for the sixteen illustrated panels of Oh Nanseol’s (吳蘭雪) sixtieth-birthday travel biography, dated the 25th day of the 3rd month of 1825. The sequence crosses southern China and Shandong — Jishan, Qixia, the Yellow Crane Tower, Mount Tai, Tiger Hill, Lingyan, Jiao Mountain, Fuchun — and ends in an acknowledgment that Kim Jeong-hui and his brother Kim Myeong-hui commissioned the sixteenth panel themselves, inserting Korea into Oh Nanseol’s life record.

Poem 141 is the volume’s only assembled ancient verse (集古詩), its lines drawn from Du Fu, Pei Du, and Huang Tingjian. Poems 146 and 147 are the volume’s most explicitly private literary texts — found drafts of uncertain date and six poems of poetry theory addressed to Kim Myeong-hui. The installment closes with poem 152, a return to Seobyeok Pavilion from poem 25, completing a circle across most of the volume. Volume 9’s final image is voices emerging from the azure mist.

失題 (Untitled)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: An untitled occasional poem, likely composed in winter or early spring, centered on the narcissus plant in the garden.

Original text:

我家金鯽舊橋東。紅者開兼白者同。獨對水仙支瘦臘。未從玉妃笑春風。夢廻淺水黃昏際。吟斷荒村暮雪中。近開虎兒詩意足。鄕園物色漫書空。

Translation: Cinemawords

My family’s golden carp — east of the old bridge; the red ones opening, the white ones also the same. Alone facing the narcissus, enduring the lean winter; not yet following the jade consort to laugh in the spring wind. Dreams returning to shallow water at the dusk’s edge; chanting stopping in the desolate village amid evening snow. Recently opened — “Tiger Child’s” poems are satisfying in meaning; homeland garden scenes carelessly written in the air.

Reading notes:

水仙 (narcissus) = “water immortal” — the Chinese name for the winter narcissus, which blooms in the cold months. 玉妃 (jade consort) is one of the poetic epithets for the narcissus in the Chinese tradition, the flower that keeps the winter garden company before spring’s warmer competitors arrive. “Not yet following the jade consort to laugh in the spring wind” means the narcissus has not yet reached the stage of open-spring blossoming — it endures the lean late-winter months (支瘦臘) in comparative quiet.

“Tiger Child” (虎兒) is an unidentified person — possibly a younger brother, a son, or a disciple — whose recently completed poems Kim finds satisfying. The poem’s close (homeland garden scenes “carelessly written in the air”) is the gesture of a practiced poet who notes the scene without the need to formalize it: the observing suffices, the writing it into the air (漫書空) a kind of effortless registration.

漫和洪雪蕉 (Casually Rhyming Seolcho Hong’s Verse)

Period: Period uncertain; the reference to having passed sixty years and a complete 60-year cycle (一甲) is consistent with composition after 1846, likely during or after the Jeju exile, but no explicit exile markers appear. Given its placement in Volume 9, the dating remains unresolved.

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A casual response rhyming the verse of Hong Seolcho (洪雪蕉 — “Snow Plantain Hong,” an unidentified literary companion).

Original text:

朅來華髮白粉如。天竺峰雲夢幻餘。已把六旬一甲過。相將七十二鷗居。剛憐舊雨靑苔上。不勝斜陽綠柳疎。載酒何人來問字。玄亭寂寂等身書。

Translation: Cinemawords

How suddenly the flowering hair is white as powder; Tianzu Peak’s clouds — what remains of the dream’s illusion. Already having passed sixty years — one full 60-year cycle; about to approach seventy, dwelling like a gull. Just feeling for old friends on the green moss; unable to bear the slanting sun through the sparse green willows. Who brings wine, coming to ask about a character? The Dark Pavilion silent, silent — books piled body-high.

Reading notes:

The poem’s opening two lines establish the tone of aged retrospect: the white hair sudden as a shock, the mountain clouds (Tianzu Peak / 天竺峰 — a Buddhist mountain site) receding like a dream that is almost gone.

“Already having passed sixty years — one full 60-year cycle” (已把六旬一甲過): one 甲 is the complete 60-year cycle of the Chinese calendrical system; to have passed one 甲 is to have completed a full rotation of the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, traditionally a mark of significant longevity and a milestone for celebration. Combined with the reference to approaching seventy, the poem situates itself in Kim’s later years.

“Who brings wine, coming to ask about a character?” — the scholar at the Dark Pavilion, surrounded by books, waiting for a visitor who brings wine and a literary question. The books piled body-high (等身書 — books equal to one’s body height) are both a symbol of accomplishment and a source of melancholy: accumulated learning, little current conversation.

示堯仙 (Showing to Yoson)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem written for Yoson (堯仙 / 요선), an unidentified person — possibly a younger disciple or companion.

Original text:

病眞病假證毗耶。孄漫公然日漸加。犂外雨膏隨處處。篴中春意盡家家。工愁千丈白髭髮。弄豔一枝紅杏花。好景怱怱勾住否。雙柑斗酒夢天涯。

Translation: Cinemawords

Disease real, disease feigned — proving it at Vimalakirti’s; idleness and languor openly, day by day increasing. Beyond the plow, rain-fat soil everywhere, everywhere; within the flute, spring feeling throughout every household. Expert at worrying — a thousand zhang of white beard-hair; playing with elegance — one branch of red apricot blossom. The beautiful scene rushing fast — can you hold it? Two tangerines and a bucket of wine — dreaming of the ends of the earth.

Reading notes:

“Disease real, disease feigned — proving it at Vimalakirti’s” (病眞病假證毗耶): Vimalakirti feigned illness at Vaishali (毗耶 / 비야 = Vaishali, the city where the Vimalakirti Sutra is set) to gather Bodhisattvas and deliver a great teaching. Kim raises the question whether his own indisposition is genuine illness or feigned wisdom — genuinely uncertain, or wryly admitting to simple laziness.

“Two tangerines and a bucket of wine” (雙柑斗酒) alludes to the famous story associated with Su Dongpo: bringing two tangerines and a bucket of wine to watch the rain, a gesture of cheerful, modest enjoyment that became a touchstone for the pleasures of literary companionship under constraint.

“The beautiful scene rushing fast — can you hold it?” addresses Yoson directly: the poem’s one turn toward the person it is written for. The rest is self-portrait; this line is counsel. Rushing scenery cannot be held, but one can learn to register it before it passes.

走和全椒山霽景 (Quickly Rhyming the Clear-Weather Scene of Jeonchopsan)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A quick response-poem rhyming someone’s verse about the post-rain clearing scene at Jeonchopsan (全椒山), a mountain location.

Original text:

霽時爭識雨時功。消息田家月令中。滿眼太平涵有象。來頭不托樂無窮。窓間晴峀獻新碧。籬下旱蓮開喜紅。處處農謳楊柳岸。豳風畵意一村同。

Translation: Cinemawords

At clearing-time, competing to recognize the rain-time merit; the news within the farmhouse’s seasonal almanac. Eyes full of great peace containing its signs; what comes ahead — not depending on luck — joy without limit. Through the window, the clearing peak presents new green; under the fence, drought-lotus opening a happy red. Everywhere farmer’s songs along the willow banks: the Bin Odes’ painted meaning — the whole village the same.

Reading notes:

The poem celebrates post-rain agricultural scenes through the frame of the Bin Feng (豳風 / 빈풍) — the “Odes of Bin” section of the Book of Songs (詩經), which contains some of the canonical agricultural cycle poems describing the rhythm of plowing, planting, harvesting, and domestic preparation across the seasons. “The Bin Odes’ painted meaning — the whole village the same” positions the scene at Jeonchopsan inside this oldest tradition of agricultural verse: what Kim sees in the clearing-sky farm landscape is not new but recognizable, a continuation of the Songs.

“At clearing-time, competing to recognize the rain-time merit”: the clearing after rain reveals what the rain accomplished — the swollen streams, the new green, the lotus flower refreshed. Recognizing the rain’s work from the evidence of the clearing is the poem’s guiding perception.

李君詩思甚佳。不似弓馬中人。走和贈之。 (Yi’s Poetic Sensibility Is Excellent — Not Like One from the Bow-and-Horse World; I Quickly Wrote a Response to Give Him)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A response poem given to a person surnamed Yi (李君, unidentified), described in the title as having excellent poetic sensibility despite coming from a military background (“bow-and-horse world”).

Original text:

文陣當輸第一功。朅來唾手塞雲中。掣鯨碧海應更快。射虎南山豈是窮。者個鞾刀仍帕首。也能玉白又花紅。錦心元自人人有。南北東西底異同。

Translation: Cinemawords

In the literary battle, you should yield the first merit; how easily — spitting on hands — piercing into cloud-filled passes. Pulling whales from the blue sea should be even faster; shooting tigers on Southern Mountain — how could that be insufficient? This person with boots and sword still wearing a scholar’s headscarf — can also do the jade-white and the flower-red. The brocade heart is originally present in everyone: north south east west — what’s the fundamental difference?

Reading notes:

The poem plays on the contrast announced in its title: a person from the military world who has genuine poetic sensibility. Kim converts this into argument rather than novelty — the “brocade heart” (錦心 / the refined interior capable of producing fine verse) is not a class-specific endowment but “originally present in everyone.” The military man with the scholar’s headscarf is not an exception but an illustration of a principle.

“Pulling whales from the blue sea” (掣鯨碧海) is Kim’s recurring image for commanding poetic power — the ability to seize and deploy the largest material. He is saying that Yi’s military training in handling the largest forces (passing through mountain clouds, shooting tigers) is the same capacity as pulling literary whales: the quality of decisive grip translates.

贈黃巵園 (Given to Hwang Jiwon)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem given to Hwang Jiwon (黃巵園 — “Gardenia Garden Hwang,” an unidentified literary companion whose pen name evokes the fragrant gardenia).

Original text:

眇然一粟敞山茨。萬古松靑靑上眉。直溯江西宗派譜。旁參元祐罪人詩。心空綺語無三毒。手卓紅旂起百痿。甘紅露味眞佳否。藜莧圖書道自肥。

Translation: Cinemawords

Small as a grain of rice, the mountain thatched dwelling opens wide; ten thousand years of pine — green, green, up at the brow. Directly tracing the Jiangxi school’s poetic lineage; from the side studying the poems of the Yuanyou exiles. Heart empty of ornate speech — without the three poisons; hand erect with red flag — rousing a hundred lassitudes. The sweet red dew-taste — is it truly fine? Wild greens and purslane, books — the Way nourishes itself.

Reading notes:

The poem positions Jiwon inside two specific literary lineages. The Jiangxi school (江西宗派) was the Song dynasty poetic movement associated with Huang Tingjian (黃庭堅, 1045–1105), emphasizing rigorous formal craft and the debt to Du Fu. The Yuanyou exiles (元祐罪人 — the Yuanyou faction: Su Dongpo and associates exiled under this political designation) are studied “from the side” (旁參) — not as the main inheritance but as a supplementary source.

“Heart empty of ornate speech — without the three poisons”: the three Buddhist poisons (三毒) are greed, hatred, and delusion. Jiwon’s poetry is free of these — free of the ornate excess, the defensive aggression, and the self-deception that characterize lesser verse. “Hand erect with red flag — rousing a hundred lassitudes” is the martial image applied to literary ambition: raising the flag that wakes up those who have grown indolent.

“Wild greens and purslane, books — the Way nourishes itself” (藜莧圖書道自肥): the scholar eating simple wild greens while surrounded by books, the Way fattening itself on this combination. Poverty of diet, richness of mind.

贈混虛 (Given to Honheo)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A second poem dedicated to the monk Honheo (混虛, on first appearance in this installment: a Buddhist monk whose name combines “chaos” and “void”; he appeared first in poem 93 and appears again in poem 150). The poem describes an encounter with Honheo on a mountain at noon.

Original text:

卓午山頭戴笠行。姓湯人忽喜歡迎。遊方昔入菩提界。詩偈今聞瀑布聲。銀地三觀由願力。天龍一指繼燈明。燒豬燒笋追前夢。江上秋風渺渺情。

Translation: Cinemawords

At noon on the mountain head, walking with a bamboo hat; a person surnamed Tang suddenly joyfully greets him. Once entering the Bodhi realm as a traveling monk; now hearing the waterfall sound through poetry-verses. The silver ground’s three contemplations proceed from vow-power; Tianlong’s one finger continues the lamp’s brightness. Roasted pig and roasted bamboo shoots — pursuing the former dream; on the river, autumn wind — feeling that stretches far, far.

Reading notes:

“Tianlong’s one finger continues the lamp’s brightness” (天龍一指繼燈明) invokes the famous Chan story of the monk Guzhizhi (俱胝): he answered all questions by raising one finger, having inherited this from his teacher Tianlong (天龍). The transmission was complete in that single gesture — to continue the lamp’s brightness is to transmit the Dharma through similarly direct, minimal teaching.

“The silver ground’s three contemplations proceed from vow-power”: the three contemplations (三觀 — emptiness, provisional existence, and the middle way) practiced on the silver-bright ground of meditation are not products of personal effort alone but of the vow (願力) to achieve enlightenment for all beings.

“Roasted pig and roasted bamboo shoots — pursuing the former dream”: these specific foods, recalling a shared meal (real or remembered), pull the poem suddenly into warm sensory particularity. The Chan framework and the feast memory coexist without contradiction; both belong to the full relationship with Honheo.

開元禪房。寓感於古雨今雲之際。不覺觸忤閒愁。漫題示通判。 (The Gaewon Meditation Room: Lodging Feeling at the Border Between Ancient Rain and Present Clouds — Unexpectedly Touching a Quiet Melancholy — Casually Written to Show the Tongpan)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem written in or near the Gaewon Meditation Room (開元禪房), inscribed to show a local official of the rank 通判 (tongpan / deputy district official). The poem is prompted by the contrast between past and present — the “ancient rain and present clouds” of the title.

Original text:

靑天一握此禪樓。溫祚城高冽水頭。三十年來逢雪宿。百千境過逝雲悠。煖寒好借丹霞佛。法食要須露地牛。記取袖中和炮未。依然春脚古賢侯。

Translation: Cinemawords

Blue sky, one handful — this meditation tower; the Wirye Fortress high, at the head of the cold river. Thirty years arriving and lodging in the snow; a hundred thousand realms passed — cloud drifting, lingering. For warming cold, good to borrow from Danxia’s Buddha [who burned the statue]; the Dharma meal requires the open-ground ox. Remember: in the sleeve, the harmonious firearm — not yet [fired]; still following spring’s step, the ancient worthy marquis.

Reading notes:

“Wirye Fortress” (溫祚城 = 위례성) is the ancient Baekje capital, historically located near Seoul. The meditation room sits within this layered historical geography: ancient capital, cold river, snow-lodging over thirty years.

“Good to borrow from Danxia’s Buddha”: Danxia Tianran (丹霞天然, 739–824) is the Tang Chan master famous for burning a wooden Buddha statue for warmth, shocking his fellow monks. The act was a demonstration that the wooden statue is not the Buddha — the statue has no buddha-nature; buddha-nature cannot be found in carved wood. To “borrow from the Danxia Buddha” for warmth is to apply this radical insight practically.

“The Dharma meal requires the open-ground ox”: the 露地牛 (open-ground ox) is a Chan image for the original nature, the Buddha-nature that roams freely without obstruction. The meal of the Dharma — the true nourishment — requires this unconstrained openness.

次梅花詩韻 二首 (Rhyming the Plum Blossom Poem — Two Poems)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines each; two poems.

Occasion: Two poems rhyming the plum blossom verse of an unspecified companion.

Original text:

其一 臘前春意破機扃。如敎彈開一指靈。者箇何因來北地。是中不必減西泠。瘦燈脉脉如尋照。老屐騰騰幾見經。三友圖中訂舊約。玉顔紅領是眞形。

其二 一點塵無到此扃。梅花紅白久通靈。端硯石心同的的。竹鑪茶韻合泠泠。偃盖橫枝多舊蔭。古雲今雨飽曾經。色香妙諦眞孤詣。楊補之圖只典形。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Before the twelfth month, spring feeling breaks the mechanism’s bolt; as if taught to spring open with one finger’s spirit. This one — what karmic cause brought it to the northern land? Within this — need not diminish West Lake’s West Ling [plum tradition]. The lean lamp steady, steady — as if seeking to illuminate; the old clogs stepping, stepping — how many times traversed? In the Three Friends painting, renewing the old compact: jade face, red collar — this is the true form.

II

Not a single speck of dust reaches this bolt; plum blossom red and white — long communicating with spirit. The upright inkstone, stone heart — exact and exact; the bamboo brazier, tea cadence — matching and cold, cold. Spread-canopy horizontal branch — abundant old shade; ancient clouds and present rain — fully experienced. Color and fragrance, wondrous truth — a truly solitary attainment; Yang Buzhi’s paintings only set the formal prototype.

Reading notes:

“West Ling” (西泠 / 시령) is the area near West Lake in Hangzhou associated with Lin Bu’s (林逋, 967–1028) hermitage and his famous plum poems — the canonical Chinese location for plum-blossom cultivation and verse. “Need not diminish West Ling” is the claim that the northern plum being addressed is fully the equal of the Hangzhou tradition.

“Yang Buzhi’s paintings only set the formal prototype” (楊補之圖只典形): Yang Buzhi (楊無咎, 1097–1169) was the Song dynasty master of ink-plum painting, whose monochromatic technique set the standard for the genre. “Only set the formal prototype” is a compliment that damns with precision — Yang established the form, but this plum exceeds the formal model.

Poem II’s inkstone with “exact and exact” (的的 — clearly exact, unmistakably precise) stone heart and the bamboo brazier with its cold cadence create the material world of the scholar’s space where the plum blooms: the exactness of the stone, the cold of the tea, and the plum’s color and fragrance together constitute what the poem calls the “solitary attainment” (孤詣) — the unique, unrepeatable achievement of this particular plum encounter.

洛重學士直玉署。雪中存訊。走艸奉寄急行無善步也。 (A Scholar at the Jade Bureau in Nakjung Sends Winter Greetings in the Snow; I Write Back in Running Cursive in Haste — Apologies for the Uneven Steps)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A scholar serving in the Jade Bureau (玉署 — a prestigious literary post) at Nakjung has sent a winter greeting. Kim responds in haste, in running cursive script (走艸), apologizing in the title for the uneven brushwork.

Original text:

尺地時聞翰墨香。金門曉雪早春光。宦緣何似丹砂郡。仙境眞成白玉堂。乘興欲尋戴安道。伴吟空憶孟襄陽。篋中螙粉煩相拭。惆悵鴻泥不可忘。

Translation: Cinemawords

A foot of ground, occasionally hearing brush-and-ink’s fragrance; the golden gate, dawn snow — early spring light. How does an official connection compare to the cinnabar-sand district? The immortal realm truly becomes the White Jade Hall. Spurred by feeling, wanting to seek out Dai Andao; to accompany in chanting — empty recollection of Meng Xiangyang. In the box, bookworm powder — troublesome to wipe clean; melancholy — the goose-print in the mud cannot be forgotten.

Reading notes:

“Wanting to seek out Dai Andao” (戴安道 = Dai Kui, c. 338–399): the famous Jin dynasty episode where Wang Hui drove all night through snow specifically to visit Dai Kui, then turned back at the door without entering, saying: “The interest arose from the feeling; when the feeling is done, one returns — why must one see Dai Kui?” Kim inverts this: he wants to go, unlike Wang Hui, but acknowledges the snow-distance as a real obstacle.

“Empty recollection of Meng Xiangyang” (孟襄陽 = Meng Haoran, 689–740, the Tang recluse poet from Xiangyang): the “to accompany in chanting” — for which Meng Haoran would have been the ideal companion — is only recollection, since Meng is centuries gone. The scholar at the Jade Bureau is a present equivalent; the historical memory adds depth to the present friendship.

“Bookworm powder” (螙粉): the fine powder left by bookworms eating through old volumes — an image for accumulated years of scholarly life, both its richness and the maintenance it requires.

送鳥嶺鎭將王君太 並序 (Sending Off Wang Tae, Military Commander of Joryeong Pass — With Prose Preface)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Assembled ancient verses (集古詩), pentasyllabic, 4 lines. The lines are drawn from Du Fu (杜甫), Pei Du (裴度), and Huang Tingjian (黃庭堅). This is the only collected-ancient-verse poem in Volume 9.

Occasion: Farewell to Wang Tae (王君太), the military commander of Joryeong Pass (鳥嶺鎭). Kim explains in his prose preface that he recently set aside brush and inkstone and could not compose his own verses, so he assembled classical lines instead.

Original text:

序: 昨日奉別太遽。悵然不能忘。無以遣懷。近拋筆硯。又無以尋思成句。集古寄示。不啻若自其口出。一笑。

兩邊山木合。[杜甫] 蒼蒼落日時。[裴度] 將軍不好武。[杜甫] 細和淵明詩。[黃庭堅] ○君和陶故云。

Translation: Cinemawords

Preface: Yesterday’s farewell was too hasty. Melancholy, I cannot forget it. Unable to dispel the feeling in my heart. Having recently set aside brush and inkstone, I also cannot seek thoughts to form a verse. Assembled ancient lines to send and show you. It is as if the words came from my own mouth. A smile.

On both sides — mountain trees closing in. [Du Fu] Vast and gray — the sun’s declining hour. [Pei Du] The general has no love of warfare. [Du Fu] Carefully harmonizing Tao Yuanming’s poetry. [Huang Tingjian] (Because you harmonize with Tao, hence this.)

Reading notes:

The assembled ancient verse (集古詩) is a legitimate classical form: assembling lines from different poets into a new poem, aiming for coherence and specific address. The preface’s candor — Kim has set aside his brush and cannot write — is characteristic of his occasional self-deprecation, and the apology that the assembled lines speak “as if from my own mouth” is both a modest disclaimer and an accurate claim: he has chosen these lines, and they express what he wants to say.

The four assembled lines construct a portrait of Wang Tae: the mountain pass’s two sides closing around him (Du Fu’s geographic specificity applied to Joryeong), the gray-vast quality of the declining sun at the moment of farewell (Pei Du’s atmospheric color), the general who has no love of warfare (Du Fu’s ideal military man), and the soldier who harmonizes Tao Yuanming’s poetry (Huang Tingjian’s image of the cultivated military man). The note “because you harmonize with Tao’s poetry, hence this” identifies the last line as a specific compliment: Wang Tae writes verse in the manner of Tao Yuanming’s harmonization poems.

獅子項。次石間韻。 (Lion’s Neck Peak: Rhyming Seokgan’s Verse)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A brief poem at Lion’s Neck Peak (獅子項 / 사자항), rhyming the verse of Seokgan (石間 / “Between-the-Rocks,” an unidentified companion).

Original text:

非因此嶻嶭。靈鷲那由階。花雨千峰內。行行漸入佳。

Translation: Cinemawords

Not because of this rugged steepness — from where does Vulture Peak’s stairway come? Flower-rain within the thousand peaks: walking, walking — gradually entering the beautiful.

Reading notes:

Vulture Peak (靈鷲山 / 영취산 = Gṛdhrakūṭa) is the mountain where the Buddha delivered the Lotus Sutra — the sacred space of Buddhist teaching. “From where does Vulture Peak’s stairway come?” asks whether this Korean mountain pass connects to that sacred geography — not because of its ruggedness (the physical steepness alone doesn’t qualify it), but because of what occurs within it. The flower-rain (花雨) is the rain of flowers that descends when the Buddha teaches. “Walking, walking — gradually entering the beautiful” is the poem’s conclusion: the approach makes beauty available through the motion of proceeding.

雲起洞 二首 (Cloud-Rising Valley — Two Poems)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines each; two poems.

Occasion: Two brief poems at Cloud-Rising Valley (雲起洞 / 운기동), an unnamed location.

Original text:

其一 千紅花處去。萬綠磵邊尋。山路忘歸去。峰峰起夕陰。

其二 不有紅塵客。那由此地尋。居人無異境。寂寂萬山陰。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Going to where a thousand red flowers are; seeking along the edge of the ten-thousand-green stream. On the mountain road, forgetting the return; peak by peak — the evening shade rising.

II

Without the red-dust visitor, how would this place be sought? The resident has no extraordinary realm — silent, silent — ten thousand mountains in shade.

Reading notes:

The two poems work as inverse propositions. Poem I is the visitor’s experience: drawn by color (red flowers, green stream), losing track of time and direction, the evening shade rising peak by peak. Poem II is the resident’s counter-perspective: the visitor’s arrival is what constitutes the place as a place worth finding. Without the red-dust visitor — someone from the dusty world of ordinary affairs — the mountain would not be sought; it exists as a destination only in relation to the person who leaves the ordinary world to find it. “The resident has no extraordinary realm” (居人無異境): to the person who lives in Cloud-Rising Valley, there is nothing unusual — the unusual is what the visitor brings through the act of arriving.

失題 四首 (Untitled — Four Poems)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines each; four poems.

Occasion: Four untitled quatrains, all with a spring-garden quality, likely from a single occasion at a mountain retreat with spring blossoming and wine.

Original text:

其一: 淸晨漱古井。古井紅如燃。不知桃花發。疑有丹砂泉。 其二: 群芳照澗戶。朝日片霞紅。林禽啄花蘂。時時落酒中。 其三: 藥徑通幽窅。蘿軒積雲霧。山人獨酌時。復與飛花遇。 其四: 緣溪行且坐。芳綠近人情。愛到源深處。有村花柳明。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Clear morning — rinsing at the ancient well; the ancient well red as if burning. Not knowing peach blossoms have opened: suspecting there is a cinnabar spring.

II

A cluster of fragrant flowers reflecting at the stream-door; morning sun — a slice of rosy clouds. Forest birds pecking at flower stamens: from time to time falling into the wine.

III

The herb path connects to the secluded depths; the vine-covered eaves accumulate cloud and mist. When the mountain dweller drinks alone — meeting again with drifting flowers.

IV

Following the stream — walking, then sitting; fragrant green close to human feeling. Loving one’s way to where the source is deep: there is a village — bright with flowers and willows.

Reading notes:

The four quatrains constitute a single arc: the early morning discovery (I), the social scene of flowers and birds and wine (II), the solitary drinker meeting drifting flowers (III), and the discovery of a village at the stream’s source (IV). Together they describe a spring day in a mountain garden from morning rinsing-time to the afternoon walk following the stream to its source.

Poem I’s “the ancient well red as if burning” followed by the discovery that peach blossoms have opened is one of the volume’s most precise observations: the reddish reflection in the old well looked like a cinnabar spring before its cause became apparent. The moment of interpretation displaced by correct perception — suspecting the mineral before seeing the flower — is the kind of specific sensory experience that the quatrain form, with its four lines and no room for expansion, captures best.

Poem IV closes the group with a community: following the stream to the deep source, where there is a village full of light and flowering trees. The recluse’s mountain walk ends at the village, not in further withdrawal — the source-deep place has people in it.

題吳蘭雪 嵩梁 紀遊十六圖 並序 (Inscriptions on Oh Nanseol’s Sixteen Illustrated Travel Panels — With Prose Preface)

Period: Third month, 25th day, of the Eulyu year (1825). One of the few explicitly dated poems in Volume 9.

Form: Prose preface followed by sixteen pentasyllabic quatrains (五言絶句), one for each of the sixteen illustrated panels.

Occasion: Written for the sixtieth birthday (초도 / 初度) of the Chinese literatus Oh Nanseol (吳蘭雪 / 吳嵩梁, 1766–1834, on first appearance in this installment: a prominent Qing dynasty poet and scholar who appears throughout Volume 9; he had extensive connections with Korean literati, including Kim Jeong-hui). Friends commissioned sixteen paintings illustrating scenes from Oh Nanseol’s life travels; Kim writes one quatrain for each panel.

Original text:

序文: 乙酉三月二十又五日。爲吳蘭雪六十初度。以其平生筇屐山水。屬友人作紀遊十六圖。並係小序。要作詩以壽其傳。第十六圖序云秋史山泉爲繪此圖。自以一龕供養吾詩。龕外皆種梅花。寄詩云云。盖紀實也。余於十六圖詩。亦及此意。萬里墨緣也。

1. 稽山題竹 六十年墨緣。依依竹林自。試拈筠上詩。天然金石字。 原序云山有竹林七賢遺跡。少隨先大夫遊於此。拈句刻筠。字如拓本舊碑。斑爛可愛。

2. 棲霞獻賦 卓犖凌雲志。乃在英妙歲。梅花卅載夢。明月千佛偈。 原序云年十九。獻賦攝山。嘉慶丙子。宿千佛巖紅梅花下。夜起踏月。

3. 漢江旅泊 華院無疆壽。又於黃鶴樓。問他拔宅者。何似武昌舟。 蘭雪新田十憶圖。有華院奉觴。原序云乙巳南歸。奉母登黃鶴樓。

4. 岱岳觀雲 秦松漢栢間。初謁覃溪老。紅日與烏雲。知君瓣香早。 原序云癸丑五月謁翁覃溪先生於泰安使院。同遊東岳。登封禪臺俯視雲影。絶頂夜半見初日。

5. 康山秋醼 曾於螴蜳齋。一讀題襟集。朱碧銀槎杯。萬里餘香浥。 余於李心齋螴蜳齋。始見邗上題襟集。朱碧銀槎杯行酒。名流踵至。唱和日多。遂以所作。爲邗上題襟集。

6. 虎阜嬉春 千人石上樹。猶作宋時香。更溯王珣字。流傳古宅芳。 虎阜寺爲晉王珣古宅。王珣遺墨。尙有眞蹟之流傳。近入內府。與快雪眞本同收。

7. 靈巖踏雨 天機淸妙處。山色向人靑。仙館知何在。應煩雨屐停。 靈巖仙舘。爲畢秋帆所居。

8. 瓜廬尋碑 夢樓掣鯨手。詩筆遍久米。豈料焦山墨。亦能過鴨水。 原序云夢樓書余京口三山詩碑。巨公搨貺。且邀看。

9. 韜光望海 夙想弢光庵。圖中暫寓目。缺二字 秋葯詩。亦從芸臺讀。 原序云余與馬秋葯翁徧遊。秋葯詩爲一代碩匠。余之入燕。從阮芸臺。得見秋葯詩。

10. 泖湖話別 三泖五湖間。漁莊聞天下。借問鄭學堂。誰復入室者。 王述庵有三泖漁莊圖題詠。幾遍天下。述庵專尙鄭學。遂自扁鄭學。

11. 惠山啜茗 天下第二泉。又重之秦洪。飮泉猶可得。二妙眞難同。 原序云惠山泉爲第二。輒與秦公小峴洪君稚存。携佳茗。煮泉細啜。

12. 武夷泛月 來謁武夷君。白雲圓夙因。且看峯峯月。三十六化身。 白雲洞。有白玉蟾小像。蘭雪憬若自悟前身。

13. 黃巖看瀑 八萬四千偈。九十九峯瀑。前賢畏後生。仰觀輸俯矚。 原序云黃巖瀑爲第一鉅觀。開先，棲賢。皆以仰觀得之。遜其雄快。太白，東坡皆未至。

14. 蒲磵聽泉 鄭祠聽月時。栩栩漆園夢。羅浮五色繭。海外竚仙種。 羅浮仙蝶尙在燕京之太常。爲明代舊物。呼爲老道人。題詠者甚多。羅浮繭。或有傳種。原序云戊寅。客廣州。宿鄭仙祠下。蒲磵流泉。淙潺徹夕。夢騎仙蝶。翅如車輪。恣遊花首臺黃龍洞諸勝。

15. 淨業蓮因 吟詩何處好。詩境夢無邊。天上眞腴宦。稅詩兼稅蓮。 原序云余與法時帆定交。乙丑。下榻詩龕。淨業湖花事尤盛。遂用放翁語。以蓮花博士自署。

16. 富春梅隱 圖之第十六。萬里傳藁那。桐水君之因 梅龕我卽果。 原序云九里洲在富春山水佳處。計畝種梅。可得三十萬樹。欲投老於此。因刻梅隱中書弘印。朝鮮金秋史。與其弟山泉。屬繪此圖。自以一龕供養吾詩。龕外皆種梅花。寄詩乞和。

Translation: Cinemawords

Preface: The 25th day of the third month of the Eulyu year [1825], being Oh Nanseol’s sixtieth birthday. With his lifelong staff-and-clog travels through mountains and waters, he asked friends to paint sixteen illustrated travel panels, each with a short preface, and requested verse to accompany and bless their transmission. The preface to the sixteenth panel says: Kim Chusa and Sanchen [Kim Jeong-hui and his brother Kim Myeong-hui] commissioned the painting of this panel, using a shrine to serve and honor [Oh Nanseol’s] poetry, with plum blossoms planted outside the shrine, and sending verse asking for a response. This is a record of the facts. In these sixteen panel-poems, I also address this intent. An ink bond across ten thousand li.

1. Engraving Verse on Bamboo at Jishan

Sixty years’ ink bond; lingering, lingering — the bamboo grove of its own. Trying to pick out verse written on bamboo: naturally, the characters of ancient stone inscriptions.

[The mountain has bamboo groves with traces of the Seven Worthies. As a young man, he accompanied his late father to travel here. He picked out verses and carved them on bamboo. The characters are like rubbings from old steles — mottled and beautiful.]

2. Presenting a Rhapsody at Qixia Mountain

Remarkable, cloud-piercing ambition — was at the brilliant, talented years. Plum blossom — thirty-years’ dream; bright moon, a thousand Buddhist verses.

[At age nineteen, he presented a rhapsody at Sheshan. In the Jiaqing bingzi year, he lodged beneath the red plum blossoms at Thousand-Buddha Cliff, rising at night to walk in the moonlight.]

3. Moored on the River

Magnificent courtyard — boundless longevity; again at the Yellow Crane Tower. Asking that person who uprooted his household [to become immortal]: how [does it compare] to the boat at Wuchang?

[Nanseol’s “New Field Ten Memories” has a scene of raising cups at the magnificent courtyard. The original preface says: returning south in the Yisi year, he supported his mother climbing the Yellow Crane Tower.]

4. Watching Clouds at Mount Tai

Between the pines of Qin and cypresses of Han — first calling on the Elderly Tanxi [Weng Fanggang]. Red sun and the Wuyun [rubbing collection]: knowing your petal-incense was offered early.

[In the fifth month of the Guichou year, he called on Weng Tanxi at the Tai’an Commissioner’s Office. Together they toured East Peak, ascending the Fengshan Platform to look down on the cloud-shadows. At the summit, at midnight, they saw the first sunrise.]

5. Autumn Banquet at Kangshan

Once at the Chenxun Studio — once reading the Hanshang Tiqin Collection. Cinnabar-red and jade-green, silver-raft cups: ten thousand li — remaining fragrance soaked in.

[I first saw the Hanshang Tiqin Collection at Li Xinzhai’s Chenxun Studio. Wine was served with the cinnabar-red and jade-green silver-raft cups. Famous scholars came one after another. What was thus produced became the Hanshang Tiqin Collection.]

6. Spring Outing at Tiger Hill

On the Thousand-Person Rock — trees still giving off Song-dynasty fragrance. Furthermore tracing Wang Xun’s calligraphy: transmitted — the fragrance of the ancient house.

[Tiger Hill Temple is the former residence of Jin-dynasty Wang Xun (王珣). Wang Xun’s surviving ink works still have authentic traces transmitted. Recently entered the imperial collection, housed together with the original Kuaixue manuscript.]

7. Walking in Rain at Lingyan

The workings of heaven — clear and wondrous place; mountain color turning green toward people. The immortal hall — where does it reside? Should trouble rain-clogs to stop.

[The Lingyan Immortal Hall was the residence of Bi Qiufan.]

8. Seeking Stele Rubbings at Gualu

Menglou [Wang Wenzhao] — whale-pulling hand; poetic brush reaching throughout Jiumi [Ryukyu]. Who would have expected Jiao Mountain’s ink also able to cross the Yalu River?

[Wang Menglou wrote [Oh Nanseol’s] “Three Mountains at Jingkou” poem on a stele. A great person made rubbings and sent them as gifts, and also invited him to come see.]

9. Gazing at the Sea at Taoguang Temple

Long wished for: Taoguang Hermitage; in the painting, briefly resting the eyes. [Two characters missing] Qiuyao’s poetry: also read through Yuntai [Ruan Yuan].

[The original preface says: I traveled extensively with Elder Ma Qiuyao. Qiuyao’s poetry is the greatest master of his generation. When I entered Beijing, I followed Ruan Yuntai and was able to see Qiuyao’s poems.]

10. Parting Conversations at Mao Lake

Between the Three Mao Lakes and Five Lakes — the fishing cottage famous throughout the world. May I ask about the Zheng Learning Hall? Who else has entered the inner chamber?

[Wang Shu’an had the “Three Mao Fishing Cottage” paintings and verses, which circulated throughout the world. Shu’an was devoted to Zheng Xuan’s scholarship, so he named his study “Zheng Learning Hall.”]

11. Drinking Tea at Huishan

The world’s second spring [Huishan Spring]; also valued by Qin and Hong. Drinking from the spring is still obtainable — the two wonderful [persons] — truly difficult to share together.

[Huishan Spring is ranked second [best in the world]. He always brought fine tea together with Qin Gong Xiaoxian and Hong Jun Zhicun to boil with the spring water and sip carefully.]

12. Boating in Moonlight at Wuyi Mountain

Coming to pay respects to the Wuyi Gentleman [spirit-lord]; White Cloud Cave — full auspicious karmic cause. And looking at the peak-by-peak moon: thirty-six manifestations.

[The White Cloud Cave has a small statue of Bai Yuchan. Nanseol was suddenly as if awakened to his former life.]

13. Viewing Waterfalls at Huangyan

Eighty-four thousand sutra verses; ninety-nine peak waterfalls. Former worthies feared the rising generation: looking up [from below] yields to looking down [from above].

[The original preface says: The Huangyan waterfall is the greatest spectacle. Kaixian and Qixian waterfalls are both obtained by looking up, which loses some of the grandeur. Li Bai and Su Dongpo never reached this one.]

14. Listening to Springs at Pujian

At the Zheng Shrine — the moon-listening time; vivid, vivid — the Lacquer Garden dream [Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream]. Luofu’s five-colored silk cocoon [the immortal butterfly]: overseas, awaiting the immortal breed.

[The Luofu immortal butterfly is still at the Taichang ritual office in Beijing, a relic of the Ming dynasty. It is called “the old Daoist.” The original preface says: In the Wuyin year, staying at Guangzhou, lodging beneath the Zheng Immortal Shrine. The stream flowed all night. He dreamed of riding an immortal butterfly, freely touring the scenic sites.]

15. Lotus at Jingye Lake

Where is poetry-chanting best? The poetry realm — dream without boundary. In heaven, the truly rich official post: taxed for poetry and taxed for lotus.

[The original preface says: In the Yichou year, lodging at the Verse-Shrine. The lotus flowers at Jingye Lake were especially flourishing. Using the language of the Old Man [Lu You], he signed himself “Lotus Doctor.”]

16. Plum Reclusion at Fuchun

The sixteenth panel of the pictures; ten thousand li — the draft poem transmitted. The Tong River — your karmic cause; the plum shrine — that is my fruit.

[The original preface says: The Nine-Li Isle at Fuchun is the finest landscape. Planting plum trees by the mu, one could get three hundred thousand trees. He wished to retire there. The Korean Kim Chusa, together with his brother Sanchen, commissioned the painting of this panel. He uses a shrine to serve and honor my poetry. Outside the shrine, all planted with plum blossoms. He sent a poem asking for a response.]

Reading notes:

The sequence is the most geographically wide-ranging set of poems in Volume 9 — a tour of the major sites of southern China and Shandong, each panel capturing a moment in Oh Nanseol’s biography from his youth to his sixtieth year. The prose annotations attached to each panel are as important as the quatrains themselves: they establish the specific historical circumstances that the poems then compress.

Panel 4 (Mount Tai) marks Oh Nanseol’s first meeting with Weng Fanggang (覃溪) — the same scholar who anchors Volume 9’s Beijing circle. The red sun and the Wuyun rubbing collection appear together in a single line (紅日與烏雲), connecting two of Volume 9’s recurring presences. Panel 8 (Jiao Mountain stele) makes the Korea connection explicit: Wang Wenzhao’s calligraphy crosses the Yalu River — Chinese literary culture transmitted to the peninsula through the rubbing of a stone.

Panel 9’s two-character gap (缺二字) is preserved exactly from the source, honoring the incompleteness of the original document rather than supplying a plausible reading.

The sixteenth and final panel transforms the entire sequence: the preface discloses that Kim Jeong-hui and his brother commissioned it, placing two Korean scholars inside Oh Nanseol’s Chinese biographical record. “The Tong River — your karmic cause / the plum shrine — that is my fruit” positions the Korean poets as the fruit of Oh Nanseol’s life of cultivation: his literary life (the karmic cause, rooted at the Tong River of Fuchun where the legendary recluse Yan Guang fished) has produced, among its fruits, the connection with Korea.

弊篋敗藁。古之作耶。不知爲誰。今之作耶。又不是也。今古之間。吾以爲吾作亦可。凡四首。 (Worn-Out Basket, Failed Drafts: Ancient Work? I Don’t Know Who Made Them. Contemporary Work? Not That Either. Between Past and Present, Claiming Them as My Own Work Is Also Fine. Four Poems in All.)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840). The title suggests these may be undated found drafts.

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines each; four poems.

Occasion: Four short poems found in a worn-out basket of failed drafts, which Kim claims as his own despite their uncertain authorship — a characteristically playful destabilization of literary ownership.

Original text:

其一: 心閒道亦閒。如此支殘年。語淡不着物。茶香別有泉。 其二: 庭畔梧桐樹。坐看花盡碧。屋老多鼠窠。窓卑露山脊。 其三: 口出一善言。馨香滿九垓。甘蔗黃連味。鐵尺拗不開。 其四: 五粒松有花。有花不如無。階庭日華滋。蘭杜錯蘼蕪.

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Mind at leisure, the Way is also at leisure; thus to get through the remaining years. Words mild, not clinging to things: tea’s fragrance — another kind of spring.

II

By the courtyard — the wutong tree; sitting watching the flowers fade entirely to green. The old house many rat-nests; the low window revealing the mountain ridge.

III

From the mouth comes one good word: fragrance filling the nine heavens. Sugarcane-and-phellodendron flavor — an iron ruler cannot pry them apart.

IV

The five-needle pine has flowers. With flowers — less good than without. On steps and courtyard, daily flowering flourishes: orchid and du herbs tangled in the wild vines.

Reading notes:

The title’s philosophy of uncertain authorship frames these four poems as belonging to the interzone between past and present, self and tradition. “Claiming them as my own work is also fine” (吾以爲吾作亦可) is both modest and assertive: the scholar who has absorbed the tradition thoroughly enough that the boundary between found and composed dissolves.

Poem I’s “tea’s fragrance — another kind of spring” (茶香別有泉): 泉 means spring/water source; “another kind of spring” refers both to the water-source from which the tea’s fragrance comes and to a different order of spring feeling — not seasonal renewal but the renewal available in a well-prepared cup.

Poem III’s “sugarcane-and-phellodendron flavor — an iron ruler cannot pry them apart” (甘蔗黃連味。鐵尺拗不開): the simultaneous presence of sweetness (sugarcane) and bitterness (phellodendron / goldthread, extremely bitter medicinal bark) that cannot be separated by force is a figure for the mixed quality of existence — sweetness and bitterness are not alternatives but concomitants.

念以仲論詩卷。又要一轉語。近日末流之弊極矣。率題如此。只可收之巾箱而已。六首 (Thinking of the Verse-Discussion Volume with Second Brother [Kim Myeong-hui]; He Also Asked for a Turning-Word. The Corruption of Recent Trends Is Extreme. I Wrote This Casually. It Can Only Be Put Away in the Box. Six Poems.)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines each; six poems.

Occasion: Six poems of poetry theory addressed to Kim Myeong-hui (金命喜, Kim Jeong-hui’s younger brother), who asked for a “turning-word” (轉語 — the Chan term for the pivoting expression that opens insight). Kim writes these privately, noting they are only fit to be put away in a box.

Original text:

其一: 斷斷忠孝旨。法本自儒家。胡爲禪理喩。標水月鏡花。 其二: 關關河洲雎。灌木黃鳥喈。興衆乃如此。古正無邪哇。 其三: 阮亭說神韻。蘇米亦擧似。東訛太猖被。咄咄彼哉彼。 其四: 重修主客圖。十桐救時者。紅旗正閃爍。不可不知也。 其五: 一字一頓義。無如仙籟深。古律諧黍谷。異味同苔岑。 其六: 仲詩頗平正。汝奉庭誥宜。耄言亦何補。望汝不止詩。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

The clear, clear meaning: loyalty and filial piety. The method is fundamentally from the Confucian school. Why use Chan-Buddhist principles as metaphors, raising the water-moon and mirror-flower [illusion images]?

II

The ospreys crying on the river isle; the oriole in the woodland chirping. The many “stimulations” [xing] are like this — ancient [poetry] is correct: no lewdness or clamor.

III

Yuanting [Wang Shizhen] spoke of spirit resonance; the Su-and-Mi [critics] also cited similar ideas. The Eastern [Korean] corruption is far too rampant: tsk tsk — those people!

IV

Revising the Host-Guest Chart; the Ten-Tung [scholars] — those who rescue the times. The red flag is flashing vividly: one cannot fail to know this.

V

One character, one stopping-point meaning — nothing is as deep as immortal sounds. Ancient regulated verse harmonizes with Millet Valley; different tastes — sharing the mossy hillocks.

VI

Second brother’s poems are quite balanced and correct. You should properly receive the courtyard instruction. Old-age words — what do they supplement? I hope you don’t stop at just poetry.

Reading notes:

These six poems constitute the most explicit statement of Kim’s literary critical position in Volume 9, presented as private advice to his younger brother rather than public argument. The argument proceeds in four stages.

Poems I and II establish the foundation: the Confucian poetic inheritance, grounded in loyalty and filial piety, uses natural images as “stimulations” (興 / xing) — the method of the earliest Songs of the Book (詩經), where the osprey’s cry and the oriole’s song open a poem without explaining their relation to its subject. This is correct; what is not correct is substituting Chan Buddhist metaphors (the water-moon, the mirror-flower — both classical images for illusory appearance) as the governing principle.

Poem III names the problem: Wang Shizhen’s (阮亭 / Yuanting, 1634–1711) “spirit resonance” (神韻) theory, which valued an ineffable transcendence in poetry, has corrupted contemporary practice — particularly in Korea (“the Eastern corruption”). The directness of 咄咄彼哉彼 (tsk tsk — those people!) is unusually blunt for Kim.

Poems IV and V turn toward remedy: a revised poetic genealogy is needed (revising the Host-Guest Chart), and the ancient regulated verse forms carry a natural harmonic quality analogous to the classical pitch-tuning of Millet Valley (黍谷 — the legendary valley whose natural sounds determined the correct musical pitch).

Poem VI addresses the brother directly: his poems are “balanced and correct” (平正 — a genuine compliment for these foundational virtues), he should receive the family literary instruction, and Kim hopes he won’t stop at poetry — meaning poetry is the beginning of a larger Confucian cultivation, not its end.

自題仿米小景扇頭 (Self-Inscribed on a Fan Head with a Small Landscape in the Mi Style)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A verse inscribed on a fan bearing a small landscape Kim painted in the style of Mi Fu (米芾, 1051–1107) and Mi Youren (米友仁, 1074–1153), the famous ink-mist landscape painters.

Original text:

近樹深於染。遙山澹有痕。人家何處是。村逕似黃昏。

Translation: Cinemawords

Near trees — deeper than dyed; distant mountains — thin with traces. Where are the people’s houses? The village path — resembling dusk.

Reading notes:

Four lines describing the Mi-style painting the verse accompanies. The Mi technique uses horizontal dabs of ink (米點 / Mi dots) to create mist-shrouded mountains — near and far distinguished by depth of ink, not by outline. “Near trees — deeper than dyed” captures this: the foreground rendered in dark, saturated ink; “distant mountains — thin with traces” is the far range, barely marked. “Where are the people’s houses?” asks the viewer to complete the landscape: human habitation is implied but not shown. “The village path — resembling dusk” provides the temporal atmosphere — the path’s visibility diminishing as evening comes, like the mountain mist itself.

次兒輩送商彥韻 (Rhyming the Juniors’ Farewell to Sang Yeon)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A brief farewell verse, rhyming the verse written by younger companions (兒輩 — the younger generation) on the occasion of sending off a person named Sang Yeon (商彥, unidentified).

Original text:

別懷有別趣。偏令去程長。不識君行處。梅花一路香。

Translation: Cinemawords

A farewell feeling has its own special interest; especially making the departing road feel long. Not knowing where you are going: plum blossom fragrance the whole way.

Reading notes:

A poem of perfect compression. The four lines move from the paradox of farewell (feeling is its own reward, the melancholy of separation has a quality of interest distinct from ordinary experience) to the elongation of perception that sadness produces (the road feels longer because the feeling is in it) to the final admission of not knowing the destination — and then the resolution: plum blossom fragrance the whole way. The unknown destination is irrelevant when the road is fragrant.

與混師信宿山中。法諦世諦。無不說及。又以二偈書示其扇。 (Spending Two Nights with Master Honheo in the Mountains — The Dharma Truth and Worldly Truth, Nothing Left Undiscussed — Also Writing Two Verses on His Fan)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines each; two poems written on the monk Honheo’s fan.

Occasion: Kim spends two nights in the mountains with the monk Honheo (混虛, third appearance in this volume, following poems 93 and 137), discussing both Dharma and worldly matters. He writes two verses on the monk’s fan.

Original text:

其一: 樓閣雪一朶。華嚴法界廻。知君紫雲句。木犀香中來。 其二: 善財南行偈。紛紛蚓覈鳴。山下三十里。應聞大笑聲。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Tower and pavilion — one petal of snow; the Avatamsaka‘s Dharma-realm turning. Knowing your purple-cloud verses come from within the osmanthus fragrance.

II

Sudhana’s southward-journey verse; scattered, scattered — earthworms humming. Thirty li below the mountain: one should hear the great laughing sound.

Reading notes:

Two verses for one fan, each inhabiting a different Buddhist register. Poem I is elevated: the tower and pavilion are seen as a single petal of snow — the architecture of the world reduced to the lightness of a snowflake — and the Avatamsaka Sutra’s (華嚴 / Huayan) vision of the Dharma-realm turning. Honheo’s poetry (called “purple-cloud verses” — 紫雲句 — refined, elevated) arrives from within the osmanthus fragrance: not from effort but from the ambient sweetness of the moment.

Poem II is more comic. Sudhana (善財童子) is the young pilgrim of the Avatamsaka Sutra who travels south to visit fifty-three teachers in succession — his southward journey becomes the frame for the earthworms’ scattered humming (紛紛蚓覈鳴), a deliberately humble sound placed next to the great Mahayana journey. “Thirty li below the mountain, one should hear the great laughing sound” — the awakened person’s laugh carries that far, penetrating the distance that the earthworms’ humble humming cannot. The contrast between the great laughter and the earthworms’ murmur is the poem’s joke: both are sounds, and the mountain-hearing is indiscriminate.

果庽卽事 (Events at the Orchard Lodge)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: A brief occasional verse at an orchard lodge (果庽 / 과유 — a fruit-garden dwelling or temporary lodging among fruit trees).

Original text:

庭畔桃花泣。胡爲細雨中。主人沈病久。不敢笑春風。

Translation: Cinemawords

By the courtyard, the peach blossoms weeping — what is the fine rain doing? The host has been ill for a long time: not daring to laugh at the spring wind.

Reading notes:

Four lines with the structure of cause and observation. The peach blossoms appear to “weep” — the rain falling through them — and the poem asks what the rain is doing: what purpose, what emotional register does this fine rain inhabit? The answer comes in lines 3 and 4: the host is sick, and the blossoms dare not laugh. The spring wind comes to make flowers bloom and laugh — but the presence of the host’s illness reframes the whole scene as inappropriate for laughter. Even the blossoms participate in the restraint. The anthropomorphization of the flowers (weeping, not daring to laugh) is accomplished in four lines without comment.

棲碧亭秋日 (Seobyeok Pavilion: Autumn Day)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic quatrain (五言絶句), 4 lines.

Occasion: An autumn poem at Seobyeok Pavilion (棲碧亭 / 서벽정 — “Azure-Resting Pavilion”), the location of poem 25 earlier in this volume. The return to this pavilion at the volume’s end completes a circle.

Original text:

孤亭同菌小。佳境似蔗甘。將身欲入石。人語出碧嵐。

Translation: Cinemawords

The solitary pavilion — as small as a mushroom; the beautiful realm — sweet like sugarcane. Wanting to put my body into the stone: human voices emerging from the azure mist.

Reading notes:

Volume 9’s last poem, and one of its most compressed. The mushroom (菌 / 균) carries Zhuangzi’s resonance: in the Zhuangzi, the mushroom of morning knows neither day nor night, its brief life exemplifying the relativity of all temporal measures. The pavilion as small as a mushroom is both physically accurate — a small mountaintop structure — and philosophically suggestive: a structure for a brief duration.

“Sweet like sugarcane” (似蔗甘): the sweetness that comes after sustained engagement — the realm, which requires effort to reach, yields its quality gradually. Poem 108 in Part 6 used the same image for the long road’s retroactive pleasure.

“Wanting to put my body into the stone” (將身欲入石): a Daoist figure for the desire to merge with the mountain, to achieve the permanence and impersonality of stone. The Daoist tradition includes accounts of immortals literally entering mountains — the image is literal aspiration dressed as metaphor.

“Human voices emerging from the azure mist” (人語出碧嵐): this is Volume 9’s final image. Other presences — other people at or below the pavilion — are heard through the mountain mist without being seen. The voices are real; the people are hidden in the blue-green fog. The volume, which began with Kim’s Beijing circle and has moved through thirty years of literary friendship, gathering, travel, and correspondence, ends not with the company itself but with its sound: disembodied, persistent, coming from the mist.

Volume 9 ends in a formal and thematic convergence. The pentasyllabic quatrain’s four-line compression suits the closing movement: brief, clear, unburdened by the apparatus of the regulated verse. Poem 145’s sixteen panels have provided the volume’s one explicitly dated anchor (1825) and its most geographically dispersed sequence; the six poetry theory poems of 147 have provided its most explicitly doctrinal argument; and poem 152 has closed at a pavilion that first appeared near the volume’s beginning. Volume 10 begins with the same poet at work — but not the same life.