Poetry
제망매가
Not translated into English
Master Wolmyeong · 750
Opening lines
生死路隱
此矣有阿米次肹伊遣
吾隱去內如辭叱都
毛如云遣去內尼叱古
On the road of life and death
that lies here, you faltered,
and, the words “I am going”
left unsaid, have you gone?
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ko.wikisource.org
Synopsis
A Buddhist monk sings for his young sister who has died, during the rite that guides her towards the afterlife. The road of life and death passes very close by, and she left without even saying that she was going. The song compares brother and sister to leaves born on the same branch, which the wind of an autumn that comes too early makes fall and scatters without their knowing where they are going. An exclamation opens the last lines, where grief gives way to religious hope.
Context
The song is preserved in the Samguk yusa, in book five, in the episode devoted to its author's other song. It was recited during the rite of the forty-nine days: a gust of wind then carried the paper money offered to the dead woman toward the west, the direction of the Pure Land. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture sees in it both a ritual song to guide the dead woman and a personal poem in which the brother becomes aware of his own end; a study by the National Institute of the Korean Language holds it to be a summit of Silla poetry and a source of Korean lyric poetry.
Who it is for
A ten-line poem, in hyangchal, to be read in an annotated version; no proper translation in French or English.
Prizes and reception
Included in anthologies in Norwegian, in 2004, and in German, in 1987, according to the Korean translation library.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.