Kim Jeong-hui: The Complete Poems, Volume 9, Part 3 — Stone, Plum, and Ten Poems for Japan

Poems 37–55 from the Wandang Jeonjip, Volume 9

This is Part 3 of the complete English translation of Kim Jeong-hui’s poems from the Wandang Jeonjip; it covers Volume 9, entries 37 through 55, a group that includes three distinctive clusters: an elegy, a sequence of ten poems addressed to Japan, and a plum-blossom trilogy, alongside a poetic manifesto and a long meditation on naturally formed go stones.

Part 3 moves decisively away from the continental travel and temple meditation that characterized Part 2, returning instead to the socially dense world of the Seoul literary circle — and then reaching outward in an unexpected direction.

The most unusual poems here are the ten addressed to Japan (poem 38), written by a man who had never set foot in that country but who had gathered detailed information about Edo-period Japanese scholars from his Chinese contacts in Beijing. This sequence represents something genuinely rare in Joseon literary culture: sustained, specific, respectful attention to Japanese intellectual life as a serious extension of the same Chinese classical tradition Kim inhabited. These poems are a document of cross-cultural awareness that has no equivalent elsewhere in the collection.

The installment also contains a significant poetic manifesto (poem 43), in which Kim argues against rigid Tang-or-Song sectarianism and declares that serious students of poetry must treat both dynasties as teachers. This is not a moderate middle position but a principled argument about how literary traditions actually work.

The plum-blossom poems (49, 52, 55) form a thematic trilogy: celebration of a friend’s plum screen, a shrine-plum meditation in Su Dongpo’s rhyme, and a lament for Korean plum culture’s inadequacy. Together they constitute Kim’s fullest statement about the plum — the flower most associated with the scholar’s unconditional integrity — and about the gap between the ideal and what was actually planted in Korean gardens.

任丈 彥道 氏挽 代家尊作 (Elegy for Master Im Yeondo, Written on Behalf of My Father)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 16 lines.

Occasion: A formal elegy (wansa / 挽詞) written by Kim on behalf of his father for the death of Im Yeondo (任彥道), an accomplished poet and literary man who lived in poverty. The daegarjon (代家尊作 / “written on behalf of my venerable father”) formula indicates Kim is composing for his father to sign, a common Joseon practice.

Original text:

君生西河淸。君沒西河渾。居今行古道。定祖風味敦。城西打頭屋。貧飢徹髓寒。竹石欝未吐。官卑名自尊。詞賦獨擅世。君王惜凌雲。平生所愛酒。適足戕其年。翻見瑚璉器。空委荒草根。非徒友朋悲。中爲喬木憐。

Translation: Cinemawords

When you were born, the Western River ran clear; when you died, the Western River ran turbid. Living today, walking the ancient way — the ancestral customs settled with sincere depth. A thatched house at the west of the city; poverty and hunger piercing the marrow with cold. Bamboo and stone — the spirit unspoken yet; rank was low but the name naturally honored. In verse and rhapsody you alone commanded the age; the king lamented your soaring talent unspent. What you loved throughout your life was wine — precisely enough to cut short your years. Now the jade sacrificial vessel lies discarded, abandoned for nothing at the root of wild grass. Not only friends and companions grieve — the great tree weeps for the companion lost within.

Reading notes:

The Western River (西河) in the opening couplet is both a specific geographical reference and a classical allusion: Zixia (子夏), one of Confucius’s disciples, lived at the Western River and wept until he went blind at the death of his son. The river’s movement from clear at birth to turbid at death encodes a lifetime’s trajectory in two images.

“Rank was low but the name naturally honored” (官卑名自尊): a pointed observation about the gap between official position and literary reputation — Im Yeondo never achieved the rank his talent merited but was recognized by peers and by the king himself (君王惜凌雲, referencing Sima Xiangru’s poem that so moved Emperor Wu that he wished he could have lived in the same era).

The “jade sacrificial vessel” (hoeryeon / 瑚璉) refers to the highest ritual vessels used in state ceremonies — Confucius used this image to describe the most qualified men. Im Yeondo’s vessel-quality went unused. The “great tree” in the final couplet is the classical figure for a senior official or mentor whose shade others depended on — the grief Kim’s father expresses is for the loss of that sheltering presence, not merely personal friendship.

仿懷人詩體。歷敍舊聞。轉寄和舶。大板浪華間諸名勝。當有知之者。十首 (Ten Poems in the “Remembering Friends” Style, Setting Out Old Accounts and Sent Across on a Japanese Vessel to Famous Figures Between Osaka and Naniwa — There Should Be Those Who Know Of These)

Period: Composed following Kim’s 1809 Beijing visit and subsequent correspondence with Chinese scholars; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 6 lines per poem, ten poems.

Occasion: A unique sequence of ten poems addressed to Japan — sent via a Japanese trading vessel (wabaek / 和舶) to Osaka (大板) and Naniwa (浪華, historical name for Osaka). Kim has never visited Japan but gathered detailed information about Edo-period Japanese scholars, painters, and institutions through his Chinese contacts in Beijing. The Yuairen (懷人 / “Remembering Friends”) style typically memorializes known individuals; Kim extends it to people he knows only through report. The source includes an annotation for poem 7: [주-D001] 樓 : 縷 — the character 樓 (tower) has the variant reading 縷 (thread).

Original text:

其一 說經何奇特。曾見伊物書。後出加邃密。仁齋未是疎。且須平心看。一切門戶除。

其二 精里 古賀樸 儘老學。遠溯洛閩餘。因之及我邦。節要退溪書。筆法亦淳古。想必其人如。余齋有精里對聯。

其三 邇來和人文。頗愛篠本廉。解脫文字陋。瓣香八家拈。紙鳶收放妙。古董義理嚴。和人文體。篠君大變舊習。紙鳶古董二文。皆篠作。大有典則。

其四 俊逸三宅邦。超拔出等夷。觥觥說古義。下士大笑之。聲聞遂不及。海雲渺遠思。

其五 文晁妙畵諦。恰似董思白。淋漓善用墨。烟翠濃欲滴。流觀名山圖。富士在几席。

其六 唐以前舊文。尙今在足利。拙古破體書。恰是齊梁字。誰知百濟時。還後我之自。足利學所藏古書。似齊梁金石。百濟時購去者。

其七 七經與孟子。考文析樓細。昔見阮夫子。嘖嘖歎精詣。隨月樓中本。翻雕行之世。[Variant: 樓 : 縷] 余入中國。謁阮芸臺先生。盛稱七經孟子考文。以揚州隨月讀書樓本。板刻通行。

其八 隋唐殘本書。中國之所遺。並收佚存中。片羽亦珍奇。嗟哉孝經注。同歸梅頤僞。佚存叢書。收輯隋唐殘本書。孝經注。是僞書也。

其九 篆刻有漢法。精雅蒹葭堂。古梅御油烟。直欲抗程方。借問長崎舶。西梅翰墨光。顧西梅洛曾從商船入長崎。書法大爲和人貴重。

其十 人見和泉字。賴以金索傳。蘇米齋中老。斤斤說奝然。海天理舊夢。廻首三十年。余甞以和製鏡。分贈中國諸名士。馮晏海並收刻於金索古刻中。余謁蘇米齋。以奝然書爲問。

Translation: Cinemawords

I Is there anything so remarkable about interpreting the classics? I have seen the Yamomono-sho [Itō Jinsai’s text]. What came after is more profound and dense; Jinsai is not so shallow as that. One must simply look with an impartial mind — removing all sectarian barriers entirely.

II Seiri [Koga Seiri] — a genuinely mature scholar; tracing far back to the Luo-Min tradition’s remainder. Through this it extends to our country as well: the Jeoryo [abridgment] of Yi Toegye’s writings. His calligraphic style too is pure and ancient — he must be exactly the kind of person one imagines. [I have Seiri’s calligraphic couplet in my study.]

III In recent times Japanese literary writing has much admired Shinohon Ren. He has freed himself from the vulgarity of literary habit; burning incense, he picks up the Eight Masters. The “Kite” essay — its collection and release are superb; the “Antiques” essay — its principle and meaning are strict. [In Japanese literary style, Shinohon greatly transformed old habits. The “Kite” and “Antiques” essays are both his work — both have considerable standards.]

IV Brilliant and free — Miyake Kunitane; surpassing, emerging above the common ranks. He speaks loudly of ancient principles; lesser scholars only laugh at him. His reputation cannot reach this far — across the sea-clouds, the longing is vast and distant.

V Tani Bunchō’s painting is profoundly understood — just like Dong Qichang [董思白]. Ink-saturated, he uses black superbly; smoke and green — so dense it seems to drip. Surveying his Paintings of Famous Mountains: Mount Fuji sits on the scholar’s desk.

VI Pre-Tang classical texts — still now in Ashikaga. Clumsy-ancient, broken-form script — exactly the characters of Qi and Liang. Who would have known that in the Baekje era, these returned to Japan from us originally? [Old books preserved at Ashikaga Academy resemble Qi and Liang period bronze-and-stone script — purchased during the Baekje era.]

VII The Seven Classics and Mencius Textual Study — its analysis of the tower edition is precise and detailed. [Variant: 樓 (tower) / 縷 (thread)] Long ago I saw Master Ruan [Ruan Yuan / 芸臺]: his praise and admiration were unstinting. The Suiyue Tower edition was woodblock-printed and circulated throughout the world. [When I entered China and called on Ruan Yuntai, he praised the Seven Classics and Mencius Textual Study greatly, saying the Yangzhou Suiyue Reading Tower edition had been woodblock-printed for wide circulation.]

VIII Surviving books from Sui and Tang — what China had lost and abandoned: all gathered into the Yicun Conghu collection; even a single feather-fragment is rare and precious. Lamentable: the Xiaojing commentary — falsely attributed, lumped in with Mei Yi’s forgeries. [The Yicun Conghu collected surviving books from the Sui and Tang. The Xiaojing commentary is a forged text.]

IX Seal carving in the Han style — refined and elegant at Jianjiafang. Ancient plum [wood], imperial soot ink — directly competing with Cheng Fang’s standard. I inquire of the Nagasaki trading vessel: the brushwork brilliance of Gu Ximei. [Gu Ximei had once entered Nagasaki on a trading ship; his calligraphic style was greatly prized by the Japanese.]

X People see the Izumi script — transmitted through the Jin Suo [Golden Cable] collection. The elder of Su-Mi Zhai [Sumi no Mi Zhai] kept asking intently about Chōnen. Across sea and sky, making sense of the old dream — turning back thirty years. [I once distributed Japanese-made mirrors to famous scholars in China; Feng Yanhai included them in the Jin Suo collection of ancient engravings. When I called on Su-Mi Zhai, I asked about Chōnen’s calligraphy.]

Reading notes:

This sequence is without parallel in the Wandang Jeonjip: Kim writing knowledgeably about specific Edo-period Japanese scholars, artists, and institutions based entirely on information gathered from his Chinese contacts. The figures named span a range of fields: Itō Jinsai (伊藤仁齋, 1627–1705), foundational Japanese Confucian philosopher; Koga Seiri (古賀精里, 1750–1817), prominent Neo-Confucian scholar-official whose calligraphic work Kim owned; Tani Bunchō (谷文晁, 1763–1840), major Japanese literati painter whose ink-wash style Kim compares favorably to the Chinese master Dong Qichang; and Ashikaga Academy (足利學), Japan’s oldest educational institution, which preserved pre-Tang Chinese texts that Kim suspects may have originally traveled to Japan from the Korean peninsula during the Baekje period.

The Ashikaga observation (Poem VI) is one of the sequence’s most historically charged moments: Kim notes that Baekje-era Koreans were likely responsible for transmitting the very texts now reverenced at Ashikaga — a quiet assertion of Korean cultural transmission eastward. The Ruan Yuan praise of the Japanese Kaowen edition (Poem VII) documents an episode Kim witnessed in Beijing: Ruan Yuan, one of the leading Qing scholars, unstintingly admired this Japanese scholarly achievement.

Chōnen (奝然) in Poem X was a Japanese Buddhist monk who visited Song China in 983 CE and brought cultural objects back to Japan — his visit is historically documented. Kim’s inquiry about Chōnen’s calligraphy at the Su-Mi Zhai shows how deeply the Korean and Chinese scholarly networks had already mapped Japanese cultural history. The thirty-year retrospective in the closing line transforms scholarly report into personal feeling: the networks Kim participated in were real human attachments, not merely academic circuits.

贈草衣 (Given to Cho-ui)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 14 lines.

Occasion: A poem for Cho-ui (草衣 / 초의, 1786–1866), the Buddhist monk, tea master, and one of Kim’s closest lifelong friends. On first appearance: Cho-ui, ordained name Uisun (의순 / 意恂), was among the most significant Buddhist figures of the late Joseon period and a primary figure in the revival of Korean tea culture.

Original text:

竪拳頭輪頂。搐鼻碧海潯。大施無畏光。指月破群陰。福地與苦海。摠持一佛心。淨名無言偈。殷空海潮音。入佛復入魔。但自笑吟吟。狸奴白牯知。機用互相侵。春風百花放。明明到如今。

Translation: Cinemawords

Raising a fist, turning the wheel at the crown; twitching the nose at the blue sea’s shore. Bestowing greatly the light of fearlessness — pointing at the moon, breaking through the crowd of shadows. Blessed land and the sea of suffering — all held within a single Buddha-mind. Vimalakirti’s wordless sutra-verse; the deep-resonant tide-sound of the empty sea. Entering the Buddha, then entering the demon — only laughing to oneself, murmuring. The tomcat and the white bull understand — function and mechanism mutually encroach. Spring wind and the hundred flowers bloom — bright and clear, arriving to this very moment.

Reading notes:

The poem addresses Cho-ui’s spiritual practice through a series of Chan Buddhist gestures and figures. “Raising a fist” (竪拳) and “turning the wheel at the crown” are Chan teaching-postures — the first a gesture of direct challenge or demonstration, the second an image of the Dharma-wheel’s rotation from the crown-point of insight. “The tomcat and the white bull” (狸奴白牯) are canonical Chan images for the natural mind before conceptualization intervenes; in Chan dialogue, the question “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” was answered with the famous single syllable wu (無) — the cat and bull embody that same pre-conceptual aliveness.

Vimalakirti (淨名 / Vimalakīrti) was the lay Buddhist of the Vimalakirti Sutra who demonstrated the highest teaching through thunderous silence — his wordless response to the question of non-duality became the paradigm for Chan transmission beyond language. Kim applies this figure to Cho-ui’s mode of teaching: not through doctrine but through what the monk’s presence and practice embody.

The poem’s final couplet lands in simple abundance: spring wind, all flowers blooming, and clarity arriving “to this very moment.” This is not mere nature description but the Chan practitioner’s recognition that the teaching is always already complete and present — no accumulation required.

信倅邀詩樵。爲作甲壽。又於閏旣望。重醼壽之。感舊之至也。詩樵以此卷要題。仍走寫如此。 (The Sincheon Sub-Prefect Invited Sicho and Celebrated His Sixtieth Birthday; and Again on the Full Moon of the Leap Month Held a Second Celebration. Sicho, Deeply Moved by Old Memories, Asked for an Inscription in This Volume, and I Quickly Wrote This.)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 8 lines.

Occasion: A birthday inscription for someone called Sicho (詩樵 — “wood-cutter poet”), whose sixtieth birthday (甲壽 / gapsu, the 60-year cycle completion) was celebrated twice — once by the Sincheon Sub-Prefect and once on the full moon of a leap month.

Original text:

信川敬愛客。閏醼尤張皇。爲將今日酒。廻薄古時腸。念子平生意。秋風託衣裳。東海赤梢魚。頭角積烟霜.

Translation: Cinemawords

Sincheon honors and cherishes its guest; the leap-month banquet is especially elaborate. The wine of this day returns, pressing against the old guts of former times. Thinking of your lifelong intent — the autumn wind, entrusted with a garment. The red-tipped fish of the Eastern Sea: its horns have accumulated smoke and frost.

Reading notes:

A compact birthday poem in the form of a toast-inscription. “The autumn wind, entrusted with a garment” (秋風託衣裳) alludes to a Tang figure: Zhang Han (張翰) of the Jin dynasty, who resigned his official post on the occasion of an autumn wind, saying it reminded him of home’s perch and water-shield greens — a figure for the scholar who chooses personal integrity over official ambition. Applied to Sicho, it characterizes sixty years of literary life as a deliberate choosing of the essentials.

“The red-tipped fish of the Eastern Sea with horns accumulating smoke and frost” is an image of age as accumulation: the weathered surface of something that has lived a full measure. The fish’s head-horns (頭角 / tugo) — a metaphor for prominence and distinction — have not diminished but gathered the marks of time.

贈雲句上人 (Given to the Venerable Ungu)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem given to a Buddhist monk called Ungu (雲句 / 운구 — “Cloud-phrase”), a wandering monk whose travels Kim observes.

Original text:

山山與水水。春風一甁鉢。紆白勞漫汗。結黛戀嶻嶭。西瞿北欝單。陶輪無遮截。情根根何處。躑躅不忍別.

Translation: Cinemawords

Mountain after mountain, water after water — spring wind, a single vessel and begging bowl. Winding through white-capped peaks — laboring through open sweat; bound to the dark-ridge heights — loving the jagged steeps. West to Qudanuo, north to Pulsadan — the potter’s wheel turning without obstruction or cut. Where are the emotion-roots, and where do they root? Hesitating azalea-like — I cannot bear to part.

Reading notes:

A farewell poem for a wandering monk whose itinerary spans great distances — the western and northern geographical references (西瞿北欝單) indicate his range of travel. The “vessel and begging bowl” (byeong-baru / 甁鉢) are the monk’s two most essential possessions in the Theravada tradition, symbolizing his complete spiritual equipment. His life is all “mountain after mountain, water after water” — the repetition enacts the iteration itself.

“The potter’s wheel turning without obstruction or cut” (陶輪無遮截) is a Chan image: the Dharma-wheel’s continuous, unimpeded motion, like a potter’s wheel that needs no stopping. The monk’s wandering embodies the same quality. The final image — “hesitating azalea-like” — names the jindallaekkot (躑躅 / azalea, the flower whose name in Chinese contains the word for “hesitation”) as Kim’s own feeling at the parting.

禮山 (Yesan)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 16 lines.

Occasion: A descriptive poem about Yesan County (禮山 / 예산) in South Chungcheong province. The poem captures the landscape in the evening.

Original text:

禮山儼若拱。仁山靜如眠。衆人所同睡。獨有神𨓏邊。渺渺斷霞外。依依孤鳥前。廣原固可喜。善風亦欣然。長禾埋畦畛。平若一人田。蟹屋連渙灣。蛩雨襍鴈烟。秋柳三四行。顦悴蒙行塵。紛紛具畵意。夕景澹遠天。

Translation: Cinemawords

Yesan — standing solemnly as if presenting to the court; Insam Mountain — still as if asleep. All people share the same sleep, yet at the edge alone the spirit moves. Faint and distant, beyond the broken evening clouds; clinging close, ahead of a solitary bird. The broad plain is surely pleasant; the gentle wind, too, invites gladness. Tall grain buries the field-ridge furrows — flat as a field all worked by one person. Crab houses connecting the dispersed bay; cricket-rain mingled with the smoke of geese. Three or four rows of autumn willows, withered and haggard, wrapped in travelers’ dust. Scattered together, all possessing a painter’s meaning — the evening scene, faint against the distant sky.

Reading notes:

A purely observational landscape poem that earns its final “painter’s meaning” (畵意) by building it from specific, local details: the particular stillness of Insam Mountain, the crab-fishing huts along the scattered bay, cricket sounds in the drizzle mixed with the smoke-haze rising from wild geese landing. The poem does not impose emotion on the scene but allows the accumulation of observed particulars to generate its own mood.

“Crab houses” (蟹屋) are the small fishing huts of people who harvest crabs from tidal flats — one of the precise, unexpected images Kim includes that prevents the poem from becoming generic landscape verse. The three or four rows of autumn willows “withered and wrapped in travelers’ dust” is the only moment of something close to melancholy, and even this is immediately absorbed into the broader picture: “all possessing a painter’s meaning.”

士說爲詩二十年。忽欲學元人詩。蓋其意元人多學唐故也。余遂書辨詩一篇。以明詩道之作。 (Saseo Has Written Poetry for Twenty Years and Suddenly Wants to Study Yuan Dynasty Poetry — His Thinking Being That Yuan Poets Mostly Learned from the Tang. I Therefore Wrote This Poem to Clarify the Way of Poetry.)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 26 lines.

Occasion: Saseo (士說) is an unidentified student or literary acquaintance who has decided, after twenty years of poetry writing, to turn from Song poetry to Yuan poetry — reasoning that Yuan poets were close to the Tang. Kim writes a substantial refutation-and-clarification of this literary-historical mistake.

Original text:

唐宋皆偉人。各成一代詩。變出不得已。運會實迫之。格調苟沿襲。焉用雷同詞。宋人生唐後。開闢眞難爲。一代只數人。餘子故多疵。敦厚旨則同。忠孝無改移。元明不能變。非僅氣力衰。能事有止境。極詣難角奇。奈何愚賤子。唐宋分藩籬。哆口崇唐音。羊質冒虎皮。習爲廓落語。死氣蒸伏屍。撑架陳氣象。桎梏立威儀。可憐餒敗物。欲代郊廟犧。使爲蘇黃僕。終日當鞭笞。七字推王李。不免貽笑嗤。況設土木形。浪擬神仙姿。李杜若生晩。亦自易矩規。寄言善學者。唐宋皆吾師。

Translation: Cinemawords

Tang and Song were both extraordinary people; each achieved the poetry of their own generation. The changes they made were unavoidable — the historical moment truly pressed them. If one merely imitates style and register, what use is an identical set of words? Song people were born after the Tang — to break open a new path was genuinely difficult. Each generation produced only a handful of masters; the remaining poets are therefore mostly flawed. The moral purpose — substantial and sincere — remained the same; loyalty and filial devotion did not shift. Yuan and Ming could not achieve further transformation — not merely because energy and force declined. Every capacity has its limit; the ultimate achievement is hard to rival for strangeness. And yet — foolish and base persons divide Tang and Song like boundary walls, mouths gaping wide to honor Tang sounds alone — sheep-quality dressed in tiger’s skin. Accustomed to hollow, hollow language, dead-air rising from a buried corpse. Propping up stale atmospheric posturing, shackled into performing solemn dignity. Pitiable — this rotten, starved material wanting to substitute for the altar’s sacrificial offering. Make them servants of Su Dongpo and Huang Tingjian — and all day they should receive the whip. Pushing Wang Changling and Li Bai in seven-character forms — they cannot avoid becoming laughingstocks. And further: setting up wooden-and-clay appearances, recklessly imitating the posture of immortals. If Li Bai and Du Fu had been born later, they too would naturally have changed their methods. To those who learn well, I say: Tang and Song are both our teachers.

Reading notes:

This is Kim’s clearest statement on the debate between Tang and Song poetry that ran through the entire Joseon literary world. The argument is historical and structural rather than merely aesthetic. Tang poetry was what it was because the historical moment forced it into that form; Song poetry changed because the post-Tang moment made repeating the Tang impossible for serious poets. Both transformations were responses to genuine necessity, not arbitrary stylistic preference.

The attack on rigid Tang partisans is sustained and sharp. “Sheep-quality dressed in tiger’s skin” (羊質冒虎皮) is a classical image for false authority — the person who adopts the posture of the Tang manner without the underlying quality. “Dead-air rising from a buried corpse” (死氣蒸伏屍) reaches maximum contempt: the language these imitators produce carries no life.

The poem’s pivot — “if Li Bai and Du Fu had been born later, they too would naturally have changed their methods” — is the key argumentative move. The Tang masters themselves would have adapted to new historical circumstances. Worshipping their specific formal choices as eternal law misunderstands why those choices were great in the first place. The conclusion — “Tang and Song are both our teachers” — is not a compromise but a demand for genuine historical understanding rather than sectarian allegiance.

自然碁 (Natural Go Stones)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, approximately 52 lines.

Occasion: A long meditative catalogue-poem about naturally formed go-stone-like objects found at Chaseong County (車城縣) on the eastern coast. The stones are formed by wave erosion of shell and rock fragments, producing pieces of remarkable regularity. Kim received some as a gift.

Original text:

東海車城縣。乃生自然碁。海濱螺蜯殼。堆積相拄搘。濤沙日蕩齧。碎碎各具姿。或方如削楞。或圓自中規。斜方與橢圓。勾股無不爲。瑩淨可鑑髮。膩滑疑截詣。黑者是小石。一一圓更奇。鷾鴯啣卵墮。罔象抱珠遺。髹漆紺碧色。端正體無欹。昔余遵海行。浩浩復煕煕。有物鳴相觸。琮琤彈筇枝。舖沙萬萬顆。白黑相間之。譬如天上星。歷落參與觜。復如盤中食。飣餖栗與梨。十指掬且攫。貪夫籠波斯。象犀遠莫致。檀腦侈難資。和工巧磨圓。華窰妙燔瓷。曷若此天成。不假般又倕。伊余不解着。少無一斑窺。利器將焉用。巾笥便委籬。毗陵第二品。誰歟舍君其。不惜相持贈。絶勝珣玕琪。疎簾雲雨處。長松風日時。隱囊復方褥。楸盤四脚支。盛之雙紋奩。列置如鼎彝。剝啄消長夏。坐盡漢鐵芝。玄理諒斯在。野狐莫見嗤。輸贏了無猜。冷煖應自知。出錢作飯會。分日以敖嬉。余當傍坐觀。欣然且一巵。

Translation: Cinemawords

At Chaseong County on the Eastern Sea natural go stones are produced. Snail and clam shells at the shoreline, piled up and supporting each other. Waves and sand — wearing and gnawing day by day; fragment by fragment, each possessing its own form. Some square, like shaved-edge blocks; some round, perfectly centered in the compass. Oblique-square and elliptical — every variation of hook and hypotenuse accomplished. Gleaming and clean — reflecting one’s hair; smooth and sleek — as if precision-cut. The black ones are small stones, each one even rounder and more remarkable. The kingfisher dropped them when carrying its egg; the wangxiang [formless spirit] abandoned them when clutching its pearl. Lacquer-painted dark blue-black color; upright bodies, not a tilt in them. Long ago I followed the coast on a journey — vast and open, warm and cheerful. Something sounding as things touched — clicking, jangling against my bamboo staff. Spread across the sand — ten thousand upon ten thousand grains, white and black alternating among them. Like stars in the sky above — scattered: Orion and the Crow. Or like food arranged on a platter — chestnuts and pears set out. Ten fingers scooping and seizing; the greedy man caging gemstones from Persia. Ivory and rhinoceros — distant, impossible to obtain; sandalwood and camphor — luxurious, hard to supply. Japanese craftsmen cleverly grind them round; Chinese kilns marvelously fire their porcelain. How could these compare to what heaven has formed — requiring no craftsman Ban or Chui? As for me — I do not understand the game; not even a glimpse of a single move. What use then is this fine instrument? It sits abandoned in a bag beside the fence. The second grade of Piling — [a classical ranking of go stones] who in the end has abandoned you? I willingly hold them out as a gift — surpassing by far the finest carved jade. Through the open-weave curtain, cloud and rain; in the long pine’s wind and sunlight. Pockets and square cushions; the catalpa board on four legs. Stored in a double-pattern lacquered case, arranged like bronze vessels and tripods. Click-knock — passing the long summer; sitting through the Han-iron mushroom’s duration. The mysterious principle is surely present here — let wild foxes not scoff. Gains and losses — entirely without suspicion; cold and warm — each knows for itself. Pay for the meal gathering; divide the days for leisure and play. As for me — I will sit beside and watch, glad, and pour myself one cup.

Reading notes:

The poem begins as a naturalist’s catalogue and ends as a philosophical provocation. Kim describes the stones’ formation with the attentiveness of a scientist — erosion by waves and sand produces pieces of every geometric regularity: square, circular, oblique, elliptical. The stars Orion (參) and the Crow (觜) as analogies for scattered black-and-white stones are both astronomical and aesthetic.

“How could these compare to what heaven has formed — requiring no craftsman Ban or Chui?” (曷若此天成。不假般又倕): Ban and Chui (bansu / 般倕) were mythological master craftsmen of Chinese antiquity — the greatest that human skill could produce. Kim’s observation that the natural stones surpass anything they could make is his characteristic aesthetic argument: the rough, eroded, naturally formed object surpasses the polished, intentional product. The same logic that drove him toward ancient stele inscriptions over model-book calligraphy governs this poem’s evaluation of the stones.

Kim’s admission that he cannot play go — “I do not understand the game; not even a glimpse of a single move” — turns the poem’s argument: the stones’ value does not depend on their use-function. They are philosophically complete as objects regardless of whether they are played. “Cold and warm — each knows for itself” closes the poem with the Zen principle of self-knowledge beyond external validation: the stones are not waiting to be judged by humans or by fox-spirits. Their principle is already present.

細毛僧 (The Fine-Hair Monk’s Soup)

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

Form: Heptasyllabic ancient-style verse, 24 lines.

Occasion: A poem in praise of a monk who serves a specialty soup — made with fine-hair mushroom or sprout (細毛) — at a roadside well on the Southern Pass (南大嶺 / Namdaeheong Pass). The monk gives this freely to exhausted travelers at midday as Buddhist charity.

Original text:

細毛蒙茸窠亂絲。山僧膏熬同棃祈。折脚鐺邊切片片。紺黃色透吠琉璃。羹以菽乳白勝雪。糝之鹽晶快於梨。天厨亦以充上供。何啻靈液與瓊糜。文殊醍醐卽此否。香積飯供無過之。路傍井冽品第一。膏香却與泉德宜。發大願力大慈悲。檀波羅蜜爲法施。南大嶺高日卓午。行人中暍汗淋漓。一椀定喘如實石。快滌從前熱惱脾。行縢定走一百里。兩腋仙仙淸路歧。果州寒女夸村釀。家火凡鍊徒爾爲。行人無不贊僧功。功德東西南北空。

Translation: Cinemawords

Fine-hair sprouts, thickly matted, a tangle of chaotic threads; the mountain monk simmers the fat like praying to spirits. At the edge of the three-legged kettle, sliced into pieces — the dark-yellow color showing through like barking lapis lazuli. Soybeans-and-milk broth — white surpassing snow; scattered salt crystals — sharper pleasure than a pear. Heaven’s kitchen might use it as the supreme offering; how much more so than spirit-liquid or jade porridge. Is this Manjushri’s divine ambrosia? The incense-treasury rice-offering surpasses none of it. By the roadside well — its quality the first under heaven; the fat-fragrance suits, and with the spring water’s virtue. He has made the great vow, the great compassion; dana paramita — he performs it as a dharma-gift. The Southern Pass is high; the sun is directly overhead; travelers, heat-struck, pouring with sweat. One bowl — the breathing steadies, like a settled stone; quickly washing away the spleen’s old heat and vexation. Leg-wrappings secure — set out walking a hundred li; both armpits lightened, the road-fork clean. The cold women of Gwacheon boast of their village brew — ordinary fires and ordinary simmering — all for nothing. No traveler fails to praise the monk’s merit: his merit spreads East, West, South, North — into empty space.

Reading notes:

A poem of sustained praise for a simple thing done perfectly. The fine-hair mushroom or sprout soup is described with the vocabulary of the most elevated Buddhist and literary traditions — compared to the divine ambrosia (amrita) of Manjushri Bodhisattva, to the rice offered in the Incense Treasury (香積 / the paradisiacal realm of the Incense Treasury Buddha in the Vimalakirti Sutra), to heaven’s own kitchen.

The dana paramita (檀波羅蜜 / the perfection of giving) is the first of the six Buddhist perfections — the monk’s free offering to strangers at a high pass is, for Kim, a genuine embodiment of this principle rather than a pious gesture. The practical consequences — breathing steadies, heat is washed away, legs carry the traveler a hundred li further — are enumerated with the same care as the soup’s qualities: spiritual and physical benefit are not separated.

The contrast with the “cold women of Gwacheon” boasting of their village brew (ordinary alcohol, ordinary technique, ordinary fire) is pointed: the monk’s offering has merit exactly because it is not commercial, not competitive, not made for profit. His merit “spreads into empty space” (功德東西南北空) — the final line’s phrase combines the four directions with emptiness (sunyata), suggesting that genuine merit is not diminished by distribution but becomes as boundless as space itself.

永保亭歌 (Song of Yeongbo Pavilion)

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

Form: Irregular song-form (歌), with lines of varying length (5–11 characters), approximately 22 lines. The poem contains one gap (缺) where a character is missing in the source.

Occasion: Written at Yeongbo Pavilion (永保亭), a coastal pavilion. Kim connects the view of the sea here with his memory of Weng Fanggang’s Su Studio in Beijing, and his reverence for the Su Dongpo tradition. The poem also references Su Dongpo’s own seascape poems.

Original text:

去年在此海西。今年在此海東。澄波樓永保亭。海雲一縷遙相通。不信海大而無外。兩事如今吾盡窮。忽憶蘇齋拜蘇像。千秋精氣想像於海濤天風。袖中之海卽是處。新羅一念頃刻中。今臨坡公所觀海。七百年來遊跡與公同不同。此亭擬與蓬萊閣。海市不見海雲空。孤嶼若萍沒銀屋。遠帆如豆磨靑銅。絶愛海上無海意。盡放 缺 闊包姸濃。道是山水似姑蘇。樓名寺扁都相蒙。芳草晴川三山綠。啼鳥落月漁火紅。西邊一支連若木。欲挽墜日升蒼穹。夕潮直從弱水廻。龍腥蜃氣霏簾櫳。那得呪虹並驅石。作使水伯與海童。橋成橫跨水中央。靑鞋布襪隨意遊瀛蓬。

Translation: Cinemawords

Last year I was at this sea to the west; this year I am at this sea to the east. Jingbo Tower and Yeongbo Pavilion — one thread of sea-cloud connects them from afar. I did not believe the sea was vast without an outer edge; now I have exhausted both matters. Suddenly remembering the Su Studio — bowing before the Su Dongpo portrait; a thousand autumns of refined spirit, imagined within the ocean surge and sky-wind. The sea in the sleeve — this is exactly the place; in a single thought, the moment of Silla. Now I stand where Su Dongpo once looked at the sea — across seven hundred years, are my travels the same as his or different? This pavilion rivals the Penglai Pavilion; no sea-mirage visible — only sea-cloud and emptiness. A lone islet like a duckweed-frond lost in silver buildings; a distant sail like a bean-grain on polished green bronze. I love completely the sea-surface’s non-sea feeling — releasing it fully, [gap in source] broad, encompassing beauty and richness. They say the landscape resembles Suzhou; the pavilion-name and the temple-plaque both cause confusion. Fragrant grass and clear streams — three mountains green; crying birds, setting moon, fishing-boat fires red. On the western side, one branch connecting to the solar tree; wishing to pull up the falling sun and raise it into the blue vault. The evening tide coming straight from the Weak Water; dragon-reek and clam-mirage drifting through the curtained window. How could one obtain a rainbow spell and drive the stones — making the Water Earl and the Sea Boy serve? A bridge completed and spanning the water’s center — in straw sandals and cloth stockings, wandering at will to Penglai.

Reading notes:

The poem’s opening movement — “last year to the west of this sea; this year to the east of this sea” — establishes Kim’s sense of the sea as a coherent entity he has circumnavigated, connecting locations through the same water. The “Su Studio” memory (蘇齋 / the Su Zhai — Weng Fanggang’s Beijing study, here on first appearance: Weng Fanggang’s study named for his devotion to Su Dongpo) erupts into the coastal poem with characteristic force: the sea at the pavilion triggers memory of the sea in Weng Fanggang’s studio — the metaphorical sea of the Su Dongpo tradition, contained “in the sleeve” (袖中之海).

The gap (缺) in line 16 is preserved from the source: 絶愛海上無海意。盡放 缺 闊包姸濃 — “I love completely the sea-surface’s non-sea feeling — releasing it fully, [gap] broad, encompassing beauty and richness.” One character is missing between the verb and the adjective.

“The Weak Water” (弱水) is a mythological river at the world’s edge in Daoist geography — its water was too weak to support even a feather, let alone a boat. The evening tide “coming from the Weak Water” positions Yeongbo Pavilion at the edge of the known world. The poem’s playful conclusion — wishing for the supernatural ability to build a bridge to Penglai, then walking there in common grass sandals — brings the cosmic imagery down to the scale of a comfortable walk.

次北隣苦雨歎 (Rhyming the Northern Neighbor’s Lament of Bitter Rain)

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

Form: Heptasyllabic ancient-style verse, 16 lines.

Occasion: Kim’s northern neighbor — a prolific poet — has written a poem lamenting endless rain. Kim responds with an extended pun: the neighbor’s poems are as abundant as rain, and rather than wishing the rain would stop, Kim wishes only for more.

Original text:

君詩多於天上之雨水。疑從楊柳甁中傾。可將君詩沾枯澀。但願其雨不願晴。雨有休時詩不休。日見腕底風雷行。想得尋詩詩就際。商羊鼓舞鶴俯鳴。媿我無詩如無雨。窓前蕉葉乾無聲。非君日日雨我硯田裏。詩農那期秋穡成。君惟苦雨。我喜雨夜賽詩祖詩皷轟。寧敎釵股屋壁漏。不筭珠玉山邱平。世人紛紛雨點夥。枵腹空博千畝秔。佇待笠屐訪君去。園中又有松月明。

Translation: Cinemawords

Your poems outnumber heaven’s rainfall; I suspect they pour from a willow-branch vase. I could use your poems to moisten what is dry and rough — I only wish for rain, not for clearing. Rain has its rest-times; poems do not rest — daily I see thunderstorms moving beneath your wrist. When you seek poems, the poem arrives at the edge — the rainbird [商羊] drums and dances; the crane bows its head and calls. I am ashamed — without poems as if without rain; the banana-leaf before the window, dry and soundless. Without you raining into my inkstone-field every day — what harvest could the poem-farmer expect in autumn? You only have bitter rain; I rejoice in rainy nights competing with the poetry-ancestor’s drum thunder. Better that hairpin-leg roof-walls leak than that pearls and jade be reckoned by the hillock. The people of the world — scattered rain-drops, numerous; empty bellies, vainly contesting a thousand acres of rice. Standing and waiting, in hat and clogs I’ll go call on you — in the garden, pine and moon are bright again.

Reading notes:

An extended conceit sustained over sixteen lines with considerable wit. The neighbor’s prolific output is “rain” throughout — each time the poem uses the word rain, it simultaneously means literal precipitation and poetic production. “Raining into my inkstone-field” (雨我硯田 / rainwater into the inkstone-field, i.e., inspiring poems) is the poem’s most compressed pun: the inkstone that holds the ink is the field where poetry grows, and the neighbor’s poems are the rain that makes that field productive.

The Shanyang (商羊) is a one-legged bird from classical Chinese lore that drums its foot on the ground and dances before rain — a figure for the pre-creative excitement that signals poems approaching. The poetry-ancestor’s drum thunder (詩祖詩皷) likely refers to the mythological origin of poetry — the thunder of inspiration that precedes the poem.

The closing lines shift register: after all the wit, Kim simply says he will put on his hat and clogs and go visit. The pine and moon waiting in the garden are quiet and real after the poem’s sustained cleverness.

答寄北隣。次聚星堂雪詩韻。 (Replying to the Northern Neighbor, Rhyming with the Jusongdang Snow Poem)

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

Form: Pentasyllabic ancient-style verse, 20 lines.

Occasion: A reply-poem to the northern neighbor, this time rhyming with a snow poem from Jusongdang Hall (聚星堂 / “Star-Gathering Hall”). The source note confirms the neighbor’s pen name: 松石 (Seongseok / “Pine-and-Stone”). The poem plays on the two elements of this name throughout.

Original text:

邱壑詩書五十年。芬華念消同春雪。人海茫茫漲紅塵。一松一石自淸絶。松以覆身石支頭。松聲叶石鳴廉折。君髮漸與松髮短。詩肺如石獨難滅。王郞時來歌斫地。魚蝦俱避碧鯨掣。楊柳風流更並隣。欲掃一世霧花纈。如今鸞飄鳳泊久。區區虀汁與鹽屑。書塾高開絳帳深。午枕初醒黃粱瞥。郵筒相過一牛鳴。疏析騈言剔支說。願君共做松風夢。會看靈石引鈍鐵。君自號松石。故多及之。

Translation: Cinemawords

Hills and valleys, poetry and books — fifty years; the fragrant blossoms of renown melted away like spring snow. The human ocean vast and dim, surging with red dust — one pine and one stone, naturally pure and supreme. The pine covering the body; the stone supporting the head; pine sound agreeing with stone — sounding clean and cutting. Your hair gradually shortens like pine needles; the poetic lung — like stone — cannot be extinguished. Young Wang comes from time to time, singing the ground-slashing song; fish and shrimp all flee the green whale’s sweep. Willow-elegance flows again and lives beside you; wanting to sweep away a world of mist-flower silk. For now, the phoenix has long been drifting and settling; small and ordinary — pickled vegetables and salt scraps. The study opens high; the red curtain runs deep; on the afternoon pillow, first waking — a flash of yellow millet. The mail-tube passes between us in the time of one cow’s call; sparse and analytical, cutting through parallel phrases and branch-discussions. I wish you would share the pine-wind dream — someday we’ll see the spirit-stone drawing blunt iron. [The friend’s own pen name is Pine-Stone (松石), hence all these references to pine and stone.]

Reading notes:

The poem’s sustained double image — pine (松) and stone (石) as the two elements of the neighbor’s pen name, and as natural figures for different aspects of intellectual character — generates most of its energy. Pine: flexible, long-lived, covering and sheltering; stone: immovable, permanent, foundational. “The pine covering the body; the stone supporting the head” is a literal image of resting in nature that simultaneously characterizes two complementary aspects of the friend’s scholarly identity.

“The poetic lung — like stone — cannot be extinguished” (詩肺如石獨難滅): the lung (肺 / pye) is the organ associated with metal and autumn in classical Chinese medicine — here it is the seat of the poetic faculty, made stone-permanent, outlasting all other faculties as the body ages.

The “yellow millet” (黃粱) flash on waking alludes to the Tang tale of the scholar who dreamed an entire lifetime of success during the time it took to cook a pot of millet — a figure for the brevity of ambition’s satisfaction. Kim’s tone here is affectionate rather than melancholy: the friend’s daily life of study, correspondence, and napping has its own completeness.

題姜若山 彜五 梅花障子歌 (Song-Inscription on the Plum Blossom Screen of Kang Yaksan, Courtesy Name Ioh)

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

Form: Heptasyllabic song-form (歌), approximately 24 lines.

Occasion: Kang Yaksan (姜若山), courtesy name Yioh (彜五), was a painter known for his plum blossom screens. The poem evaluates his work against the tradition of the two great plum painters: Er Shu (二樹 / “Two Trees,” likely a pen name) and Liangfeng (兩峰 / Luo Ping, 1733–1799, a Qing eccentric painter and major plum specialist).

Original text:

天下畵梅者。二樹與兩峰。二樹之梅識者少。兩峯一派來天東。天東奇士姜若山。朱艸林中瓣香供。愛君情性本靈慧。心到手觸無不通。妙竅直欲窮秒忽。異想天然合玲瓏。座右長懸兩峰畵。卽薪卽火摹追工。女戈丫川格殊絶。勁柔澹濃意不窮。最善一枝過墻來。何須倚竹兼靠松。書卷氣味溫如玉。生香活色入漾空。冗處求淸亂中理。此理從君折其衷。是時雪積山嘷夜。四座怳若廻春風。與君共做鐵笛夢。林下水邊一短筇。

Translation: Cinemawords

Those who paint plum in all the world: Er Shu and Liangfeng. Er Shu’s plum has few who recognize it; Liangfeng’s one lineage has come east to this land. East of the sea — the remarkable man Kang Yaksan; in the vermilion-grass forest he burns incense petals. I love that your nature and temperament are inherently spirit-bright; when the mind arrives, the hand touches — nothing fails to communicate. The subtle key — you want to exhaust it down to the tiniest instant; unusual imagination — naturally combining with crystalline delicacy. To your right, Liangfeng’s painting hangs always; kindling-and-fire — the craft of close imitation and pursuit. The Nvge Yaochuan plum school has a supremely distinct quality; strong-soft, plain-rich — the meaning is without exhaustion. What you do best: one branch coming over the wall — why must it lean on bamboo, or prop against pine? The bookish atmosphere — warm as jade; living fragrance and vital color entering the rippling emptiness. In redundant places, seeking clarity; in confused places, finding principle — from you I bend toward the center of this principle. At that time, snow had accumulated and the mountain was howling in the night; the four seated guests felt as if spring wind had turned back. Together with you I enter the iron-flute dream — under the forest trees, beside the water — one short walking staff.

Reading notes:

The two plum masters invoked — Er Shu and Luo Ping (Liangfeng / 兩峰) — represent distinct traditions within the art of plum painting. Luo Ping (1733–1799) was one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, known for powerfully atmospheric plum paintings that combined calligraphic energy with botanical precision. Kim positions Kang Yaksan as the heir to Liangfeng’s approach in Korea.

“One branch coming over the wall” (一枝過墻來): the most celebrated compositional motif in plum painting, originating with the Song recluse-poet Lin Bu (林逋, 967–1028) who famously had plum trees as his “wife” and cranes as his “sons” and whose most celebrated line was about plum blossoms casting sparse shadows over clear shallow water. A single branch extending over a wall suggests the plum’s independence — it comes to you rather than requiring you to go to it; it needs no artificial support (no leaning on bamboo, no propping against pine).

“Bookish atmosphere” (書卷氣味 / seogwon gimi) — the quality of scholarly cultivation that suffuses work made by those who have read deeply — is the highest praise Kim can offer a painter. It means the painting carries more than visual skill: it has absorbed a tradition of thought and feeling.

走題金畵史千里仿朱野雲荷鴨圖便面 (Quick Inscription on Painter Kim Cheollni’s Fan Painting, Imitating Zhu Yeyun’s Lotus-Duck Image)

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

Form: Heptasyllabic couplets, 8 lines.

Occasion: Kim Cheollni (金千里) was a painter-historian (hwaesa / 畵史). Zhu Yeyun (朱野雲 / Zhu He, a Qing dynasty painter) painted a well-known lotus-duck composition with two ducks; Cheollni has simplified it to one duck and one leaf.

Original text:

野雲原筆頗瀟爽。花葉相當鳧則兩。千里巧思刪汰之。鳧一葉一還也奇。雖是無花但有葉。更覺無花格還別。畵龕八萬四千偈。卽薪卽火拈眞諦。

Translation: Cinemawords

Yeyun’s original brushwork is quite fresh and elegant; flowers and leaves balanced, ducks — two of them. Cheollni’s clever thinking strips and winnows it: one duck, one leaf — and this too is remarkable. Though there are no flowers, there is still a leaf; the absence of flowers makes the character even more distinctive. In the painting-shrine — eighty-four thousand dharma-verses; kindling-and-fire — picking up the true essence.

Reading notes:

A short inscription that argues for subtraction as aesthetic advance. The original Zhu Yeyun composition has the full complement — flowers, leaves, two ducks. Kim Cheollni removes the flowers and one duck, leaving: one leaf, one duck. Kim’s evaluation is that this removal is an improvement, not a loss: “the absence of flowers makes the character even more distinctive.” The stripped composition forces the viewer’s attention onto what remains.

“Eighty-four thousand dharma-verses” (八萬四千偈): the total number of teachings attributed to the Buddha in the Mahayana tradition — an astronomical figure representing the complete range of skillful means for different temperaments. Applied to a painting, it suggests that even the most reduced composition contains the full teaching, because the principle of emptiness is present wherever something is genuinely absent rather than merely missing.

次韻。答吳蘭雪藁。 (Rhyming a Reply to Oh Nanseol’s Draft Poems)

Period: Written following Kim’s 1809 Beijing visit and subsequent correspondence; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic ancient-style verse, approximately 32 lines.

Occasion: Oh Nanseol (吳蘭雪, Wu Songliang / 吳嵩梁, 1766–1834) was a prominent Chinese poet and friend of Weng Fanggang’s circle. This poem rhymes his draft poems, reaching through a dense network of Beijing artistic connections: the Five-Color Plum painting, the Dongshutang inkstone (東書堂硯, an object formerly owned by multiple notable collectors), the Wuyun rubbing collection (烏雲帖, here: the Wuyun rubbing collection held by Weng Fanggang), the Fa Shitan Poetry Shrine (詩龕), Weng Fanggang’s study (石帆亭 — Stone Sail Pavilion, another of Weng’s studio names).

Original text:

迦葉拈花詩髓求。舊從放翁夢境遊。眞影五色梅花樹。石溪烟隴知何處。料量羅朱澹濃中。蒼茫畵理參茶農。袖裏東海接一氣。鼻觀天涯情所鐘。東海人家一花坼。遙溯三十萬樹白。香蘇寶蘇卽此義。百千燈影收息息。問否九里洲與山。那由此身置其間。徑欲投筆劒峯去。擬追盟栢岱雲還。擧似石帆舊偈子。攝到笠影圓鏡裏。東書堂硯潑奇光。元氣淋漓而已矣。宛見紅袗日拜花。匡君之屐桐君家。靑眼同岑詩境月。紫瀾問津淨業槎。爲補十六年前失。却於萬里墨緣覓。蓬萊佇見文字祥。天際烏雲樓前日。金石蘭盟詎可更。蓮燈梅卷仍合倂。病鶴如今復何似。石銚乳滴松風生。

Translation: Cinemawords

Mahakashyapa’s flower-picking — seeking the poetry’s marrow; I have long traveled in the dream-realm of Lu You. True image: the Five-Color Plum tree; the Stone Stream mist-ridge — where is it now? Measuring between raw and cooked, plain and rich — vast and dim, the painting-principle — consulting with the Tea-Farmer [Zhang Cha’nong]. The Eastern Sea in the sleeve connecting as one breath; the nose-contemplation at heaven’s edge — where feeling concentrates. At an Eastern Sea household, one flower opens; tracing far back to three hundred thousand trees in white. Fragrant Su and Treasured Su — this is exactly that meaning; a hundred thousand lamp-shadows, gathered breath by breath. Have you asked after Nine-Li Island and its mountain? How could this body be placed there? I want to drop the brush and go to Sword Peak — hoping to pursue the covenant of cypresses and the Tai-cloud’s return. Raising the Stone Sail’s old verse-utterance; gathered into the hat-shadow’s round mirror. The Dongshutang inkstone splashing unusual light — vital breath, dripping and flowing — nothing more than this. The vermilion-robe woman clearly visible, bowing to flowers at sunrise; Kuang Jun’s clogs going to the Paulownia Gentleman’s house. Green eyes of a kindred spirit — the poem-realm’s moon; Purple Estuary inquiring after the Pure-Practice raft. To supplement sixteen years’ past loss — searched for instead in the ten-thousand-li ink bond. At Penglai, standing waiting to see the written auspice; the Wuyun rubbing collection’s sky-edge — the tower-front sun. Gold and stone, the orchid covenant — how could it be changed? Lotus lamp, plum scroll — they unite still. How is the sick crane faring now? The stone kettle — milk dripping; pine wind rising.

Reading notes:

The most network-dense poem in this installment — each image opens onto a specific object, person, or event from the Beijing scholarly circle. Mahakashyapa picking up a flower — the Chan founding gesture of wordless transmission — establishes the poem’s mode: it will communicate through things rather than statements. Lu You (放翁 / Lu You, 1125–1210), the Song dynasty poet who wrote obsessively about his failed love and his longing for political recovery, appears as a dream-realm the speaker has long inhabited.

The “Tea-Farmer” (茶農) is Zhang Cha’nong (張茶農), a Qing poet in the Beijing network. The “Five-Color Plum” painting (眞影五色梅花樹) was a painting owned by Oh Nanseol that six people had collaboratively produced. The Dongshutang inkstone (東書堂硯) had passed through the hands of the Zhou family, Peng Nanseol, and Weng Fanggang — the inkstone’s provenance is the poem’s provenance.

“Fragrant Su and Treasured Su” (香蘇寶蘇) plays on two of Weng Fanggang’s studio names — the Baosuzhai (Treasured Su Studio) honoring Su Dongpo, and a related “fragrant Su” variant. The poem’s final image — “the stone kettle / milk dripping / pine wind rising” — returns to the specific object (the stone tea-kettle, a gift and recurring motif) after the accumulated network of references, and ends in simple sensory presence.

龕梅。次東坡韻。 (The Shrine Plum, Rhyming Su Dongpo’s Verse)

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

Form: Heptasyllabic ancient-style verse, 16 lines.

Occasion: A poem about plum blossoms in a Buddhist shrine (gam / 龕 — an altar niche), rhyming the verse of Su Dongpo (坡公). Kim also invokes Jin Nong (老鐵 / Lao Tie, “Old Iron,” 1687–1763), one of the Yangzhou eccentrics known for the association of iron-dense brushwork with plum painting.

Original text:

不論華腴與枯槁。烘開雪葩眞絶倒。太湖老鐵鐵篴夢。一吷蓬壺破煩惱。萬木摠是自癡鈍。春風匪獨來偏早。亂山疊石意難傳。澹無着處還更好。配食湖山七百年。一盞寒菊紛灑掃。憐我腕弱趁姿媚。乞借屈鐵老枝老。但賦梅花字字香。喜神普又抽續艸。雨雪空山叩眞髓。半圭碧嶂揷晴昊。

Translation: Cinemawords

Neither discussing lush richness nor withered gauntness — the snow-petals, roasted open — truly overwhelming. The Great Lake’s Old Iron [Jin Nong], his iron-flute dream; one puff — the Penglai isle shatters vexation and distress. Ten thousand trees are all just naturally stupid and dull; the spring wind is not unique in coming early to this one. Tumbled mountains, layered stones — the meaning is hard to convey; plain, with nowhere to attach — and this is even better. Offered as companion-food to the lakes and mountains for seven hundred years; one cup — cold chrysanthemums scattered and swept clean. I pity my weak wrist for chasing after graceful allure — borrowing the bent-iron old-branch of its aged form. Only writing plum blossom — character by character fragrant; the spirit of joy spreading, drawing out the continuing cursive. Rain and snow in the empty mountain — knocking at the true marrow; half a jade-tablet of blue cliff inserted into the clear sky.

Reading notes:

The poem opens by refusing the conventional binary of abundance and gauntness — both extremes are set aside in favor of the specific phenomenon: snow-petals opening in heat. This is precisely the quality of shrine plum in winter or early spring — warmth from an interior source causing the cold buds to open suddenly.

Jin Nong (老鐵 / Lao Tie) is invoked again as the emblem of iron-density in brushwork — his plum paintings and his distinctive “lacquer script” calligraphy are both characterized by this quality of hardened, non-smooth weight. His “iron-flute dream” (鐵篴夢) connects musical and visual arts through the figure of metal-toned sound.

“Offered as companion-food to the lakes and mountains for seven hundred years” (配食湖山七百年): the plum tree is offered as ritual companion-offering beside the spirit of the landscape — this honors Lin Bu (967–1028), the famous hermit-poet who devoted himself to plum trees for his entire solitary life, and who died approximately 700 years before Kim’s time.

Kim’s final self-deprecation — “I pity my weak wrist” for wanting to paint plum — is not false modesty but an honest acknowledgment of the gap between appreciation and accomplishment. He contents himself with writing in words, “character by character fragrant,” and lets the prose-poem carry what the brush cannot.

寄而已广張混 並序 (Sent to Zhang Hun at Yiyi’an, with Preface)

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

Form: Song-form (irregular line lengths, approximately 16 lines), preceded by a prose preface.

Occasion: Zhang Hun (張混) has a study called Yiyi’an (而已广 — “Nothing more than this,” the character 广 meaning a wide hall). The preface explains that Zhang was traveling to the southern city, received poetic inspiration while still on horseback, and improvised five poems before even dismounting. Kim found this impressive and wrote rough verses in return, calling his own writing a “brick-toss to draw jade” (投甎引玉 — the expression for offering something crude to elicit something fine).

Preface: While traveling to the south city, he had already accumulated poetic inspiration; before even dismounting, he recited five poems. I found this truly vigorous and powerful. I quickly wrote something clumsy and overgrown in return — seeking his elegant and beautiful works. This is throwing bricks to draw jade.

Original text:

君病脚七十年。我病脚纔二年。七十年病若不病。其行無礙自天然。二年之病病仍痼。須筇而起還愁顚。閉門風雨不敢出。羨君箯輿飛如仙。溫祚城頭春無限。花間飮酒花間眠。一花一詩詩萬萬。花神遂爲詩神纏。花神不耐苦。綠章上訴天。天亦無奈此張蹇。花神花神空可憐。

Translation: Cinemawords

Your leg-ailment has lasted seventy years; my leg-ailment is barely two years. Seventy years of ailment — as if not sick at all; your movement meets no obstacle — naturally so. Two years of ailment — the ailment is still rooted; needing a staff to rise, worried about toppling. Closed door in wind and rain — I dare not go out; I envy you flying in your sedan chair, immortal-like. At the head of King Onjo’s wall, spring is without limit; drinking among the flowers, sleeping among the flowers. One flower, one poem — poems upon poems, ten thousand thousand; the Flower Spirit ends up entangled by the Poetry Spirit. The Flower Spirit cannot endure this trouble — writes a green petition, appeals to heaven. Heaven too is helpless against this halting Zhang; the Flower Spirit, the Flower Spirit — pitiable for nothing.

Reading notes:

A warm and genuinely funny poem. The conceit builds from a real physical contrast — Zhang Hun’s seventy-year leg ailment that seems not to impede him at all, versus Kim’s two-year ailment that has him housebound — into the comic image of a man who so overwhelms flowers with poems that the Flower Spirit itself files a legal complaint with Heaven. Heaven, in turn, is helpless: the unstoppable poet cannot be restrained by divine intervention any more than by a bad knee.

“Halting Zhang” (張蹇) puns on Zhang Hun’s surname and the word jian (蹇), meaning lame or halting — the classical poet Jia Dao (賈島) was also called a “halting” or “difficult” poet for his painstaking self-revision. Kim turns the pun into something between affectionate teasing and genuine praise: Zhang’s prolific spring output is so extreme that nature itself protests.

答二月八日作佛辰代艸衲 (Answering the 8th-of-the-2nd-Month Buddha’s Birthday Poem, Written on Behalf of Cho-ui)

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

Form: Heptasyllabic ancient-style verse, 30 lines.

Occasion: A scholarly poem on the disputed date of the Buddha’s birthday — written on behalf of Cho-ui (草衣 / 초의 / Cho-ui, the Buddhist monk). The debate is whether the correct date is the 8th day of the 2nd lunar month or the 8th day of the 4th lunar month, with Kim marshaling historical and scriptural evidence.

Original text:

二月八與四月八。釋迦生辰紛紛說。細考不止一周昭。上溯武乙並夏桀。夜明還是莊王時。春秋元不差月日。不知周昭更何據。穆王平王復相聒。却將壬子爲甲寅。蘇繇刻石何怳惚。五日七日且無定。占鏡長曆各藤葛。此云入道非生辰。阿那含不本起別。鷲靈聖賢法印傳。石柱文字玄機洩。聲聞依俙滯方隅。離迦翻轉恣譌脫。妙吉祥原曼殊利。無盡意乃阿差末。千漚尋月摠幻相。衆盲喩象難究詰。化胡經又沒巴鼻。此訟漫漫無時畢。尼丘聖辰亦異詞。刦前隱現疇能悉。百千燈攝一牟尼。四月不害作二月。然而我佛元無生。出門一笑空江闊。

Translation: Cinemawords

The 8th of the 2nd Month or the 8th of the 4th — Shakyamuni’s birthday: debated on and on. Carefully examined: it goes beyond just the Zhou King Zhao. Tracing back: King Wuyi and even Xia Jie. The “night brightness” — it was still the time of King Zhuang [of Zhou]; the Spring and Autumn Annals doesn’t actually differ on month and day. Not knowing what further evidence King Zhao supplies — Kings Mu and Ping are brought in again to chatter. Then proposing Renzi year as Jiayın year — Su Yao’s stone inscription — how confused and unclear. The fifth day and the seventh day — still without fixed determination; the Zhanjing almanac and the longer calendars — each a tangle of vines. This claim: “entered the Way” — not the birth anniversary at all; the Anavatapta Sutra does not originate this separately. The Vulture Peak sage’s dharma-seal transmitted by sages and worthies — the pillar inscription’s characters leak the mysterious mechanism. The Shravaka [lesser vehicle adherents] vaguely stuck in their regional corners; the Lijiā [the Lalitavistara?] inverted, freely distorting and slipping. Manjushri is originally Mañjuśrī; “Inexhaustible Intention” is Akshayamati. A thousand bubbles seeking the moon — all are illusory appearances; the many blind [men feeling] the elephant — difficult to investigate and settle. The Huahu Jing [Conversion of the Barbarians sutra] — also without principle. This lawsuit, sprawling and endless — no time to complete. Confucius’s own holy birth-date also has differing accounts; before the cosmic aeon, who can know what was revealed or hidden? A hundred thousand lamps gather into one muni; the 4th Month does no harm to the 2nd Month. And yet: our Buddha is essentially without birth — going out the door, one smile — the river is vast and open.

Reading notes:

A remarkable poem: Kim mobilizes Chinese historical chronology, Buddhist scriptural citation, and calendar scholarship to adjudicate a debate about the Buddha’s birthday — then dismisses the entire enterprise in the final couplet with a smile. The scholarly apparatus (Su Yao’s inscription, the Zhanjing almanac, the Anavatapta Sutra, the Lijiā) is real and detailed; Kim has genuinely engaged with the problem.

The poem’s key move comes in the penultimate couplet: “The 4th Month does no harm to the 2nd Month” — both dates can coexist because the Buddha is essentially (元) without birth. The word yuan (元 / “essentially/originally”) draws on the Vimalakirti Sutra‘s non-dualist principle: the Buddha’s entry into existence transcends calendar. The debate about dates is real as a historical problem and irrelevant as a spiritual one.

“Going out the door, one smile — the river is vast and open” (出門一笑空江闊): the poem’s closing gesture enacts what it describes. The scholar has spent thirty lines marshaling evidence, then steps outside, laughs, and finds the river wide and empty. This is Chan resolution through laughter rather than argument — and the poem acknowledges that laughter is the correct response to an argument that was never going to be settled by argument.

龕梅歎 (Lament for the Shrine Plum)

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

Form: Heptasyllabic ancient-style verse, 20 lines.

Occasion: A lament for the state of plum cultivation in Korea — specifically for the practice of artificial forcing and shaping of plum branches, and for the Korean preference for peach and cherry over proper plum. Kim compares Korean plum culture unfavorably to the great plum-growing traditions of China (Guangfu in Jiangsu, known for tens of thousands of plum trees; Luofu Mountain in Guangdong, legendary plum territory).

Original text:

園中雜樹多桃李。東人栽花且鄙俚。未聞千樹萬樹梅。曾與光福羅浮比。斲査揉枝足傷眞。錦厨繡閤徒爲爾。恰似水邊林下人。已有高車駟馬耻。屋煖早見春信通。絶憎人巧干天理。金紙剪月眞可憐。海柚借馥有何美。取燈斜照影始橫。狎條細嗅香初起。安得小園三百弓。徧種梅花而已矣。淸夢時廻西冷橋。幽魂欲招武當里。棲雅流水欲黃昏。獨立蒼茫情不已。

Translation: Cinemawords

In the garden, mixed trees — many peach and cherry; Korean people cultivating flowers — and doing so crudely. I have not heard of thousand-tree, ten-thousand-tree plum gardens that could compare with Guangfu or Luofu. Hacking the trunk and twisting the branches — more than enough to harm the true nature; brocade kitchens and embroidered chambers — all this is done for that end. Just like the person beside the water, under the trees, who already has the shame of a high carriage and four horses. Warm in the house, early seeing spring’s news arrive — completely loathing human cleverness interfering with heaven’s principle. Gold-paper moons cut out — truly pitiable; citrus peel lending its fragrance — what beauty is there in this? Take a lamp and angle it sideways — the shadow begins to lie horizontal; approach the branch closely and smell carefully — the fragrance first rises. If only one could have a small garden of three hundred gung — plant plum blossoms throughout — nothing more than this. In clear dreams, sometimes returning to the Xiling Bridge; the wandering spirit wants to be summoned to Wudang’s grove. Settling into elegance, flowing water, approaching evening — standing alone in the vast blur — feeling does not cease.

Reading notes:

The poem is Kim’s most extended statement of the gap between Korean plum culture and the Chinese ideal. The specific criticisms are precise: Korean gardeners twist and force plum branches into artificial shapes, destroying the tree’s natural form; they heat houses to make the plum bloom early, interfering with the natural season; they cut paper-moon decorations and borrow citrus peel for its fragrance rather than allowing the plum to provide its own.

The contrast with Guangfu (光福 in Suzhou prefecture, where ten thousand plum trees bloomed historically) and Luofu Mountain (羅浮, in Guangdong, a famous plum-growing sacred mountain) names the unreachable ideal: the natural, large-scale plum cultivation that Kim has read about but never seen in Korea. “Three hundred gung” (三百弓 — one gung is approximately 6 cheoK, about 1.8 meters, so 300 gung is a substantial garden plot) is the modest dream: a garden large enough to plant plum throughout, with nothing else.

The Xiling Bridge (西冷橋 / Xiling Qiao) at Hangzhou’s West Lake was associated with Lin Bu (967–1028), the hermit-poet who devoted himself entirely to plum trees, cranes, and mountains — the patron saint of plum appreciation. Kim’s “clear dream” of returning there and his spirit wanting to be “summoned to Wudang’s grove” are the aspirations of someone who knows the ideal exists somewhere and has never arrived there. The poem ends standing alone in the failing light, feeling that does not stop.

The three plum poems (49, 52, 55) form the installment’s emotional core despite being separated by several other works. Taken together, they articulate a complete position: the plum as aesthetic ideal in theory (the Kang Yaksan inscription), as spiritual practice in the Su Dongpo tradition (the shrine plum), and as failed reality in Korean culture (the lament). The lament’s final solitary figure — standing in the vast blur, feeling that does not cease — differs in quality from Part 2’s panoramic solitude at the mountain summit. This is not the expansiveness of high ground but the persistence of wanting something that exists only in dreams and in Chinese poetry. Part 4 moves deeper into the collection’s middle range, where occasional verse and literary criticism continue to alternate with moments of unexpected intensity.