Engraving Virtue: the Printing History of a Premodern Korean Moral Primer Brill’S Korean Studies Library

Engraving Virtue: The Printing History of a Premodern Korean Moral Primer Brill’s Korean Studies Library

Edited by Ross King (University of British Columbia)

In co-operation with Boudewijn Walraven (Leiden University), Sun Joo Kim (Harvard University) and Rüdiger Frank (University of Vienna)

VOLUME 3

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bksl Engraving Virtue: The Printing History of a Premodern Korean Moral Primer

By Young Kyun Oh

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Publication of this book was supported by the following grants from Arizona State University: Institute for Humanities Research Publication Subvention Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences East Asian Studies Research Fund, and School of International Letters and Cultures Research Fund.

Cover Illustration: Folio image showing “Lady Yu is filial to her mother-in-law” (Yu ssi hyo ko 劉氏孝姑), in the Samgang haengsil-to, 1726 reduced edition. Image from the Internet Archive at http://archive.org.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oh, Young Kyun. Engraving virtue : the printing history of a premodern Korean moral primer / by Young Kyun Oh. pages cm. — (Brill’s Korean studies library series, ISSN 1876-7079 ; volume 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-24988-2 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-25196-0 (e-book) 1. Samgang haengsilto. 2. Samgang haengsilto—Influence. 3. Wood-engraving—Printing—Korea— History. 4. Primers (Prayer books)—Korea—History. 5. Confucian ethics—Korea—History. 6. Korea—History—Choson dynasty, 1392–1910. 7. Korea—Social conditions—1392–1910. I. Title.

BJ117.S25 2013 170.9519—dc23

2013010579

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ISSN 1876-7079 ISBN 978-90-04-24988-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25196-0 (e-book)

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents

List of Figures and Tables ...... vii Preface ...... ix

Introduction ...... 1

1 Prelude to a Confucian State: Literati, Morality, and Books ...... 13

2 The Conception of the Samgang haengsil-to ...... 55

3 Vernacular Sounds and the Reduced Edition ...... 127

4 The Sequels: Here and Now in the Chosŏn ...... 197

Conclusions ...... 263

Bibliography ...... 275 Index ...... 289

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

1. The illustration of “Several Generals Suppress Rebels” (left) and the text of “Sŏng Ch’ung Dies in Prison” (right) ...... 95 2. Ming Palace Treasury Edition of the Grand Pronouncements by the Imperial Order ...... 98 3. “[Zhao] Yuanjiang Takes Off the Cangue” ...... 112 4. “The Earnest Behavior of Xu Ji” ...... 114 5. “Puyan Fulfills Loyalty” ...... 116 6A. “Ŭnbo Impresses the Crow” without vernacular text...... 134 6B. “Ŭnbo Impresses the Crow” with vernacular text...... 135 7. The illustration of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass” (left) and the text of “Chastity of a Ning-Family Daughter” (right) ..... 155 8A. The vernacular text of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass” (1490 edition) ...... 159 8B. The vernacular text of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass” (1570s edition) ...... 159 9. “Sang Tŏk Slices Off His Thigh” ...... 174 10. “Lady Kim Pounces on a Tiger” ...... 189 11. Folio image showing “Wang Zhong Moves Heaven” ...... 217 12. List of contents, kwŏn 5, New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to ...... 246 13. “The Most Virtuous Actions of I-ch’ŏm” ...... 247 14. “Yun-gŭn Cuts Off His Finger” ...... 256 15. “Cho-i Has Her Head Cut Off ” ...... 257

Tables

1. Distribution of Chinese and Korean Stories in the Initial Edition of the Samgang haengsil-to (1434) ...... 101 2. Category 1: Vernacular Texts of the Samgang haengsil-to in Chŏng’ŭm (Han’gŭl) with Chinese Characters Mixed In ...... 136 3. Category 2: Vernacular Texts of the Samgang haengsil-to in Chŏng’ŭm (Han’gŭl) without Interspersed Chinese Characters ...... 136 viii list of figures and tables

4. Editions of the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to Outlined by Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho ...... 220 5. Editions of the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to, Revised Summary ...... 221 6. Distribution of Stories in the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (1617) ...... 244 Preface

For a scholar this was almost a career change. After a degree in Chinese historical phonology, I spent the last four years learning and studying about the history of one book. I never realized that studying about one book could be so absorbing as to consume four years. Begun initially as a short lecture preparation, the project on this Chosŏn moral primer kept leading me on to larger and more captivating domains of research, until finally resulting in the present monograph. All academic texts, I believe, are communal works. Even more help and support than usual went into writing this book. My discovery of the field of book history was through conversations with Jamie Newhard when we were both beginning junior faculty members at Arizona State University. My interest grew more serious during my stay at the Academy of Korean Studies in 2007, where I learned about Korean books and print culture from Joo Young-ha [Chu Yŏng-ha], Ok Young-jung [Ok Yŏng-jŏng], and Choi Jin-duk, whose generous support and inspiration I deeply appreciate. I am also most grateful to those who gave me crucial help for this project to move forward. Stephen West has seen my progress from my early career, has read primary texts with me, and helped form my rudimentary ideas into readable shapes. Without Ross King’s meticulous eyes and kindness in reading and rereading my drafts, not to mention his expertise on Middle Korean and the Samgang haengsil-to, the manuscript would not have seen the current state. Peter Kornicki encouraged me from the beginning to embark on this new area of study and gave me opportunities for this project to advance. Xiaoqiao Ling has been a loyal friend who read my first drafts every time I finished a section, thereby providing me with consistent pressure to write on. Arizona State University has been an ideal environment for a novice (in many senses) scholar like myself. Colleagues who participated in reading groups at the School of International Letters and Cultures, Stephen West, Daniel Gilfillan, John (Yu) Zou, John Creamer, Yoon Sun Yang, Sookja Cho, and Xiaoqiao Ling, have all read parts of the manuscript at various stages. Robert Joe Cutter, Stephen Bokenkamp, Madeline Spring, Hoyt Tillman, Marcus Cruse, and Juliann Vitulo have also read various parts and excerpts of the manuscript, and provided generous criticisms and encouragements. My senior colleagues among the Asian Studies x preface faculty were especially nurturing and supportive of me in pursuing this project without being distracted by administrative and teaching duties. The inquisitiveness and intelligence of the students who took my “Books and Print Culture of Premodern East Asia” kept me on task. This book would never have appeared in one piece, without these brilliant minds at Arizona State University. I would be remiss if I failed to thank Ryan Robbins and Victoria Scott for their editorial touches on the numerous linguistic errors and inconsistencies; I also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and invaluable comments. Unyielding friendship to comfort me through some hectic times came from Joanne Tsao, Meow Hui Goh, and Newell Ann Van Aucken. I would also like to think that my fatherly teacher, Pro- fessor Tsai-fa Cheng—who taught the clueless student I once was everything about the historical linguistics of Chinese and showed me what it means to be a scholar—would approve of this book. Very special thanks are due to Stephen West for the infinite wisdom and unceasing friendship he has granted me. It has been my fortune to have him as my mentor and a friend. Someone once said that it is inappropriate to thank publicly one’s family for their sacrifices because a few words could never acknowledge all the things that family members do for each other. But it has been particularly difficult for my family with the dysfunctional son, husband and father that I have been. My parents, who nurtured my often-quixotic curi- osity and wanderlust since childhood, have long waited for this book to come out. For a husband who is always unavailable, Mia has had to be the strong woman who makes things work. My sons had to get accustomed early on to their father being away, growing up so fast and so wonderfully. They are, needless to say, my superheroes. Introduction

Printing changed history. It fixed fluid orality into and onto a visible and spatial object, so that readers could reflect upon, reiterate, and transmit those words to yet other readers who would occupy other times and spaces. Although many scholars have investigated the contributions printing has made to human civilization—such as to the evolution of modernity and the formation of intellectual consciousness and subjectivity—relatively few have investigated the culture of books and their contribution to civilization in premodern East Asia. Even fewer have examined the rich history of printing in Korea, where the earliest known examples of woodblock and movable-type printing have been found. Apart from the printed books themselves, those luminous and inherited artifacts, what can the more intangible premodern East Asian experience with printing, and that of Korea in particular, contribute to our knowledge about the place of printing within the global humanities? Certainly, as was the case in many other societies, books and printing played a pivotal role in the evolution of Korean civilization, and its culture has valued them with much respect. But beyond this generalized and somehow hollow observation, a more concrete answer to that question requires an examination of the specific details of the Korean printing enterprise and its larger significance. In addition to acknowledging Korea’s rich and proud biblio-cultural past, we need to ask more fundamental questions. When we say “Korean culture valued books,” what do we mean by “valued?” Does it mean Koreans preserved books as relics, transmitted them from master to disciple in sacred rites, or to employed them in educational institutions? Did Koreans value books as material objects, sacred talismans, repositories of meaning, or as both possession and resource? How did they read? How did Koreans cope with linguistic differences when dealing with books from China? How did they use classical Chinese as their primary written language? To what extent and in what way did books change the lives of Korean people? And which segment of the population—a small literate class or a broader swath of society—did they most affect? What kinds of books traveled to and through Korea, making the peninsula part of an East Asian oikoumene connected by texts? This is a book about a book. I focus on the print history of a particular title, the Samgang haengsil-to 三綱行實圖 (Illustrated guide to the Three 2 introduction

Relations), to provide an example through which we might begin to open up the history of the book in Korea. This celebrated book had a long and intriguing life in the Chosŏn (1392–1910), the last premodern dynasty. First printed in 1434 by the court under King Sejong’s 世宗 (r. 1418–50) mandate, the Samgang haengsil-to was a response to a patricidal incident that inspired Sejong to issue the book as a morality primer and corrective that would aid in the ethical transformation of his people. During the several centuries that followed, the text was reedited and reprinted numerous times, and even inspired several sequels. Editors altered it—sometimes subtly, at other times significantly. Whatever its form, the text reproduced stories from Chinese and Korean histories that demonstrated the moral quality of filial sons (hyoja 孝子), loyal subjects (ch’ungsin 忠臣), and devoted women ( yŏllyŏ 烈女) whose actions best represented the ethical nature of the three fundamental human relations that sustained Confu- cian society: father–son, ruler–subject, and husband–wife. This book examines two facets of the Samgang haengsil-to printing history: (1) how a changing socio-political context motivated the publishing projects; and (2) how that context affected the book both in terms of its physicality (selection and arrangement of stories, layout and design) and texts (written text and illustrations). Assuming that what happened to the Samgang haengsil-to reflects not just any premodern book culture but one specifically influenced by Confucian moralists’ attitudes toward books, this study provides insight into how two groups of people occupying opposing ends of the social hierarchy—namely, the literate and illiterate—came together in this typically Confucian and yet unusual project of trans- planting Chinese values into new cultural soil. The changes made to the structure and content of the Samgang haengsil-to are indicative of the ideological and political shifts that lay behind the serial publication and circulation of the book. What is unique about the Samgang haengsil-to is that it was a “granted” or “bestowed” book, one whereby the author-editors (the literatus-officials) reigned over their target readers: the mostly illiterate and, by Confucian ethical logic, morally deficient common folk.1 These author-editors might

1 This is well illuminated by a quote from the Mencius: “Those who labor with their minds govern others; those who labor with their strength are governed by others. Those who are governed by others support them; those who govern them are supported by them. This is a universal principle.” 勞心者治人，勞力者治於人；治於人者食人，治人者食於人；天下之通義也。Mencius 3A.3.6. Translation by James Legge, The Chinese Clas- sics, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895), 249–50. introduction 3 occupy the same physical world as their readers, but they certainly did not inhabit the same mental universe. Hence the literatus-officials who conceived the work had to rely on their own limited knowledge of people whose lives they had very little real access to or prior interest in. Their imaginative guesses about the lives of commoners were often based on a moralistic and archaic romanticism as well as on a sense of Confucian obligation to extend compassion to those lower on the scale of the ethical meritocracy. Moreover, since they would receive no direct feedback about the way the book was received when put to actual use out in the provinces, they surely had a very dim idea of how the book could be employed as a tool to teach the illiterate. We cannot rule out that they did receive some input from reactions to its use, but this would have been hearsay or filtered through the minds of intermediaries. As the documents related to the text’s production over several hundred years show, this created an epistemological quandary for the court and the author-editors of subsequent editions. In shaping subsequent editions based on a presumed use, actual circulation and use could not but remain a secondary consideration; instead, literatus-officials considered it to be their own ethical, literary, and artistic taste that, in the main, granted the text its legitimacy. This sense of taste was affected to a certain extent by having to leave space for the imagined reader—members of the lower class, commoners, the illiterate, women, children, and so forth—but its major hue derived from matching the text to the doctrinal principles to which the literati subscribed and which were embodied in the canonical texts of the Confucian classics. And there was consensus among the authors about the scholastic and ethical authority of those texts. This general sense of incommensurability between production and reception was complicated by two other underlying processes that shaped the history of editions of the Samgang haengsil-to: nativization and interpretation. The desire to transform Chosŏn into a Confucian state was undoubtedly the single most important motivation behind the initial publication of the Samgang haengsil-to. The early Chosŏn rulers strove to deal with the foreignness of China—a mindset they inherited from previous dynasties. This might seem strange, considering the long history of Korea’s interaction with and assimilation of Chinese culture, but the Chosŏn endeavor went far beyond haphazardly absorbing a foreign culture. It was a total reconfiguration of state ideology and identity so that Chosŏn would be in synchronicity with the neighboring Sinitic tradition. For it to have a lasting influence, this change had to be both organized and fundamental. Two factors greatly influenced this programmatic agenda. First was 4 introduction a change in the mode of cultural association among the members of the East Asian community after the Mongols created a pan-regional order. The expansion of the Mongol empire and the relative freedom of movement (both physical and intellectual) that accompanied it broke the sinocentric cultural exclusivism that had marked pre-Yuan China and helped spread Chinese texts and ideology beyond the borders of China. When the succeeding Ming dynasty replaced the Mongols, they reestablished a dis- tinctly Han-Chinese orthodoxy and confirmed China and “Chineseness” as the center of the political and moral order. The Ming restoration in China also reshaped the way Korea perceived itself in relation to Chinese civilization. This differed from the previous modes of Sino-Korean cultural association, in which Korean polities learned aspects of Chinese culture and the distance between the two cultures was understood. Chosŏn now came to view itself as an active member of Sinitic civilization and tradition with its own cultural entelechy. Part of this sense of belonging to a new East Asian order was the attempt the Chosŏn court made to adopt a revitalized form of Confucianism, called “Learning of Principles” (lixue 理學) or “Learning of the Way” (daoxue 道學), that had gained orthodoxy in China during and after the Yuan. Lixue is a philosophy reinforced by a moral metaphysics, developed during Song-dynasty China (960–1279) by a group of scholars that included Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200). Through mastering and practicing Neo-Confucian doctrines, Chosŏn aspired to become as bona fide a Confucian state as China itself. The second process shaping the evolution of the Samgang haengsil-to, that of interpretation, was dictated by Neo-Confucianism itself, and involved a process far more subtle than the simple linguistic translation of Chinese into Korean. This interpretive work was in fact comparable to Zhu Xi’s project. In China, Zhu Xi had created a philosophical primer with the Four Books, which he thought captured the philosophical essence of the Confucian classics.2 As part of the discipline of learning, Zhu Xi emphasized that these words of the sages should be read aloud and mem- orized by heart. In the same manner, to reach the untrained minds of illiterate Koreans using the stories that epitomized Confucian ethics, the

2 The Four Books are the Great Learning (Daxue 大學), the Analects (Lunyu 論語), the Mencius (Mengzi 孟子), and the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸). Numerous studies have examined the role that Zhu Xi and the Four Books played in the history of Confucian scholarship. See, for example, Daniel K. Gardner, “Principle and Pedagogy: Chu Hsi and the Four Books,” HJAS 44.1 (1984): 57–81; and “Transmitting the Way: Chu Hsi and His Program of Learning,” HJAS 49.1 (1989), 141–72. The influence of Zhu Xi and the Four Books on the Confucian culture of books and reading is discussed in Chapter 1. introduction 5

Chosŏn literati needed to properly interpret and elucidate them in the vernacular Korean language understandable to all Koreans.3 Not having a writing system with which to transform the Chinese text into Korean, the initial edition was designed to be orally “interpreted”—not exactly “read”—to an audience incapable of reading Chinese. Confucianism has always stressed the master-disciple relationship, and the authoritative role that Confucian masters played in the transmission of knowledge as oral interpretation of written text became an integral factor in helping people bridge the gap between moral knowledge (zhi 知) and practice (xing 行). That is, the teacher had to elucidate the meaning behind the text and ensure that the moral knowledge contained therein would be correctly understood and practiced by his students. Teaching and learning, therefore, turned into an ontological activity, in which the literati completed, and contributed to realizing, a world of moral goodness practiced through action. The Samgang haengsil-to, which both the literati and the illiterate participated in “reading,” was no exception in this respect. Indeed, we can trace the historical and political shifts in hermeneutical strategies used in dispensing and attaining knowledge by examining the changes in layout and arrangement of the texts and illustrations that occur in different editions of the Samgang haengsil-to. The physicality—or the notion that may be termed “body,” inclusive of both the physical and ethical self—through which nativization and interpretation operated is omnipresent in the Samgang haengsil-to. First of all, in their textual content, many of the stories describe mutilations of the body (e.g., a son cutting off his finger to save his dying parent, a wife getting her foot severed while resisting rape). Such ethically sanctioned violence is a distinctive characteristic of this text. Physicality makes its presence felt in the textual language as well. Vernacular Korean was added in later editions, after the invention of Han’gŭl, the Korean writing system. The new writing system through which the vernacular language was projected is an alphabetic system based on the sounds of the spoken language, and thus a close physical representation of the oral language. The evocation of orality left less room for ambiguity, which had always been an important rhetorical feature of written classical Chinese, so that the written text of the Samgang haengsil-to gradually gained its somatic

3 Dialectal divergence in modern Korean is not particularly severe. There are major regional dialects, but they are mutually understandable with little or no difficulty. The situation may not have been very different during the Middle Korean stage in Chosŏn, for we do not find any documented evidence to the contrary. 6 introduction voice, through which it spelled out the stories more plainly and vividly. The bodily images of ethical conduct were also given visual shape through the accompanying illustrations. Each illustration carefully selects a scene that highlights commendable conduct and depicts it with graphic reality, conjuring up the associated physical sensations for the viewers. The notion of body is also anchored in the materiality of the book—not necessarily the actual copies on paper but the woodblocks that bear the text. By being engraved onto the blocks, the texts and pictures simultaneously acquired physical reality and immortality, as did the stories published from their surfaces. This explains why there were so many disputes surrounding the preparation of the texts of the Samgang haengsil-to, especially over which stories were to be included and why so little effort, by comparison, was made to produce and distribute actual copies of the text. The primary concern with the book moved from its didactic function of morally transforming people to its ritualistic function of registering the people—or moral superheroes—who performed actions worthy of emulation by engraving them on woodblocks and consequently validating their historicity. Chapter 1, “Prelude to a Confucian State: Literati, Morality, and Books,” investigates in more detail the two factors described above. It calls special attention to Zhu Xi’s hierarchical restructuring of Confucian knowledge and his emphasis on vocalized reading. This eventually popularized Confucian learning by promoting oral, as well as textual, circulation of the universal ethics and self-cultivation of lixue morality. I then discuss the historical unfolding of late Koryŏ, its political interaction with the Yuan imperial order, and the end of aristocracy under its rule. Under the umbrella of the Mongol empire, which provided a hiatus in the traditional cultural superiority ascribed to the Han-Chinese group, a window opened for the Koryŏ literati—another non-Han-Chinese people—to claim rights to the Confucian worldview. Chapter 2, “The Conception of the Samgang haengsil-to,” discusses how the original publishing project was conceived in the court of King Sejong. As the initial political unrest of the new dynasty was gradually dampened, Sejong and his scholar-officials strove to instill in the society the foundations of Confucian ethics: namely, filial piety, loyalty, and uxorial devotion. A patricidal incident in Chinju provided an opportune reason for this promotion to begin, and the result was a collection of 330 stories of filial sons, loyal subjects, and devoted wives (110 per categorical relation) chosen from Chinese and Korean histories. I trace the discourse behind the compilation of the Samgang haengsil-to, and link it to the previous introduction 7 tradition of Chinese biographies of commendable figures, didactic storybooks, and early Ming court publications that set the precedents for its publication. The second half of the chapter then examines how successful the first edition of the Samgang haengsil-to was in representing the editors’ plan for its readership, including the role of illustrations. Finally, I discuss how the court and literatus-editors conceived of the ways in which illiterate readers—oxymoronic though that term may be—would consume the book and its ethical message. I draw special attention to the role played by literate reader-interpreters and how this influenced the format of the book. Chapter 3, “Vernacular Sounds and the Reduced Edition,” deals primarily with the problem of language. For the most part, premodern Korea lived in a linguistic ecology in which classical Chinese had been adopted as a written language that was poles apart from spoken Korean. The invention of the native Han’gŭl script (called Chŏng’ŭm 正音 in this book, following its original name) shortly after the initial publication of the Samgang haengsil-to meant that the vernacular language could stand alongside classical Chinese as a written vernacular language, and it was incorporated posthaste into the second edition. The changes in place- ment of the vernacular text over time—its location, size, textual fullness, and so forth—bear witness to the shifting linguistic hierarchies of Chi- nese and Korean vis-à-vis each other. A coincidental change alongside this linguistic modification was the recension of the size of the Samgang haengsil-to, reducing the original 330 stories to 105, an action that reveals the inscription of the ethical and ideological orientation of the literatus- editors. This revision excised stories that conveyed conflicting moral messages and retained those that adhered to more canonical ethical maxims; it also curtailed those that described radical actions and extraordinary circumstances that might undercut the Chosŏn-Confucian fundamental- ists’ (called sarim 士林) emphasis on the importance of common moral behavior in daily life. At the same time, we can see a subtle change starting in the section on loyalty that presaged an impending conflict between literatus-officials and the kings. Chapter 4, “The Sequels: Here and Now in Chosŏn,” examines the last stage of the Samgang haengsil-to. The Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (Sok Samgang haengsil-to 續三綱行實圖, or the Sequel, for short) was compiled to collect stories of events that happened after the first edition was published. An important motivation behind it was the institutional award, called chŏngnyŏ 旌閭 (and the attendant honorary and monetary privileges) that the court bestowed on families whose members’ stories 8 introduction were selected for inclusion in the Samgang haengsil-to. Two things become apparent in the Sequel. One is the decrease in Chinese stories and increase in Korean ones; the other is the downplaying of stories of loyalty—only five of sixty-seven stories were about loyalty. The winnowing of stories about loyal generals, officials, and servants paralleled the growth of a particular ideology among the sarim politicians, who endeavored to weaken the monarchy and strengthen the rule of an ethical meritocracy composed of literatus-officials. These tendencies culminated in the last of the Samgang haengsil-to, the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern King- dom (Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to 東國新續三綱行實圖, or the New Sequel, for short). Here, only Korean stories were collected and texts in vernacular were situated not in the upper margin but on the main page, where they enjoyed an equal status to that of classical Chinese. By the time this edition appeared, only 6 percent of the 1,587 stories concerned loyalty. Moreover, the printing process and format of the book demonstrated that the publication of the Samgang haengsil-to had now become ritualized as a kind of a commemorative registry of moral heroes. Only a few copies were finally completed and circulated, despite the painstaking preparation of the blocks and text. There were many debates as to whose stories should be included; the language of the text became simplified and formulaic; stories came to be stereotypical according to several templates; and the illustrations became both conventional and simplified. There are four hypotheses in a more general context that I put forward in this book. First, a defining characteristic of premodern Korean print production is that, in addition to its function in reproducing and dissemi- nating texts, texts were important as ritual symbols. While type printing had long been available and continued to be improved, block printing had secured its place in Chosŏn society and remained the preferred method of making books for certain texts because it reified the metaphor of epig- raphy, namely, that of literati “engraving in stone”; texts were considered to become unchangeable and immortal by being carved into a sturdy physical substance. Thus the primary significance of printing lay not so much in the imprints on paper as in the physical blocks themselves, for imprints were mere copies of the original form, or the potentiality, of the book. Blocks, consolidating the text and the design to frame the text, were the true holders of text, an unchanging surface that could be reproduced in ephemeral form over and over. Like shrines—where heroes are com- memorated with records of their lives and their actions on tablets, and with scenes of their heroic moments in photos and on murals—blocks housed the text in conformation with ritualistic proprieties in layout and introduction 9 format, and recreated a traditional sense of immortality for the texts that deserved to be preserved. Second, with respect to the role of illustrations, I propose that the editors of the Samgang haengsil-to, following the Neo-Confucian theory of moral cognition, inserted visual illustrations to provoke in the text’s illiterate audience memories of common moral actions and the innate goodness of human nature. Thus the pictures become aides-memoires and evocative objects at the same time, rather than simple devices to help them follow or understand the stories as told. Since classical Chinese texts presented a dual impediment to the illiterate public of the Chosŏn—by being both written and foreign—the visual texts (illustrations) could not work directly with the written text in the beginning, but could indirectly inspire memories of past actions and comparisons with present behavior. Third, as a book meant to be orally interpreted, the Samgang haengsil- to was intended to encompass two distinct “reader” groups: the direct audience consisted of the illiterate general masses, but the indirect audience was made up of the literati whom the recensions of the Samgang haengsil-to implicitly addressed. Yet the literati were not reading the text of the book; rather, they were reading the subtext, which was the political ideology that lay behind the selection of and presentation of stories for each subsequent edition. As the sarim rose to political power, the editorial choice of stories gradually changed to reflect their ethical doctrines rather than those of the court. The Samgang haengsil-to was not only an effort to produce didactic texts to be disseminated among the general masses, but also an endeavor on the part of the core group of Confucian editor- compilers to establish their ideological dominance and increase their moral capital among the literati community. Thus there was a group of implied readers who were also reading the Samgang haengsil-to, participating in negotiations of political power based on moral ideals. Lastly, classical Chinese, a textual language that had conveyed sacred messages in East Asia for a long time, maintained its cultural authority by being detached from any form of actual spoken language and its sounds.4 Relating the nature of written languages and the connection

4 The term “classical Chinese” here is used in rather a loosely defined sense, and refers to the written Chinese language that was emulated by the Chosŏn (Confucian) literati. The “Confucian” in parentheses indicates that it was vested more in the world of Confucian literature than in the texts used by clerks for administrative purposes or by Buddhist monks for religious scriptures. Some insist on the strictest sense, whereby classical Chinese refers only to the language of the well-defined set of Confucian classics; others are partial to the loosest use, of denoting as “classical Chinese” any written Chinese that existed in the premodern 10 introduction between literacy and orality, this hypothesis suggests that the absence of the sounds that ground a script in a living—and hence secular—language allowed the written text to acquire a universality and timelessness. Simi- lar hypotheses about sacred or liturgical languages, as well as scriptural languages, have been made in the context of religious studies, but I focus on the case of classical Chinese and its cultural significance as a written language. Accompanied only by imagined “ideal” sounds and not paired with any substrate of natural language, the visuality of Chinese characters had mystified classical Chinese and enveloped it with an esoteric semiotic authority. This is exemplified in the print history of the Samgang haengsil- to, where the classical Chinese texts faced and negotiated with the need to interpret them into plain spoken language for the illiterate; it was the invention of Han’gŭl, a phonetic writing system, that would disambigu- ate the message by giving somatic voices to the messages embodied by the Chinese text. Since the stories of the Samgang haengsil-to eventually became a direct and physical manual for the illiterate in times of ethical

East Asian textual sphere. Or we may consider using “Literary Sinitic” instead of “classical Chinese” to refer to the written Chinese texts created by the Chosŏn literati (such as those in the Samgang haengsil-to), as coined by Victor Mair to include a variety of Chinese texts that formed a continuum of literary language across temporal and spatial boundaries, sepa- rable from any spoken layer; Mair, “Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular in East Asia: The Making of National Languages,” JAS 53.3 (1994): 707–51. The idea of liberating the written languages of the periphery from the narrow definition that only relates to the (imagined) cultural center and treats the rest as its derivatives is indeed useful when it comes to discussing such texts that are otherwise called Sino-Japanese and Sino-Korean. As Peter Kornicki has noted, however, terms like “Sino-Japanese” do present a few dilemmas and are still distant from being appropriate taxonomic units; Kornicki, “A Note on Sino-Japanese: A Question of Terminology,” Sino-Japanese Studies 17 (2010): 28–44. The prime difficulty in using a term in the form of “Sino-X” lies in the complexity and variety of styles that would have to be covered by it. To put it in Kornicki’s words: “We need something like sinological litmus paper to measure where any given text falls on the gamut between natural Sinitic at one extreme and at the other extreme written texts that are incomprehensible as Sinitic” (ibid., 43). For this reason, Scott Wells’s recent M.A. thesis in fact applies “Literary Sinitic” to his discussion of Sino-Korean as a literary language; Wells, “From Center to Periphery: The Demotion of the Literary Sinitic and the Beginnings of Hanmunkwa—Korea, 1876–1910,” M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, 2011. My own reluctance in adopting “Literary Sinitic” here comes from taking into consideration the perceptions of Chosŏn (and Koryŏ, for that matter) literati of the written Chinese text as a medium of intellectual and literary discourse. As is well known, there were times, especially in the later Chosŏn era, when literati and the court consciously and deliberately follow the style of the written text of the Confucian classics, as exemplified by King Chŏngjo’s 正祖 (r. 1776–1800) “rectification of literary styles” (Munch’e panjŏng 文體反正). That is, in the case of Sino-Korean, particularly for Confucian texts like the Samgang haengsil-to, the psychological inclination to directly connect the message of the texts to the moral authority of the sages by simulating the language of the classics is more than salient. introduction 11 challenges, the sarim Confucians allowed written-vernacular interpretation in the book, breaking the esoteric boundary of the Chinese text. These stories were plain enough not to need complicated interpretations, while representing canonical conduct of Confucian virtue that was sufficiently difficult to carry out. Yet the vernacular text was not meant to be an integral part of the main text, on an equal level with the classical Chinese, but an aid to reader-interpreters in their oral interpretation. As simple and plain as its text might seem, the Samgang haengsil-to was at the core of transcultural integration between the Sinitic and the Korean cultural worlds, transferring ideology and moral knowledge from one culture to the other, where it was reshaped to fit a native agenda. The print history of the Samgang haengsil-to shows how printing was instrumental in restructuring socio-political parameters and was precisely the nexus at which diverse societal groups negotiated for power—the court and the Confucian literati, literati and the illiterate, elites and commoners, and so forth. As the Chosŏn nativized Confucian philosophy and ideology, the Samgang haengsil-to served as a form of propaganda—a didactic guide to fundamental changes in the ethical system that lay at the base of Korean society. The purported target readers, too, participated in the print history by competing to have stories from their own families included or to produce similar kinds of texts, thus giving rise to a new “illustrated conduct” (haengsil-to 行實圖) genre. In this respect, the “value” of such books began to reside more in the realm of production, in their being brought into concrete being, than in their dissemination.

chapter one

Prelude to a Confucian State: Literati, Morality, and Books

An examination of the place of the Samgang haengsil-to in Chosŏn book culture requires some context. First, insofar as the Chosŏn court initiated the printing of the Samgang haengsil-to to install the cardinal Confucian values in society, we must understand the Neo-Confucian culture of books and reading exemplified by the so-called Cheng-Zhu school (Cheng-Zhu xue 程朱學) of Neo-Confucianism that reached its apex in the Song. Departing from the accepted tradition of Confucian scholarship, this school made extensive changes to notions of epistemology and the associated practices of reading. A second point to consider is how this form of Confucianism was introduced to Korea. Although the school reached the culmination of its doctrinal development under Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), it did not make inroads into Koryŏ 高麗 (935–1392) until the fourteenth century, when it supplanted earlier, less metaphysical forms of Confucian learning. It thus passed not directly through Zhu Xi, but via later forms of learning developed under the Mongol-Yuan Empire (1279–1368). There- fore, the learning that finally arrived in Koryŏ was already twice removed from Zhu Xi, the school’s major thinker and its single most influential formative influence. In his satirical work of fiction Yangban chŏn 兩班傳 (Biography of a yangban), the adroit late Chosŏn writer Pak Chi-wŏn 朴趾源 (1731–1805) remarked: “Those yangban [members of the two orders of officialdom] are named in several ways. If he reads books, then he is a sŏnbi 선비 [literatus]; if he works in the administration, then he is a taebu [official]; if he is virtuous, then he is a kunja [gentleman]. The military order lines up by ranks on the west; the civil order is arranged on the east; this is what is called ‘yangban’ [the two orders].”1 This is a succinct summary of what was involved in the life of a Chosŏn literatus: he was a book reader,

1 維厥兩班，名謂多端。讀書曰士，從政爲大夫，有德謂君子。武階列西，文秩敍東，是謂兩班。Pak Chi-wŏn, Yŏnam chip 燕巖集 (reprint in lead type, n.p., 1932; photographic reproduction in Han’guk munjip ch’onggan, Vol. 252, Seoul: Han’guk kojŏn pŏnyŏgwŏn, 2000) 8:10b–11a. All translations are mine unless noted otherwise. 14 chapter one a government official, and a man of virtue. The collective name sadaebu (literatus-official or scholar-official) was given to the class whose members either served in the government or aspired to do so. Whether we call them yangban or sadaebu 士大夫, the literatus-officials in Chosŏn society were certainly more than just a socioeconomic class. They were the leading elites in every sense. They set the trends and paradigms of the high culture; owned land and wealth and consequently were important consumers; set ritual standards; and guided—ideally, embodied—the ethical principles of the society. It is this last aspect of their lives—exemplary moral behavior—that was the major focus of their learning. Whereas by modern standards there is no necessary link between the bureaucratic skills needed to serve in officialdom and moral virtue, to Confucian literati moral virtue was the most crucial qualification of all and the basis of the right to rule others. It was in the Analects that the four categories in which Confucians should excel—virtuous behavior (dexing 德行), language ( yanyu 言語), governance (zhengshi 政事), and learning of literary tradition (wenxue 文學)2—were described as merits of the disciples of Confucius, and virtuous behavior came first. However, a literatus always found himself pursuing two goals: to become an official and to become a person embodying moral virtues. The two goals were not incompatible in principle, but they could be so in reality.

A New Phase of Reading: Zhu Xi and the Virtue of Reading Less

Confucianism is an ideology that is deeply rooted in literacy and books. The construction of authority through writing and literacy in the early years of Confucian history has been relatively well explored,3 but the new wave of intellectual enterprise that began in the Song dynasty, often referred to as Neo-Confucianism, steered the meaning and value of literacy and of books in a new direction.4 Taking Peter Bol’s

2 Analects 11.3. 3 See, for example, Mark Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999). 4 Not all specialists would agree with using the term “Neo-Confucianism” to designate the intellectual ideas that arose in the post-Tang Chinese Confucian tradition. It was coined as a part of modern terminology that often fails to convey much about the central ideas or core concerns shared by the thinkers to whom the name refers, not to mention that it indiscriminately lumps together those whose ideals differed vastly. This issue has already been debated at some length by scholars in the West as well, as exemplified by Hoyt Tillman’s criticisms of the term in his “A New Direction in Confucian Scholarship: prelude to a confucian state 15 summarization,5 the changes that shaped the Neo-Confucianism of the eleventh century were: politicizing learning, undermining the ideological foundation of the empire, and imposing an ideological program on the government. Behind these changes were two formal factors: the reforms made to the civil service examinations in the eleventh century, and the print technology that became widely available starting around the tenth century in China. Civil service examinations in Song times entered into a new phase for many reasons, one of which was that the exams came to be the single most important mechanism for managing social mobility.6 This was different from Tang times, when civil service examinations had functioned more to give literati candidates a qualification to serve in the government and aristocratic background had still played a critical role in their actual careers. The examinations were carefully systematized in principle, covering all areas of the empire’s territory, so that candidates were made to ascend from prefectural levels to the capital city and then to the palace, passing competitive selections. Apparently, the government made great efforts to maintain fairness through this institution, from covering up the candidates’ names on their answers to assigning quotas to prefectures. The effort to establish fairness typifies the ideology of statecraft of the Song dynasty, or at least the first half of it, in that anyone, regardless of his status, could serve in the government as long as he had the required talent

Approaches to Examining the Differences between Neo-Confucianism and Tao-Hsüeh,” Philosophy East and West 42.3 (1992): 455–74), and Wm. Theodore de Bary’s response in his own “The Uses of Neo-Confucianism: A Response to Professor Tillman,” Philosophy East and West 43.3 (1993): 541–55. But my discussion here is centered not on Song-Ming Chinese intellectual history, but to a certain degree on the shifts and effects of Confucian ideology on Chosŏn society, which comprised varied and yet clustered groups of intellectuals. Thus I use the terms “Neo-Confucian” and “Neo-Confucianism” to refer mainly to the Confucian tradition that developed a noticeably disparate discourse after Tang, and was apparently instrumental to Chosŏn society. Specifically, it refers to: the philosophies of Yuan intellectual trends with which late Koryŏ scholars were in contact; the views of the founding literati of Chosŏn and their approaches to statecraft; and the more rigid form of ideology employed by the sarim 士林 faction in mid-Chosŏn. Oftentimes, the term delineates the ideas that were eventually attributed to Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi (paired as the “Cheng-Zhu school” of thought), but this should not deter us from distinguishing the context of its social import in Chosŏn or from appreciating its fundamental theoretical assumptions. Further specifications, such as the “New Literati of Koryŏ” or “sarim of Chosŏn,” will be maintained as needed. 5 Peter K. Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008), 43–44. 6 Thomas H. C. Lee, Education in Traditional China: A History (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2000), 138. 16 chapter one and knowledge, and that there was the idea that these officials should come from all areas of the empire. The fact that the emperor not only presided over but personally examined the candidates at the highest level (i.e., the palace examination, or dianshi 殿試) is an important symbolism. This examination situated the final selection in such a way that, by ranking the finalists, the emperor himself found the most qualified talents among all the people from everywhere in his empire. An official’s qualification was certified not by his pedigree but by the emperor himself, while the emperor and the exam passer formed a new symbolic relationship of master and disciple. The anonymity and fairness signified and carried out by the civil service examinations signaled the waning of the old-style aristocracy and the beginning of a new, more objective meritocracy. As a result, the role of books and education in binding and sustaining subsequent generations with political and economic power undeniably began to grow. It is not that books and education had played an insignificant role before Song times. In order to have the opportunity to participate in the political coterie, one typically had to pass the civil service examination. One of the most effective ways for aristocratic literati to secure their members’ path to officialdom was through control of the access to books and teachers. Toward the later years of Tang, the situation changed through the spread of block-print technology. Compared to the times when a only small number of manuscripts and a select few who had both the social background and the knowledge to teach were available, the opportunities that print technology unfolded were tremendous. Moreover, the Northern Song policy did not make formal schooling a condition for taking the examinations (although some privileges were given back to government-school attendees later), which meant that anyone who could master the required knowledge had to be allowed to join the life of literatus-officials. The divorce of texts from teachers was something to happen down the road. True, the life of books—and of the knowledge contained within—as not completely auxiliary to teachers did not start right away, but a significant change would definitely take place. For one thing, the birth of circulating printed classics created an anonymity for such texts, which were now devoid of the personal voice of a teacher. For another, print altered not just the physical individuality of the texts but the nature of the ties between the texts and the historical memory attached to them. These ties included (1) the calligraphic details through which the reader had established a personal connection with the person who had copied prelude to a confucian state 17 the texts, and (2) the traditions and privileges that had descended from the past that the manuscripts indexed and embodied. The knowledge and messages contained in the text would also eventually become objectified, stripped from the context of orality. Readers would be exposed to texts directly; and the texts would be analyzed and interpreted by the readers themselves. By the eleventh century, printed books were available for purchase at commercial bookstores in China. These two factors—the changes in civil service examinations and the rise of print technology—contributed to shaping Zhu Xi’s (and hence the Neo-Confucian) attitude toward books and reading. After all, it was Zhu Xi’s ideals that left the most profound influence on Chosŏn society. By Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) time, the works in the curriculum for literati had all become re-textualized into printed books. These works had already been made into books, either on wooden strips or silk patches, much earlier, perhaps in pre-Qin (before 221 bce) times. But the importance here lies in print. The literati education prior to the Song (960–1279) was carried out either by public schools or private tutoring. In the Han dynasty (202 bce–220 ce), the education of the empire relied on public schools. The curriculum might differ; selected students studied at the Grand Academy (Taixue 太学) with eminent scholar-teachers, known as “erudites” (boshi 博士), or at local schools (xiang 庠, xiao 校, etc.) with officially appointed instructors. Public schools were also where students could access scrolls of books collected in the imperial library or supplied by the central government. Private academies had too existed since Han times, as had private tutoring, as we can see in the examples of Ma Rong 馬融 (79–166) and Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200). This overall structure of the educational system continued to the Qing dynasty, although the weight given to the educational roles and details of the units changed drastically at times. Up until the Tang era, the education system was more in the oral tradition, in which the role of teachers was central to a student’s learning. To many literati before the Song, literacy was a way to become a member of the select community that carried on the cultural legacy of antiquity and led the civilization. The literati’s activities of composing poems and prose works, and complying with complicated rhyming, metrics, and prosodic norms, were ways of showing their qualifications to participate in the culture—and they were in fact obligated to create literary works as proof of their qualification. The flourishing of Tang belles lettres was perhaps in part a result of this coterie literature, and literary performances were emblematic of status. By their nature, belles-lettres were a form of community literature in which one’s ability to create literature and one’s 18 chapter one intellectual pedigree were equally important. Thus Tang scholarship and intellectual activities were fundamentally aristocratic. This trend had started in the Han dynasty, when the tradition of jiafa 家法 (lineage method), whereby teachings were transmitted by individual teachers, became active and gradually predominant after the proclamation of shifa 師法 ([state-sanctioned] teacher’s methods) by the court. Since for the most part Confucian education was carried out more in the lineage method than in the formal-official domain, the bond between teachers and their disciples was direct and strong, a situation that continued for several hundred years until the Tang era.7 Such bonds entailed immediate and persuasive transmission of experiences through personal and simultaneous formats. Although the reality of the teacher-disciple relationship after the Han may have been different—in the sense that the texts with which teachers were associated were more stable and irrefutable than they had been earlier, and thus became the crucial condition of teaching—it is not difficult to surmise that in the jiafa tradition the teachings still relied primarily on individual and personal instruction, and that the authority of the texts complemented that of the teacher. Neo-Confucians had to deal with a different kind of reality: the emergence of “standardized texts.” Standardizing the texts of the classics was a long-lasting project throughout the Tang. Though the notion of Confucian classics ( jing 經) began to form during the Han, the actual list and textual varieties selected changed vastly over time until they were finalized in the Song. The list of classics was standardized as the “Five Classics” (Wujing 五經) for the first time in 136 bce, when Emperor Wu established erudites for them: namely, The Songs (Shi 詩), The Documents (Shu 書), The Rites (Li 禮), The Changes (Yi 易), and The Spring and Autumn Annals

7 Thomas H. C. Lee, Education in Traditional China: A History, 200. Used as pairing con- trastive terms, though it may not be immediately clear from the original idioms and their translations adopted here, shifa refers to (constructed and sanctioned) official standards of interpreting texts and jiafa to sectarian orientations of private (or less official) lineages. As Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Michael Nylan have argued, the jia categories under which various thinkers were grouped, in the way these categories were adopted in early Han times, were not necessarily centered on a specific text or textual corpus to begin with but may have been in a shifting paradigm, changing from “individual experts [using a set of methods]” to “authorized transmitters of particular writings”; Csikszentmihalyi and Nylan, “Constructing Lineages and Inventing Traditions through Exemplary Figures,” T’oung Pao 89.1 (2003): 99. In the earlier paradigm, discipleship may not have equated with the notion of “multi-generational textual lineages that arose later in China,” and the same texts, such as the Five Classics, could have been used by multiple jias in promoting their respective agendas (ibid., 65.) prelude to a confucian state 19

(Chunqiu 春秋). To these were added The Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經) and the Analects (Lunyu 論語) during the Eastern Han, to make “Seven Classics” (Qijng 七經). In the Tang, the Five Classics came to comprise nine works (Jiujing 九經), The Rites being replaced by three separate texts (the Rites of Zhou [Zhouli 周禮], the Ceremonies and Rituals [Yili 儀禮] and the Records of Rites [Liji 禮記]), and The Spring and Autumn Annals by three commentarial texts (Gongyang zhuan 公羊傳, Guliang zhuan 穀梁傳, and Zuo zhuan 左傳), all of which had to be mastered for the civil service examination. The Nine Classics increased to “Twelve Classics” (Shi’erjing 十二經) in the later Tang, the nine being augmented by the Analects, The Classic of Filial Piety, and The Ready Rectifier (Erya 爾雅), as is still found inscribed on a stele at the Imperial Academy (Guozijian 國子監) site in Chang’an.8 The well-known reference to “Thir- teen Classics” (Shisanjing 十三經)—namely, the Twelve Classics plus the Mencius (Mengzi 孟子)—was made in the Song, incorporating all the major Confucian canonical texts known thus far. The standardization of classics in connection with government examinations, especially in Tang institutions, foretold a new phase of classical learning: the texts would become the de facto source of teachings—not only their language but also the intertextual system of interpretation, which would take on primary importance. In other words, the network of messages, rather than those contained in each text, would emerge as a system. This was not exactly the case in the Han and Wei-Jin (220–439) periods, in which government schools existed normally for education and selecting officials, and relied mostly on recommendation and aristocratic arrangement. Standardizing the classics had a meaningful effect on the standardization of knowledge when the classics became the basis for the education of those seeking to become government officials. To an aspiring youth, the mastery of the classics as specified by imperial authority was now the most authentic and noble way to achieve honor for himself and his family. The Southern Song standardization of classics launched by Zhu Xi, which took effect after his death and flourished in ensuing dynasties, not only introduced a new phase of Confucian learning but marked a major shift in the reading practice applied to the Confucian classics. Comple- mented by the development of printing, texts or the textual community

8 Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 2000), 475. 20 chapter one of Confucian classics reached a wider mass of readers. In this respect, the Song-Ming standardization of Confucian texts embodied in the “Four Books and Five Classics” (Sishu wujing 四書五經) solidified the grounds for the socialization and communalization of Neo-Confucian doctrine. Following Zhu Xi’s reedition of the Great Learning (Daxue 大學) and Doc- trine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸) in 1190, two works which had been transmitted since their initial inclusion in the Records of Rites, the content of the classics was reduced to the original Five Classics, while the funda- ments of knowledge were excerpted in those two short texts, along with the Analects and the Mencius that personalized the sages’ voices. The Four Books had become the most essential texts for an examination candidate, not to mention any aspiring novice literatus, to memorize by heart. The burden of imbibing the entire culture codified in the classics, for which the sons of privileged families had been better prepared in previous eras, was now significantly alleviated; but, more importantly, the difficulty of access to texts and knowledge was reduced thanks to print technology. There was also tension over print technology within Confucianism. Zhu Xi’s unease surrounding printed books was apparent: The reason that the reading of people today has become overly rudimentary is that too many prints are made of books. As it was, people in the old days all used bamboo slips [for books], and only those with resources could have them made. When it came to a mere literatus, how would he have afforded it? . . . The ancients did not have books, and had to memorize them completely from beginning to end. As for discussing and reciting them, one also had to memorize them all and then wait to receive teachings from one’s master. As [Su] Dongpo 蘇東坡 [1037–1101] wrote in his Records of the Col- lections in Mr. Li’s Mountain Studio, books were still hard to find in those days. Chao [Yidao] 晁以道 [1054–1129] wished to get the Gong[yang] and Gu[liang] commentaries [of the Spring and Autumn Annals], sought everywhere for them, but did not find them. Later, when he managed to find a copy [of them], he could finally hand-copy them to transmit them. People these days even hate hand-copying, thinking that it is a nuisance, and thus their reading is unduly callow.9 Zhu Xi’s lament was not just about the abundance of books that made people lazy in their reading. It was more about the profusion of texts,

9 今人所以讀書苟簡者，緣書皆有印本多了。如古人皆用竹簡，除非大段有力人方做得。若一介之士，如何置。. . . 蓋古人無本，除非首尾熟背得方得。至於講誦者，也是都背得，然後從師受學。如東坡作李氏山房藏書記，那時書猶自難得。晁以道嘗欲得公、穀傅，遍求無之，後得一本，方傳寫得。今人連寫也自厭煩了，所以讀書茍簡。Zhuzi yulei 10:67. prelude to a confucian state 21 and about the kinds of texts that began to affect the reading practice of people. Print technology made it considerably easier for ordinary readers to take possession of texts of the classics, but it also made available other kinds of writings, including exegetical commentaries on the classics. Readers were now given choices for their reading, which could invite multiple, though not necessarily consistent or orthodox, ways of construing the sages’ words, yet without the proper guidance of teachers. Printing the classics on woodblocks had two effects: one was to petrify, and eventually standardize,10 the texts; the other was massive dissemination. Zhu Xi felt threatened by the latter, in particular by the epiphe- nomena of Song print culture—namely, extensive reading, speed reading, haphazard reading, and reading just for reading’s sake. It may thus be a logical result that his “Rules of Reading” (Dushu fa 讀書法) contains what I would call a “minimalist perspective” that tried to counterbalance the overflow of texts and the absence of teachers’ contextualization. In the Classified Sayings of Master Zhu (Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類), Zhu Xi is found to issue frequent cautionary remarks about “the reading of these days,” in which he specifically warns against contemporary readers’ greed for quantity. “One should not covet quantity in reading,” he reminds, “but be meticulous and thorough.”11 People in his time developed the habit of reading books in a hurry, moving from one book to another, without even trying to finish one book at a time.12 This shows that the number and range of books available had begun to overwhelm people. Zhu Xi thus emphasized reducing the amount of reading: Reading books, one must read little and become extremely familiar [with what one reads]. The reason that children remember what they read but

10 Susan Cherniack, “Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China,” HJAS 54.1 (1994): 19. 11 讀書不可貪多，且要精熟。Zhuzi yulei 10:40. 12 “When people read books these days, even though they have not read up to here [i.e., a certain point], their minds are already at a later page of the book; when they have read up to here, they wish to leave the book. Doing like this is not seeking to understand by themselves. One must roam around it, looking back fondly, as if one wishes not to leave; only then can one attain an understanding.” 今人讀書，看未到這裏，心已在後面；纔看到這裏，便欲舍去了。如此，只是不求自家曉解。須是徘徊顧戀，如不欲去，方會認得。 Zhuzi yulei 10:46. He also describes, “For learners of these days, what they have read is as if they haven’t; what they have not yet read is as if they have” (今之學者，看了也似不曾看，不曾看也似看了。Zhuzi yulei 10:72), meaning that, because of their careless reading habits, people retain nothing from what they read, as if they had not read the books at all, but also pretend to know what is in books without actually reading them. 22 chapter one

grownups don’t remember is that children are single-minded. If we teach them one hundred characters a day, then they only [know] one hundred; two hundred, then two hundred. Grownups may look at one hundred blocks [folios], but they do not rely on punctiliousness and concentration. Peo- ple often read ten times [what they should], but now it is suitable to read one tenth [of what they do]. Relax the time limit [i.e., do not set a limit on the time spent on reading], and be more stringent about the stages of progress.13 To survive the overwhelming quantity of prints, one must not only maintain a slow and steady reading pace but also try to minimize one’s reading. Reading a smaller amount enables a reader to concentrate more and start building up his knowledge more efficiently. An important strategy that Zhu Xi introduced repeatedly was reading out loud (dusong 讀誦): When reading books, make the progress of study small but apply great effort. If you can read two hundred characters, read only one hundred characters. But, within those one hundred characters, make great efforts to understand them thoroughly, and read them out loud to make the teachings familiar. Like this, even those with poor memory and people with no knowledge can comprehend. Reading a lot as if floating on shallow water will only prove useless. When reading a [new] book, one should not read it alongside what one has not read yet, but [alongside] what one has already read.14 (italics added) Reading out loud was, of course, not a new method. Most premodern reading practices relied on reciting, and human memory was one of the main media for transmitting texts besides manuscripts before printing. Thus Zhu Xi’s sudden emphasis on reading aloud is rather puzzling, suggesting, perhaps, that the increase in printed books may have induced silent reading. That is, his stress on vocalizing the text may have been another nostalgic attempt to convert the print-oriented students of his day to the tradition of pre-print book culture.15 In any case, oral reading was associated with a specific meaning in Zhu Xi’s paradigm of learning.

13 書宜少看，要極熟。小兒讀書記得，大人多記不得者，只為小兒心專。一日授一百字，則只是一百字；二百字，則只是二百字。大人一日或看百板，不恁精專。人多看一分之十，今宜看十分之一。寬著期限，緊著課程。Zhuzi yulei 10:37. 14 讀書，小作課程，大施功力。如會讀得二百字，只讀得一百字，卻於百字中猛施工夫，理會子細，讀誦教熟。如此，不會記性人自記得，無識性人亦理會得。若泛泛然念多，只是皆無益耳。讀書，不可以兼看未讀者。卻當兼看已讀者。 Zhuzi yulei 10:39. 15 Cherniack, “Book Culture and Textual Transmission,” 50. prelude to a confucian state 23

The following passage is rather long but underscores his ideas about vocalizing texts: For books, reading them out loud is crucial, and reading them out loud many times, one will understand them naturally. Now, even if I write down what I thought of [from reading], it still doesn’t help, and [what is on the paper] ultimately is not what I own: [the book] only becomes valuable by reading it out loud. We may not know how this is so, but [if one reads out loud,] the mind naturally merges with the qi 氣, uplifted and transcended, and comes to remember securely [what one has read]. Even if one has viewed [the text] thoroughly and ruminated [upon it] in one’s mind, it is not as good as reading out loud. By reading out loud continuously, even those things that one could not understand at times will become clear by themselves, and those things that one already understood will have even more taste. If one were not familiar with reading out loud, one would never be able to have such tastes. Also, I am not saying to read commentaries out loud, but just to read out loud the regular text of the classics, [so that] when you are walking, sitting, or lying down, your mind is always with it; then you will understand it naturally. I have thought about it before, and reading out loud is learning. The master once said, “Learning without reflecting is hollow; reflecting without learning is perilous.” Learning is reading out loud. Read, then reflect again; reflect, then read again, and the meaning will come alive naturally. If one reads aloud but does not reflect, one will also not know the meaning; if one reflects but does not read aloud, then even if one understands, one will be worried and unsettled in the end. It is like asking someone to come over to take care of the house; not being one of your own, he would never be a servant who belongs to the house. If you read out loud until you become familiar with [the text], and reflect [on it] until you acquire a precise understanding, your mind naturally becomes one with the li 理 [principle] and will never forget it. I used to have difficulty in remembering texts, so then I read out loud. What I remember now is all the result of reading out loud. Old Su [Su Xun 蘇洵, 1009–1061] chose the Mencius, the Analects, Master Han [Han Yu 韓愈, 768–824], and books of various sages, and just read them out loud while sitting peacefully, for seven or eight years. He then wrote out countless texts so ably. His talent may have been something one cannot attain, but he must have read as such [i.e., out loud]. It is only that, when he read [a book] out loud, he wanted to imitate its language to write his literary works. If he had transferred this mind and such talent to investigating moral principles, he could have acquired [principles] there! With this we know that for books, reading out loud is most crucial and there is no other way.16

16 書只貴讀，讀多自然曉。今即思量得，寫在紙上底，也不濟事，終非我有，只貴乎讀。這個不知如何，自然心與氣合，舒暢發越，自是記得牢。縱饒熟看過，心裏思量過，也不如讀。讀來讀去，少間曉不得底，自然曉得；已曉得者，越有滋味。若是讀不熟，都沒這般滋味。而今未說讀得註，且只熟讀正 24 chapter one

For Zhu Xi, oral reading was a way for readers to internalize the text, which in turn contained the words of the sages. In describing this, he often uses the word “naturally” (ziran 自然).17 By reading out loud repeatedly, the mind naturally merges with qi, naturally becomes one with li, and naturally understands the text. Reading turns into a physical practice and a metaphysical activity at the same time, whereby the meaning of the text enters the reader’s mind and body and finally comes alive. By vocalizing the text, the reader’s mind tears down the confinement of individuality, joining the metaphysical universe that is a moral substance in itself. This is achieved by integrating the text into the body; without being corporeal- ized in the form of sound, the text does not become knowledge.18 Zhu Xi even quotes a well-known line from the Analects, “Learning without reflecting is hollow; reflecting without learning is perilous,” and reinterprets “learning” as vocal reading. Learning is more than collecting and accumulating information in the intellect. It is a physically engag- ing activity that implicates both mind and body in the teachings. In this respect, it is a process of recreating orality out of literacy, transforming what was written into sounds, and hence recorporealizing the text. All this is redolent of the role of teachers in the pre-print tradition of reading: even though the teachings were in written form, they had to be transmitted to the students through the teacher’s vocalization. The text itself contained the words of sages, but had to be situated and interpreted for the temporal and spatial circumstances of learning, and pedagogically programmed according to the student’s ability and proclivities. But in Zhu Xi’s time, printed books were replacing the reliance on teachers and their personal

經，行住坐臥，心常在此，自然曉得。嘗思之，讀便是學。夫子說“學而不思則罔，思而不學則殆”，學便是讀。讀了又思，思了又讀，自然有意。若讀而不思，又不知其意味；思而不讀，縱使曉得，終是卼臲不安。一似倩得人來守屋相似，不是自家人，終不屬自家使喚。若讀得熟，而又思得精，自然心與理一，永遠不忘。某舊苦記文字不得，後來只是讀。今之記得者，皆讀之功也。老蘇只取孟子論語韓子與諸聖人之書，安坐而讀之者七八年，後來做出許多文字如此好。他資質固不可及，然亦須著如此讀。只是他讀時，便只要模寫他言語，做文章。若移此心與這樣資質去講究義理，那裏得來！是知書只貴熟讀，別無方法。 Zhuzi yulei 10:65. 17 Ziran 自然 appears early on in Chinese philosophy, especially in Daoist contexts, designating naturalness, spontaneity, and effortlessness, and literally meaning “being so of itself.” 18 Anne McLaren also notices the frequent metaphor Zhu Xi adopted repeatedly to stress the “sheer physical effort required to master the canon,” which would eventually lead to “possession” of the text. McLaren, “Constructing New Reading Publics in Late Ming China,” in Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, edited by Cynthia Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 155–56. prelude to a confucian state 25 integrity, as well as the accumulation of antiquity and tradition. The community context of learning, where learning took place between a teacher and a student or a group of students, was becoming diluted, and studying was becoming a lonely activity undertaken by solitary book readers. That books were replacing the role of teacher coheres with the fact that nowhere in the “Rules of Reading” chapter do we find Zhu Xi comment- ing on teachers’ roles in reading. Although this chapter is a collection of anecdotal quotes of his words, as heard by his disciples who were past the stage of novices, it is almost as if teachers were already assumed to be absent in the reading and learning environment of Zhu Xi’s time. Zhu Xi does not forget to caution that there is a textual hierarchy between original texts of the classics (zhengjing 正經) and commentaries (zhu 註). By definition, commentaries exist to explain the regular texts of the classics, as in this comparison: “The text of a sacred classic is like a master; its explanation is like his servant.”19 “Explaining” the classics meant literally to “untie” (jieshi 解釋) them so that they could be read with ease,20 but writing commentaries had become somewhat different in Zhu Xi’s time: As for commentarial transmission, only the ancient commentaries did not create discourses [of their own] and are good to read. They just divide and expound [the text] following the phrases of the classics, not departing from their meaning; hence, they are the best. So it is with subcommentaries. When people of today explicate books, they also try to create discourses and to add [their own] argumentation, which brings about questions in a hundred ways. Therefore, their texts can be read, but the meaning of the classics becomes far different. The Commentary on “The Changes” (Yi zhuan 易傳) by Master Cheng [Yi] 程[頤] also created its own discourses, and explained again what was explained. So the readers of today who read books don’t look at the original classics any more and just read [Cheng’s] Commentary. This, too, is not a way to make people think.21

19 Zhu Xi went on to say, “The texts of the sages’ classics are like masters; their interpretations, slaves. People these days don’t recognize the master, but exchange names through the servant and then recognize the master. They are never the same as the text of the classics” (聖經字若個主人，解者猶若奴仆。今人不識主人，且因奴仆通名，方識得主人，畢竟不如經字也。 Zhuzi yulei 11:118). 20 解經謂之解者，只要解釋出來。將聖賢之語解開了，庶易讀。Zhuzi yulei 11:117. 21 傳註，惟古註不作文，卻好看。只隨經句分說，不離經意，最好。疏亦然。今人解書，且圖要作文，又加辯說，百般生疑。故其文雖可讀，而經意殊遠。程子易傳亦成作文，說了又說。故今人觀者更不看本經，只讀傳，亦非所以使人思也。 Zhuzi yulei 11:116. 26 chapter one

Already in the earliest years in the history of Chinese classics, writing commentaries had turned into a way for scholars to expand intellectual discourse and interject their own thoughts. The problem was that these commentaries began to be printed and circulated along with regular texts of the classics, gaining at times even more popularity than the original classics. The order of teaching was being disrupted. Even the Commentary on “The Changes” written by one of Zhu Xi’s own masters, Cheng Yi (1033– 1107), drew readers’ attention away from the original text. Perhaps Zhu Xi meant that writing commentaries was not to be blamed for distracting learners as much as was their availability in print. At any rate, since the six Confucian classics were the superior products of the Three Ancient Dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou) and had passed through the hands of the sages, they should all be understood to convey Heavenly Principles (tianli 天理),22 whereas commentaries and exegeses should not. It was thus the original texts that should be vocalized, not the commentaries. Amid the flood of printed books, it would have been impossible for learners to practice, with every book they encountered, the strategy of repeatedly reading the text out loud and reflecting on it. Zhu Xi therefore had to make the world of texts more consumable and accommodating to this reading strategy. He had to provide an arrangement of texts in which they were hierarchically organized according to their importance to knowledge. To him, reading was teleological and strictly served the purpose of helping the reader acquire knowledge. Acquiring knowledge was teleological as well, for knowledge was not an end in itself but a means by which eventually to reach the state of moral being. For Zhu Xi, reading was a process of “investigating things” (gewu 格物),23 the initial step in a person’s moral perfection as specified in the Great Learning, and in and of itself an ethical activity. He declares: “A learner’s study only seeks what is right. The principle of all-under-heaven does not exceed the two extremi- ties of right and wrong. Following what is right is good; submitting to what is wrong is evil.”24 Ultimately, therefore, the classics themselves are meaningful only because they help us understand the universal principles, just as commentaries are meaningful because they help us understand the

22 六經是三代以上之書，曾經聖人手，全是天理。 Zhuzi yulei 11:97. 23 讀書是格物一事。 Zhuzi yulei 10:48. 24 學者工夫只求一箇是。天下之理，不過是與非兩端而已。從其是則為善，徇其非則為惡。 Zhuzi yulei 13:51. prelude to a confucian state 27 classics. If the principles are understood, there is no need for classics.25 In this respect, Zhu Xi was not a belletrist but a stoic “Learning of the Way” (daoxue 道學) master for whom reading was only secondary.26 Zhu Xi’s minimalist theory of reading hinged upon this hierarchy of knowledge and texts. His architecture of reading is characteristic of pedagogical layering, as most classical curricula were, but with the aim of reducing the scope of knowledge rather than augmenting it, and of making it ready to be meaningfully digested. Each title in the pedagogical reading list is arranged to serve as a stage in the spectrum of books, con- ferring the same kind of knowledge—namely, the “principles” (li)—and is not necessarily intended to widen the range of learning but surely to deepen the level of understanding. It is not that the Elementary Learn- ing (Xiaoxue 小學), targeting beginners, discussed principles and matters different from those that were deliberated in the Four Books and Five Classics, for in Neo-Confucian philosophy the ultimate purpose of learning is to attain the principles necessary for an ethical life, and all knowledge is ethical knowledge. Even primers for teaching Chinese characters such as the Thousand-Character Classic (Qianziwen 千字文) contained moral lessons and principles in their texts. Philological studies of the classics were also fundamentally ethical expositions. The implication of this notion that all knowledge is ethical knowledge was profound: All texts are ethical texts. Zhu Xi’s reprogramming of the classics carried another level of meaning as well. By establishing the Four Books so as to supplement and eventually surpass the traditional Five Classics, he attempted to rearrange the intertextual order of Confucian texts, thereby systematizing ethical knowledge. The Four Books became the most critical portion of post-primer learners’ training in the classics, but the significance of the Four Books did not stop there. The way Zhu Xi designed these four fundamental texts was unique. First, the Great Learning served as an entry point for embarking upon serious Confucian scholarship, specifying the purpose of learning and its implications in the social and political spheres. A literatus’s life is mapped out in the Great Learning, from individual moral cultivation (xiushen 修身) to regulating the family (qijia 齊家), ruling a state (zhiguo 治國), and finally to pacifying all-under-heaven (ping tianxia 平天下).

25 經之有解，所以通經。經既通，自無事於解，借經以通乎理耳。理得，則無俟乎經。 Zhuzi yulei 11:109. 26 “Book reading is a secondary matter for learning.” 讀書乃學者第二事。Zhuzi yulei 10:1. 28 chapter one

A person’s moral cultivation comprises four steps: investigation of things (gewu), completion of knowledge (zhizhi 致知), rectification of the mind (zhengxin 正心), and making the will sincere (chengyi 誠意). The Doc- trine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸), in contrast, is a sort of summary of ethical and metaphysical principles, a set of fundamental precepts that encompasses the human world and the universe. As Zhu Xi interpreted the characters that make up the title of this work, zhong 中 is ‘not leaning to either side’ and yong 庸 is ‘being ordinary with constancy’. Teachings contained in the Doctrine of the Mean conform to the very core of principles that does not change itself but can be adapted to all variations of beings. Both the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean, occupying the first and last points of the foundational curriculum, respectively, elucidated Confucian teachings in their ethical, political, and metaphysical realms. Second, between these first and last points are placed the Analects and the Mencius. These are collections of sayings uttered by the two monumental sages, Confucius and Mencius, through whom Zhu Xi contended that the lineage of the Way (daotong 道統) continued. Whereas the other classics, which also include quotes of sages and heroes, are essentially eclectic and hardly consistent in nature, these two cardinal texts were mapped onto identifiable figures. Moreover, the Analects and the Men- cius were the most colloquial of all the classics of the pre-Qin era.27 With sentences much closer to spoken utterances than those found in the other classics, these texts could provide a more personal connection between the reader and the original speakers, namely, the sages. Establishing direct ties between the reader and the sages through texts that were complete and consistent in their grammar, style, and rhetoric—even though written in classical Chinese sentences quite different from those of the Song literati—was an ingenious tactic on the part of Zhu Xi: the texts were now given the personal voices of identifiable figures revered as the orthodox sages who carried on the Way. Thus, when students vocalized these texts, they had matching personae for the lines they recited. Third, and even more characteristic of Zhu Xi’s reprogramming of the classics, was his effort to recondition learning with a more concentrated purpose. Placing a higher importance on the Four Books than on the Five

27 Tai Jingnong, “Zhongguo wenxue you yuwen fenli xingcheng de liang da zhuliu” [Two major trends in Chinese literature formed from the divorce from speech and writing], Dalu zazhi 2.9 (1951): 4–9. Tai Jingnong remarks that Mencius, following the tradition of the Chronicle of Zuo (Zuo zhuan) and the Analects, was an early precursor of the split between spoken and written languages in the Chinese tradition. prelude to a confucian state 29

Classics, Zhu Xi promoted the Four Books to the status of super-canon— the framework through which to absorb the knowledge of everything else, including history, literature, and even existing classics. Wing-tsit Chan goes so far as to say that, by publishing the Four Books as “Four Masters” in 1190, Zhu Xi functionally “removed the authority of the Five Classics as the authority of Confucian thought.”28 Thus the anchor of learning shifted from the accumulation of a rather vaguely identified antiquity and civilization to a more direct goal, or meaning, for all lives: moral behavior. The two excerpts from the Records of Rites and two less-adorned—hence more evocative and authentic—texts conveying the personal voices of sages were to provide an interpretive structure; detailed chronicles of human affairs and crystallized—thus highly terse and implicational—statements of wisdom would be understood adequately and without misinterpreting their true significance. The importance of the Four Books also applies to the study of history. The notion that the classics are the substance (ti 體) of the Way and that historiographies are its application (yong 用) was widely accepted by later literati. Several remarks by Zhu Xi bring out this point: Therefore, one must first view the Analects, Mencius, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean to examine the intentions of worthy sages; read histories to discern traces of rise and fall, and of order and disorder; and read a Hundred Schools of Thought to see the ills of the heterodox.29 First read the Analects, Mencius, and the Doctrine of the Mean; and read one of the classics additionally. Read histories after this, and one can read them with ease. Read the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji 史記), for [the periods written on in] the Records of the Grand Historian and [those in] the Chronicle of Zuo overlap. After this, read the Chronicle of Zuo, then the Comprehensive Mirror [to Aid in Government] ([Zizhi] tongjian [資治]通鑑), and, if you still have the strength, read the entire histories.30 People these days have never read books or, even if they have, only read books roughly. When reading books, one should first read the Analects and Mencius before reading histories. Then, as if there were a clear mirror here, the beautiful and the ugly will not be able to escape. If one goes ahead and

28 Wing-tsit Chan, “Chu Hsi and Yüan Neo-Confucianism,” in Yüan Thought: Chinese Thought and Religion under the Mongols, edited by Hok-Lam Chan and Wm. Theodore de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 213. 29 故必先觀論孟大學中庸，以考聖賢之意；讀史，以考存亡治亂之跡；讀諸子百家，以見其駁雜之病。 Zhuzi yulei 11:91. 30 先看語孟中庸，更看一經，卻看史，方易看。讀史記，史記與左傳相包。次看左傳，次看通鑑，有餘力則看全史。 Zhuzi yulei 11:131. 30 chapter one

reads histories before having thoroughly read the Analects, Mencius, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning, one will never have a scale in one’s heart and will be much perplexed.31 A thorough familiarity with and perusal of the Four Books would equip students with a mirror in which to discern and weigh exemplary lessons from history, and with criteria with which to explicate, critically analyze, and register them in the inventory of edifying memories. De-historicizing history, or rendering history as an index of didactic references, was certainly not invented by Zhu Xi, but was an old habit of the Confucian worldview in which history is no more than a cyclic manifestation of moral principles. Such ideas of historiography compelled Zhu Xi to initiate redacting Sima Guang’s 司馬光 (1019–1085) Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government. Completed by his pupils,32 the Compendium of the “Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government” (Zizhi tongjian gangmu 資治通鑑綱目) adapted and summarized the original 294-juan chronicle into a detailed outline in 59 juan with highly moralistic criteria.33 Zhu Xi’s educational reprogramming eventually restructured know ledge.34 A curriculum based on the Four Books allowed students to avoid the growing number of books. As mentioned above, Zhu Xi and the twelfth-century Song intellectuals were facing two immediate concerns: (1) the overwhelming abundance of texts in print; and (2) readers exposed to unorthodox interpretations of the classics. Significantly shorter in length, more focused and coherent, and less terse and plain in content, Zhu Xi’s Four Books were much easier to read and more manageable to absorb than the entire complex of traditional classics. As Michael Nylan has observed, Zhu Xi’s reform is somewhat redolent of the Protestant

31 今人只為不曾讀書，衹是讀得粗書。凡讀書，先讀語孟，然後觀史，則如明鑑在此，而妍醜不可逃。若未讀徹語孟中庸大學便去看史，胸中無一個權衡，多為所惑。 Zhuzi yulei 11:133. 32 Conrad Shirokauer, “Chu Hsi’s Sense of History,” in Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China, edited by Robert P. Hymes and Conrad Shi- rokauer (University of California Press, 1993), 193–220. 33 In the Ming and Qing, as well as in Chosŏn Korea, Zhu Xi’s Compendium of the “Com- prehensive Mirror” perhaps gained even more popularity than the much longer and more rigorous original Comprehensive Mirror. 34 It is an entirely different question whether it was Zhu Xi’s philosophy that caused such restructuring or the need to guide students through the indiscriminate outpouring of knowledge and printed texts that triggered him to devise a new epistemological and ontological approach to the moral universe. In any case, the outcome of his reformation is clear. prelude to a confucian state 31

Reformation that focused on select portions of the Bible.35 It was, in essence, an attempt to provide a way for any literate man to reach the Way without being misguided or impeded by the previous convoluted commentarial tradition, and to do so independently, by working directly with the texts of the classics themselves. To achieve this, Zhu Xi needed to do two things: (1) fix the most essential set of classical teachings, and (2) draw ethical precepts and principles from them and present them clearly in a monolithic commentarial discourse. His Four Books would proffer just that. The supremacy of the Four Books and the hierarchical ordering of texts, as well as the adoption of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy in civil service examinations, began a new phase in the Chinese and East Asian cultural sphere: a standardized introduction to the Way and a hierarchy of texts had emerged. All this reprogramming could work, however, only under one condition: students had to be thoroughly engaged in these foundational texts, had to read and recite them without distraction, and had to understand and embody them to the extent that they lived them. Ideally, all human beings could achieve the ability to behave morally, but they had to be trained not just mentally or intellectually but physically as well. Mencius pointed out, as an example of the most uncorrupted state of human nature, a scene in which anyone witnessing a child about to fall into a well would try to run to save him.36 The targeted moral behavior was expected to be real, instinctive, and spontaneous without requiring rational reflection. Achieving such a moral capability necessitated the training of the body. This inclination to dwell on physicality and the moral “body” in Zhu Xi’s philosophy has been explored by scholars—not just his incorporation of qi but also his extensive attention to the physical initiation into ethics and moral actions in daily life—as well as its influence on the Ming literati thought.37 Just as he called the process of self-cultivation in the Great Learning “xiushen” 修身, in which the primary meaning of shen 身 is ‘body’, so the terminal point of moral cultivation is training of the body. Although the common translation of shen is ‘self’ (just as it is used in the compound word zishen 自身 ‘oneself’ in

35 Michael Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 55–56. 36 Mencius 3:6. 37 See, for examples, Miura Kunio, Shushi to ki to shintai [Zhu Xi, qi, and the body], (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1997); and Joanna Handlin, Action in Late Ming Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). 32 chapter one

modern Chinese), the substance of the designation is the body.38 For Zhu Xi, this means more than just behavioral training, because such training is expected to lead to the mind’s understanding of universal morality and principle. Similarly, such abstract virtues as filial piety and loyalty mean nothing unless they are manifested in action, as naturally as an instinct; merely knowing about them does not amount to understanding them or “learning” them. The ingenuity of Zhu Xi’s program was his adoption (or reviving of the tradition) of orality and sound. Sound is the connection between the moral principles and body. Sound transformed otherwise abstract lessons copied down in the web of texts and injected them into life. Reciting classics or vocalizing texts was nothing new to twelfth-century literati, but devising and selecting the most essential set of texts (hence minimizing their amount) and assigning them to the core of vocal tradition was certainly an innovative adaptation to the shift from orality to literacy. While reading vocally, the reader interiorizes the text; he makes his voice the body of the other.39 Through reading out loud the sages’ words, the reader in Zhu Xi’s scheme becomes the text’s actor. While visually prompted by the text, he converts the internal sounds that he hears into strings of perceptible sounds that he voices, and then feeds those sounds back into his own consciousness. The text then becomes a part of his body in the form of a kinetic memory—a memory ingrained through physical experience. The same would happen when he reenvisioned the text while reciting it. Assuming the persona of the sage whose words he is visualizing in written text or listening to in his mind, he repeats what he sees and hears through his own voice. Listening to the sounds of the sage’s words in reality places the reader back in the position of disciple. Thus the text literally becomes embodied, so that it can be manifested in the reader’s physicality visually, orally, and aurally. Such textual perception is immediate and simultaneous—there is little room for the reader’s own intellectual reflection and consciousness to intervene. Understanding comes after arduous repetition of this process, although it can be tedious and half-hearted

38 After Wm. Theodore de Bary, it is customary to translate xin 心 as “mind-and-heart” or “heart-mind,” because its connotations and semantic roles are found to combine both mind and heart; cf. de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and- Heart (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). Analogously, we can consider translating shen as “body-self,” since its primary denotation lies in the body rather than in the mental or psychological self exclusively. 39 Michel de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, pp. 175–76, quoted in Roger Chartier, “Labourers and Voyagers: From the Text to the Reader,” Diacritics 22.2 (1992): 49–61. prelude to a confucian state 33 at times. It is the ideal form of knowledge, which enables the reader’s intu- itive judgments and actions to fit the moral principles seamlessly, every time, without the need for deliberation. What Zhu Xi meant below by “to incarnate it in the body” (ti zhi yu shen 體之於身) is exactly this kind of knowledge: Indeed, a person undertakes learning, intending to achieve it in the heart- mind and to incarnate it in the body [ti zhi yu shen]. But if one does not read [out loud], he does not know what it is that his heart-mind achieves.40 What you read and investigate in the principles must be incarnated in the body. I do not know whether or not what [you] routinely study and investigate is perceptible to your minds’ eye every day.41 Silent reading, in contrast, exclusively relies on the visual prompts of the text on the page and feeds the text directly to the mind, without the mediation of the oral-aural dynamic. In return for bypassing the oral-aural stage, the reader acquires the time and space necessary for the mind to reflect on the text critically and consume more texts.42

Neo-Confucianism in Korea

It was in 1289, the fifteenth year of King Ch’ungnyŏl’s 忠烈王 reign (1274– 1308), that An Hyang 安珦 (1243–1306) acquired books containing the teachings of the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism. He was in Dadu 大都 (modern Beijing) with the retinue for his king’s visit to the Yuan capital, as Supervisor of Confucian Schools (yuhak chegŏ 儒學提舉; Ch. ruxue tiju) of Koryŏ. Deeply impressed by the works of Zhu Xi, An Hyang hand- copied not only Zhu Xi’s books but also portraits of Confucius and Zhu Xi, and brought them back to Koryŏ.43 This is known to be Koryŏ’s initial contact with Neo-Confucianism, and An Hyang is recognized as having

40 人之為學固是欲得之於心，體之於身。但不讀書，則不知心之所得者何事。 Zhuzi yulei 11:1. 41 讀書窮理，當體之於身。凡平日所講貫窮究者，不知逐日常見得在心目間否。 Zhuzi yulei 11:2. 42 For more on silent reading and its implications for textual consumption, see Paul Saenger, “Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society,” Viator 13 (1982): 367–414. 43 “Chronicle” (Yŏnbo 年譜), in An Kŭk-kwon, comp., Hoehŏn sŏnsaeng silgi 晦軒先生實記 [Truthful records of Mr. Hoehŏn], 1763 (woodblock recut, 1921), 3:7. Hoehŏn is the sobriquet of An Hyang. 34 chapter one introduced the Zhu Xi line of Confucianism (often called Chujahak 朱子學) to Korea.44 Confucian writings of Koryŏ prior to this period are scarce, and do not show any sign of Song scholarship seeping in. As Martina Deuchler has noted, Koryŏ was initially cut off from intellectual developments in China. Neo-Confucianism was principally a phenomenon of the Southern Song, and when the Jurchen occupied Northern China, Koryŏ’s direct connection with South China was severed. Moreover, the military regimes (which will be discussed later) from 1170 onward slowed the development of Neo-Confucianism.45 It was hardly a coincidence that An Hyang went to Dadu when he did: 1289 was the year he was appointed Vice-Director of the Branch Secretariat for Eastern Expeditions (Chŏngdong haengsŏng wŏnoerang 征東行省員外郎; Ch. Zhengdong xingsheng yuanwailang), immediately after which he was promoted to the position of Supervisor of Confucian Schools. The Eastern Expeditions Field Headquarters was a branch office stationed in Koryŏ. As the name indicates, the primary purpose of the office was military: to serve as the base for the Yuan conquest of Japan. A branch government, or xingsheng 行省 ‘mobile inspector’, was short for Branch Secretariat (xing zhongshu sheng 行中書省). As the empire expanded its territory, the Yuan court established field branches of government in its newly acquired territories, which became the beginning of modern sheng 省 ‘provinces’.46 The Branch Secretariat for Eastern Expe- ditions was first installed in 1280, a year before the second expedition to

44 It is hardly conceivable, however, that this was the first time that the Koryŏ Con- fucians had heard of Zhu Xi, considering the cultural proximity and close political ties between the Song and Koryŏ. Some scholars have entertained the possibility that Neo- Confucianism trickled into Koryŏ before An Hyang’s time, but the evidence is scanty at best and not influential enough to be taken seriously. Pak Hyŏn-gyu, for example, introduces a man named An Sa-jun 安社俊 said to have studied with Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021–86) when Wang retired to Jinling 金陵 between 1076 and 1086. This was based on an account by Yi Che-hyŏn 李齊賢 (1288–1367) in his Yŏg-ong p’aesŏl 櫟翁稗說 (1342), according to which Yi Che-hyŏn met someone who told him that he had learned from An Sa-jun about Wang Anshi’s interpretation of the Book of Poetry and Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the Analects and Mencius. See Yi Che-Hyŏn, Yŏg-ong p’aesŏl [Miscellaneous words of Old Man Acorn] chŏnjip 前集 (n.d. [ca. 1342]) 2:10; Pak Hyŏn-gyu, “Koryŏ-mal sŏngnihak kwa Yi Che-hyŏn ŭi suyong kwajŏng” [Late Koryŏ Neo-Confucian discourse on nature and principle, and Yi Che-hyŏn’s reception thereof], Hanmun hakpo 13 (2005): 21–42. 45 Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 15–16. 46 Charles Hucker, China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Cul- ture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 312 ff. The Branch Secretariat was modeled after the xing shangshu sheng 行尚書省 of the Jin 金 (1115–1234), and held both civilian and military authority. See Elizabeth Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule in China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 9–10. prelude to a confucian state 35

Japan by Khubilai Khan (Shizu 世祖). It was originally created as a subordinate office to the Jiang-Huai xingsheng 江淮行省, but soon became an independent branch. Though the name suggests its primary purpose was a military one, this military post was soon transformed into a regular regional administrative unit, continuing to operate even after Khu- bilai effectively abandoned the enterprise of conquering Japan.47 It was an important unit for Yuan, to the extent that the kings of Koryŏ were appointed to lead it,48 for the imperial court relied on it in supervising government and tributary cooperation in the northeastern periphery. The transformation of the Eastern Expeditions Branch Secretariat into a de facto authority of regional administration of Yuan over Koryŏ was effected when all the Branch Secretariats were changed into Branch Departments of State Affairs (xing shangshu sheng 行尚書省) in 1287, as the Yuan court replaced the Secretariat with the Department of State Affairs in the central government.49 Two years later an office called the Supervisory of Confucian Schools (ruxue tiju si 儒學提舉司; Kr. yuhak chegŏ sa) was installed under each Branch Department of State Affairs. According to the History of Yuan (Yuan shi 元史), a Supervisor of Confu- cian Schools was in charge of schools, rituals, education, and land taxa- tion, as well as inspecting publications and documents.50 An Hyang was the first Supervisor of Confucian Schools appointed by the Yuan court. His mission on his visit to Yuan was understandably to observe Confucian education in Yuan so that Koryŏ society could emulate it. Before discussing Koryŏ’s reception of Yuan Confucianism, a brief overview of Koryŏ at the time is necessary.

Koryŏ, 1289 According to Ko Pyŏng-ik, the establishment of this Branch Secretariat marked the beginning of the servility of Korea in the Sino-Korean relationship. Beginning with the Yuan, and continuing with the Ming and the

47 The Branch Secretariat also switched its superordinate unit in the central government from the zhongshu sheng (Imperial Secretariat) to shangshu sheng (Department of State Affairs) at times, and hence the formal name changed back and forth between xing zhongshu sheng and xing shangshu sheng. Ko Pyŏng-ik, “Koryŏ Chŏngdong haengsŏng ŭi yŏn’gu (sang)” [A study on the Branch Secretariat for Eastern Expeditions in Koryŏ (1)], Yŏksa hakpo 14 (1961): 51–56. 48 “Annals of Shizu” 世祖本紀, Yuan shi 元史 [History of Yuan], 11:228; also see “Baiguan zhi” 百官志 7, Yuan shi 91:2307–2308. 49 “Annals of Shizu,” Yuan shi 11:296. 50 “Baiguan zhi” 7, Yuan shi 91:2312. 36 chapter one

Qing, the Koryŏ and Chosŏn dynasties of Korea used the suzerain cal- endar and reign titles of China; and their new kings always sought the endorsement of the Chinese emperors in the form of symbolic enfeoff- ment (ch’aekpong 冊封). Thereby, servility (sadae 事大, literally, “serving the great”) became not just a diplomatic strategy for living next to a gigantic imperial power but also a spiritual, and even ethical, norm.51 This servile-tributary relationship appears stable and regularized when it comes to Chosŏn-Ming (and, in later periods, Chosŏn-Qing) connections, but the direct and subordinational control of a Chinese imperial court over Korea started with the Yuan. The Mongol presence on the peninsula during the late fourteenth century was much more apparent and immediate than at any other time. Seven Koryŏ kings were married to Yuan princesses, from Wŏnjong 元宗 (r. 1259–1269) until the end of the dynasty, during which time Koryŏ society absorbed massive Mongol influence into its customs, language, and political sphere. While the Yuan settled down, marking its presence as a global empire in Asia, Koryŏ also went through its share of transformations. These transformations can be surmised from three developments: (1) the end of the hereditary aristocracy, after being watered down through a hundred years of military regimes; (2) the emergence of a new leading elite class, often referred to as the New Literati (sinhŭng sadaebu 新興士大夫); and (3) participation in the imperial world order established by the Yuan. Koryŏ society thus entered a new phase of its five hundred years of history. Koryŏ was founded by Wang Kŏn’s 王建 (877–943, T’aejo 太祖) alliance with several military powers and with True-Bone (chin’gol 真骨) descent groups of the old Unified Silla 統一新羅 (668–935) regime. The presence of an aristocracy rooted in military power was thus an integral part of Koryŏ’s politics. Wang Kŏn’s court had to check the power of the military confederations—as well as of other groups to whom it was indebted after the process of unifying the Later Three Kingdoms (Hu Samguk 後三國, 892–936)—who dominated the politics of the capital. First to be eliminated were the maritime traders, which were taken on by King Chŏngjong 定宗 (r. 945–49).52 King Kwangjong 光宗 (r. 949– 75) then took stronger measures to undermine the economic base of the old aristocrats and to introduce new elites into the central bureaucracy.

51 Ko Pyŏng-ik, “Koryŏ Chŏngdong haengsŏng ŭi yŏn’gu (sang),” 46. 52 Hugh H. Kang, “The First Succession Struggle of Koryŏ, in 945: A Reinterpretation,” Journal of Asian Studies 36, no. 3 (1977): 411–428. prelude to a confucian state 37

His Slave Review Law (Nobi an’gŏm pŏp 奴婢按檢法) of 956, which reverted a large number of slaves owned by aristocrats to freeborn commoners, and his implementation of the Chinese-style civil service examination in 958, based on the advice of Shuang Ji 雙冀 from Later Zhou (Hou Zhou 後周),53 are good examples. Social mobility and the membership of the central bureaucracy remained by and large stagnant, however, for the new recruits were still coming from the same aristocratic groups. But the Chinese-style civil service examinations, as well as the Sinitic restructuring of administration carried out by King Sŏngjong 成宗 (r. 981–97), allowed some of the new aristocratic families to rise as a solidified political power. They monopolized appointments in the central bureaucracy by advanc- ing private education (sahak 私學) and such institutions as protected appointments (ŭmsŏ 蔭敍) that guaranteed aristocratic sons positions in the government. While central aristocrats were given privileges, local officials (hyangni 鄉吏) still had to pass the civil service examination to move up and join the central bureaucracy: in this way, Koryŏ solidified its hereditary aristocratic system. In the second half of the tenth century, the civil branch (munban 文班) emerged as the power center of the government over the military branch (muban 武班), which was a mark of Koryŏ’s success in reining in the political sway of the military. During the following century, Koryŏ society stabilized its aristocratic civil bureaucracy, run by some powerful Great Descent (taejok 大族) groups.54 Twelfth-century Koryŏ, however, faced an incipient political problem: the shattering of the equilibrium between the civil and military groups, which resulted in military insurrections. The growing power of Great Descent groups and Buddhist monks who allied with these groups was exemplified by the treason of Yi Cha-gyŏm 李資謙 in 1126 and the revolt of Monk Myochŏng 妙清 in 1128, who attempted to move the capital to Sŏgyŏng 西京 (Western Capital, modern Pyŏngyang). The increasingly unfair treatment imposed on military officials and the growing contempt of civil officials for them eventually set off multiple coups by the military,

53 “Monographs” (Chi 志) 27, Koryŏ sa 73. Shuang Ji came to Koryŏ as an envoy from Later Zhou and stayed after getting ill. Kwangjong valued his talent and hired him after he recovered; Koryŏ sa chŏryo 2, Kwangjong 7. 54 The progress of early Koryŏ politics is well studied in John Duncan, The Origins of the Chosŏn Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), especially in Chapters 1 and 2; and Yi Ki-baek [Ki-baik Lee], Koryŏ kwijok sahoe ŭi hyŏngsŏng [The shaping of Koryŏ aristocratic society], (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1990). 38 chapter one starting with that of Chŏng Chung-bu 鄭仲夫 in 1170.55 After Ch’oe Ch’ung- hŏn 崔忠獻 seized power in 1196, his military regime lasted for 76 years on a much more substantial scale; all in all, Koryŏ experienced 100 years of military rule. The effect of military rule on Koryŏ society was not limited to the creation of a temporary absence of civil officials in the capital but also brought more fundamental changes to the political structure by ending the existing hereditary aristocratic order. It was not that the Great Descent groups dissolved, but that the system that had allowed them to monopolize power ceased. Besides, the military regimes were sympathetic to peasants and slaves, and the nature of martial organization valued men with talents irrespective of their pedigree background, which also shook the foundation of the existing class structure. Meanwhile, a new group of men educated in literature began to emerge on the political scene. As mentioned above, local officials (hyangni) did not live the kind of life of privilege that meritorious aristocrats did on account of their contributions to the founding of the dynasty. The hyangni class arose from powerful local families (hojok 豪族) of late Silla and early Koryŏ. They were distinguished from central aristocrats in that they were not absentee landlords but had their economic and political base grounded in their local settlements, though those lands may not have been comparable in size to those of the aristocrats. And unlike the central aristocrats living in the capital, who received private education and protected appointments to establish their careers in the central administration, the hyangni sons benefitted from the government’s public education to pass the civil service examination. Although a Chinese-style Capital Acad- emy (kyŏnghak 京學) was opened by King T’aejo—which was renamed the National Academy (Kukchagam 國子監) in 992 by King Sŏngjong’s mandate—it still primarily served the established families in the capital by limiting the qualification of students to the sons of mid- to upper-level officials. After a period of downturn due to the thriving of private schools

55 Chŏng Chung-bu had a run-in in 1144 with Kim Ton-jung 金敦中—a son of scholar- official Kim Pu-sik 金富軾 (1075–1151), the famous compiler of the Historical Record of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk sagi 三國史紀)—in which Kim Ton-jung burnt Chŏng Chung- bu’s beard with a candle; Koryŏ sa chŏryo, kwŏn 10, Injong 仁宗 22. Historians have attributed Chŏng Chung-bu’s resentment against civil officials and his eventual coup to these kinds of indignity that military men had to tolerate. There were, however, more practical reasons: for example, the land granted to professional soldiers to support their families was rarely allocated as stipulated by law; to make matters worse, even the land that they had been given was taken away at times to pay official stipends. See Ki-baik Lee, A New History of Korea, second edition, trans. Edward W. Wagner with Edward J. Shultz (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1991), 140. prelude to a confucian state 39 founded by aristocratic families,56 King Injong (r. 1122–1146) revitalized the public school system with Six Colleges of the Metropolitan Area (kyŏngsa yukhak 京師六學) and Regional Schools (hyanghak 鄉學). The court’s effort to expand public education was complementary to the restructuring of the bureaucracy through civil service examinations, which formed a crucial part of Korean history, turning aristocratic Koryŏ society into a bureaucracy. Through public schools in the rural areas, hyangni sons made their way into the central government and became ready to replace the aristocrats who dominated the civil offices. The main group of intellectuals who moved up to the central government by passing civil service examinations was the hyangni class, who became the largest pool of bureaucrats in Koryŏ.57 The momentous opportunity for the hyangni, ironically enough, came during the military regimes under which the civil officials suffered comprehensive oppression. Since they still needed people with literary and administrative skills (nŭngmun nŭngni 能文能吏), the military rulers did not abolish the civil service examination; and even though the majority of Confucian intellectuals became hermits, some of the former civil officials and hyangni literati served in cooperation with the military government. This group of literatus-officials was the New Literati, as modern historians often call them, in the making. As the old aristocracy came to an end at the hands of the military regime, the New Literati finally took their place in the central government through a true meritocracy when military rule itself was in turn terminated by the court with the support of the Yuan. The Sino-Korean literature of Koryŏ often focused on belles-lettres. As Xu Jing 徐競 (1091–1153), a Song envoy dispatched to Koryŏ in 1123, wrote in his Xuanhe Commissioner’s Illustrated Account of Koryŏ (Xuanhe fengshi gaoli tujing 宣和奉使高麗圖經): “When the king personally evaluates official candidates, he only uses three tests in poetry, prose, and essays but does not question them on policy-making for current matters. This is laughable . . . . [The Koryŏ people] hold poetry in high regard but are not well versed in classical studies. I have looked at their writings; and they seem to have inherited the ills left by Tang [scholarship].”58 Xu Jing’s

56 The earliest example was Ch’oe Ch’ung’s 崔冲 (984–1068) Nine Course Academy (Kujae haktang 九齋學堂). 57 Yi Sŏng-mu, Han’guk ŭi kwagŏ chedo [The civil service examination system of Korea], revised edition (Seoul: Chimmundang, 2000), 76. 58 至王親試官之，乃用詩賦論三題，而不策問時政。此其可嗤也。. . . 大抵以聲律爲尙，而於經學，未甚工。視其文章，髣髴唐之餘弊云。 Xu Jing, Xuanhe fengshi gaoli tujing, 40. 40 chapter one observation that Koryŏ scholarship was a continuation of Tang practice is a reasonable one. It was during Tang times that the Silla intellectuals received their Confucian education, and the old aristocrats of Koryŏ succeeded the Sino-Korean literary tradition of Silla. We must, however, also take into consideration that literary or belletristic writing could have been of greater practical value to Koreans during the Silla and Koryŏ periods. The ability to converse elegantly in the only written language available, that is, literary Chinese, was a useful and worthwhile skill—perhaps more so than profound understanding of the classics or policy-making, which could be intrinsically rooted in the Chinese socio-cultural memory and tradition (something foreigners had great difficulty in mastering). Not that the time-honored Confucian discourse of politics and the cultural- historical legacy behind it were of secondary importance, but given the presence of an aristocracy decentralizing sovereign authority, discussions, whether scholarly or not, on such topics as the mandate of heaven, legitimacy and the responsibilities of rulers, and the meaning of human civilization may not have been the most indispensable. In particular, diplomatic dealings with the peninsula’s powerful imperial neighbors (i.e., Tang, Song, and Yuan) were always one of the most critical and sensitive items of the court’s business, not to mention that the structure of administration had already been acculturated to that of Chinese empires. Therefore, being able to handle written Chinese and official documents was a part of the primary qualification for literatus-bureaucrats of Silla and Koryŏ. At least until the Koryŏ era, Chinese civilization and Confu- cianism were still perceived by Koreans to be fundamentally foreign and culturally different from their own culture. The emphasis on written composition over classical studies is also detected in the civil service examination. Throughout Koryŏ, of the two main fields (kwa 科)—namely, Literary Composition (chesul 制術, tantamount to Advanced Scholar, or jinshi 進士, in the Tang system) and Familiarity with Classics (myŏnggyŏng 明經)—a predominant number of candidates were selected in the former. According to Yi Sŏng-mu’s calculation, the court of Koryŏ held the civil service examination altogether 251 times, during which 6,167 candidates were chosen in Literary Compo- sition, compared to just 415 in Familiarity with Classics.59 This does not, of course, mean that an official’s knowledge in the classics was unimport- ant; nor were literary composition and classics mutually exclusive genres.

59 Yi Sŏng-mu, Han’guk ŭi kwagŏ chedo, 65–66. prelude to a confucian state 41

Rather, understanding of the classics was assumed to be the basic requirement for all candidates, not to mention that the public school curriculum also consisted mostly of studying classics. In contrast, training in literary composition was available through private education facilities, though their regular curriculum was comprised of classics as well.60 To a certain degree, this is comparable to the situation in Tang China, and it again indicates how Koryŏ was an aristocratic society. Toward the later Koryŏ period, however, the format of the civil service examination shows slight changes. For example, the Literary Composition examination started to integrate questions on the “meaning of the classics” (kyŏngŭi 經義) and “pasting classics [from memory]” (chŏpkyŏng 貼經), whereas earlier it had not tested candidates specifically on the classics. Palace examinations, as well, had tested nothing but poetry and prose until the first half of the twelfth century, but after the introduction of Cheng-Zhu Confucianism, “questioning on the Four Books” (sasŏ-ŭi 四書疑) was added.61 Another important element accompanying Koryŏ’s transformation in the thirteenth century was the rise and expansion of the Yuan-Mongol Empire. Koryŏ started to cooperate with the Mongols when joining forces with them in 1219 to subjugate the Khitans, who after the fall of Liao 遼 (1115–1234) had fled to Kangdong 江東 Fortress, in a Koryŏ territory. Upon driving Khitan resistance out of the peninsula, the Mongols demanded that Koryŏ pay annual tribute, claiming themselves as Koryŏ’s benefactors. The tributary relationship between Koryŏ and the Mongols, however, entailed different sorts of tributary practice from those that Koryŏ had practiced with Song, Liao, or Jin, in which it was customary for Koryŏ to decide what items to send. The Mongols specified the goods they wanted from Koryŏ, and sent officials to inspect the quality and quantity of them. The tributary demands also ranged from material resources (such as grains) to, in later periods, human ones (such as artisans, servants, and women). The Mongols’ excessive demands eventually turned the Koryŏ-Mongol relation sour, after the Koryŏ court refused to accommodate those demands. This led to the Mongol invasion of Koryŏ in 1231. The military rulers who were in power at the time continued to resist the Mongols and moved the capital to Kanghwa Island 江華島 in the next year (1232), after which the twenty-eight-year war ensued. The military and aristocratic families

60 Yi Sŏng-mu, Han’guk ŭi kwagŏ chedo, 80. 61 Hŏ Hŭng-sik, Koryŏ ŭi kwagŏ chedo [The civil service examination system of Koryŏ], (Seoul: Ilchogak, 2005), 129. 42 chapter one could still enjoy their comfortable life within the security of the island, relying on the tax revenue sent by ship along the coastal route (since the Mongol army was not at all ready to engage in naval battles). As the six waves of invasion exhausted the patience and support of the peasants, who significantly sustained the military regime’s resistance, the appeal for making peace with the Mongols, initiated by civil officers, gained steam. Finally, in 1259, a year after Ch’oe Ŭi 崔竩, the last leader of the ruling military family of Ch’oe, was assassinated by the civil official Yu Kyŏng 柳璥, military officials Kim Chun 金俊 and Im Yŏn 林衍, and King Kojong 高宗 (r. 1213–59), decided to make peace with the Mongols, sending the crown prince Wang Chŏn 王倎 (later King Wŏnjong) to the Mongols and indicating Koryŏ’s desire for peace. The court then restored the capital to Kaegyŏng. For the next eleven years, the Koryŏ court still had to deal with those military men who had resisted the court’s decision and held out on Kanghwa Island, eventually moving their base to another island on the southern coast, Chindo 珍島, to continue their resistance against the court and the Mongols (called the Rebellion of the Three Elite Patrols, or Sambyŏlch’o ŭi nan 三別抄의 亂). Khubilai Khan, or Emperor Shizu of Yuan (the official Yuan Empire started in 1271), and Koryŏ’s Wŏnjong came to the throne around the same time: Wŏnjong in 1259, and Shizu in 1260. Since Khubilai himself had survived the hegemonic dissension among imperial families, and Wŏnjong inherited the kingship from his father Kojong when the military resistance against the Mongols and the Koryŏ court was not yet sub- dued, they were both facing internal unrest and needed to solidify their sovereignty.62 Wŏnjong sought protection from the Yuan, proposing that his crown prince Kŏ 昛 (who later became King Ch’ungnyŏl) marry Khu- bilai’s eldest daughter, Khudulugh Kelmish 忽都鲁揭里迷失.63 Khubilai also was in need of Koryŏ’s alliance to check the power of his relatives in the northeast—the descendants of his great-uncle Temüge Ochigin, whose appanage was on the north of Koryŏ—and granted the request for Koryŏ to become a part of Yuan through kinship.64 Koryŏ was geopo- litically important to Yuan in many ways, as is evidenced by the Mongol

62 Wŏnjong was even deposed briefly in 1269 by the military rebels controlled by Im Yŏn. 63 “Biographies” 15, Yuan shi 208:4620; Koryŏ sa 29 (Ch’ungnyŏl wang 4/7). 64 Chu Ch’ae-hyŏk, “Monggol-Koryŏ sa yŏn’gu ŭi chae kŏmt’o—Monggol-Koryŏ sa ŭi sŏnggyŏk munje” [A reexamination of Mongol-Koryŏ historiography: The issue of the nature of Mongol-Koryŏ history], Kuksagwan nonch’ong 8 (1989): 31–32. prelude to a confucian state 43 campaign in Southern Song. Nor was the establishment of the Branch Sec- retariat for Eastern Expeditions in the attempt to conquer Japan irrelevant to this.65 Upon the royal wedding, Koryŏ was given the official seal of a “Son-in-Law State” (Fuma guo 駙馬國) in 1282 by the Yuan court and found a seat under the umbrella of imperial protection.66 After this, Koryŏ kings were married to Yuan princesses for generations, and their crown princes were sent to Dadu as hostages (turgha 禿魯花) before inheriting the throne.

The Meaning of the Mongol Empire to Koryŏ Koryŏ’s joining the Yuan imperial order marked a critical juncture in Sino- Korean history. The Yuan Empire signifies a change in the mode of cultural association among the members of the East Asian community. By creating a pan-regional order that helped spread Chinese texts and ideology beyond its borders with ease, the Yuan slackened the previous sinocentric cultural exclusivism and opened the door for non-Han-Chinese peoples to participate in the Sinitic civilization. It was through the Yuan that Koryŏ received the Zhu Xi school of Neo-Confucianism, and the history of Con- fucian scholarship and ideology in Korea entered a new phase. This new version of Confucianism and its unique approach to books and reading, which I discussed earlier, changed the print and book culture of Korea and inspired the Chosŏn court and literati to practice actively the ideal of culturally transforming its people through books. The reign of the Yuan was different from the previous empires of China. With a relatively smaller population and a nomadic background, the Mon- gols ruled the continent (and beyond) in a different way from such Han- Chinese empires as the Han and Tang. The empire was unified under the leadership of the Khagan, but was also divided by enfeoffed khanates across its vast territory. Under the Han-Chinese imperial orders, the system revolved—at least normatively or symbolically—around one power source, namely, the emperor himself and the imperial house. The emperor

65 Kim Hyŏl-la, “Koryŏ Ch’ungnyŏl wangdae ŭi Ryŏ-Wŏn kwan’gye ŭi hyŏngsŏng kwa kŭ t’ŭkching” [The formation and distinctive features of the Koryŏ-Yuan relation during King Ch’ungnyŏl’s reign in Koryŏ], Chiyŏk kwa yŏksa 24 (2004): 195–224. 66 “Annals of Shizu,” Yuan shi 10:203; Koryŏ sa 29 (Ch’ungnyŏl wang 7/3). The status of Koryŏ kings was also elevated, as Kim Hyŏl-la detected from this Koryŏ sa record, in which King Chungnyŏl met the envoy from Yuan while facing south for the first time. Before this, a Koryŏ king had to meet a Yuan envoy, with both standing east and west, face-to-face on equal terms. Kim Hyŏl-la, “Koryŏ Ch’ungnyŏl wangdae ŭi Ryŏ-Wŏn kwan’gye ŭi hyŏngsŏng kwa kŭ t’ŭkching,” 207. 44 chapter one was the embodiment of the cultural and historical legacy of the civilization; and, by symbolic extension, his Han-Chinese people were the only legitimate citizens of the civilization. This kind of idea of empire formed the perpetual dichotomy of Hua and Yi 華夷 (Chinese and non-Chinese, or, as often translated, Chinese and barbarians),67 in which Hua consisted of ethnic Han-Chinese people, although the concrete criteria for ethnic Han Chinese has hardly been substantiated in history. Multiple groups of people coexisted in the Yuan Empire: Mongols, Uighurs, Khitans, Jurch- ens, Tanguts, Han Chinese, and even Koreans. Though the Mongols were the ruling class, they were fewer in number than the other ethnic groups, not to mention that they were non-Han-Chinese classified traditionally as “barbarians,” and had not owned the kind of cultural legitimacy represented by Han-Chinese empires. Under the Mongol regime, the monolithic flow of mandate from tian 天 (heaven) to the common people through the emperor, within the meta- phorical and ritual framework of the familial tie between a father and his sons, could not be maintained; and the exclusive superiority of the Confu- cian value system that anchored such political and cultural ascendance of Han-Chinese emperors could not be claimed. On the religious and philosophical front, the Confucian orthodoxy that had been pronounced by the courts could no longer be sustained. Multiple religions, such as Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Eastern Christianity, and Zoroastri- anism, all coexisted with Confucianism. The legitimacy or sanctity of the Khagan’s rule was found in his role as a universal emperor—one comparable to that of a Çakravartin-rāja, the Buddhist universal emperor who turned the Wheel of the Law—not just to one people but to all peoples with different languages and cultural backgrounds.68 This went beyond

67 Translating yi as “barbarian” is not fully justified. See, for example, Lydia Liu, “Leg- islating the Universal,” in Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circu- lations, edited by Lydia H. Liu (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), 132 ff. When used especially in Chosŏn Korea, however, it is also difficult to deny that the notion of “barbarian” is at yi’s semantic core, for in the writings of Chosŏn Confucians, yi frequently predicates actions and practices that were deemed uncivilized, against the cultural norms perceived as (Han) Chinese, and hence “barbarian.” 68 Herbert Franke, From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor and God: The Legitima- tion of the Yuan Dynasty (München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1978), 52–54. prelude to a confucian state 45 the incarnation of wangdao 王道 rule, in which, as defined by Confucian idealism, the moral monarch continued to transform and subjugate barbarians through the Han-Chinese civilized orders. The notion of a universal empire in which peoples of different backgrounds coexisted was an outcome of this rather exceptional imperial experience, certainly to Sinoxenic neighbors like Koryŏ. We should perhaps take into consideration as well the fact that multiple non-Han “empires,” such as the Liao and Jin, had preceded the Yuan alongside the Song. The legitimacy of civilized culture in East Asia had traditionally overlapped with the Hua-Yi (Chinese-barbarian) dichotomy and been attributed to the Han-Chinese imperial succession. Surfacing as the only empire after the Song had finally collapsed, the Yuan court faced the question as to which cultural tradition it succeeded and recognized as the legitimate convener of history. A pedigree-based mapping of succession was not a plausible option for the Mongols, and they had to resort to what might be termed “culturalism” by some scholars, in which legitimacy was conferred as long as the regime kept the “civilized” rule based on traditional values. As reflected in the official histories compiled at the Historiography Academy (Guoshiyuan 國史院)69 from 1343 to 1345, the attitude of the alien Mongol rulers was more than inclusive. The issue of compiling the Liao and Jin histories began to be debated immediately after the fall of Jin (1234). Almost a century later, the Historiography Academy produced the state history in which the histories of Liao and Jin, the two major non-Han regimes before it, found their places as standard histories (zhengshi 正史), not as appendices to, but along with, the history of the Song dynasty.70 That is to say, both Han and non-Han regimes were treated equally and given the same legitimacy. The imperial order that Koryŏ joined, therefore, was one in which the pedigree requirement for its membership

69 Guoshiyuan was also termed Hanlin guoshiyuan 翰林國史院 when combined with the Hanlin Academy. 70 The process of historiographical legitimation of the three histories (Liao, Jin, and Song) under Yuan rule is well examined in Hok-Lam Chan, “Chinese Official Historiogra- phy at the Yüan Court: The Composition of the Liao, Chin, and Sung Histories,” in China under Mongol Rule, edited by John D. Langolis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), 56–106. 46 chapter one was lifted.71 The Great Mongol Empire, or the Yeke Mongol Ulus, was emerging as a multicultural space in East Asia.72 The Khaganate policy on scholarship and learning also displayed the same generosity, such that it was almost laissez-faire. As is well known, the initiation of Chinggis Khan into Confucian statecraft and administration started with his advisor Yelü Chucai 耶律楚材 (1189–1243), but actual scholarly Confucianism, after a period of discontinuation from Song to Yuan, restarted during the reign of Ögödei Khan (Taizong 太宗, r. 1229–41). The development of Yuan Confucianism, especially its lineage and spread, has been well delineated by Wing-tsit Chan.73 Chan traces the proliferation of Confucian scholarship of the Yuan along three lines: the northern line of Zhao Fu 趙復 (ca. 1206–99) and Xu Heng 許衡 (1209–81); the southern Jinhua 金華 (in Zhejiang 浙江) line of Huang Gan 黃榦 (1151–1221) and Xu Qian 許謙 (1270–1337); and the southern Jiangxi 江西 line of Rao Lu 饒魯 (fl. 1256) and Wu Cheng 吳澄 (1249–1333). All these lines converged on Zhu Xi’s teachings, and eventually the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism dominated Yuan Confucian scholarship. It was the Zhao Fu–Xu Heng line of the north that almost exclusively influenced An Hyang and late Koryŏ Neo-Confucian literati. In other words, when it arrived in Koryŏ, Neo-Confucianism had already been reconditioned by Xu Heng, who lived under the Jurchen-Jin rule and served in the Yuan as a close advisor to Khubilai, such that Neo-Confucianism was adapted to non-Han-Chinese environments. Though he still maintained the distinction between Hua and Yi, Xu Heng believed that using the institutions of the Han, as well as educating youth in the Way of the sages,

71 Whether such inclusivity was already a part of the official modus operandi of the Yuan toward foreigners in the second half of the thirteenth century, when Koryŏ was joining the imperial order and when our An Hyang went to Dadu, is another question. Herbert Franke concludes that embracing alien regimes by sinicizing their histories in the form of restoration of Han-Chinese history was an initiative undertaken by Confucian advisors to the court since Khubilai’s era; Franke, From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor and God, 78. Furumatsu Takashi reached a similar assessment based on careful analyses of historical documents. See Furumatsu Takashi, “Shū Tan Ben Ryō Sō Kin seitō wo megutte— Gendai ni okeru Ryōshi Kinshi Sōshi sanshi hensan no katei” [On Xiu Duan’s Bian Liao Song Jin zhengtong—the progress of compiling the three histories (History of Liao, History of Jin, and History of Song) in the Yuan dynasty], Tōhō gakuhō 75 (2003): 123–200. 72 For the multicultural nature of Yuan society and its interactions with Koryŏ, see Yi Kae-sŏk, “13–14 segi Ryŏ-Mong kwan’gye wa Koryŏ sahoe ŭi tamunhwa suyong” [Koryŏ- Mongol relations in the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries and the adoption of multiculturalism in Koryŏ society], Pokhyŏn sarim 28 (2010): 29–50. 73 Wing-tsit Chan, “Chu Hsi and Yüan Neo-Confucianism.” prelude to a confucian state 47 could sustain the empire.74 That the Confucian discourse of Zhao Fu and Xu Heng was focused on moral or practical Confucianism, rather than on its metaphysical discourse or on belletristic-literary integrity, deserves our attention. This was exactly the form of Confucianism that appealed to An Hyang and his contemporary literati and that was transplanted from Yuan to Koryŏ. The Yuan version of Cheng-Zhu Confucianism spoke the language of moral philosophy, a language in which anyone could participate, regardless of ethnicity or citizenship, as long as he was educated through reading. It was a subject relating to social ethics, human relations, emotions, and responsibilities, which could be significant to any cultural group, and learning and teaching it were in the hands of literati. The definition of literati had by now altered: more than anything, they were the ones who would determine and propagate moral principles in the society. Despite the abundant imperial and political implications of Neo-Confucian metaphysics—that is, discussions on such topics as the Supreme Ultimate (taiji 太極), principle (li 理), and material force (qi 氣), which were dry and technical but relatively free of ethnic connotation—Xu Heng and Yuan Confucians showed no interest in delving into the details but cat- egorically accepted that everything evolves from the Supreme Ultimate.75 Xu Heng instead gave preeminence to the Elementary Learning and the Four Books. As Chan seems to have surmised, this lack of interest in metaphysics could be just a simple matter of the philosophical temperament of persons who happened to be in a critical position to change the course of intellectual history. Yet it may also have been logical, or even inevitable,

74 “Biographies” 45, Yuan shi 158:3727. Here we find that Xu Heng was in fact finding the potential and hope for the future of the empire in educating youth regardless of their ethnic background: “For a long time, the emperor wished to open a National University, and upon [Xu] Heng requesting to be released from his post even more strongly, [the emperor] granted his request. In the eighth year, [the emperor] made [Xu Heng] Grand Academi- cian of the Academy of Scholarly Worthies and concurrently Chancellor of the National University, and personally selected Mongol students and had [the National University] educate them. [Xu] Heng heard the mandate and said with pleasure, ‘This is my work. The sons of the state are greatly unadorned and undistracted; they watch and listen with concentration. If I instill in the good kind [of people] a few years of cultural reserve, they will become of use for the state.’ ” 帝久欲開太學，會衡請罷益力，乃從其請。八年，以為集賢大學士，兼國子祭酒，親為擇蒙古弟子俾教之。衡聞命，喜曰；“此吾事也。國人子大樸未散，視聽專一，若置之善類中涵養數年，將必為國用。” 75 Wing-tsit Chan, “Chu Hsi and Yüan Neo-Confucianism,” 204–9. Chan notes that the Yuan Confucians exhibited a lack of interest in Zhu Xi’s Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsi lu 近思錄), which contained the philosophical theories of Northern Song scholars as well. 48 chapter one to emphasize the social and practical value of the doctrine, rather than philosophical speculation, when trying to restore the philosophical tradition within society first. At any rate, Xu Heng’s reverence was out of the ordinary. He once said, “The Elementary Learning and the Four Books of Wengong [i.e., Zhu Xi] are complete in procedure and priority”; and in a letter to his son, “[I] reverently believe in the Elementary Learning and the Four Books as gods. . . . I have taught you these from childhood with the hope that you achieve something from them. Even if other books are not studied, there would be no regret.”76 Perhaps it was this ideological clarity and the pedagogical promise of Yuan Confucianism that attracted the Koryŏ literati, who were discon- certed by the vagueness of Buddhist discourse. But it could also have been the very fact that the Koryŏ literati were familiar with, if not well practiced in, Buddhism—combined with the subtle resemblance between the Cheng-Zhu school and Chan Buddhism—that made the Zhu Xi school of Neo-Confucianism adaptable to the Koryŏ intellectual world. As Ki-baik Lee has remarked, the development of Chan Buddhism in Koryŏ, especially the Chogye sect (Chogyejong 曹溪宗) that flourished during military rule, prepared the way for the coming of Neo-Confucianism with its emphasis on the cultivation of mind-nature. An Hyang’s trip to Dadu, therefore, may not have been made with the expected indignation or despair of a subject accompanying his king to the suzerain state that had subjugated his country by force. The imperial order had been reset by a non-Han people, regarded as barbarians, whose culture could be no better than that of Koryŏ itself. The strict hierarchy and legitimacy of civilization that had been focused on the descendants of the Han were also reshuffled. Meanwhile, Koryŏ society was finally entering a new but stable phase after a hundred years of military rule and wars. For the first time in Koryŏ history, in fact, ever since the preceding kingdom of Silla, the aristocracy was passing—or at least had started to be restructured—away from the old hereditary system to one with meritocratic requirements, in a process that would later solidify the yangban class. As a new literatus coming from a hyangni family background, An Hyang was one of the leading new elites. He had been promoted to the position of Supervisor of Confucian Schools by the Yuan court shortly after being appointed Vice-Director of the Branch Secretariat for Eastern Expeditions.

76 Wing-tsit Chan, “Chu Hsi and Yüan Neo-Confucianism,” 212. prelude to a confucian state 49

His mission, and the purpose of his visit to Dadu, were clear. He was to learn about the seat of the new world-empire of which Koryŏ had just become a part, and, in particular, see how Confucian ideals worked and were taught within the society. Nothing was by accident: his visit, his contact with the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism, and his acquisition of Neo-Confucian books were all part of the plan. The following quatrain that An Hyang wrote while passing the Great Wall bespeaks his commitment as a new scholar-official: On the Ten-Thousand-Li Wall The white-clay wall stretches, meandering ten thousand li; Dwellers rely on it to lead their lives in peace. Should one tally the errors of the [First] Emperor of Qin at that time, They are in his burning [books] and burying [scholars], not in the walls. 題萬里城粉堞縱橫萬里平居民賴此得安生當時若數秦皇罪只在墳坑不在城77 Looking at how the Great Wall provided security for the people living in Dadu, and at their peaceful lives, An Hyang could not help but remember how Koryŏ had just suffered through military regimes and foreign invasions. Witnessing what a strong imperial institution had been able to do for its people nearly fifteen hundred years before, he may even have been somewhat anticipatory of the potential of the time to come. The First Emperor of Qin had been condemned for destroying the culture and imposing ruthless government on his people. In many ways, Qin’s unifica- tion of the continent and construction of a new world in which the old order was no longer effective resembled what Yuan was about to achieve. Even the facts that the Qin had accomplished this by force, and that it had been the embodiment not of the existing cultural order (being related neither to the Zhou 周 court nor to the state of Lu 魯) but of a non-Han power, were similar to the Yuan enterprise. The fault of the First Emperor had been that he failed to see the value of scholars and books. This fault, for which he was stigmatized for the rest of Chinese history (even though his empire lasted no longer than fifteen years) lay in his burning of books and persecution of scholars ( fenshu kengru 焚書坑儒)—in other words,

77 An Kŭk-kwŏn, comp., Hoehŏn sŏnsaeng silgi, 1:1. 50 chapter one in the banning of all potential routes to building a new civilization—not in his executive achievements of providing for his people. The Yuan Empire was not about to make the same error. It succeeded the previous administrative system, recognized the value of bureaucrats with scholarly training, and aspired to construct a civilization. More importantly, foreigners like the Koryŏ could take an active part in it this time. As it turns out, in the thirteenth century, after the Yuan court resumed the civil service examinations during the Yanyou 延佑 reign (1314–1320), those who passed the state-level examination (Kukchagamsi 國子監試) in Koryŏ were qualified to take the metropolitan examination (huishi 會試) in Dadu.78 That is, the state-level examination of Koryŏ was tantamount to Yuan’s provincial examination (xiangshi 鄉試), for the Branch Secretariat for Eastern Expeditions located in Koryŏ was one of the Branch Secretariats in which the provincial examination was held.79

Late Koryŏ Confucians After coming back to Koryŏ, An Hyang dedicated much of his career and private life to administrering and promoting Confucian education. While serving in the Royal Secretariat (Milchiksa 密直司) and in the Council of State (Ch’ŏmŭibu 僉議府) after being appointed Examination Administra- tor (chigonggŏ 知貢舉), he spent years of his career as Grand Academician of the Hall of Worthies (Chiphyŏnjŏn t’aehaksa 集賢殿太學士). In 1303, he had Erudite Kim Mun-jŏng 金文鼎 go to Nanjing to get portraits of Con- fucius and his seventy disciples, Confucian ritual utensils and instruments, copies of the Six Classics, books of philosophy and history, and books by Zhu Xi, all to be placed in the Hall of Achievement (Taesŏngjŏn 大成殿) completed in the following year. He also requested permission from King Ch’ungnyŏl in 1304 to establish a Scholarship Fund (sŏmhakchŏn 贍學錢) to support Confucian education and the National Academy, to which it was mandated that every government official contribute according to

78 Yi Sŏng-mu, Han’guk ŭi kwagŏ chedo, 57. 79 The Yuan civil service examination practiced a quota system, segregating four larger groups of people: the Mongols, the Color-Eyed (semu 色目, i.e., Central Asians), the Han (Chinese living in the north, the former Jin territory), and the Southerners (people living in the south, the former Song territory). Candidates from Koryŏ took the examination with the Han and Jurchens. See Pae Suk-hŭi, “Wŏndae ŭi kwagŏje wa Koryŏ chinsa ŭi ŭnggŏ mit sugwan” [The Yuan civil service examination system and Koryŏ Advanced Scholars’ application for the examination and their appointment to official posts], Tongyangsahak yŏn’gu 104 (2008): 121–54. prelude to a confucian state 51 his rank.80 His admiration for Confucius and Zhu Xi is reflected in many of his writings, and he even built behind his house a study inside of which he placed portraits of the two sages. His literary name, Hoehŏn 晦軒, was modeled after that of Zhu Xi, Huian 晦庵.81 More important than An Hyang’s institutional promotion of Neo- Confucian education was what he triggered among contemporary literati. A number of scholar-officials were produced under his guidance, including Kwŏn Po 權溥 (1262–1346), U T’ak 禹倬 (1263–1343), Paek I-jŏng 白頤正 (?–?), Yi Chin 李瑱 (1244–1321), and Yi Cho-nyŏn 李兆年 (1269–1343). These figures in turn led the late Koryŏ and early Chosŏn intellectual fields, both serving in the government and producing future scholar-officials. The members of this cohort of late Koryŏ New Literati were closely related to one another through either familial ties or mentorship.82 Apart from An Hyang’s initiation, there were at least two more noteworthy facets of Koryŏ scholars’ exposure to Yuan Neo-Confucian scholarship. One is through Koryŏ scholar-officials who went to Yuan and experienced life in the empire. Paek I-jŏng, for example, lived in Dadu for ten years in the retinue of King Ch’ungsŏn 忠宣王 (r. 1298; 1308–13).83 After returning to Koryŏ, Paek I-jŏng taught his extensive learning of the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism to Yi Che-hyŏn and Pak Ch’ung-jwa 朴忠佐 (1287–1349). There were also cases where Koryŏ literati served in official positions in Yuan. Yi Kok 李穀 (1298–1351) was selected in the second place at the palace examination of Yuan in 1332, after passing the provincial level with the highest honor in Koryŏ. He then served in Yuan

80 This Scholarship Fund (sŏmhakchŏn) was then combined into the existing Fund for Nurturing Worthies (yanghyŏn’go 養賢庫) created by King Yejong 睿宗 in 1119. 81 “Chronicle,” in An Kŭk-kwŏn, comp., Hoehŏn sŏnsaeng silgi, 3:7b–16b. 82 Mentorship was not limited to actual teacher-disciple relations. Examination Admin- istrators and those who passed the examination formed a special relation in Koryŏ, as was the case in China, in which an examination-passer, as a protégé (munsaeng 門生), honored an exam administrator as a mentor (chwaju 座主 or ŭnmun 恩門). This relation entailed a strong implication of a political contract, for the mentor would provide both guidance and sponsorship in the protégé’s career, but this guidance and sponsorship were kept within the form of teacher-disciple bonds. 83 King Ch’ungsŏn assumed the throne in 1298 but relinquished it to his father in the same year due to a feud involving his concubine (Lady Cho 趙妃) and his Mongol queen (Princess Baotashilian 寶塔實憐, sister of Yesün Temür who later became Emperor Zhenzong 真宗 of Yuan). Perhaps with the intention of gaining more control over Koryŏ’s domestic politics, the Yuan court ordered King Ch’ungsŏn and his queen to relocate to Dadu, and reinstated King Ch’ungnyŏl; “Annals” (Sega 世家), Koryŏ sa 33, Ch’ungsŏn wang 1/5; also “Biographies” 95, Yuan shi 208:4622–23. King Ch’ungsŏn was then invested as King of Shenyang (Shenyangwang 瀋陽王) and began his residence in Dadu. 52 chapter one as Editorial Examiner in the Hanlin Historiography Academy (Hanlin guoshiyuan jianyueguan 翰林國史院檢閱官), as Clerk at the Household Administration of the Empress Dowager (Huizhengyuan guan’gou 徽政院管勾), and so forth, over three different periods.84 His son, Yi Saek 李穡 (1328–96), was educated at the Yuan Imperial Academy for three years while he lived with his father in Dadu. Like his father, he passed the provincial-level examination in Koryŏ and was awarded the second place at the Yuan palace examination, after which he was appointed Drafter in the Hanlin Academy (Hanlin zhizhigao 翰林知制誥). His residency in Yuan was not as long as his father’s, but he was appointed to a series of important positions in Koryŏ, including Chancellor of the National Academy (Sŏnggyun’gwan taesasŏng 成均館大司成). He promoted his colleagues Chŏng Mong-ju 鄭夢周 (1337–92) and Yi Sung-in 李崇仁 (1347–92), who continued Neo-Confucian scholarship in the last years of Koryŏ and into Chosŏn. King Ch’ungsŏn’s residence in Dadu also provided a venue for scholarly exchanges between Koryŏ and Yuan literati. Although he resumed the throne in 1308, King Ch’ungsŏn spent most of his five-year reign in Dadu. After he abdicated the throne to his son, King Ch’ungsuk 忠肅王 (r. 1313– 1330; 1332–1339), he decided to stay in Dadu and built a private library named Hall of Ten Thousand Scrolls (Man’gwondang 萬卷堂) in 1313. Soon it became a famous spot frequented by Yuan and Koryŏ scholars. Yi Che-hyŏn, who was the son-in-law of Kwŏn Po and mentor of Yi Kok, Yi Saek, Chŏng Mong-ju, Yi Sung-in, and Chŏng To-jŏn 鄭道傳 (1342–98), stayed there with King Ch’ungsŏn, associating with celebrated literati of Yuan. These figures included Yan Fu 閻復 (1236–1312), a renowned Han- lin Academician; Yao Sui 姚燧 (1238–1313), a disciple of Xu Heng and the nephew of Yao Shu 姚樞 (1203–80) who recommended Zhao Fu to Khubilai Khan; Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫 (1254–1322), a famous calligrapher and scholar-official; Yuan Mingshan 元明善 (1269–1322) and Yu Ji 虞集 (1272–1348), who were both disciples of Wu Cheng, the aforementioned scholar who succeeded Rao Lu and the Jiangxi school of Cheng-Zhu scholarship; and many more.85 In other words, the late Koryŏ literati’s introduc-

84 “Biographies” 22, Koryŏ sa 109. 85 “Annals,” Koryŏ sa 34, Ch’ungsŏn wang 5/3; “Biographies” 23, Koryŏ sa 110. Yi Che- hyŏn’s experience in Dadu and Yuan is introduced in a few studies. For examples of previous research, see Kim Sang-gi, “Yi Ik-chae ŭi chae-Wŏn saeng’ae e taehayŏ” [Regarding Yi Ik-chae’s (Che-hyŏn’s) life in Yuan], Taedong munhwa yŏn’gu 1 (1964): 219–44; and Chŏng Ok-cha, “Yŏ-mal Chuja sŏngnihak ŭi toip e taehan sigo—Yi Che-hyŏn ŭl chungsim ŭro” [A study on the introduction of Zhu Xi’s learning of Nature-Principle in late Koryŏ—with prelude to a confucian state 53 tion into Neo-Confucian scholarship was more direct and personal than at any other stage of acculturation with Sinitic scholarship in premodern Korea, and we can even say the Yuan and Koryŏ literati were sharing concurrent progress. The other venue through which Neo-Confucianism traveled to Koryŏ was through books. It is conceivable that the Koryŏ scholars who had traveled to Yuan came back with many books on Confucian topics. Following An Hyang’s active acquisition of Confucian books, for example, Paek I-jŏng also brought books back from Dadu, including Zhu Xi’s Collected Com- mentaries to the Four Books (Sishu jizhu 四書集註), which was printed and distributed at Kwŏn Po’s suggestion.86 Apart from these personal or private acquisitions and circulations, Confucian books were also imported systematically and actively. A Koryŏ sa record in the sixth month of the first year (1314) of King Ch’ungsuk’s reign illustrates this: Sixth month, Day of kyŏng-in. Manager of Affairs Kwŏn Po, Discussant of Directorate of Court Conference, Yi Chin, State Finance Commissioner Kwŏn Han-gong, Vice-Minister [of State] Cho Kan, and Administrator of the Royal Secretariat An U-gi met at the National Academy, examined the newly purchased books, and tested [their] learning in classics. At first, the Super- visorate of the National Academy dispatched Erudite Yu Yŏn and Instructor Yu Chŏk to Jiangnan to buy books. Before arriving, their ship was wrecked, and [Yu] Yŏn and the others came ashore naked. [At the time,] Supervisor of the Palace Library Hong Yak, was in Nanjing as Adjunct to the Service of the Crown Prince. [The court] gave him Baochou [the Yuan monetary unit] 150 ding and had him purchase 10,800 kwŏn of books and return with them.87

a focus on Yi Che-hyŏn], Chindanhakpo 51 (1981): 29–54. The Koryŏ sa includes a record about King Ch’ungsŏn and his Hall of Ten Thousand Scrolls in an entry of 1313. (Most historians, starting with Kim Sang-gi, dated its opening to 1314, presumably based on the Koryŏ sa record, but without clear explanations as to why they date it to 1314 instead of 1313.) It may have been impossible, then, for Yan Fu, and perhaps somewhat possible for Yao Sui, to have frequented the Hall of Ten Thousand Scrolls, since Yan Fu died in 1312 and Yao Sui in 1313. Also, as Pak Hyŏn-gyu has pointed out, by the time Yi Che-hyŏn went there, Yao Sui and Yan Fu had already died. See Pak Hyŏn-gyu, “Yi Che-hyŏn ŭi Wŏn munsa tŭl kwa ŭi kyoyu ko” [A study on the exchanges between Yi Che-hyŏn and Yuan literati], Kyonam hanmunhak 3 (1990): 131–36. 86 “Biography of Mun’gan’gong [Paek I-jŏng’s father]” 文簡公本傳, in Ijae sŏnsaeng silgi 彛齋先生實紀 [Truthful records of Mr. Ijae], compiled by Paek Tong-hyŏk 白東赫, 1859 (wooden movable type), 2:4b–5b. Ijae is Paek I-jŏng’s sobriquet. 87 六月庚寅。贊成事權溥，商議會議都監事李瑱，三司使權漢功，評理趙簡，知密直安于器等，會成均館，考閱新購書籍，且試經學。初成均提擧司，遣博士柳衍學諭兪迪于江南購書籍，未達而船敗，衍等赤身登岸。判典校寺事洪瀹以太子府叅軍，在南京，遺衍寶鈔一百五十錠，使購得經籍一萬八百卷而還。“Annals,” Koryŏ sa 34, Ch’ungsŏn wang 1/6. 54 chapter one

This trend becomes more apparent in the fourteenth century, after the civil service examinations were reinstalled in Yuan and Koryŏ integrated its own civil service examinations into the Yuan institution. Toward the later years of the dynasty, between the reigns of King Ch’ungsuk and King Kongmin 恭愍王 (r. 1351–74), an increase was apparent in the books on Confucian classics (including the Four Books) and histories imported to Koryŏ, in contrast to the earlier trend, in which the majority of books (excluding Buddhist books) imported belonged to belletristic genres.88 Confucian books also arrived in the form of gifts from the Yuan government. The Yuan court was remarkably generous with in sending books to Koryŏ. In 1314, the emperor bestowed 4,317 volumes (17,000 kwŏn) of books upon King Ch’ungsŏn. These books in fact were those that had been preserved in the Palace Library of Song.89 The Yuan court’s indulgence in giving books to Koryŏ was in sharp contrast with that of the Song. The Song government and intellectuals were overtly against allowing their books into Koryŏ and very suspicious of the motives behind Koryŏ’s repeated attempts to acquire books. Su Shi’s 蘇軾 (1037–1101) remonstrance warning against allowing visitors from Koryŏ to purchase books in Song is well known.90 This is again perhaps redolent of the difference discussed above between the Han Song empire and the non-Han Yuan empire.

88 Yi Si-ch’an, “Song-Wŏn sigi Koryŏ ŭi sŏjŏk suip kwa kŭ yŏksa-jŏk ŭimi” [Koryŏ’s importing of books during the Song-Yuan period and its historical significance], Tongbang hanmunhak 39 (2009): 309–35. 89 “Annals,” Koryŏ sa 34, Ch’ungsŏnwang 1/7. See, also, Pak Mun-yŏl, “Yŏ-mal Sŏn-ch’o ŭi sŏjŏk ŭi sujip kwa p’yŏnch’an e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study on the collection and compilation of books in the late Koryŏ and early Chosŏn period], in Han’guk sŏjihak nonjip: Hangsim Yun Pyŏng-t’ae paksa chŏngnyŏn kinyŏm nonmunjip, edited by Hangsim Yun Pyŏng-t’ae paksa chŏngnyŏn kinyŏm nonmunjip kanhaeng wiwŏnhoe (Seoul: Minch’ang munhwasa, 1999), 457–95. 90 Su Shi, “Three writings discussing advantages and disadvantages of Koryŏ people’s book-buying” Lun Gaoli maishu lihai zhazi san shou 論高麗買書利害劄子三首, Col- lected Works of Su Shi (Su Shi wenji), (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004), 994–1001. Chapter Two

The Conception of the Samgang haengsil-to

Instilling the Confucian Mind in the General Masses

A Patricide The Ministry of Punishments [Hyŏngjo 刑曹] reported: “Kim Hwa, a resident of Chinju, killed his own father. By law he should be sentenced to death by slow slicing.” [The king] assented to it. He immediately sighed, “Perhaps we could countenance that there may be a wife killing her husband or a servant killing his master, but now there is one who has murdered his own father. [Such conduct] must have been brought about by a lack of virtue on my part.” The First Minister-without-Portfolio, Hŏ Cho, related, “Your humble subject has already lived beyond six decades of his life, and roughly knows the matters of the last fifty years; there has never been anything of this kind. Your humble servant wishes that, in the case of a person of lower status killing one of higher status, the punishment be sternly enforced.” His Highness said, “Each time you advise me to strictly enforce the distinction between the higher and the lower, I have always listened with admiration. Now that we have this incident, your words are indeed verified. However, as for an addition to or subtraction from the legal codes, I deem it is impermissible.” [Hŏ] Cho replied, “For a matter such as this, it is entirely appropriate that we rescue [people] from corrupt practices in accordance with the times.” As those who had reported went out, the king spoke to the Edict Transmitters [i.e., Royal Secretaries], “Hŏ Cho’s words are truly good, and with Kim Hwa’s perversity today, [Hŏ’s words] are enough to be verified.” The Edict Transmitters replied, “A crime like this that savages a superior cannot go unpunished, but it would be difficult to add degrees [of crime] to the legal codes.”1

1 刑曹啓:“晋州人金禾殺其父，律該凌遲處死。”從之。旣而嘆曰:“婦之殺夫、奴之殺主，容或有之，今乃有殺父者，此必予否德所致也。”判府事許稠啓:“臣年已踰六旬，粗知五十年事，未有如此者。臣願以下犯上者，必嚴其罪。”上曰:“卿每言嚴上下之分，予聞而嘉之，今有此事，卿言果驗矣。然加減律文，予以爲不可。”稠對曰:“如此之事，固宜因時救弊。”啓事者出，上謂代言等曰:“許稠之言甚善，今日金禾之變，足驗矣。”代言等曰:“如此陵上之罪，不可不懲，然於律文加等爲難。”Sejong sillok 世宗實錄 [Annals of King Sejong] 56 chapter two

In 1428, a man named Kim Hwa 金禾 in Chinju 晉州 near the southern coast of Korea murdered his own father. This event occurred during the early years of the Chosŏn, when the court was still stabilizing after the usual political and social unrest that follow dynastic change. There were no imminent threats of invasion or domestic disturbances, and after years of contestation for political hegemony, known historically as the “feud of princes,” King T’aejong had secured power and consolidated control by his family. It was the tenth year of the reign of T’aejong’s son, King Sejong, grandson of the founding king, Yi Sŏng-gye 李成桂 (T’aejo 太祖, 1335– 1408). Sejong showed remarkable leadership during his reign, accomplish- ing a number of seminal achievements. Sejong was historically known as a man of many talents, among which was his well-known invention of Han’gŭl (the Korean writing system). But his real desire was to find a place for Chosŏn as a bona fide member of the pan-East Asian civilization that had been established by the Ming Empire when it overturned the Yuan and restored a Han-Chinese empire. This particular incident—a son killing his own father—was no ordinary homicide. First, it was a killing between two members of one of the most fundamental categories sustaining a Confucian society. As outlined in the Introduction, these categories are represented by the canonical Five Relations, that is: ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, senior and junior, and friend and friend, of which three are familial relations. In Confucian naturalism, the family is the existential beginning and the model prototype of all societal realities. It is the smallest unit of the society and the causa essendi of all social constructions, without which the collective notion of all-under-heaven (tianxia 天下) is impossible. Second, the killing was committed by a subordinate against a superior within the natural hierarchy that was the de facto structure of each social unit. This hierarchy is governed by a set of rituals (li 禮; Kr. ye), or social behaviors, in which the roles and responsibilities of each person are made self-evident as a part of the natural order of humanity. In contrast, “law” ( fa 法; Kr. pŏp) can be understood from Confucian perspectives as an

41:21 (Sejong 10/9/27). All references to the Annals of the Chosŏn Dynasty (commonly known as the Chosŏn wangjo sillok 朝鮮王朝實錄) use the on-line database service made available by the National Institute of Korean History (http://sillok.history.go.kr), the text of which is mostly based on the edition from the T’aebaek-san Depository of Histories (T’aebaek-san sago 太白山史庫). In addition to providing the physical locus of a cited entry with kwŏn 卷 number and page number, following the convention in the field, references also supply the date of the entry in the format of “monarch’s title, reign year/month/day,” since the chronology can be relevant to some of the discussion. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 57

“unnaturally forced and coercing institution.” An ideal Confucian society runs based on rituals—hence the ideal of “rule by rituals” (lizhi 禮治; Kr. yech’i) rather than by law. The ruler should govern by inspiring his people through ritual ethics, not through coercion by penal law. An incident such as this served as a definite indicator that rule by ritual was not working. But what did King Sejong and Hŏ Cho mean exactly by punishment being “added to” or “subtracted from” the legal codes? To understand this, a brief look at the legal situation of early Chosŏn is necessary. Traditional Chinese law codes were deeply influenced by ritual and the attendant hierarchies of age, gender, status, and family relations; and punishments were distributed in varying severities across the hierarchy. The so-called Ten Abominations (shi’e 十惡) in The Tang Code (Tang lü 唐律) specified the ten most heinous crimes: plotting rebellion (moufan 謀反), plotting great sedition (moudani 謀大逆), plotting treason (moupan 謀叛), contumacy (eni 惡逆), depravity (budao 不道), great irreverence (dabujing 大不敬), lack of filial piety (buxiao 不孝), discord (bumu 不睦), unrighteousness (buyi 不義), and incest (neiluan 內亂).2 The codes are first found as fragments in the Han dynasty, after which they were classified as the “Ten Serious Crimes” (zhongzui shi tiao 重罪十條) in Northern Qi (550–577), and finally established as a special article in The Tang Code (“Article Six”).3 The “Ten Abominations” remained nearly identical in later legal codes, including those of the Ming (The Great Ming Code, or Da Ming lü 大明律) and Qing (The Great Qing Legal Code, or Da Qing lüli 大清律例) empires.4 Most of the ten are crimes are related to destroying or plotting to destroy the hierarchical order, such as contumacy, great irreverence (failing to protect persons or objects of the emperor), lack of filial piety, discord (plotting to kill, sell, or strike, or reporting to the court a senior member of one’s natal or in-law family), and unrighteousness (attacking or disrespecting officials, teachers, or deceased husbands)— not to mention that the first three of these pose a threat to the emperor and the state.5 The offenses are graded from state to family level, from official to private, and from the most serious to the least. The Great Ming

2 Wallace Johnson, The T’ang Code, Vol. 1: General Principles (Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1979), 17–22. 3 Niida Noboru, Chūgoku hōseishi kenkyū [Studies on the history of Chinese legal institutions], Vol. 1: Keihō [Penal code], (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppanbu, 1959) 235. 4 Geoffrey MacCormack, The Spirit of Traditional Chinese Law (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 44. 5 The Great Ming Code, “Article Two.” Yonglin Jiang, trans., The Great Ming Code: Da Ming Lü (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 18–19. 58 chapter two

Code had already been adopted by King T’aejo in his Edict upon Accession to the Throne (chŭgwi kyosŏ 即位教書) in 1392,6 and it functioned as the authoritative legal source until the court published its own constitution, The Great Compendium of Administration (Kyŏngguk taejŏn 經國大典) in 1470. But in reality The Great Ming Code still remained the de facto general source of criminal laws until the end of the dynasty. According to The Great Ming Code, Kim Hwa’s offense fell under the category of “contumacy” (plotting to kill paternal grandparents and parents) within the Ten Abominations, and was punishable by the harshest death penalty, that is, “death by slow slicing” (nŭngji ch’ŏsa 凌遲處死).7 “[Death by] slow slicing” (nŭngji, Ch. lingchi) was a twofold punishment: it inflicted a great amount of pain over an extended period of time while also desecrating the body with an extreme form of mutilation.8 It was thus much harsher than other execution forms, such as kyo 絞 ‘strangulation’ and zhan 斬 ‘decapitation’. The early years of the Ming dynasty in China frequently saw its practice to the fullest measure, as the law described.9 Judging from the Chosŏn court record introduced above, in which the Ministry of Rites (Yejo 禮曹) advised that the law ( yul 律, which here refers to The Great Ming Code) dictated the sentence as death by nŭngji, we can deduce that the Chosŏn court used the Ming code for its criminal law. Nŭngji had been practiced in Korea since the Koryŏ dynasty in emulation of Chinese legal practice, although it may have been replaced by kŏyŏl 車裂 (Ch. chelie, i.e., tearing the body asunder by pulling chari- ots tied to each limb, also known as huan 轘)—a rather archaic form of execution that became obsolete after Tang China.10 Although The Great Ming Code served as the most authoritative legal source in the time of King Sejong, the reality of the last years of Koryŏ and the beginning of Chosŏn was rather different. Until the final completion of The Great Compendium of Administration in 1470, the application of legal codes functioned mostly in a “pick-and-choose” mode. The government

6 T’aejo sillok 太祖實錄 1:44b (T’aejo 1/7/28). Although this is a general understanding in the legal history of Korea, some scholars caution that this edict alone may not be regarded as the declaration of a comprehensive adoption of The Great Ming Code. See Cho Chi-man, “Chosŏn ch’ogi Tae Myŏng-nyul ŭi suyong kwajŏng” [The adoption of The Great Ming Code in early Chosŏn], Pŏpsahak yŏn’gu 20 (1999): 5–7. 7 Jiang, The Great Ming Code, Article 307, 170. 8 Timothy Brook, Jérôme Bourgon, and Gregory Blue, Death by a Thousand Cuts (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 11. 9 Brook et al., Death by a Thousand Cuts, 97–121. 10 In 1407, Hwang Hŭi 黃喜 (1363–1452), then Minister of Personnel (Ijo p’ansŏ 吏曹判書), reported to the king that the old practice had used kŏyŏl instead of nŭngji. T’aejong sillok 太宗實錄 14:45b (T’aejong 7/11/28). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 59 consulted different legal sources on nearly a case-by-case basis, using, in addition to The Great Ming Code, The Tang Code (Tanglü shuyi 唐律疏義, to be exact), the Legal Standards of the Zhizheng Era (Zhizheng tiaoge 至正條格) of the Yuan, and amendments to the codes devised in Koryŏ. The court also used its own discretion at times, in consideration of specific social needs and circumstances. One ruling from 1427, a year prior to Kim Hwa’s patricide, may serve as illustration. Faced with a sudden increase in arson cases, the Ministry of Punishments requested that the throne allow the officials to disregard The Great Ming Code when prosecuting arsonists. The Great Ming Code stated that in order to prosecute a person for arson, firm evidence should be established even if the person was caught at the scene, which made it difficult for the authorities to successfully charge arsonists. After consulting with the Six Ministries, the court decided to allow the authorities to charge arsonists if the evidence was irrefutable, even if they had not been arrested at the scene, noting that it was only a temporary policy, effective “until customs be corrected.”11 Thus it took a while to establish a system of criminal law in which The Great Ming Code functioned as the general law, and this situation continued even after the publication of The Great Compendium of Administration.12 Hŏ Cho, who prosecuted the patricide case, had already taken a stern stance on transgressions of hierarchical order on several occasions while serving as Minister of Rites (Yejo p’ansŏ 禮曹判書). In 1430, for example, when reporting an incident of a son who reported his stepmother to the court for committing adultery, Hŏ Cho requested that the king comply with the penal prescription of The Tang Code instead of The Great Ming Code.13 The Great Ming Code prescribed that any child who accuses his parents receive one hundred blows of the heavy stick (chang 杖), followed by exile to a distance of 3,000 miles (ri 里), and, if the accusation was false, that he be strangled; by contrast, The Tang Code ruled that a child who accused his parent be strangled (whether or not the accusation was true). Sejong granted Hŏ Cho’s request and made the amend- ment. Thus Hŏ Cho’s remark above, in Kim Hwa’s case, is construed as a proposal to impose a heavy punishment (perhaps the heaviest) for any similar offenses that threatened the hierarchical order of the family, be it merely plotting to kill, the actual completion of a murder, or a striking

11 Sejong sillok 35:2b (Sejong 9/1/7). 12 Chŏng Kŭng-sik and Cho Chi-man, “Chosŏn chŏn’gi Tae Myŏng-nyul ŭi suyong kwa pyŏnyong” [The reception and adaptation of The Great Ming Code in Early Chosŏn], Chin- dan hakpo 96 (2003): 205–42. 13 Sejong sillok 47:24b (Sejong 12/2/28). 60 chapter two or an assault, regardless of the distance of kinship. The Great Ming Code, however, distinguished the cases rather finely according to the aforementioned criteria, with varying degrees of punishments, from heavy flogging to death by slow slicing.14 In the case of Kim Hwa, Sejong disagreed with Hŏ Cho’s draconian position, though the moral foundation of the society was as great a concern for him as it was for any Confucian ruler. He was drawing the line, trying to maintain the integrity of the state’s statutes. Sejong was reluctant to deviate from The Great Ming Code when making legal rulings. When he had to make decisions, as a number of court records described, dealing with cases that required attention to special circumstances, he mostly conformed to The Great Ming Code, making only minor adjustments. In addition to the fact that King T’aejo, his grandfather, had sanctioned The Great Ming Code at the beginning of the dynasty, there were several other reasons for Sejong to maintain the inviolable legal authority of the Ming code. First, as a comprehensive statute, it faithfully integrated the Confucian spirit of law and yet laid out unequivocal definitions of crimes and punishments—redolent of the modern-day principle of nulla poena sine lege (“no penalty without a law”). Unlike other legal sources, The Great Ming Code granted little prerogative to bureaucrats to make statutory interpretations, ultimately leaving punitive authority in the king’s hands. Second, The Great Ming Code was regarded as adaptable to the changes and needs of different times, as it was often called the “institution of the contemporary king” (siwang chi che 時王之制), meaning it was issued and practiced by Emperor Hongwu 洪武 (Taizu 太祖, r. 1368–98) of the Ming. The Tang Code was by this time rather outdated, though it was the canonical model of Confucian statutes, whereas the Legal Standards of the Zhizheng Era of the Yuan was lacking in systematic consistency and good faith in observing the ancient laws, though it certainly had its own characteristic adaptivity.15 Third, a plan for solidifying the status of The Great Ming Code in the legal system of the Chosŏn was already under way. Under the mandate of T’aejo, The Great Ming Code was translated into Korean in 1395 using idu 吏讀 ‘clerk readings’.16 Commonly

14 Jiang, trans., The Great Ming Code (“Laws on Penal Affairs: Affrays and Batteries, Arti- cle 342, On Striking Paternal Grandparents and Parents” 刑鬥毆毆祖父母父母; “Laws on Penal Affairs: Article 307, Plotting to Kill Paternal Grandparents or Parents” 刑人命謀殺祖父母父母). 15 Chŏng and Cho, “Chosŏn chŏn’gi Tae Myŏng-nyul ŭi suyong kwa pyŏnyong,” 212–13. 16 Idu has also been called it’o 吏吐 ‘clerk’s particles’ and isŏ 吏書 ‘clerk’s writing’. As the name indicates, idu refers to a set of formulaic linguistic devices employed especially by public officials in their dealings with administrative documents. Using Chinese characters the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 61 referred to as the Tae Myŏng-nyul chikhae 大明律直解 (Direct explanation of The Great Ming Code),17 it did not just linguistically adapt the Ming legal code but also nativized some of the contents (official titles, place names, kinship definitions, etc.) within a Korean context. At the same time, the court was preparing a comprehensive set of legal codes, which started with the compilation of the Six Codes of Administration (Kyŏngje yukchŏn 經濟六典, 1397) and was completed with the Great Compendium of Administration, where it was clearly indicated that the section on criminal law (hyŏngjŏn 刑典) followed The Great Ming Code.18 Sejong’s judgment in the case of Kim Hwa showed that this was not a matter to be coped with by manipulating the law. A son killing his own father was an incident assaulting the very core of the Confucian doctrine on which Sejong strove to build his dynasty, a legacy that he and his predecessors had envisioned. The bond between father and son is the foundation of a family, a family that is not just a set of members naturally connected by blood but also the palace of ritualization where social meaning begins. It is involved with the most primary hierarchy between two generations who are responsible for each other, with certain assigned roles and duties. As Sejong lamented, there may be a wife who kills her husband or a servant who kills his master, but a son who kills his father shatters the foundations of the new society that the Confucian monarchs aspired to build. It was much more than merely a question of preserving hierarchical status within society, as Hŏ Cho perceived it. Confucians often summarized the fundamental ethical values as a pair—filial piety and fraternal deference (xiaoti 孝悌, Kr. hyoje), both arising within the natural setting of the family. Fraternal deference provided the order and

to represent vernacular Korean morphemes mainly for grammatical elements, idu rendered understandably Koreanized sentences, so that lower-level officials with insufficient literacy in literary Chinese could read and write official documents. These sinographic inscriptional elements are keys to signal or evoke designated Korean morphemes, rather than phonetically accurate transcriptions of them. The selection of Chinese characters could have been made based on the phonetic or semantic values associated with those characters in the first place, but they had not changed or evolved over a long period of time despite the obvious linguistic changes that can happen in any language. For more details, see Ho-Min Sohn, The Korean Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 124–29; and Iksop Lee and S. Robert Ramsey, The Korean Language (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000), 53–55. 17 It was published with the title of Tae Myŏng-nyul (The Great Ming code) and referred to as such throughout the Chosŏn dynasty until the Japanese colonial government (Chosŏn ch’ongdokpu 朝鮮總督府 [Government General of Korea] 1910–45) republished it with the title Tae Myŏng-nyul chikhae. 18 “Hyŏngjŏn yong yul” 刑典用律 [Penal Code: Use of Law], Kyŏngguk taejŏn [Great compendium of administration] 5:1a. 62 chapter two respect between seniors and juniors, a ranking based on age. But filial piety was different from the other binary pairs of the Five Human Rela- tions. It was primary, unalterable and inescapable, born of instinctive love. At the same time, a father and his son formed an institution, the latter being the self-reproduction of the former, whence the notions of legacy, temporality, and historicity start to flow. Hence the bond between father and son becomes the most fundamental unit of civilization. This bond is rooted in the strongest binding principles, one owing the origin of his life and existence to the other. A patricide denies this principle and attempts to erase that bond. The king took this case of patricide as a sign indicating a lack of his own moral integrity and personal responsibility, as any good Confucian ruler should. Sejong had to do something about this, but it needed to be more than just legal maneuvering. Therefore, Sejong brought the matter to the Hall of Worthies (Chiph yŏnjŏn 集賢殿): On the day of sinsa, at the Lectorium of Classics. His Highness, once hearing about the incident in which Kim Hwa, a resident of Chinju, committed a patricide, became alarmed and turned pale. Then this resulted in a self-reproach, and he consequently summoned his assembly of ministers to discuss the ways by which to strengthen filial and fraternal piety and to enrich social customs. Pyŏn Kye-ryang, First Minister-without-Portfolio, said, “Please disseminate such books as the Records of Filial Action [Hyohaeng-nok 孝行錄] and have the ordinary people living in alleys and lanes recite and memorize it in their everyday lives, so that they enter swiftly into the realm of filial and fraternal piety, ritual, and righteousness.” When it reached this point, His Highness said to the Councilor on Duty, Sŏl Sun, “The customs of today are so shallow and corrupt that it has even reached the point where there are sons who do not behave as sons. I want to publish and circulate the Records of Filial Action to enlighten the ignorant masses. Although this is not the most pressing task in rescuing [the people] from corrupt practices, it is in reality something that should precede transformation through moral example [kyohwa 教化]. Be sure to follow the previous Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety [Ershisi xiao 二十四孝] and add some twenty more examples of filial piety [to it]. Also collect examples of extraordinary filial conduct from the previous dynasties and the Three Kingdoms [of Korea], and compile them into one book. The Hall of Worthies should supervise this.” [Sŏl] Sun replied, “Filial piety is the source of all conduct. How excellent to compile this book now, so that every man and woman shall know of it!”19

19 辛巳，御經筵。上嘗聞晋州人金禾弑父之事，矍然失色，乃至自責，遂召群臣，議所以敦孝悌、厚風俗之方。判府事卞季良曰:“請廣布《孝行錄》等書，使閭巷小民尋常讀誦，使之駸駸然入於孝悌禮義之場。”至是，上謂直提學偰循曰:“今俗薄惡，至有子不子者，思欲刊行《孝行錄》，以曉愚民。此雖 the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 63

The Lectorium of Classics (kyŏngyŏn 經筵) was where the king listened to his eminent scholars’ lectures on Confucian classics and where he held discussions with them. It was installed by King Yejong (r. 1105–22) of the Koryŏ, modeled after the eponymous institution ( jingyan) of the Song dynasty in China, but had maintained no more than its titular meaning in the Koryŏ.20 Unlike under Koryŏ, the Lectorium in Chosŏn was an active venue for lectures and policy discussions between the king and scholar- officials, especially during King Sejong’s reign. Being an avid reader and a scholar himself, Sejong was an ardent enthusiast of the Lectorium. He was in the middle of a series of lectures at the Lectorium on the Four Books and Five Classics that had begun eight years prior, at the time of his enthronement, when Kim Hwa’s case was brought before him. He had expanded and reformed the Hall of Worthies, an advanced academy of scholars specifically in charge of the royal lectures. The lectures often discussed current political issues that were relevant to the lessons of the classics. That Sejong brought Kim Hwa’s incident to the Lectorium for discussion reveals the king’s serious approach to the matter. For Sejong, it provided the momentum to reinforce the foundations of the social order that was the basis of restructuring the new dynasty. As Martina Deuchler points out, during the early years of the Chosŏn there was a certain tension “between the concept of social order, which by virtue of its ideal constancy did not need legislation, and the laws, which had to be adaptable to actual social situations,” and Sejong determined that the issue at hand belonged to the former case.21 Now that political circumstances had become stable and a new written legal foundation was in the works, it was a particularly opportune moment to work on the minds of his citizens. Although the Confucian values and principles may have been shared within the circle of the literati, the actual changing of social customs and cultural habits was a different set of tasks. The court could never handle all the issues that would arise in reality by addressing them individually every time they came to its attention. It required both an inductive approach and a deductive one. A deductive approach would mean to work on the minds of the people. Sejong saw the need for a measure to deal with the

非救弊之急務，然實是敎化所先，宜因舊撰《二十四孝》，又增二十餘孝。前朝及三國時孝行特異者，亦皆裒集，撰成一書，集賢殿其主之。”循對曰:“孝乃百行之原，今撰此書，使人人皆知之，甚善。”Sejong sillok 42:1a. (Sejong 10/10/3.) 20 Kwŏn Chŏng-ung, “Koryŏ sidae ŭi kyŏngyŏn” [The Lectorium of Classics during the Koryŏ period], Kyŏngbuk sahak 6 (1995): 1–32. 21 Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea, 121. 64 chapter two problem at its source—in other words, a way to “transform by teaching” (kyohwa) the people, so that they would not only understand the new social order and practice but autonomously desire to live by self-evident moral principles. As if reading the king’s intention, the idea produced by the Lectorium was to instill Confucian values in the general masses by means of a book.

Compiling the Text “Sons who do not behave as sons” (zi bu zi 子不子, literally, “sons who do not son”) is taken from the famous passage in the Analects of Confucius: The Duke Jing of Qi asked Confucius about government. Confucius replied, “The ruler is a ruler; the subject is a subject; the father is a father; and the son is a son.” The duke said, “Good! If indeed the ruler be not a ruler, the subject not a subject, the father not a father, the son not a son, even if I had grains [revenue], would I get to enjoy them?22 The rule of an ideal government should have everybody do what he or she is supposed to do, and the act of governing is no more than ensuring this state of being, which describes Confucius’s well-known political theory of the “Rectification of Names” (zhengming 正名). If the moral groundwork is stable and healthy among all people in society, governing the state then consists of maintaining this groundwork without the need to turn to forcible institutions or law. This idea logically entails the existence of a set of self-evident and predefined modes of conduct and duties embedded within human relations. Since they are ontologically installed in all human conditions, they should be obvious to and attainable by anyone, regardless of whether they are Chinese or non-Chinese, where they live, or when they live. It remains only to enlighten and encourage people in the Way. Sejong needed his people to see these plain truths of human relations in order to inspire them toward a civilized world order. Sejong ordered Sŏl Sun 偰循 (d. 1435), Counselor on Duty (chikchehak 直提學) in the Hall of Worthies, to compile a book that collected stories of exemplary actions reported in the histories of China and Korea. Sŏl Sun was of Uighur descent: his grandfather, Sŏl Son 偰遜 (1319–60), had previously served in the Yuan government, later fleeing from the Red Turbans

22 齊景公問政於孔子。孔子對曰：“君君，臣臣，父父，子子。公曰：“善哉！信如君不君，臣不臣，父不父，子不子，雖有粟，吾得而食諸?”Analects 12.11. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 65 to Korea during the Koryŏ with his sons in 1358.23 Sejong’s favor and trust in Sŏl Sun’s knowledge and scholarship were indeed extraordinary. He became Subeditor (kyori 校理) in the Hall of Worthies in 1410, where he went on to serve as Expositor-in-Waiting (sigangwon 侍講員) and then as Counselor on Duty, and was appointed Right Second Minister of Personnel (Ijo u-ch’amŭi 吏曹右參議) and Assistant Director of the Central Council (Tongji Chungch’uwŏnsa 同知中樞院事). During his tenure, he oversaw the production of two important publication projects: the compilations of the Samgang haengsil-to and the Explanation of the “Comprehensive Mir- ror [to Aid in Government]” (T’onggam hunŭi 通鑑訓義, 1435). Sŏl Sun was particularly known for his expertise in history,24 for which reason Sejong chose him to lead the Samgang haengsil-to project. Sŏl Sun’s scholarly qualifications were suitable for the task, as evidenced particularly by his family background. His grandfather Sŏl Son held a jinshi 進士 (Advanced Scholar) degree in the Yuan; his uncle, Sŏl Chang-su 偰長壽 (1341–99), passed the civil service examinations with the eponymous degree chinsa (Ch. jinshi) under Koryŏ and wrote A Direct Explication of the “Elementary Learning” (Chikhae Sohak 直解小學), which became one of the most celebrated textbooks for Chosŏn officials and interpreters. And his father, Sŏl Kyŏng-su 偰慶壽 (who passed the civil service exam in 1376), had also served in the Koryŏ court as a Counselor on Duty. According to the dialogue at the Lectorium quoted above, the original plan of publication was to compile a revised edition of Kwŏn Po’s Records of Filial Action, completed at the end of the Koryŏ era. The Records of Fil- ial Action was built upon the Chinese Illustrated Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety (Ershisi xiao tu 二十四孝圖) as its base text. Kwŏn Chun 權準 (1280–1352) had an artisan render the twenty-four examples into illustrations, to which he attached eulogies composed by his brother-in-law, Yi Che-hyŏn, and presented the results to his father Kwŏn Po. Kwŏn Po then drafted an additional thirty-eight examples of filial piety (all from Chinese history) and asked Yi Che-hyŏn again to write eulogies for the additional cases. Kwŏn Po, Kwŏn Chun, and Yi Che-hyŏn were leading figures among

23 “Biographies” 25, Koryŏ sa 112. Since he had already known Sŏl Son during his residence in Dadu, King Kongmin 恭愍王 (1352–1374) welcomed the Sŏl family with generous support. Sŏl Son was naturalized and was immediately granted land and an aristocratic title—“Count of Gaochang” (Koch’ang baek 高昌伯), Gaochang being the Chinese name for the Uighur region, from which his family came. His son, Sŏl Chang-su, also served in important posts in the Koryŏ and Chosŏn governments, and was dispatched to the Ming court eight times. Chŏngjong sillok 定宗實錄 2:14b–15a (Chŏngjong 1/10/19). 24 Sejong sillok 65:12b (Sejong 16/7/27; 70:3b, Sejong 17/10/21). 66 chapter two the late Koryŏ New Literati whose Neo-Confucian idealism pioneered the foundation of the Chosŏn, as introduced in Chapter 1. The Hyohaeng-nok succeeded the Chinese tradition of ethical primers educating the populace in filial piety. The authorship and transmission of the original Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety are not clearly established, except for the fact that the most commonly known edition of the text is A Collection of Poems for the “Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety” with Complete Images (Quanxiang Ershisi xiao shixuan 全相二十四孝詩選) by Guo Jujing 郭居敬 (1260– 1368) of the Yuan dynasty, although earlier forms of the text have been found among the Dunhuang manuscripts.25 For years after its conception, the Records of Filial Action continued to be one of the most important texts for education in filial piety in Koryŏ and early Chosŏn.26 It was also revised with commentaries by the Chosŏn court in 1405. Because the above Lectorium discussion specifically designated the Records of Filial Action and said nothing about compiling a new book, some scholars doubt that it initiated the conception of the Samgang haengsil-to.27 There is no evidence, however, that the Records of Filial Action was revised or even printed as Sejong directed. There exists only a copy of the Records of Filial Action (published by the prefectural government of Kyŏngju) with Ch’oe Chong-hae’s 崔宗海 postface dated 1433 (i.e., five years after the Lectorium discussion).28 But this cannot be an outcome of Sejong’s order at the Lectorium. There are two reasons. First, Sejong’s directions made it clear that the new book was to be based on the original Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety (not the Records of Filial Action, which had thirty-eight additional examples) and should add some twenty more stories to be collected from Korean history. The 1433 edition of the Records of Filial Action, however, does not reflect any of these revisions and remains identical with the 1405 edition. Second, Sŏl Sun, who oversaw the revisions of the Records of Filial Action at the Lectorium, is

25 See “Accounts of Filial Sons” (Xiaozi zhuan 孝子傳), in Pan Zhong-gui, ed., Dunhuang bianwen ji xinshu [A newly edited collection of Dunhuang transformation texts], Vol. 8 (Tai- pei: Zhongguo wenhua daxue zhongwen yanjiusuo, 1984). 26 According to Kim Mun-gyŏng, this Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety contained in the Records of Filial Action in fact predates Guo Jujing’s text and came from one of the textual transmissions in northeast China during the Song and Jin periods. Kim Mun-gyŏng, “Koryŏ-bon Hyohaeng-nok kwa Isip-sa hyo” [The Koryŏ edition Records of Filial Action and the Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety], Chungguk hakpo 34 (1994): 159–69. 27 See, for example, Yi Hŭi-dŏk, Koryŏ yugyo chŏngch’i sasang ŭi yŏn’gu [A study on the political philosophy of Koryŏ Confucianism], (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1984), 318. 28 Collection at the National Library of Korea (Call Number: 한貴古朝 57–가782; Record Number: KOL000003373). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 67 not mentioned anywhere in this 1433 Records of Filial Action. The preface to the Samgang haengsil-to, in contrast, repeats the same course of events to explain its conception and confirms that it was Sŏl Sun who was responsible for its collation. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that Sejong’s order was never followed up with a revised Records of Filial Action but resulted instead in the Samgang haengsil-to.29 Somewhere during the process of its collation, Sejong’s original project eventually progressed into the production of an entirely new book, accommodating changes in two directions: (1) introducing examples, although fewer than “some twenty,” from Korean history in addition to Chinese stories; and (2) collecting not only stories of filial piety, but also laudable examples of the other two canonical virtues: loyalty and female devotion. The preface to the Samgang haengsil-to states that in 1431 (three years before publication) Sejong ordered that the book should include stories exemplifying all three virtues, indicating that it was the king’s decision. The process by which Sejong came to this decision, however, is not clear.

The Ming Connection One aspect of the process that has been overlooked so far is the presence of early Ming culture behind the fruition of the Samgang haengsil-to. The distribution of the Samgang haengsil-to as a vital project of the new dynasty was in many ways connected to Ming court publications, especially books for didactic exhortation, collectively called shanshu 善書 or quanshanshu 勸善書 (books to promote good deeds). The term quanshanshu was perhaps coined from the title Empress Renxiao’s Book for Promot- ing Good Deeds (Renxiao huanghou quanshanshu 仁孝皇后勸善書, often known as the Quanshanshu for short), written by Empress Renxiao the Benevolent and Filial (1362–1407), wife of Emperor Yongle 永樂 (Chengzu 成祖, r. 1402–24), and distributed in 1407 to officials of the Ming court. The production and dissemination of shanshu were especially extensive during the Ming and Qing periods in China, and their reach expanded far and wide among the general public as well. Early examples of shanshu are found already in Song times—such as the Treatise of the Exalted One

29 Yi T’ae-ho and Song Il-gi, “Ch’op’yŏnbon Samgang haengsil Hyoja-do ŭi p’yŏnch’an kwajŏng mit p’anhwa yangsik e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study of the printing process and the forms of printed illustration of the first-edition Samgang haengsil-to], Sŏjihak yŏn’gu 25 (2003): 421–22. 68 chapter two on Response and Retribution (Taishang ganying pian 太上感應篇), which directly affected the Instructions for the Inner Quarters (Neixun 內訓),30 another text by Empress Renxiao—and they were certainly influenced in many ways by Daoist and Buddhist backgrounds. As Mayumi Yoshida has summarized, the central themes consistent throughout the Empress Renxiao’s Book were “merit accumulation” ( jishan 積善), which resonates with the characteristic Buddhist belief in which the accumulation of one’s good deeds results in a better karma for the next life, and “transferring good deeds” (qianshan 遷善), the idea that one’s good deeds would result in the happiness and prosperity of the household. These themes are also relevant to Confucian teachings, in the sense that the good deeds praised in these texts were acts of filial piety, loyalty, female virtue, and the like. Sakai Tadao has described this trend as a “mixture of the Three Teachings” (sanjiao he yi 三教合一)—the three teachings being Confucianism, Dao- ism, and Buddhism—and this trend was popular toward the latter end of the Ming.31 We will return to this issue later. Many of the early Ming shanshu books reached the Chosŏn court: some of them were sent as gifts from the Ming Emperor himself, while others were brought back by Chosŏn envoys who were dispatched to the Ming. For example, copies of Biographies of Exemplary Women of the Past and Present (Gujin lienü zhuan 古今列女傳) were sent to King T’aejong by Emperor Yongle in 1404.32 In the third month of 1408, envoys returned from Nanjing with 50 copies of the Biography of the Exalted Empress (高皇后傳 Gao huanghou zhuan) bestowed by the emperor.33 A month later, 150 copies each of Empress Renxiao’s Book for Promoting Good Deeds and the Biography of Empress Xiaoci [the Filial and Compassionate] (Xiaoci huanghou zhuan 孝慈皇后傳) were sent to the Chosŏn crown prince.34

30 Yoshida, “Politics of Virtue: Political and Personal Facets of the Neixun,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1998, 7. 31 Sakai Tadao, Chūgoku zensho no kenkyū [A study on the books of morality in China], (Tokyo: Kyūko shōin, 1966), 226–317. 32 Yi Kŭng-ik 李肯翊 (1736–1806), “Sadae chŏn’go” 事大典故 [Accounts of serving the great], in Yŏllyŏ-sil kisul pyŏlchip 燃藜室記述別集, Vol. 5, collated by Chosŏn Kwangmun- hoe (Seoul: Chosŏn Kwangmunhoe, 1911), 667. 33 T’aejong sillok 15:12a (T’aejong 8/3/21). 34 T’aejong sillok 15:14a (T’aejong 8/4/2). Also known as Exalted Empress (Gao huanghou), Empress Xiaoci (1332–82) refers to Exalted Empress Ma the Filial and Merciful 孝慈高皇后馬氏, the wife of Emperor Hongwu. The Biography of the Exalted Empress was the first volume of the Biographies of Devoted Women of the Past and Present, and was published separately in 1407 and also printed and circulated as an attachment to Empress Renxiao’s Instructions for the Inner Quarters (Renxiao huanghuou neixun 仁孝皇后內訓) in the same year. See Sakai Tadao, Chūgoku zensho no kenkyū, 18. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 69

The emperor granted sent another 300 copies of Empress Renxiao’s Book for Promoting Good Deeds the following year (1409).35 Shanshu books continued to arrive during King Sejong’s reign, starting with 600 copies of the Undisclosed Arrangements for Doing Good Deeds (Weishan yinzhi 為善陰騭)—a collection of tales in which good deeds were eventually rewarded—in 1419.36 Although there is no official record of them being sent, additional works of shanshu apparently made their way to Chosŏn. The Grand Pronouncements by the Imperial Order (Yuzhi dagao 御製大誥), for example, was printed by the Chosŏn court in 1423,37 and a copy of the Real Stories of Filial Piety (Xiaoshun shishi 孝順事實) was used as calligraphic model for casting metal type in the Office of Typecasting (Chujaso 鑄字所) in 1434,38 in addition to the fact that Sejong instructed Sŏl Sun to specifically consult this text when compiling the Samgang haengsil-to. Further records from later times also testify that a variety of these early Ming shanshu were introduced to Chosŏn.39 If the Ming shanshu culture provided a model for the publication of the Samgang haengsil-to and the socio-political policy of early Chosŏn, then how did the religious syncretism (i.e., “mixture of the Three teachings”) characterized by Sakai Tadao coexist with the strong Confucian stance of Chosŏn? Sakai’s description of religious syncretism in these shanshu is best understood when they are viewed within the overall trend of the entire Ming dynasty. The extensive series of shanshu publications under the auspices of the early Ming court, however, should be viewed rather differently. According to Sakai’s own survey of a total of 56 titles of didactic works printed throughout the Ming dynasty, 44 were published during the reigns of Emperors Hongwu and Yongle alone.40 These books typically admonish people about their behavior by referring to ritual proprieties,

35 T’aejong sillok 17:11b (T’aejong 9/2/19). 36 Sejong sillok 4:13a (Sejong 1/6/6). This was published under Emperor Yongle’s auspices in 1409, along with the Methods of Mind to Sage Learnings (Shengxue xinfa 聖學心法), supposedly authored by the emperor himself. 37 Sejong sillok 22:1a (Sejong 5/10/3). 38 Sejong sillok 65:3b (Sejong 16/7/2). In addition to the Real Stories of Filial Piety, a copy of the Undisclosed Arrangements for Doing Good Deeds was also used as a typeface model. 39 For example, the Sejo sillok 21:22b (Sejo 6/8/29) recorded that in 1460 King Sejo 世祖 ordered the dismissal of four workers from the Office of Publication and the reduction in salary of two additional officials for their errors in collating the Mirror of Rulers from Past Generations (Lidai junjian 歷代君鑒). The Mirror of Rulers from Past Generations was one of the Ming shanshu titles, and this record shows that Chosŏn society was not only introduced to these Ming books but also recollated and reproduced some of them. 40 Sakai Tadao, Chūgoku zensho no kenkyū, 8–27. 70 chapter two ethical norms, and virtuous examples, often using the “praise-and-blame” method to promote commendable conduct while admonishing unde- sirable conduct. During the Hongwu reign alone, 34 books of this kind were printed, including such titles as Records of Filial Piety and Compas- sion (Xiaoci lu 孝慈錄), Records of Admonishments for Ministers (Chenjie lu 臣戒錄), Grand Pronouncements by the Imperial Order, Women’s Pre- cepts (Nüjie 女誡), Records of Treasonous Subjects (Nichen lu 逆臣錄), and Records of Praising the Good and Condemning the Bad (Zhangshan dane lu 彰善癉惡錄). Sakai categorizes these as chokusen kankaishō 勅選勸戒書 (imperially selected books of moral exhortation), and treats them as different from later works collated locally or privately by literati writers. These early imperially sponsored shanshu books came out as part of the new empire’s attempt to justify and stabilize its rule. Most of them designated their target readers as direct members of the imperial house (princes, princesses, empresses, and consorts), imperial kin holding feudal benefices and those on distaff sides, government officials, and the general public. Target readers were often specified in the titles, such as Records of Imperial Sons-in-Law of Past Generations (Lidai fuma lu 歷代駙馬錄) or Records of Imperial Princesses of Past Generations (Lidai gongzhu lu 歷代公主錄). Rather than substantiate a philosophical or religious persuasion as the reason to perform good deeds (e.g., by explaining cosmic rewards coming in the next life for pious or loyal actions), these works establish specific models and paradigms of moral conduct.41 The most immediately noticeable feature of these works is the use of individual cases to illustrate beneficial or harmful models—the style adopted in the Samgang haengsil-to. Of the 44 titles published from the Hongwu to Yongle reigns, 20 made use of this case-oriented strategy of teaching, almost as if they served as “Do’s and don’ts.” Some of them are clearly motivated politically, for the purpose of making examples or even giving warnings. The Records of Admonishments for Ministers, for instance, came out after the execution of Hu Weiyong 胡惟庸, Left Grand Councilor of the Secretariat (Zhong- shu sheng zuo chengxiang 中書省左丞相), who was accused of treason against Emperor Hongwu in 1380. It was followed by three more titles of like kind: The Mirror for Ministers (Xiangjian 相鑒), A Record to Exhibit the Band of Traitors (Zhaoshi jiandang lu 昭示奸黨錄), and A Record of Clear Lessons (Qingjiao lu 清教錄).

41 As a matter of fact, messages with visibly Daoist or Buddhist overtones are indistinct in these works, except for those by Empress Renxiao. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 71

Yoshida describes how Empress Renxiao combined what Joanna Hand- lin has called the “ideal-centered” method and “fact-centered” method for the perfection of morality in texts of hers like Quanshanshu and Neixun.42 In her discussion of the writings of the late Ming scholar-official Lü Kun 呂坤 (1536–1618), Handlin distinguishes these two types of records of self- cultivation: the “ideal-centered” method took lessons from the Confucian classics as its point of departure and furthered moral perfection through the mastery of scholarly learning; the “fact-centered” method started from personal experiences or concrete events and advanced moral perfection through the scrutiny and correction of faults.43 As Handlin remarks, these two methods were not mutually exclusive. Before Lü Kun’s generation they were appropriated for two hierarchical groups of practitioners— the “ideal-centered” for adults or serious scholar-officials, and the “fact- centered” for youth or for less-educated commoners. During the Ming, however, the fact-centered method seeped into the serious and mature writings of Confucian scholars.44 Among the precursors that inspired this fact-centered method was the Ledger of Merits and Demerits (Gongguo ge 功過格), a Daoist practice that listed various beneficial and harmful deeds along with appropriate points for calculating the nature of one’s deeds. This tradition developed into a form of shanshu after the Song and became popular not only in Daoist and Buddhist writings but also in the Confucian and secular literature of moral practices. The earliest extant example is the 1171 Ledger of Merits and Demerits of the Immor- tal Lord Great Subtlety (Taiwei xianjun gongguo ge 太微仙君功過格), which, along with the Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retri- bution, provided the prototype for later shanshu,45 as well as for Empress Renxiao’s Book for Promoting Good Deeds. While its direct inspiration and categorical affiliation with the early Ming shanshu books are undeniable, whether the Ledger of Merits and Demerits and the “fact-centered” moral lessons are only to be attributed to the religious syncretism of the early Ming should be reconsidered. The central focus of the Ledger of Merits and Demerits and similar practices lies in the significance of accumulating and evaluating good and bad actions,

42 Yoshida, “Politics of Virtue,” 12. 43 Joanna F. Handlin, Action in Late Ming Thought: The Reorientation of Lü K’un and Other Scholar-Officials (University of California Press, 1983), 186. 44 Handlin, Action in Late Ming Thought, 194. 45 Liu Kwang-Ching and Richard H. Shek, Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), 149. 72 chapter two as well as in the belief that good deeds will be rewarded quantitatively. Its import for Confucian moral perfection lies in its pedagogical value, that is, in teaching what kind of action was desirable under a given circumstance and learning how to behave appropriately in various situations. Confucian moral perfection cannot, in principle, anticipate restitution because it is a training process of the mind and body in the real world. Moreover, we should also note the long-standing traditions of biographies and historiographies in general for alternative, if not additional, precursors to the shanshu and case-based Confucian moral textbooks. Whether it be called “fact-centered” or “case-based,” the practice of finding concrete examples with which to elucidate moral lessons has existed in Chinese history for a long time, deeply rooted in the faith that history is the record of the manifestation of moral principles. This mentality was transmitted from the Ming to Chosŏn through shanshu books, and eventually materialized in the Samgang haengsil-to. One indication that reveals the resolutely Confucian attitude of the Chosŏn court is what happened to books of a Daoist or Buddhist nature received from the Chinese emperor as gifts. As mentioned above, 600 copies of the Undisclosed Arrangements for Doing Good Deeds were sent to the Chosŏn court in 1419. Later the same year, when envoys from Ming visited the Chosŏn court to deliver the emperor’s permission for King T’aejong to abdicate the throne to his third son, Prince Ch’ungnyŏng 忠寧大君 (later King Sejong), they brought with them another 1,000 copies of the same book.46 Upon the visit of the Ming officials, T’aejong dispatched Prince Kyŏngnyŏng 敬寧君, Yi Pi 李裶, to the emperor as Envoy of Appreciation (saŭnsa 謝恩使). Emperor Yongle then sent another twenty-two cases of the same book with Prince Kyŏngnyŏng upon his return to Korea.47 Impe- rial bestowals of books from Ming to Chosŏn were usually on a scale of 100 to 150 copies each time—even fewer for Confucian books or classics— but copies of Undisclosed Arrangements for Doing Good Deeds were sent by the thousands. Though the term “undisclosed arrangement” ( yinzhi

46 Sejong sillok 5:7 (Sejong 1/8/17); Sejong sillok 6:17b (Sejong 1/12/18). The sillok records give the title only as A Book on Undisclosed Arrangements (Yinzhi shu 陰騭書), but this must refer to the Undisclosed Arrangements for Doing Good Deeds, as is confirmed by the Chinese record about the same diplomatic exchange. See Chen Xuelin [Hok-Lam Chan], “Yongle chao huanhuo juyu—Huang Yan chushi Chaoxian shiji zhuiji” [A case of the eunuch peril in the Yongle era—collating the records of Huang Yan in his envoy service to Chosŏn], in Mingdai renwu yu chuanshuo [People and stories of the Ming dynasty], edited by Chen Xue- lin (Hong Kong: Xianggang Zhongwen daxue, 1997), 162–63 and 187. 47 Sejong sillok 6:17b (Sejong 1/12/18). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 73

陰騭) in the title alludes to a line from the Book of Documents (Shang- shu 尚書)—“Heaven secretly arranges for the lower people” (wei tian yinzhi xiamin 惟天陰騭下民)—the book was viewed as more Daoist in nature than Confucian, for its message consisted of a primary reliance on the principle of utilitarian ethics and a mystical calculation of ethical rewards involved with the divine. The only other book that was sent on a comparable scale was Famous Songs of the Names of the World-Honored Tathagata, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats (Zhu Fo shizun Rulai Pusa zunzhe mingcheng gequ 諸佛世尊如來菩薩尊者名稱歌曲, 1403; referred to as the Mingcheng gequ for short), a monograph containing lyrics of popular Buddhist songs.48 The large numbers of copies of these imperial gift books, however, were not commensurate with their importance or value to their Chosŏn recipients. If anything, they were in fact rather troublesome to deal with. The fact that the Ming emperor favored Buddhism and was receptive to Daoism placed Chosŏn in a dilemma: on the one hand, the Chosŏn court aspired to become a strong Confucian state and to put an end to the deep-seated Buddhist practices of the past; on the other hand, it could not ignore the Chinese emperor’s religious partiality and good will, for doing so could put its diplomatic relationship with the Ming at risk. At the banquet welcoming Prince Kyŏngnyŏng’s return from the Ming capital, Chŏng Yŏk 鄭易 (d. 1425) advised Sejong to build a temporary pavilion to pre- serve the Famous Songs of the Names and other Buddhist books bestowed by the emperor, simply to exhibit Chosŏn’s appreciation for the emperor. To this King T’aejong, then retired, replied that it did not correspond with righteousness to pretend respect and appreciation. Sejong agreed that pretending to be respectful is as good as being deceptive.49 These books were later distributed to Buddhist temples in various regions. Two days after the banquet, the two kings had another meeting, this time to discuss the problem of a number of Buddhist monks defecting to the Ming and even slandering the Chosŏn court. T’aejong instructed:

48 According to the sillok records, 100 copies of the Famous Songs of the Names (Ming cheng gequ) arrived for the first time in 1417 (T’aejong sillok 34:39a–40a [T’aejong 17/12/20]), followed by another 1,000 copies in 1418 (Sejong sillok 1:16a [Sejong 0/9/4]). In addition, Prince Kyŏngnyŏng brought back another thirty cases of Mingcheng gequ, along with the twenty-two cases of the Undisclosed Arrangements (Weishan yinzhi) already mentioned, upon his return from the Ming court in 1419. 49 Sejong sillok 6:11a (Sejong 1/12/8). 74 chapter two

Recently, the emperor’s strong faith in Buddha is graver than that of the Liang dynasty [907–23]. The [sound of] reciting the Famous Songs of the Names [Mingcheng gequ] is ubiquitous under heaven; illusory flowers [khapuṣpam] and images of Buddha are spread in all paintings; and the customs of the time revere it to follow that inclination. But in our country, we have already abolished temple fields and personnel, and a tenth alone remain. In addition, now we have completely removed slaves from the temples. Although it was something they brought upon themselves, how could there not be any resentment? Now that these people were already without hope, upon hearing that the emperor venerates the Buddha, there must be those who would flee into the suzerain state [i.e., the Ming] and fabricate words to slander [the Chosŏn]. . . . Ancient people, to control debacles temporarily, adopted weigh- ing the situation and methods of expedience. Now for the crowd of monks we have to initiate their sense of self-consolation and contentment. With the Famous Songs of the Names and the Undisclosed Arrangements for Doing Good Deeds [Weishan yinzhi] that the emperor has bestowed, quickly order Buddhist monks, old people, and the like to gather together in the northwest districts and Hwanghae Province, where the envoys from the Ming travel, and have them constantly read and recite [those books]. Also, compose songs and poems praising Buddha and episodes in which the emperor’s faith achieves rewards and heaven’s response [to the emperor’s virtue] appears repeatedly through auspicious phenomena. Have courtesans learn and practice them. In case envoys from the suzerain state visit, [they will see that] there are those who recite scriptures on the wayside of their route, and those who intone the [imperial] virtue at the reception banquets for them. If the emperor hears about this, he will surely be glad that our court is able to understand his sagacious mind, and, even if there are people who flee [to the Ming] and slander [us], he will not accept their words.50 This may sound deceitful—one might also call it a diplomatic strategy— but the two kings’ agonized plotting of such a less-than-dignified strategy bespeaks how important it was for them to adhere to Confucian principles. At the same time, it is quite clear that the influence of the Ming shanshu on the Samgang haengsil-to was not direct and unmediated but filtered through and reconditioned to the Chosŏn agenda. Having reached

50 今者皇帝深信浮屠，勝於蕭梁，《名稱歌曲》之誦，遍於天下，空花佛象之瑞，播於圖畫，一時俗尙，靡然趨之，而我國則前旣革去寺社田民，僅存十一，今又盡去寺社奴婢，雖其自取，豈無怨咨乎? 此輩旣已缺望，又聞皇帝崇佛，必有逃入上國，飾辭讒訴之人，況皇帝之崇信如彼，而我國之革除如此，僧徒之欲逃此而入彼也無疑矣。古之人臨時制變，有從權變通之理，今宜爲僧徒，開其自慰喜悅之心。皇帝所賜《名稱歌曲》、《爲善陰騭》之類，速令西北面黃海道等使臣來往之地，聚會僧徒及耆老人等，常加讀誦，又製歌詩，稱讃佛氏及皇帝崇信獲報瑞應屢現之狀，令上妓肄習，如有上國使臣，則沿道經歷有誦經者，燕饗歌舞有誦德者，皇帝聞之，必喜我國能體聖心，雖有逃入讒訴之人，不得售其說矣。 Sejong sillok 6:12a (Sejong 1/12/10). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 75 a consensus that Buddhism was responsible for the demise of Koryŏ, the Chosŏn court and its elites clearly had to maintain a prophylactic stance against it. As already mentioned, the new book embodying Sejong’s Confucian agenda eventually encompassed loyalty and female devotion in addition to filial piety. The task of compiling such a book must have been preceded by efforts to find agreeable criteria for selecting exemplar cases. In the eleventh month of 1430, Sejong had an extensive discussion with Sŏl Sun and An Sung-sŏn about Chŏng Mong-ju, Kil Chae, Yi Saek, Ch’oe Yŏng 崔營 (1316–88), and Yi Sung-in.51 These figures were all well-known officials who had refused to cooperate with the founding of the Chosŏn and remained loyal to the Koryŏ. In the discussion, Sejong learned that the Office of Annal Compilation (Ch’unch’u-gwan 春秋館) had selected only one of these men from Koryŏ, Kil Chae, to include in the list of loyal subjects.52 Though the title Samgang haengsil-to was not mentioned, it is evident from the context that they were discussing the new book. The king seems to have wished to add more loyal subjects, for he later ordered Sŏl Sun to include both Kil Chae and Chŏng Mong-ju in the list.53 Approximately a year later, Sejong and Sŏl Sun had another conversation about the criteria for selecting loyal subjects, and this time they specifically mentioned the title “Ch’ungsin-do” 忠臣圖 (Illustrations of loyal subjects), the title used later for the section on loyal subjects in the Samgang haengsil-to.54 Sejong indicated that he would want to select only those loyal subjects who had maintained their allegiance to their kings in the midst of affliction. Sŏl Sun, however, dissented in response to the king’s instructions because he believed that subjects who had remonstrated with the throne should also be included. The king had to agree with him. As for female virtue and education in it, early Ming emperors, especially Hongwu and Yongle, seem to have focused primarily on ladies of

51 Sejong sillok 50:21a–13a (Sejong 12/11/23). 52 Neither Sŏl Sun nor An Sung-sŏn showed much enthusiasm about the four above- mentioned Koryŏ subjects’ talent or loyalty. The difficulty of choosing iconic figures of loyalty from among those who had once been their political foes is understandable. From the tone of the discussion, the ministers appear critical and somewhat dismissive toward the Koryŏ officials’ qualifications as loyal subjects. For example, Sŏl Sun noted that Kil Chae was not widely knowledgeable in the classics but knew only the Book of Poetry and the Book of Documents, and that Yi Sung-in was not loyal, although he had some skill in literature. 53 Sejong sillok 54:24b (Sejong 13/11/11). 54 Sejong sillok 54:17a (Sejong 13/11/4). Seven days later, another account was recorded in which Sejong ordered Sŏl Sun to include two Koryŏ loyal subjects, Chŏng Mong-ju and Kil Chae, in the “Ch’ungsin-do.” 76 chapter two the court and the imperial household. This is evident from the books published under their auspices. The Women’s Precepts that Emperor Hongwu commissioned the Hanlin 翰林 academicians to publish in 1368 was tailored to the descendants of the imperial house, as was the Records of Imperial Princesses of Past Generations for imperial princesses. Hongwu himself stated in the edict: “Compile and describe women’s precepts and the affairs of wise wives of yore that can be followed, so that the descendants of later generations can understand what to abide by.”55 In contrast, the “Devoted Women” section of the Samgang haengsil-to addressed a wider range of female readers than court ladies alone. It contained many more stories of virtuous deeds performed by wives and daughters of scholar-officials, commoners, or peasants than by ladies in the royal and aristocratic houses. Did the Ming or other Chinese traditions of books for female education, then, affect the formation of the “Devoted Women” section of the Samgang haengsil-to? Unlike loyal subjects, there is no court record directly discussing how to collate cases of devoted women. Although circumstantial, two reasons can be suggested for this. First, in the case of the loyalty of officials, cautious deliberation was required because loyalty could in itself be a political issue. Moreover, the founders of Chosŏn had overturned the existing dynasty not too long before, so many of those who had been involved and their descendants were still active in politics. Dealings with devoted women, however, were relatively free from such sensitivity and required less rumination. Second, and more importantly, a generic model for collecting stories of devoted women was already available to the compilers of the Samgang haengsil-to. In 1404, King T’aejong’s envoy to the Ming had returned with 500 copies of the Biographies of Exemplary Women of the Past and Present, and the record indicates that this was the second time the emperor had bestowed this book upon the Chosŏn court, for the previously granted copies had all been distributed.56 Scholars have also con- jectured that the Biographies of Exemplary Women (Lienü zhuan 列女傳) attributed to Liu Xiang 劉向 (77 bce–6 ce)—commonly referred to as Ancient Biographies of Exemplary Women (Gu lienü zhuan 古列女傳) so as to distinguish it from the work by Empress Renxiao—was disseminated

55 纂述女戒及古賢妃之事可為法者，使後世子孫知所持守。History of Ming (Ming shi 明史) 113:3503. 56 T’aejong sillok 8:26b (T’aejong 4/11/1). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 77 in Koryŏ as late as the eleventh century.57 But a direct connection between the Ancient Biographies of Exemplary Women and the Samgang haengsil-to cannot be verified, though categorical influence of the Ancient Biographies of Exemplary Women on women’s education in late Koryŏ and Chosŏn is unequivocal. At any rate, this much is apparent: Empress Renxiao’s Biographies of Exemplary Women of the Past and Present was already present in Chosŏn before Sejong’s reign; it succeeded the tradition of Liu Xiang’s Ancient Biographies; and the contents of the “Devoted Women” section in the Samgang haengsil-to closely repeated that of these Chinese works. But perhaps a more direct model for the Samgang haengsil-to was Empress Renxiao’s work. Unlike Liu Xiang’s Ancient Biographies, which collected stories of exemplary (hence lie, as in lienü, was written lie 列 ‘to list, line up’) conduct by women of various categories,58 the Biographies of Exem- plary Women of the Past and Present narrowed down the notion of “exemplary” to “devoted” in extreme form (with lie 烈 ‘intense, sacrificing’), and focused especially on the kind of devotion motivated by uxorial obligations. This coincides with what we see in the Samgang haengsil-to, which entitled the category of virtuous women yŏllyŏ 烈女 ‘devoted women’, not yŏllyŏ 列女 ‘exemplary women’.

Chain of Distribution The remaining question is how the court planned to propagate the book among the populace. It must have been a particularly convoluted process to distribute and teach with it, for the book targeted both literate and illiterate readers. In his “Directed Intention on Distribution of the Samgang haengsil-to” (Samgang haengsil panp’o kyoji 三綱行實頒布敎旨) of 1434, Sejong stated:

57 U K’wae-je, “Yŏllyŏ-jŏn ŭi chŏllae wa suyong yangsang koch’al” [An examination of modes of transmission and reception of the Biographies of Devoted Women], in Tongbang munhak pigyo yŏn’gu ch’ongsŏ [Tongbang anthology of studies in comparative literature], Vol. 2 (Seoul: Tongbang munhak pigyo yŏn’guhoe, 1992), 428–32. According to U K’wae-je, Ancient Biographies of Exemplary Women contributed to the rise of so-called p’aegwan munhak 稗官文學 (story collectors’ literature) in thirteenth-century Koryŏ and eventually gave rise to ko sosŏl 古小說 (ancient fiction) in the mid-Chosŏn period. 58 The Ancient Biographies of Exemplary Women (Gu lienü zhuan) sets up seven different categories—matronly models (muyi 母儀), the worthy and enlightened (xianming 賢明), the benevolent and wise (renzhi 仁智), the constant and obedient (zhenshun 貞順), the honorable and righteous ( jieyi 節義), the accomplished speakers (biantong 辯通), and wicked favorites (niebi 孽嬖)—under which actions of both famous and notorious female characters are collected. 78 chapter two

However, the general masses do not understand writing; even if the book is distributed, how could they realize its meaning and become inspired unless someone else teaches and shows them? I read in the Rites of Zhou that “The External Secretary is in charge of having written documents to reach all four directions, so that [people] of all four directions would understand the scripts of documents and be able to read them.” Now, we may take this as our model. I issue an order, inside and outside [the capital], to make an effort to exhaust ways to instruct and apprise [the people]. The five districts of Hansŏng-bu inside the capital, and provincial intendants and district magistrates of the outside regions, shall search everywhere for those with learning and knowledge, whom we will reinforce and encourage to take charge in instructing and training people, be they noble or base. When it comes to women, have their kin and relatives teach them earnestly, so that they clearly share the understandings.59 As Sejong himself was well aware, even if he published the book and distributed it widely, the illiterate masses would not be able to learn from it. Thus, inspired by the method used in Zhou China, Sejong decided to implement a type of “mediated reading,” in which a literate person read and interpreted the book to the illiterate. Details about the reading process of the Samgang haengsil-to are inherently related to the formation and collaboration of the written and illustrated texts, as will be discussed later. It will suffice here to introduce briefly the pertinent network of distribution. Broadly speaking, there were two routes through which the court could distribute the book: through the chain of administrative offices, and through the network of government-operated schools. Sejong started by distributing the Samgang haengsil-to to royal family members and officials, as well as to all the provinces.60 But, as Sejong stated in his “Directed Intention on Distribution” quoted above, the book eventually had to reach the general public as well. The chain of administrative offices was a reasonable way to reach families and communities, especially women and commoners who had nothing to do with schools. The administrative network was largely divided into the areas inside and outside of the capital. The capital, Hanyang 漢陽, had five districts under Hansŏng-bu: the East- ern, Western, Southern, Northern, and Central Districts. Outside the capi-

59 第以民庶，不識文字，書雖頒降，人不訓示，則又安能知其義而興起乎。予觀，周禮，外史掌達書名于四方，使四方知書之文字，得能讀之。今可倣此，令中外，務盡誨諭之術，京中，漢城府，五部，外方，監司、守令，旁求有學識者，敦加奬勸，無貴無賤，掌令訓習。至於婦女，亦令親屬，諄諄敎之，使曉然共知。 Sejong sillok 64:19a (Sejong 16/4/27). 60 Sejong sillok 66:22a (Sejong 16/11/24). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 79 tal were provinces (to 道), which were further divided into prefectures (pu 府, or tohobu 都護府), regions (mok 牧), counties (kun 郡), and town- ships (hyŏn 縣).61 The court printed and distributed issues of the book to each office of these administrative units, then in turn distributed them to lineage families and familial communities; the responsibility of governmental offices lay not just in distributing the books but in teaching the lessons in the book to the people in their districts, or finding those who could do so and entrusting them with this responsibility. In fact, the task assigned to each official was to educate people morally, commend exemplary model conduct, and ensure the transformation of mores. Among those who could not be easily reached were women and children. They were neither expected to mingle in any public domain nor to have ample access to the world of letters. To be sure, there were examples of female intellectuals or children starting their education very early in life, but they were more or less limited to families with exceptional privileges. The lives of women and children, as well as of the majority of commoners dwelling away from the cities, were far removed from books and reading, especially when the reading required literacy in literary Chinese. The pastime of reading came into their lives much later, toward the end of the Chosŏn. The advice presented by the Ministry of Rites with respect to distributing the Samgang haengsil-to (the section on devoted women [ yŏllyŏ-do 烈女圖] in particular) describes how they planned to reach these people: We servants considered and discussed: Inside the capital, not only the houses of the royal, the ministers and the meritorious, but also all those whose sta- tuses are humble, live together inside closed gates. We may charge each head of household with teaching and admonishing [with the Samgang haengsil-to]. When it comes to regions outside the capital, people live scattered in remote places and alleyways, or are without relatives, and it would be difficult to instruct them. We should select among the village elders those with fame and respect, and [have the teaching] carried on widely in alleys and towns; charge the head of household or maidservants with passing on [the teachings] so as to lead people to the lessons, and have all understand them thoroughly. If, with this, there should be those who become enlightened and whose moral conduct is extraordinary, we specially add official awards of honor, as well as consideration for rewarding those who taught them.62

61 Yi Ki-baek [Ki-baik Lee], A New History of Korea, 176. 62 臣等參商京中，則非但宗宰閥閱之家，雖門地寒微者，皆閤族聚居，可令家長，各自敎誨，外方則散居僻巷，或無親戚，難以訓誨，宜擇村老有名望者， 80 chapter two

Thus the procedure was rather complicated, and it would still speak only to those whose lives were within the reach of the administration. The other method of distributing the Samgang haengsil-to was through a more direct chain of supply: schools. There were two categories of school run by the government in Chosŏn. The State College, or Sŏnggyun’gwan 成均館,63 and the Learning Halls of the Four Districts (sabu haktang 四部學堂, often called sahak 四學 ‘Four Schools’) were installed in the capital. The latter were preparatory schools for the Sŏnggyun’gwan in which sons of yangban aristocrats and commoners as young as eight received Confu- cian education. Those who completed the standard curriculum or proved otherwise to be excellent could move on to study at the Sŏnggyun’gwan or take the civil service examinations.64 Outside the capital were County Schools (hyanggyo 鄉校). County Schools were installed already in Koryŏ times, perhaps during King Sŏngjong’s reign (981–97), starting with larger districts (the twelve metropolitan regions),65 and had spread to counties (chu 州) by King Injong’s reign (1122–46); but their operation and curriculum were never consistent or clearly defined.66 The founders of Chosŏn placed heavy emphasis on County Schools. In his Edict upon Accession to the Throne, T’aejong specifically mandated the establishment of a National Academy (Kukhak 國學, which later became the Sŏnggyun’gwan) inside the capital and County Schools in the provinces.67 Between the reigns

遍行閭里。令家長或女奴，傳傳開諭，俾皆通曉。因此開悟，節行卓異者，特加旌異，其任敎誨者，幷論賞。Sŏngjong sillok 成宗實錄 128:11b (Sŏngjong 12/4/21). 63 As is well known, the Sŏnggyun’gwan succeeded the long tradition of national academies of Silla and Koryŏ, called T’aehak 太學 and Kukchagam 國子監, which trained advanced students from among the descendants of yangban families and prepared them to take the civil service examinations and to start their careers in the government. In principle, a student had first to pass the levels of licentiate (saengwon 生員) and presented scholar (chinsa) in the civil service examinations to be qualified to enter the Sŏnggyun’gwan, but there were addenda to allow more students to attend. See “Students” (Saengdo 生徒), Great Compendium of Administration (Kyŏngguk taejŏn 經國大典) 3. 64 The sabu haktang were sometimes called the obu haktang (Learning Halls of the Five Districts) to refer to the five Learning Halls, one for each of the five districts within the capital. The one for the Northern District (Pukpu 北部) was never installed, however, despite a few attempts by the court, so there had always been only four. For more about Learning Halls, see Yi Kwang-nin, “Sŏnch’o ŭi sabu haktang” [Learning Halls of the Four Districts in early Chosŏn], Yŏksa hakpo 16 (1961): 27–36. 65 “Monographs” (Chi 志) 28, Koryŏ sa 74.1. 66 For details about County Schools in Koryŏ, see Pak Ch’an-su, “Koryŏ sidae ŭi hyanggyo” [County Schools in Koryŏ], Han’guksa yŏn’gu 42 (1983): 37–73; and Song Ch’un-yŏng, “Koryŏ sidae hyanggyo ŭi pyŏnch’ŏnsa-jŏk yŏn’gu” [A historical study on the evolution of County Schools in the Koryŏ period], Yŏksa kyoyuk 14 (1987): 35–74. 67 T’aejong sillok 1:43b (T’aejong 1/7/28). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 81 of T’aejo and Sejong (1392–1450), fifty-five new County Schools were built, which is the largest-scale promotion of County Schools throughout Chosŏn history.68 As the sole purpose of inserting County Schools was to advance Confucian education outside the capital, and the Sŏnggyun’gwan was apparently an institute for students who were too advanced to study such texts as the Samgang haengsil-to, the fact that County Schools saw a drastic increase during the first half-century encompassing Sejong’s era may seem relevant to the printing of the Samgang haengsil-to. But the curriculum of County Schools did not include the Samgang haengsil-to,69 nor did their libraries, at least during Sejong’s era. Thus Sejong’s publication of the Samgang haengsil-to does not bear a direct relation to the increase in County Schools. It was King Sŏngjong 成宗 (r. 1469–94) who ordered more than once that students of County Schools read the Samgang haengsil-to. For example: [His Majesty] pronounced to the Ministry of Rites: “Have students of County Schools in all towns discuss and study the Samgang haengsil. When provincial intendants give lectures [to the students], have them lecture on it at the same time, so that it encourages the custom.”70 The curriculum of County Schools consisted mainly of the Elementary Learning (Sohak), Zhu Xi’s Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsi lu 近思錄), the Four Books, and the Five Classics,71 all of which were tested at the civil service examinations. The Samgang haengsil-to was never used in tests at the civil service examinations, and thus was different from the other regular texts. Nevertheless, Sŏngjong made clear his intention to have this book taught and studied in County Schools. Why did he do it and what was expected of the students? Another of Sŏngjong’s edicts provides a clue:

68 Yi Ch’un-hŭi, “Chosŏn-jo ŭi hyanggyo mun’go e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study on the book collections in County Schools in the Chosŏn dynasty], Tosŏgwanhak 5 (1978): 4. After 1450, the number of new County Schools changed as follows: twenty six (1451–1600), thirteen (1601–1750), and eight (1751–1900). 69 Yi Tong-gi, “Chosŏn sidae kwanhak kyoyuk chŏngch’aek yŏn’gu” [A study on the education policy of government-operated schools during the Chosŏn era], Tong’a inmunhak 3 (2003): 433–34. 70 傳于禮曹曰:“《三綱行實》，其令諸邑校生講習，監司講書時幷講，以勵風俗。”Sŏngjong sillok 9:32a (Sŏngjong 2/3/28). 71 Yi Ch’un-hŭi, “Chosŏn-jo ŭi hyanggyo mun’go e kwanhan yŏn’gu,” 9–10. 82 chapter two

[His Majesty] transmitted his instruction to the Ministry of Rites: “I think the way to govern a state is with moral transformation at the forefront. I have already ordered all provinces to have Confucian students72 taught with clarity the Elementary Learning and the Samgang haengsil. You, the Ministry of Rites, are tantamount to the office of situ [Minister of Education] under [the sage-kings] Yao and Shun or to that of chunguan [Minister of Rituals] in the Rites of Zhou,73 whose responsibility was educating people with pellucid ethics. You should apprehend my intention and have students of the Four [Dis- trict] Learning [Halls] also follow the example of County Schools—namely, all learn the Elementary Learning—so that there will be no such decadence as transgressing rank and disregarding principles. Censure district magistrates to take as their constant rule sincerely encouraging [people] to be earnest and conscientious; gradually immersing them [in moral lessons] and slowly changing them, as if curing meat; and letting them attain [moral lessons] by themselves, whereby we circulate the transformation of moral customs.”74 There were two reasons the court made the students in County Schools read and study the Samgang haengsil-to. First, the students in County Schools were the ones who would later become teachers and go out to read the Samgang haengsil-to to the illiterate masses and educate their families and communities with its lessons, not to mention becoming officials responsible for the customs of their districts or in the areas under their control. It was thus more important to actually teach it to the students than to simply distribute the text to the County Schools. Besides, County Schools served an additional role in Chosŏn society. County Schools were used as venues for various official, and mostly Confucian, rituals for communities, such as sŏkchŏn 釋奠 (Ceremonial Offering of Libation [to Confucius]), hyang ŭmju rye 鄉飲酒禮 (District Ceremony of Libation), and yangno rye 養老禮 (Ritual of Nourishing the Aged), all of which had their origins in ancient Chinese practices recorded in

72 “Confucian students” ( yusaeng 儒生) was used interchangeably with “school students” (kyosaeng 校生), meaning students in County Schools. See Han Tong-il, “Chosŏn sidae hyanggyo ŭi kyosaeng e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study on the students of County Schools of Chosŏn], Inmun kwahak 10 (1981): 137. 73 Situ was the title of officials in charge of territory and the cultural transformation of people, a role that had existed since the time of Yao and Shun in China, and which office the Zhou court succeeded; see “Diguan situ” 地官司徒, Rites of Zhou 2. Chunguan was another Zhou Chinese title for a minister who was in charge of ritual proprieties for the state; see “Chunguan zongbo” 春官宗伯, Rites of Zhou 3. 74 傳旨禮曹曰:“予惟治國之道，敎化爲先。曾諭諸道令儒生講明《小學》、《三綱行實》。爾禮曹卽唐虞司徒之官、《周禮》春官之職，以敎人明倫爲任者也。其體予意，京中四學儒生，亦依鄕校例，皆習《小學》，使無躐等陵節之弊，糾擧守令，敦勸勤慢，永爲恒式，漸漬薰陶，使自得之，以轉移風化。 ”Sŏngjong sillok 69:15 (Sŏngjong 7/7/25). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 83

Confucian classics of rites.75 Since County Schools were connecting nodes between the government and local communities, they were an appropriate choice for dissemination.76 Second, the court had to initiate the students into the world of Confu- cian ethics. After all, they had first to transform themselves morally and to mature within the Confucian paradigm. Along with the Elementary Learn- ing, the Samgang haengsil-to was expected to cultivate the moral minds of beginning students, providing real-life examples and functioning almost as a supplementary text to the Elementary Learning. Both “transgressing rank” and “disregarding principles” in Sŏngjong’s edict are allusions to the “Records of Learning” (Xueji 學記) in the Records of Rites, associated with the effect of educating students at the Great College (Taixue 大學): “The Great College commences teaching . . . . The young ones shall listen but not ask, learning not to transgress rank”;77 “As for the paradigms of the Great College, preventing [evils] before they are manifested is called preparation, confronting what is suitable is called timeliness, performing without disregarding principles is called modesty, and improving by inspecting each other is called [mutual] sharpening.”78 In other words, the king expected that teaching the Samgang haengsil-to to students would help them learn to follow the hierarchical order and ensuing responsibilities, the violation of which was a constant concern for literatus-officials such as Hŏ Cho and Confucian kings such as Sejong. County Schools were for preparing students in literacy and for future careers in the government; however, it should not be overlooked that traditional Confucian

75 The sŏkchŏn (Ch. shidian) was a ceremony worshipping former sages and masters performed in schools. In later times, especially in Chosŏn, it was solely for honoring Con- fucius; see “Ruling Regulations” (Wangzhi 王制), Records of Rites 5.20, and “King Wen as Heir Prince” (Wenwang shizi 文王世子), Records of Rites 8.7. The hyang ŭmju rye (Ch. xiang yinjiu li, District Ceremony of Libation) was a ceremonial reception performed regularly in the Zhou dynasty at various levels of districts when officials recommended local talents to feudal lords or paid respect to local elders; see “Xiang yinjiu li,” Ceremonies and Rituals (Yili 儀禮) 4. The yangno rye (Ch. yanglao li) was a similar ceremony in which local officials performed ritualized reverence; see “Ruling Regulations,” Records of Rites, 5.64–65; “King Wen as Heir Prince,” Records of Rites 8.6–7 and 8.30. It is not the case that these rituals of pre-Qin China were directly modeled by Chosŏn, for they had continued to be practiced in Chinese empires which the Koryŏ and Chosŏn courts most likely followed. 76 Chang Chae-ch’ŏn, “Chosŏn sidae hyanggyo ŭi sahoe kyoyuk” [A study on the social education of County Schools of Chosŏn], Kyoyukhak yon’gu 38.3 (2000): 179–96. 77 大學始教 . . .幼者聽而弗問，學不躐等也。 “Records of Learning,” Records of Rites 18.5. 78 大學之法，禁於未發之謂豫，當其可之謂時，不陵節而施之謂孫，相觀而善之謂摩。“Records of Learning,” Records of Rites 18.8. 84 chapter two learning was by nature teleological, and placed as its utmost priority the ethical practice of a person as the end result. In a sense, education was not about gaining knowledge for knowledge’s sake—intellectual talent always had to embrace a certain amount of moral capability.

The First Edition (Ch’ogan-bon)

Stating the Mission Having discussed the conception, preparation, and bibliographical background of the Samgang haengsil-to, we can now peruse the preface (sŏ 序) to the initial edition, which was written by Kwŏn Ch’ae 權採. Scholars working on the Samgang haengsil-to have not paid much attention to the preface. But as we shall see, it clarifies what the court—both Sejong and his literatus-officials—aspired to achieve with the Samgang haengsil-to: The greatest Ways under heaven are five, and the Three Relations [samgang] occupy the first [three]. [They are] indeed the grand principles of statecraft, and the fundamental source of the myriad changes. If one examines antiquity, [one will see that] the sage-king Shun carefully set forth the Five Cardi- nal Moral Codes [wudian 五典]; Chengtang [the founder of Shang] started [ruling] by repairing human relations; and the Zhou court valued the Five Teachings for its people and promoted the Three Matters [of regions] by treating as guests those who were talented in them. [Thus] we can understand that [the Three Relations] are the first matters that a king should attend to in governing [his state]. In the summer of the sinhae cyclic year of the Xuande era [1431], Our Lord Highness ordered his close ministers as follows: “All of the [ideal] rule of the Three Dynasties [Xia, Shang, and Zhou] was that with which they illuminated human relations. In later generations, moral transformation has become lax and dissolute: [groups of] people are no longer close-knit, and the canonical bonds between ruler and subject, father and son, and husband and wife79 have all become clouded by what [human] nature is drawn to, and [hence have become] lost in the superficial. There have from time to time been some outstanding acts of superb moral integrity, unchanged by habits and customs, and many of them have also inspired people who watched or heard about them. I intend to have [you] collect such extraordinary cases, put together an illustrated eulogy [toch’an 圖讚]80 with them, and distribute them inside and outside [the capital].

79 Notice that the king starts the list with the ruler-subject relation. Although it may not mean anything significant here, the king’s valuing of loyalty over filial piety was in fact ignored—more than once—by officials who placed filial piety before loyalty. 80 Toch’an (Ch. tuzan) refers to an illustrated narrative form in which a poetic eulogy of a person, act, or deity is placed alongside an illustration. The text is placed in the corner, the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 85

I hope that this will be one way to have many laymen and laywomen all view plainly its affective force and be inspired, to transform people, and to complete customs.” Therefore, [His Highness] ordered Sŏl Sun, Chief State Councilor [ pujehak] in the Hall of Worthies, to oversee the matter of compilation. At this, having perused everything from Chinese to Korean, past and present, recorded in books and records, [they] collected 110 persons for each [category of] filial sons, loyal subjects, and devoted women whose cases were worth being depicted; [for which they placed] the picture of the images [of their actions] first, a description of the content next, and brought them together with a poem. As for filial sons, [they] respectfully entered the poems from the Real Stories of Filial Piety [Xiaoshun shishi] that Taizong Emperor Wen [of the Ming] had granted us, and also collected eulogies by the eminent scholar Yi Che-hyŏn [of Koryŏ] included in the Records of Filial Action [Hyohaeng-nok] compiled by my great-great-grandfather [Kwŏn] Po. For the rest [cases of filial sons without poems and eulogies from the Xiaoshun shishi and Hyohaeng-nok], [His Highness] ordered the subjects assisting [in this project] to divide up their creation; as for the poems for loyal subjects and devoted women, [He] ordered literatus-officials to split up their preparation. Upon completing the collation, [His Highness] bestowed the title Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations [Samgang haengsil-to] and charged the Office of Typecasting to carve the blocks [i.e., to print it] so that it would pass on forever, whereupon He instructed [Kwŏn] Ch’ae to write a preface at the beginning of the book. As I humbly reckon, the ethical principles of rulers, parents, and husbands and wives, and the Ways of loyalty, filial piety, and devotion are the constant nature with which [heaven] has endowed mankind; each and every one is the same in [that nature]; and they came into complete existence at the beginning of the entire heaven-and-earth, and will no longer persist at the end of the whole heaven-and-earth; it is not that the benevolence of the sage-kings Yao and Shun will [always] be more than enough [to manifest the ethical principles] and that the cruelty of the tyrants Jie and Zhou will be unable to reach [manifesting them]. Nevertheless, during the times of the ancient kings, the Five Canons [Wudian]81 were completely followed, and people practiced harmony to the extent that everybody, household after household, could be enfeoffed.82 But after the Three Dynasties, the days of order are continually few and the class of rebels and bandits joining separately to one side, at the top or bottom of the illustration, and the format was used frequently in Buddhist paintings and documents. During the Ming dynasty, Hu Yinglin 胡應麟 (1550–1601) observed that it belonged to one of the four categories of documents set by Xun Xu 荀勗 (d. 289) of Wei. See Hu Yinglin, Jingji huitong 經籍會通 [Collective understanding of classics and documents] 2, in Shaoshi shanfang bicong 少室山房筆叢 [Collection of notes from Few-Room Mountain Studio], (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1958), 21. 81 The distinction—and overlap—between the Five Cardinal Moral Codes (wudian) and Five Canons (Wudian) is discussed immediately after this translation of the preface of the Samgang haengsil-to. 82 The exact phrase is found in the Great Commentaries to the Book of Documents (Shang- shu dazhuan 尚書大傳), attributed to Fu Sheng 伏勝 (fl. 206 bce), Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 86 chapter two

one another’s traces83 in this world really depends purely on how the ruler leads and fosters [the people] from above. As for our lord, His Highness, with his sage faculty to realize the way of a ruler-teacher, [His] accomplishments are completed, [His] ruling is stable, and ten thousand eyes are all opened [by it]. [His Highness] deemed fostering the permanence of relations and maintaining the ways of the world to be the basis, and for anything associated with the teachings of name-based obligations [myŏnggyo 名教], there is nothing [He] did not examine or deliberate, as well as illustrate into canons for the behavior of men. The excess of that by which to transform people into practicing [the teachings,] and learning them by heart, has already reached its utmost; still, for fear that there may be something insufficient in the methods to give rise to them, [He] made this book and distributed it widely among people. [The text] should be able to make anyone, whether wise or stupid, noble or base, child or woman, view it with pleasure and practice what they perceive there; and open and appreciate its illustrations, by which they can imagine the scenes; as well as intone its poetry, by which they can embody its sentiment and moral nature. All of them, without fail, will be overcome by admiration and sigh with appreciation, and they will urge and encourage others, in order to feel and to bring out the shared mind of goodness that has moved them and to exhaust the responsibilities of their position or lot in life. [This achievement of His Highness,] with the intended significance of a monarch’s promoting the canons and solidifying the spreading of ethical teachings, shares the same measures, but [His] methods add more meticulousness to it. From this, the customs of people will see great changes, and the way of government will prosper even more; all will be filial children in their families, and all in the nation will be loyal subjects. The lost songs of filial piety, “Field Ridges of the South” and “Decade of White Blossoms,” and such songs from the Book of Poetry as “Breath of the Han River” and “Banks of the Ru River,” will continue to be created even in the small, winding alleyways; the beauty of the king’s moral transformation will not yield to the “Ernan” songs of the Book of Poetry,84 and the solidity of his kingly achievements will indeed pass edition, 5:16a: “The people of Zhou, household after household, were worthy to be enfeoffed” 周人可比屋而封. 83 This appears to repeat the last line of Han Yu’s 韓愈 (768–824) prose piece “Eulogy for Boyi” (Boyi song 伯夷頌): “People like Boyi, standing alone and acting independently, would not look back even against the entire heaven-and-earth and ten thousand antiquities. Although it is so, without these two [Boyi and Shuqi 叔齊], the class of rebels and bandits would join their traces in later generations.” Han Yu, “Eulogy for Boyi,”“若伯夷者，特立獨行、窮天地、亘萬古而不顧者也。雖然，微二子，亂臣賊子接跡於後世矣。”In other words, examples whose endeavors are exceptional and extreme are highly necessary, at least in order to prevent villainy from arising. 84 “Ernan” (Two souths) refers to “Duke Zhou’s South” (Zhou nan 周南) and “Duke Shao’s South” (Shao nan 召南), collections of poems from the southern regions of Zhou under the rules of the Duke of Zhou (Zhougong 周公) and the Duke of Shao (Shaogong 召公) around the twelfth century bce. Numerous allusions have been made to ethical values such as filial piety, loyalty, and female constancy throughout history, and Confucius also once said to Boyu 伯魚, “As for a man who does not master ‘Zhou nan’ and ‘Shao nan,’ it would be as if the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 87

on forever, for ten thousand generations. Should gentlemen of posterity realize the king’s intention even more, and bear it in their minds while respectfully preserving it for eternity, how would this not be beautiful?85 The preface strikes a reader not only as an ambitious declaration of a monumental plan but also as a composition loaded with rich allusions comparing the Chosŏn enterprise to the beginnings of Chinese civilization. As it starts with explaining the origin of the Three Relations, it mentions the three founding sage-kings of the classical Three Dynasties of China, namely, Xia 夏, Shang 商, and Zhou 周. That Shun, the thearch of the Xia, “carefully set forth Five Cardinal Moral Codes” comes from the “Canon of Shun” in the Book of Documents: “[Shun] carefully set forth the Five Cardinal Moral Codes [wudian], and the Five Cardinal Moral Codes all came to be observed.”86 Interestingly, the term wudian 五典 has

he were standing directly facing a fence.” 人而不為《周南》、《召南》，其猶正牆面而立也與。Analects 17.10. 85 天下之達道五，而三綱居其首，實經綸之大法，而萬化之本源也。若稽諸古，帝舜愼徽五典。成湯肇修人紀，周家重民五敎而賓興三物，帝王爲治之先務，可知也已。宣德辛亥夏，我主上殿下，命近臣若曰：“三代之治，皆所以明人倫也。後世敎化陵夷，百姓不親，君臣、父子、夫婦之大倫，率皆昧於所性，而常失於薄，間有卓行高節，不爲習俗所移，而聳人觀聽者亦多。予欲使取其特異者，作爲圖讃，頒諸中外，庶幾愚婦愚夫，皆得易以觀感而興起，則化民成俗之一道也。”乃命集賢殿副提學臣偰循，掌編摩之事。於是自中國以至我東方，古今書傳所載，靡不蒐閱，得孝子忠臣烈女之卓然可述者，各百有十人，圖形於前，紀實於後，而幷系以詩。孝子則謹錄太宗文皇帝所賜《孝順事實》之詩，兼取臣高祖臣溥所撰《孝行錄》中名儒李齊賢之贊，其餘則令輔臣分撰，忠臣烈女之詩，亦令文臣分製。編訖，賜名《三綱行實圖》，令鑄字所鋟梓永傳，爰命臣採序其卷端。臣採竊惟君親夫婦之倫、忠孝節義之道，是乃降衷秉彝，人人所同，窮天地之始而俱生，極天地之終而罔墜，不以堯、舜之仁而有餘，不以桀、紂之暴而不足。然先王之時，五典克從，民用和睦，而比屋可封，三代以後，治日常少，而亂賊之徒，接跡於世者，良由君上導養之如何耳。今主上殿下，以神聖之資，盡君師之道，功成治定，萬目畢張，而以扶植綱常、維持世道爲本，凡有關於名敎者，無不講究商確，著爲彝典，所以化民於躬行心得之餘者，旣極其至，猶慮興起之方有所未盡，乃爲此書，廣布民間，使無賢愚貴賤孩童婦女，皆有以樂觀而習聞，披玩其圖，以想形容，諷詠其詩，以體情性，莫不歆羨嘆慕，勸勉激勵，以感發其同然之善心，而盡其職分之當爲矣。蓋與帝王敦典敦敷敎之義同一揆，而條理有加密焉。由是民風丕變，治道益隆，家盡孝順之子，國皆忠藎之臣，《南陔》、《白華之什》、《漢廣》、《汝墳》之詩，將繼作於委巷之間，王化之美，當無讓於二南，而王業之固，實永傳於萬世。後之君子，益體宸衷，服膺敬守於無窮，豈不韙歟! 86 慎徽五典，五典克從。 “Canon of Shun” (Shun dian 舜典), Commentaries and Sub- commentaries to the Book of Documents (Shangshu zhushu 尚書注疏) 3:2a; Chronicle of Zuo, Duke Wen 文公 18. All references made to the Thirteen Classics and their zhushu [Com- mentaries and subcommentaries] are based on the Chongkan Songben Shisanjing zhushu 重刊宋本十三經注疏 [Reengraved Song edition, commentaries and subcommentaries to 88 chapter two traditionally been understood in two senses: (1) as the five moral codes set forth by Shun, or (2) as the (lost) five canons distributed by Shun. Trans- lating it as “Five Cardinal Moral Codes” follows the commentary by Kong Anguo 孔安國 (ca. 156–74 bce), who explained the wudian as teachings about the five regular relations: the righteousness of a father, compassion of a mother, the fraternal kindness of an older sibling, the respect of a younger sibling, and the filial piety of a child.87 In contrast, the Chroni- cle of Zuo mentions the Wudian along with the Three Prescripts (Sanfen 三墳) and other lost ancient documents, which makes it clear that the term referred to a physical document.88 In other places in the Chronicle of Zuo, however, the term is often understood, especially in Kong Yingda’s 孔穎達 (574–648) famous exegesis, as the teaching of moral codes.89 The Five Moral Codes evidently refer to the five relations and virtuous conduct within them, three of which are the themes of the Samgang haengsil-to. Kong Anguo’s list is somewhat different from the usual count- ing of the five, interpreting them as items of virtue that each party of each relation must realize when assuming different relational roles, and omitting loyalty of subjects and the devotion of wives. Zhu Xi’s disciple Cai Shen 蔡沈 (1167–1230) identified the wudian in his Collected Commen- taries on the Book of Documents (Shu jizhuan 書集傳), which presents the notion more familiar to us today: “The Five Cardinal Moral Codes are the [moral virtue of the] five regular relations: between a father and his son is love; between a ruler and his minister is righteousness; between a husband and his wife is differentiation; between senior and junior [siblings] is hierarchical order; and between friends is trust.”90 Whether referring to the Five Moral Codes themselves or to physical documents delineating those codes, the allusion of the term wudian in the preface is clear: Sejong’s pub-

the Thirteen Confucian Classics], edited by Ruan Yuan 阮元, 1815 (photographically reproduced, Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1973). 87 五典，五常之教。父義、母慈、兄友、弟恭、子孝。Commentaries and Sub- commentaries to the Book of Documents 3:2a. 88 Chronicle of Zuo, Duke Zhao 昭公 12. The Book of Documents had also adopted the term Wudian as physical documents elsewhere. 89 However, neither Kong Anguo nor Kong Yingda confined the meaning of wudian to one denotation, whether that of moral codes or that of physical documents. 90 五典，五常也。父子有親，君臣有義，夫婦有別，長幼有序，朋友有信，是也。Cai Shen, Ding Yan, and Zhu Xi, comps., Shujing jizhuan, in idem, comps., Shujing jizhuan, Shu Cai zhuan fushi, Shijing jizhuan 書經集傳書蔡傳附釋詩經集傳 [Collected Commentaries on the Book of Documents, Supplemented Explication to Cai Shen’s Com- mentaries on the Book of Documents, and Collected Commentaries on the Book of Poetry], edited by Yang Jialuo (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1972), 4. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 89 lication of the Samgang haengsil-to was comparable to an ancient Chinese sage-king’s establishing of moral principles among his people. Chengtang, the thearch of Shang, had also started his regime by rein- forcing cardinal moral codes, following the instruction given by the legendary minister Yi Yin: “The former king started with repairing human relations.”91 With the court of Zhou, things were more institutionalized. According to the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli 周禮), the Grand Minister of Educa- tion (Da situ 大司徒) teaches the ten thousand people in the Three Matters of the communities, and promotes them [those who are worthy] and treats them as guests. The first [of the Three Matters] is the Six Virtues, [which are] wisdom, benevolence, sagacity, righteousness, loyalty, and harmony; the second is the Six Practices, [which are] filial piety, brotherliness, harmony within the family, love among the kin by marriage, responsibility, and compassion; and the third is the Six Arts, [which are] rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligra- phy, and mathematics.92 Zheng Xuan’s (127–200 ce) commentary states, “xing ‘to lift or promote’ is the same as ‘to nominate’; after finishing teaching people in the Three Matters, local officials nominated those who were talented and able, and accepted them as guests with a libationary ritual. Once it was complete, they presented the document to the king.”93 According to Zheng Xuan’s remark, then, this ancient education was a process by which the court instructed the people, after which local officials selected outstanding individuals, and reported them in writing to the king, nominating them as talents for the country. This process was repeated in both China and Korea, sometimes literally and other times symbolically. The Bannered Gate commendation, or jinglü 旌閭 (Kr. chŏngnyŏ), whereby the court honored the houses of people who performed exemplary moral conduct, was the epitome of such ancient moral education. (The chŏngnyŏ of Chosŏn is discussed later.) The future role of the Samgang haengsil-to in the docu- mentation of such moral worthies is hinted at here.

91 先王肇修人紀。“Book of Shang” (Shangshu 商書), Commentaries and Subcommen- taries to the Book of Documents 8:14. 92 以鄉三物教萬民，而賓興之。一曰六德：知、仁、聖、義、忠、和。二曰六行：孝、友、睦、姻、任、恤。三曰六藝：禮、樂、射、御、書、數。 “Earthly Officials: Minister of Education” (Diguan situ 地官司徒), Commentaries and Sub- commentaries to the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli zhushu 周禮註疏) 10:24b. The same quote is also found in the Elementary Learning. 93 興，猶舉也。民三事教成，鄉大夫舉其賢者能者，以飲酒之禮賓客之。既則獻其書於王矣。Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Rites of Zhou 10:24b. 90 chapter two

The enterprise of founding a new dynasty based on moral principles did not simply target the educated aristocrats or the royal court, but ultimately relied on the ethical state of ordinary people as its substance. These people are referred to in the preface with the clichéd expression “laymen and laywomen,” or ubu ubu (Ch. yufu yufu 愚婦愚夫), which literally means “ignorant women and ignorant men.” This “ignorance” primarily denotes their lack of literacy skills; but we should note that lack of literacy was equated to lack of moral understanding. As is well known, this phrase has appeared repeatedly in Confucian writings. Its first occur- rence is found in the “Songs of the Five Sons” (Wuzi zhi ge 五子之歌) in the Book of Documents: The first says: “It was the lesson of our great ancestor: The people should be cherished, and not be down-trodden. The people are the root of a country; the root being firm, the country then is tranquil. When I look at all-under-heaven, of the simple men and simple women, any one may surpass me. If one man errs repeatedly, should dissatisfaction be waited for until it appears? Before it is seen, it should be guarded against. In my relation to the millions of the people, I should feel as much anxiety as if I were driving six horses with rotten reins. The ruler of men—how should he be but reverent [of his duties]?”94 In other words, ordinary men and women are the root constituting the state and yet are prone to commit errors repeatedly. It is crucial for a ruler to guard them against committing errors before they do so, and that was why Sejong, after exerting every effort to erect moral principles and institutions to educate his people (as described later in the preface), still needed to publish the Samgang haengsil-to. As the preface understands them, ethical qualities are “the constant nature with which [heaven] endowed mankind.” Thus they are always present in the human world, civilized or not, regardless of the person. In this respect, the moral nature of the human being is transcendent of individual beings in time and space, as long as human society exists. It is not that people are completely good by themselves, nor is it that their harmful values are ultimately evil. Even the benevolence of the sage-kings is insufficient to secure perfection, while the cruelty of notorious tyrants is not

94 其一曰：“皇祖有訓，民可近，不可下，民惟邦本，本固邦寧。予視天下愚夫愚婦一能勝予，一人三失，怨豈在明，不見是圖。予臨兆民，懍乎若朽索之馭六馬，為人上者，奈何不敬？”“Book of Xia” (Xiashu 夏書), Commentaries and Sub-commentaries to the Book of Documents 7:5b–6a. Translation adapted from James Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893–95; reprint, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1979), 158. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 91 hopeless in achieving goodness. The ethical qualities of people have to be developed, fostered, and regulated constantly, and that is the responsibility of a king. Ruling functioned during the Three Dynasties because “people practiced harmony.” This particular phrase appears at the beginning of the Book of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經) in the words of Confucius: “Former kings had eminent virtue and essential Ways with which they conformed to all-under-heaven; people used harmony, and the above and the below had no resentment toward each other.”95 Notice that hemu ‘harmony’ is used in the sense of ‘accord’ in hierarchical relations, rather than in hori- zontal communities. This harmony, however, deteriorated after the Three Dynasties. The perfect rule that had lasted under the sage-kings and the moral substance that had once upheld civilization began to falter. Chosŏn literati shared the traditional view of history with Chinese Confucians: later kings had failed to maintain the ethical state among their people. In the eyes of his subjects (including the writer of this preface), Sejong’s accomplishments had already reached their zenith, ensuring that everything with which to facilitate harmony among his people was prepared. He made sure that his government punished by law those who commit- tied offences disruptive of harmony, promoted admirable moral conduct through government institutions (e.g., chŏngnyŏ), and educated the people in morality and principles by means of Confucian teachings. But he was still concerned that his effort would not reach all of his people, including those who were not sufficiently literate (i.e., the ubu ubu) to learn ethical teachings in writing, and thus he published the Samgang haengsil-to. The Samgang haengsil-to therefore was a book published with both literate readers and illiterate audiences in mind. Simply educating them or having them know about moral teachings, however, was not the ultimate goal of this publication. The goal was to inspire them to practice moral conduct—that is, to provoke moral actions, something beyond simple moral knowledge. With both written text and illustrations describing exemplary ethical tales, the Samgang haengsil-to would be able to make anyone “view it with pleasure and practice what they perceive there,” “imagine the scenes,” and “embody its sentiment and moral nature.” The result would be much larger than what could be achieved by political and legal maneuvering: it would change the minds of the people with vivid images to follow. It was precisely this epitome of the meticulousness of

95“先王有至德要道，以順天下，民用和睦，上下無怨。” Book of Filial Piety 1.1. 92 chapter two

Sejong’s rule, the preface praised, that made him stand out among all the great kings in history. We should not neglect to notice that Sejong’s “Directed Intention on Distribution” and other compilers’ remarks, when relating to the organization of the text, consistently mention the presence of poetry (poems and eulogies). A poem or a eulogy (sometimes both) was added at the end of the text of each story, separated with an intaglio character si 詩 (Ch. shi ‘poem’) or ch’an 讚 (Ch. zan ‘eulogy’). Eulogies are included only in the “Filial Sons” section. Existing poems and eulogies were used for the initial batch of stories from the Real Stories of Filial Piety and the Records of Filial Action; for the rest, the king ordered that the composition of new poems be divided among his literatus-officials. Emulating the classical Chinese illustrated eulogy (tuzan), poetry was an indispensible requirement, and the expectation was that intoning poems would intensify the effect of moral transformation. Embedded within the rhetoric of traditional Chi- nese literature is the assumption that poetry, rather than narrative, carries the weight of imparting moral messages. This emphasis on the affective power of poetry traces back to the “Great Preface” (Daxu 大序) of the Book of Poetry.96 Compiled by scholar-officials trained in classical Chi- nese literature, the Samgang haengsil-to continues this discourse on the poetics of affect: prose narratives are inevitably followed by poetry. The weight of the poetry in the text was a climactic one. Poems were there to capture and articulate the beauty of the moral essence of the story and to perfect the text with moral aesthetics. After all, it was not the narrative but the poem that conveyed the praise due to the moral heroes. In a sense, the narrative was merely an explanation leading up to and preparing the reader for the poetry at the end; in the minds of literatus-writers, describing a hero in a factual and unemotional narrative and then completing this with praise in elegantly poetic words was a natural format. As such, the poems in the Samgang haengsil-to consisted of well-polished, heptasyllabic verses, and the eulogies of quadrisyllabic verses, written by eminent scholar-officials. The poems and eulogies, then, functioned as something analogous to a grand finale after the prose pieces. In the eyes of its proponents, therefore, the consequences of printing and distributing the Samgang haengsil-to would be truly resplendent:

96 “Thus, to correct [the presentation of] achievements and failures, to move Heaven and Earth, to stir the gods and spirits, there is nothing more apposite than poetry.” For a translation and critical discussion of the “Great Preface,” see Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 44. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 93 customs would change to such an extent that filial sons, loyal subjects, and devoted wives would come forward in every household, so that everyone would have been worthy to be enfeoffed had they lived in the kind of feudal society that existed in the Zhou dynasty of China. This would mean not just moral prosperity, but the restoration of an ethical utopia that had long been lost to human history. It would even resurrect the lost songs of ancient China that praised filial offspring. “Field Ridges of the South” and “Decade of White Blossoms” are two of the “Six Sheng Pipe Songs” (Liusheng shi 六笙詩) in the “Minor Court Hymns” (Xiaoya 小雅) section of the Book of Poetry, for which only titles remain. Mao’s preface (“Mao xu 毛序”) to this section indicates that the former was about filial sons admonishing each other about nurturing parents, and the latter about the innocence of filial sons. In other words, there is an allusion to the effect of the king’s moral transformation in reviving the lost tradition of filial piety.97 Both “Breath of the Han River” and “Banks of the Ru River” are songs collected in the Book of Poetry that eulogized the virtues of King Wen of Zhou for his sagacious rule. In his preface Kwŏn Ch’ae compares Sejong to the sage-kings of ancient China—a bold statement, considering the subordinate relationship between Chosŏn and Ming— declaring subtly that Chosŏn was legitimately connected to the genesis of Chinese civilization by compiling the Samgang haengsil-to. This was more than a simple case of sycophantic commendation by an official for his king. In the minds of those who had launched the Chosŏn enterprise, the new Confucian state they had created directly succeeded the legacy of the Three Dynasties and the Zhou, bridging a temporal gap of thousands of years, not to mention the geographical distance between the Central Plain (Zhongyuan 中原) and the Korean peninsula, reviving the lost ethical endeavor that had degenerated after the Zhou.

97 《南陔》，孝子相戒以養也；《白華》，孝子之絜白也 . . .有其義而亡其辭。Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Book of Poetry (Shijing zhushu 詩經注疏) 9.4: 10b. This is inserted at the end of “Ten Songs with ‘Deer Cry’” 鹿鳴之什 section (Mao number 161–170). Also, in the “Xiang yinjiu li” (District Ceremony of Libation), Ceremonies and Rituals 4.12 (see note 75 above) it is stated: “The Sheng pipe enters below the hall, the Qing chimes face each other standing north and south; the music of the ‘Field Ridges of the South,’ ‘White Blossoms,’ and ‘Magnificent Millet’ is used later as canonical instances of nurturing and filially revering parents.” 笙入堂下，磬南北面立，樂《南陔》、《白華》、《華黍》。後用爲奉養和孝敬雙親的典實。Han Confucians generally believed that these poems had once existed, as Mao’s preface stated; later in the Song, however, Zhu Xi believed that the so-called Sheng pipe songs were ritual tunes without words. See Zhu Xi, Shi jizhuan 詩集傳 [Collected commentaries to the Book of Poetry], re-edited with punctuation (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1958), 109. 94 chapter two

The Physical Forms The publisher (namely, the court) of the Samgang haengsil-to expended considerable effort in preparing the text and its physical format, perhaps even more so than in its distribution. The intent and anticipation of publishing the text were specific and well defined: it was a book targeting an audience who potentially could not read and needed the help of those who could, and it was expected to change the foundation of their ethical state of mind. Therefore, careful consideration was necessary for how it would be presented. As Chartier has observed, “The historically and socially distinct significations of a text, whatever they may be, are inseparable from the material conditions and physical forms that make the text available to readers.”98 Examining the physical form of the Samgang haengsil-to should afford us a better understanding of the court’s intentions for the text as a book. By the thirteenth century, the usual thread binding (線裝 sŏnjang) was used for most books in Korea, and so it was for the initial or first edition (ch’ogan-bon 初刊本) of the Samgang haengsil-to.99 Each sheet, printed with verbal and visual texts (illustrations) from wooden blocks, was folded in half, collated, and bound into a codex, then sewn along the unfolded edge, which formed the spine (or sŏnoe 書腦, “brain of the book”), using filaments through five needle holes (ch’iman 針眼). The folded edges show the block-center (p’ansim 版心) containing the title and folio number in the middle (Figure 1). As indicated in the preface, the initial edition consisted of three fascicles (kwŏn 卷), one for each category, namely: Hyoja-do 孝子圖 (Illustrations of filial sons), Ch’ungsin-do 忠臣圖 (Illustrations of loyal subjects), and Yŏllyŏ-do 烈女圖 (Illustra- tions of devoted women). Thus, instead of the usual fascicle numbers that appear in other books, the block-centers of the Samgang haengsil-to show only these section titles. There is a good possibility that the initial edition was published as three independent books. Five copies based on the initial edition—meaning they were printed either with the original blocks or with blocks recarved using an existing copy—have been found to date: three of Hyoja-do, one of Ch’ungsin-do, and one of Yŏllyŏ-do. The three copies of the Hyoja-do are preserved in the private collection of Yu T’ag-il 柳鐸一, in the Mansong

98 Roger Chartier, Forms and Meanings: Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 22. 99 Some scholars call this first edition the “classical Chinese edition” (Hanmunbon 漢文本) because it is the only version composed solely in classical Chinese. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 95

Figure 1. The right side is the text of “Sŏng Ch’ung Dies in Prison” (Sŏng Ch’ung oksa 成忠獄死), followed by the illustration to the next story, “Several Generals Suppress Rebels” (Chejang t’ojŏk 諸將討賊) on the left. Collection of the Kyujanggak Library at Seoul National University. Courtesy of Ok Yŏng-jŏng. collection (Mansong mun’go 만송문고) at Korea University, and in the King Sejong Memorial Society (Sejong Taewang kinyŏm saŏphoe 세종대 왕기념사업회). A copy of the Ch’ungsin-do is kept in the Kyujanggak Library at Seoul National University,100 and one of the Yŏllyŏ-do is at the Samsung Museum of Art (Samsŏng misulgwan 삼성미술관), formerly in the collection of Kim Wŏl-lyong 김원룡. Most of these are regarded as reprints or recut copies (chunggan-bon 重刊本) of the initial edition, made some time in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, except for

100 Another (imperfect) copy of the Ch’ungsin-do is in the Mansong collection. Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho, “Chosŏn sidae ‘Haengsil-to’ p’anbon mit p’anhwa e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study of the editions and printed illustrations of the Haengsil-to of the Chosŏn era]. Sŏjihak yŏn’gu 21 (2001): 84. 96 chapter two the first two. Although Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho regard these as original imprints (wŏn’gan-bon 原刊本), Ok Yŏng-jŏng remains cautious, assess- ing them to be “closer to the original edition” than the others.101 Each of these extant copies contains the same paratextual portions, namely, the “Directed Intention on Distribution” conveyed in 1434 by An Sung- sŏn 安崇善,102 Maeng Sa-sŏng’s 孟思誠 “Note of Presentation” (Chinjŏn- mun 進箋文, 1432) and Kwŏn Ch’ae’s “Preface” (1432), followed by a list of stories (mongnok 目錄) in the beginning and the “Postface” (pal 跋, 1432) by Chŏng Ch’o 鄭招 at the end. Since these three titles were found separately, repeating the same paratexts, and because their block-centers do not hint at the existence of sister fascicles, they may have been issued separately. This is not certain, however, for we cannot conclude that these copies were from the original imprints. The physical details of the book include double-lined borders on all four sides (saju ssangbyŏn 四周雙邊), upper and lower black mouths (sangha tae hŭkku 上下大黑口), and inward black fishtail patterns (sangha naehyang hŭgŏmi 上下內向黑魚尾). The sizes of these copies are approximately 27 cm × 17 cm, which is somewhat larger than typical printed books from Chosŏn. According to Ok Yŏng-jŏng, most of these features recreated the format of books produced by the Palace Treasury (Neifu 內府) of Ming China.103 The Palace Treasury of the Ming produced imprints under the auspices of the imperial court. Palace Treasury editions are distinctive in appearance, in that their layout is relatively larger than other editions. They allowed more space between lines and characters; they were printed on high-quality white paper; the calligraphic style often adopted that of Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan dynasty (hence often called Zhao ti 趙體, “Zhao- style”);104 and they used double-lined borders on all four sides, upper

101 Song and Yi, “Chosŏn sidae ‘Haengsil-to’ p’anbon mit p’anhwa e kwanhan yŏn’gu,” 84; and Ok Yŏng-jŏng, “Samgang haengsil-to p’anbon ŭi kanhaeng kwa yut’ong” [Publication and circulation of the Samgang haengsil-to], in Chosŏn sidae ch’aek ŭi munhwasa: Samgang haengsil-to rŭl t’onghan chisik ŭi chŏnp’a wa kwansŭp ŭi hyŏngsŏng [A cultural history of books in the Chosŏn era: Formation of knowledge and custom through the Samgang haengsil-to], edited by Chu Yŏng-ha et al. (Seoul: Hyumŏnisŭt’ŭ, 2008), 47. 102 The sillok recorded that Sejong commissioned Yun Hoe 尹淮, member of the Cen- tral Council (Chungch’u-wŏn 中樞院), to write this decree on the 27th day of the fourth month (Sejong sillok 64:19a [Sejong 16/4/27]), but the book itself indicates that the decree was bestowed upon An Sung-sŏn on the 26th. 103 Ok Yŏng-jŏng, “Samgang haengsil-to p’anbon ŭi kanhaeng kwa yut’ong,” 47–48. 104 As introduced in Chapter 1, Zhao Mengfu frequented Koryŏ King Ch’ungnyŏl’s Hall of Ten Thousand Scrolls in Dadu. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 97 and lower black mouths, and black fishtail patterns (Figure 2).105 Most of these exterior characteristics of Palace Treasury editions describe the same above-mentioned features of the Samgang haengsil-to. The name “Palace Treasury edition” was coined when court-published books were printed at the Palace Treasury in Nanjing during Emperor Hongwu’s reign. After Zhu Di (Emperor Yongle) launched the punitive Jingnan Cam- paign in 1399 (known as fengtian jingnan 奉天靖難, “Cleansing disasters upholding heaven’s mandate”), which eventually led him to the throne, eunuchs who had assisted him closely during the campaign began to play an increasingly significant role in the court. Zhu Di installed the Director- ate of Ceremonies (Sili jian 司禮監), to which eunuchs were appointed as overseers, and their duties included the supervision of publications by the Palace Treasury. Under the Directorate of Ceremonies were the Chinese Classics Printshop (Hanjing chang 漢經廠), the Foreign Classics Print- shop (Fanjing chang 番經廠), and the Daoist Classics Printshop (Daojing chang 道經廠), which were stewards of the Confucian classics (including historiographies and literary works), Buddhist sutras, and Daoist scriptures, respectively. The fact that the Samgang haengsil-to, published by the Chosŏn court, took the format of its physical model from the Pal- ace Treasury editions seems fitting. Publishing projects of the Ming and Chosŏn courts resembled each other closely, not to mention that many books published by the Ming Palace Treasury were, as mentioned above, sent to the Chosŏn as imperial gifts. But there is even more to what this connection tells us about the nature of the Samgang haengsil-to. Because they were published under the supervision of eunuchs, the Palace Treasury editions were deprecated by later critics, despite their exquisite appearance and consistent aesthetic quality. According to one Qing evaluator, “In the Ming era [the court] had eunuchs administer it [the Foreign Classics Printshop]; books and printing blocks were stored there. . . . But most of them were books that were commonly seen—even the Poems of an Infant Prodigy and the Hundred Family Names were included among them—and otherwise they are ‘miscellaneous.’ Their imprints still circulate these days, which often contain errors, and doubts and mistakes ensue.”106 Although the errors included in these editions

105 Mao Chunxiang, Guji banben changtan [Common knowledge about old books and editions], (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 47. 106 [番經廠] 明世以宦官主之，書籍刊板皆貯于此。 . . . 然大抵皆習見之書，甚至神童詩、百家姓亦厠其中，殊為猥雜。今印行之書尚有流傳，往往舛錯，疑誤後生。“Jingchang shumu” 經廠書目 [Document catalogue of the classics printshop], in 98 chapter two

Figure 2. Ming Palace Treasury Edition of the Grand Pronouncements by the Imperial Order (Yuzhi dagao) during the Hongwu reign, unfolded folio image. Image from the Internet Archive at http://archive.org. may be attributed to the eunuchs’ lack of scholarship, the “repeatedly seen” titles that the Palace Treasury published cannot be dismissed as “miscellaneous and trivial.” As Zhou Xinhui points out, one important responsibility of the Palace Treasury was to provide texts for palace workers, servants, and courtiers to help them achieve basic knowledge in moral principles and culture.107 Some of the titles published at the Chinese Clas- sics Printshop further illustrate this point: the Four Books, Collected Com- mentaries on the “Mencius” (Mengzi jizhu 孟子集註), Extended Meaning of the “Great Learning” (Daxue yanyi 大學衍義), Collected Explanations of the Records of Rites (Liji jishuo 禮記集說), Essence of Government from

Qinding Siku quanshu zongmu 欽定四庫全書總目, compiled by Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724–1805) et al. (Zhonghua shuju edition, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 744. 107 Zhou Xinhui, “Mingdai banke shulüe” [A brief description of the block-carving of the Ming era], in Zhongguo chuban shiliao—gudai bufen [Materials for the history of Chinese publishing: Ancient times], edited by Song Yuanfang (Wuhan: Xinhua shudian, 2004), 522–23. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 99 the Zhenguan Era (Zhenguan zhengyao 貞觀政要), Essentials of the “Com- prehensive Mirror to Aid in Government” (Zizhi tongjian jieyao 資治通鑒節要), New Explanation of Legal Learning (Lüxue xinshuo 律學新說), Added Regulations to “The Great Ming Code” (Da Minglü fuli 大明律附例), Complete Gazetteer of the Great Ming (Da Ming yitong zhi 大明一統志), Great and Broad, Thoroughly Augmented Yupian (Daguang huiyi Yupian 大廣會益玉篇), A General Study of Literary Documents (Wenxian tong- kao 文獻通考), and Newly Compiled Categorized Collection of Writings on Events from Old and New (Xinbian Gujin shiwen leiju 新編古今事文類聚). Most of these works indeed contain more practical references or educational canons than advanced scholarly writings, perhaps targeting readers with only passable literacy. They include Confucian classics and their canonical commentaries, books for government and administration, and reference aids (dictionaries and encyclopedic works). In addition, most of the didactic exhortation books (shanshu) compiled under the auspices of early Ming emperors (discussed in the previous section) were also printed in the Palace Treasury. Thus Palace Treasury books must be viewed in light of the fact that the court intended to educate general readers with them. Zhou Xinhui also reminds us that the eunuchs in charge were in fact trained fairly well, well enough to have been competent in the preparation and collation of these texts. Therefore, the fact that the Samgang haengsil-to was published following the Ming Palace Treasury model seems not to have been coincidental, for it, too, was targeting general readers for educational purposes. It was not merely because the Ming imperial court had bestowed these Palace Treasury edition books upon the Chosŏn court in large quantities, as most scholars have remarked without paying closer attention to the larger significance. Figure 2 above also shows that the text is punctuated with small circles, another common feature in many of the Palace Treasury editions. This can be understood as a way to assist readers with limited literacy, but it may also have been a means to standardize the interpretation of the texts and to guard against arbitrary readings. This protocol for punctuation is repeated in the Samgang haengsil-to as well. The impact of the Palace Treasury publications on early Chosŏn did not stop at the Samgang haengsil-to. It provided the fundamental pattern for Chosŏn court publishing in general, which in turn influenced non-governmental imprints. Apart from details based on its morphological features, a closer look at the editorial layout of the Samgang haengsil-to reveals other interesting implications about the organizational structure of the text. Layers of 100 chapter two consideration, initially directed toward the conception and collection of stories, now complicated the presentation of those stories within the book. Such considerations are exemplified in the ways that the book prepared its frames to hold the stories. For this initial edition, let us consider some of these implications. The first is how the book embodied its spatio-temporal settings. In the context of book culture, by “embodying” we mean any form of transformation of abstract or intangible quality into a material and tangible entity in the book. The initial edition contains 331 stories—111 stories of filial piety, 110 of loyalty, and another 110 of female devotion—although the official accounts, including its preface, repeatedly state “330 stories, 110 stories for each category.”108 The distribution between Chinese and Korean stories varied among the three categories, but Chinese stories far outnumber Korean stories: 88 Chinese stories of filial sons versus 23 Korean; 93 Chi- nese accounts of loyal subjects versus 17 Korean; and 95 Chinese examples of devoted women versus 15 Korean (see Table 1).109 In all three categories, Chinese stories outnumbered Korean stories by more than five to one. These stories were chosen from history and arranged chronologically from the Xia and Shang to early Ming China, and from the Three Kingdoms to early Chosŏn Korea. This suggests that this was not just a collection of stories but a historicized record.110 Historicity is provided by continuity in the time and space that both the heroes of the stories and the readers inhabited. From antiquity to the generation contemporary to the Samgang haengsil-to, these moral champions had emerged continuously, exemplifying and manifesting inherently human ethical nature in their actions. Nor were these actions confined to Chinese time and space. Such moral actions had been performed repeatedly on the Korean peninsula as well, beginning long before acculturation of Confu- cian doctrines of morality there. After all, ethical values, or “humanity” as defined by Confucianism itself, were supposed to be plain and self-evident

108 This is based on the Hyoja-do (Illustrations of filial sons) in the collection of the King Sejong Memorial Society. 109 The distribution of Chinese and Korean stories for filial sons and devoted women was incorrectly counted in my previous article, and I correct it here. See Young Oh, “Printing the Samgang haengsil-to (Illustrated Guide to the Three Relationships), a Premodern Korean Moral Primer,” East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011): 8. 110 To be sure, a chronological order does not necessarily mean history, but as became apparent when the Sequel “updated” the initial edition by adding more recent stories, the Samgang haengsil-to was meant to be a historical account that was rooted in temporal and spatial reality. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 101

Table 1. Distribution of Chinese and Korean Stories in the Initial Edition of the Samgang haengsil-to (1434) Country Dynastic Setting Stories of Stories of Stories of of Hero/ of the Stories Filial Sons Loyal Subjects Devoted Women Heroine (Hyoja) (Ch’ungsin) (Yŏllyŏ) China Xia 1 1 1 Shang 0 3 0 Zhou 2 1 2 Spring and Autumn/ 7 12 9 Warring States Han 21 12 9 Wei-Jin 13 6 10 Northern and 10 5 2 Southern Dynasties Sui 3 0 4 Tang 9 12 12 Five Dynasties 0 4 1 Song 9 24 9 Liao and Jin 1 5 7 Yuan 9 7 24 Ming 3 1 5 Chinese 88 93 95 totals

Korea Three Kingdoms 4 7 1 Koryŏ 7 10 9 Chosŏn 12 0 5 Korean 23 17 15 totals in all human conditions, regardless of ethnicity, region, or even civilizational integrity. Still, paradigmatic precedence lay with the Chinese tradition. Stories were arranged in such a way that the Chinese exemplars were registered first and then followed by Korean stories of comparable actions. This is precisely the substratum of publishing the Samgang haengsil-to to which the Yuan-Mongol restructuring of the world (discussed in Chapter 1) contributed. Comparing the separate traditions and finding common ground among actions, memories, and experiences—or, more accurately, interpreting them as common experiences—was an effort by the Chosŏn to connect to the Sinitic civilizational domain. Having lived within the imperial order set up by the Mongols, Chosŏn was now equipped with inter- ethnic, morality-based pluralistic ideals implied by the Neo-Confucian 102 chapter two reforms. Therefore, such an attempt was a logical move for early Chosŏn literatus-officials. The second facet that we notice is the hierarchy embodied in the editorial framework. For example, even though the stories are primarily ordered chronologically, this order is interrupted when there is a story whose protagonist is a royal-house member, such as an emperor, king, queen, or royal prince or princess. Under the category of filial sons, “Emperor Wen Tastes Medicine” (Munje sang yak 文帝嘗藥) was a story from the Han dynasty, but it was placed between stories from Chu 楚 and Lu 魯 in the Spring and Autumn period because the hero was an emperor. Stories of devoted royal women from the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming were placed before the feudal states of the Spring and Autumn period for the same reason. However, this hierarchical arrangement only applied to royal-house members, and aristocratic literati were not distinguished from commoners and slaves. The hierarchy here is thus centered on the supremacy of monarchy over historicity, an editorial choice that articulates the ascendancy of the state legitimated by heavenly mandate—a long-established notion of statehood. This choice is also in the same spirit as the traditional Confucian ideal of “rule by virtue” (dezhi 德治 Kr. tŏkch'i), in which moral perfection and practice on the part of the monarch is a necessary requirement. In fact, the effort to indicate a respect for hierarchy in books has a long history. Traditional Chinese and Korean books and documents reserved certain measures to specify this respect. A typical example is taboo characters (Ch. bihui 避諱; Kr. p’ihwi), the practice of changing characters used in the personal names of superiors (such as monarchs and ancestors) to homophonous, synonymous, or graphically altered characters, so that the characters in their names would not be used directly.111 Another example, more pertinent to our text, is taitou 抬頭 (literally, “head-raising”), also known as kaehaeng 改行 (“line-changing”) in Korea.112 Changing the line where a monarch is mentioned so that the phrase referring to the monarch starts a new line, one or two character-spaces above the regular text, was a widespread practice, and the Samgang haengsil-to shared this protocol in its front matter (e.g., “Directed Intention on Distribution,” “Note of Presentation,” and “Preface”). Every time the text mentions a monarch

111 For more explanation about taboo characters, see Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual, 86–87; and Wang Yankun 王彥坤, comp., Lidai bihuizi huidian 歷代避諱字彙典 [Compendium of taboo characters in history], (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2009), 1–6. 112 For details, see Ch’ŏn Hye-bong, Han’guk sŏjihak [Korean codicology], revised edition (Seoul: Minŭmsa, 1997), 590; and Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi, Han’guk ko munsŏ yŏn’gu [A study on old documents of Korea], (Sŏngnam: Han’guk chŏngsin munhwa yŏn’guwŏn, 1981), 39–40. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 103

(current or previous, Chosŏn or Chinese) and his actions, the text jumps to a new line and resumes there, leaving the rest of the preceding line blank. The regular text occupies the page three character-spaces below the top border of the text box, which is reserved for characters denoting kings or their action. Let us look at the beginning portion of the “Pref- ace.” In the fifth line after the title, the line changes in the middle of the sentence after “our” (a 我) and before “Lord Highness” (chusang chŏnha 主上殿下), which appears on the next line: 三綱行實圖序 (Title) . . . 典成湯肇修人紀周家重民五敎而賓興三 (Line 3) 物帝王爲治之先務可知也已宣德辛亥夏 (Line 4) 我 (Line 5) 主上殿下命近臣若曰三代之治皆所以明人倫 (Line 6) 也後世敎化陵夷百姓不親君臣父子夫婦 (Line 7) This would be rendered physically in English translation as follows: Preface to the Samgang haengsil-to . . . cardinal moral codes, Chengtang [the founder of Shang] started [ruling] by repairing human relations, and the Zhou court valued the Five Teach- ings for its people and promoted the Three Matters [of regions] by treating as guests those who were talented in them. [Thus] we can understand that [the Three Relations] are the first matters that a king should attend to in governing [his state]. In the summer of the sinhae cyclic year of the Xuande era [1431], Our Lord Highness ordered his close ministers as follows: “All of the [ideal] rule of the Three Dynasties [Xia, Shang, and Zhou] was that with which they illuminated human relations.” There is in fact one more character-space left blank before “Lord High- ness.” This space is used when the word refers to a Chinese emperor— that is, the suzerain monarch. The line would resume after leaving two character-spaces blank on top (that is, it would resume just one character- space above the regular text rather than two) if the next word was a verb such as “mandated” (myŏng 命) or “granted” (sa 賜). In addition, whenever the name of a subject is mentioned in the text, it is preceded by “servant” (sin 臣) in smaller-sized characters, half the size of regular characters. The textual presentation hence displays a well-organized hierarchy. All these features reveal how the book practiced ritual symbolism physically. It implies that carved characters were assumed not only to represent the morphemes, which to our minds are linguistic units, but also to embody the objects that they designated. Texts and literary spaces were 104 chapter two tangible and physical, rather than mere abstract or conceptual cues to linguistic discourse, and the book housed this reality. The Samgang haengsil- to inherited the kind of strict observance and direct reflection of hierarchy that was carved into the culture of books at the time. Interestingly, the same kind of editorial protocol is not observed in the actual story texts. Their sentences flow without any visual interrup- tion from beginning to end, except for two things: the small punctuation circles for parsing sentences, and the poems and eulogies attached at the end of the narrative.113 This means that the editorial conventions for hierarchy applied only to what we might call “paratexts,” following Gérard Genette.114 We may not conclude, however, that all hierarchical or ritual symbolism was confined to paratexts. In the Samgang haengsil-to we notice another formatting convention embodying ritual symbolism: each story occupies one folio composed of a verbal (literary) text and an illustrated (pictured) text. An illustration is placed on the right side of the folio, and the verbal text consisting of the narrative, poem, and/or eulogy is placed on the left. When folded and bound, the recto side shows the literary text of the preceding story and the verso the illustration of the next (see Figure 1). This format continues without any other editorial intervention or variation until all the stories in the category are exhausted. In other words, there is a strict layout rule implemented throughout the main text: one folio per story—or, more precisely, one woodblock per story. This rule did not change until the 1617 edition, the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom, and continued to affect the physical shape of the book of later editions. The editorial principle of “one block per story” or “one folio per story” could simply have been for the ease of printing, for it facilitated collating texts printed on sheets. Woodblocks containing the whole text of one story can be stored easily as well, with less risk of the sheets getting shuffled out

113 There are some exceptions to this. When a story narrates the matters of the current dynasty, either Chosŏn or Ming, the text leaves a blank before mentioning the court and monarch. See “Yu ssi hyo ko, ponjo” 劉氏孝姑 (本朝) [Lady Liu is filial to her mother-in- law, the present dynasty (Ming)], “Poan chŏn ch’ung, Wŏn” 普顏全忠 (元) [Puyan fulfills loyalty, Yuan dynasty], Mong-ju unmyŏng” 夢周隕命 (高麗) [(Chŏng) Mong-ju loses his life, Koryŏ], and “Kil Chae kŏjŏl” 吉再拒節 (高麗) [Kil Chae resists with integrity, Koryŏ]. 114 Gérard Genette, Seuils (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1987), translated into English by Jane E. Lewin as Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 105 of order. Still, an explanation based on the economy of production leaves some points unaccounted for if we consider later editorial changes. As we shall see in later editions, the court faced the need to reduce the size of the book for reasons of storage and distribution. Instead of redacting the length of written texts for individual stories, making the illustrations smaller, or arranging the written and illustrated texts in such a way that they could share the same folio space—as we see in the typical layout of “picture above, text below” (shangtu xiawen 上圖下文) in Chinese story books—or the written text being housed within the blank space of the picture in some of the Buddhist narrative illustrations, the court decided to retain some stories and discard others without making changes to the original. In addition, when the court added the vernacular text along with the original classical Chinese after the invention of Han’gŭl, it did not change the layout to accommodate the additional text on the main page but used the upper margin to integrate it. Finally, even when the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom was compiled, which indeed altered the previous layout so that both Han’gŭl and classical Chinese texts occupied the main page side by side, the editors still maintained the principle of printing one story per block and accommo- dated the new design by making the written text shorter and increasing the number of characters carved onto the blocks. (This is discussed again in Chapter 4.) We must think about why the layout principle of “one folio per story” remained nonnegotiable. As a physical site that perceptually simulated valiant examples from history in order to encourage readers and viewers to righteous actions, each sheet functioned as an enclosed space dedicated to one virtuous moral hero. Each folio first presents the images of the hero in action, occupying the entire page. This illustration reserves the upper- right corner for the title of the story (see Figure 1), which introduces the hero rather like a tablet in a shrine. This visual representation can then be compared to murals or statues. Following the illustration, the written text resembles a memorial describing the moral deeds of heroes after their induction into the shrine. In other words, these folios were commemorative tributes to moral heroes, where their achievements were first visualized with pictorial highlights, then narrated in a solemn language, and finalized with accolades (i.e., poems and eulogies). Each folio thereby encapsulates and reenacts the hero’s life, so that readers can experience each sheet like a visit to a shrine. This ritual dimension to the folio may also explain why the illustrations and narratives were not printed facing 106 chapter two each other when folded, and why readers were not able to view the visual representation and textual depiction simultaneously when they opened the book. (More on the illustrations later.) This suggests an interesting supposition: printed sheets, at least to the producers of the Samgang haengsil-to, were not the primary concern in housing the text; the text resided on the blocks. Forsaking the foresee- able pedagogical benefits of allowing simultaneous viewing of pictures and narrative, the producers decided to make each block the bearer of an individual story. Herein lies the significance of the blocks. Blocks house the text intact in a fixed space. The printed sheets were therefore mere copies that were prone to vanish, whereas the blocks stood for the eternal truth (a notion perhaps reminiscent of the Platonic dichotomy of the phenomenal world and eternal forms). Behind this view of the folio as a ritual object holding commendable memories, which are otherwise intangible and fluid, lay the Chosŏn literati’s notion of preserving text in perpetuity: texts could last forever only by being engraved on woodblocks. This also corresponds to the efforts of the Chosŏn court and literati communities to keep well-documented records of inventories and locations of printing blocks (ch’aekp’an 冊板).115

Blocks or Types The early Chosŏn endeavor to print books using movable type reached its peak during Sejong’s reign, and the court continued to improve and promote typographic printing throughout the dynasty. Nevertheless, all editions of court-issued Samgang haengsil-to were printed with woodblocks,

115 For example, Sejong granted proposals from his ministries to mandate local magistrates to keep precise records of printing blocks conserved in their offices and to confirm that they transferred correctly to the next magistrates when they assumed the offices; see Sejong sillok 29:25b (Sejong 7/9/1) and 39:14a (Sejong 10/1/26). Records of printing blocks and their depositories are found throughout the Chosŏn era, such as the Kosa ch’waryo 攷事撮要 [Selected essentials on verified facts] compiled by Ŏ Suk-kwŏn 魚叔權 (fl. 1515–54), which included an extensive list of printing blocks comprising 557 titles (1568 edition), and the Nup’an ko 鏤板考 [An exposition of engraved blocks] by Sŏ Yu-gu 徐有榘 (1764–1845), which recorded 610 titles according to their categories. The compilation of these lists was mostly initiated by the court and local governments, with special attention given to titles of Confucian literature. For a historical overview of Chosŏn records of printing blocks, see Yun Pyŏng-t’ae, “Chosŏn ŭi ch’aekp’an mongnok” [Catalogues of printing blocks of Chosŏn], in Han’guk sŏjihak nonjip: Hangsim Yun Pyŏng-t’ae paksa chŏngnyŏn kinyŏm nonmunjip [Col- lected articles in Korean bibliography: a festschrift in honor of Dr. Yun Pyŏng-t’ae on his retirement], edited by Hangsim Yun Pyŏng-t’ae paksa chŏngnyŏn kinyŏm nonmunjip kanhaeng wiwŏnhoe (Seoul: Minch’ang munhwasa, 1999), 173–219. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 107 and the idea of printing it with movable type was never even entertained. By 1434, typographical technology in Chosŏn had seen significant improve- ments since the preceding stages. The constant problems that the Kyemi font (kyemi-cha 癸未字)—the first set of copper-iron movable type, cast in 1403—had caused were resolved with the Kyŏngja font (kyŏngja-cha 庚子字) of 1422. Since the Kyemi font used wax to fix types on the frame, which did not hold types firmly and made it necessary to refix the types after every one or two imprints, the speed of printing was extremely slow. The Kyŏngja font facilitated a solution by designing types in square shapes, so that they could be set tightly against one another.116 In 1434, the year the Samgang haengsil-to was printed, the Kabin font (kabin-cha 甲寅字) was also completed. The Kabin font was the first fairly usable type set, made by ameliorating the Kyŏngja font. Moreover, the office charged with casting Kabin-font types, the Office of Typecasting (Chujaso), was also the office that printed the Samgang haengsil-to. But we find no evidence that printing it with movable type was ever considered. According to Kim Tu- jong’s survey, during Sejong’s era alone, the court published thirty-one titles with the Kyŏngja font and forty-two with the Kabin.117 If Sejong was eager to disseminate books printed with movable type, why was printing the Samgang haengsil-to with the newly perfected technology never contemplated? Even with the court’s particular interest in movable type, the traditional idea of printing still centered on woodblocks as the major device for printing. As Liu Dajun has observed, even in the late fourteenth century, literatus-officials viewed typography as a secondary method of printing books, to be used only when block printing was not readily available.118 It was believed that for wide circulation and permanent preservation of texts, only block prints could be relied on, and it was not unusual to see books printed first with movable type and then carved on blocks to be reprinted. The merit of movable-type printing was its expeditiousness for making a small print run. Once the types were cast, setting types on the frame took much less time and energy than preparing wood, cutting it into blocks, and carving texts onto them, not to mention that the movable type could

116 This improvement was devised by Yi Ch’ŏn 李蕆 and other officials, and commissioned by King Sejong. Details are recorded in Sejong’s own words in the Sejong sillok (65:3b–4a, Sejong 16/7/2). 117 Kim Tu-jong, Han’guk ko inswae kisul sa [A history of old Korean print technology], (Seoul: T’amgudang, 1974), 139–40; 146–47. 118 Liu Dajun [Yu Tae-gun], Chujaso yŏn’gu [A study of the Office of Typecasting], (Seoul: Han’guk haksul chŏngbo, 2008), 76. 108 chapter two be reused for printing other books. Despite the aforementioned technical impediment that prevented the fast production of multiple prints, movable-type printing was still serviceable for printing a small number of copies with a quick turnaround. In addition, as the court developed new sets of type, the speed of making prints increased. The Kyemi font could not produce more than a couple of sheets a day,119 but the Kyŏngja font improved to twenty sheets a day,120 and the Kabin set finally managed to speed up to forty sheets a day.121 Still, woodblocks remained the driving force behind printing. Though it took longer and required more resources, not to mention the additional inconvenience of storing and preserving blocks, block-printing could promise a larger quantity of copies. For this reason, Sejong himself issued an edict: The Chronicle of Zuo is something scholars must read. If we print it using cast types, it will not be able to circulate widely. We must have it carved onto woodblocks and made available widely.122 Therefore, for a title such as the Samgang haengsil-to, which was expected to reach the entire state, type printing was not used. There is another reason that may have affected the court’s choice of woodblocks over type for printing this book: the illustrations. Written texts could be printed with type, but the images of illustrations had to rely on woodblocks. In fact, when the court was about to reprint some titles of Chinese medical texts for the staff of the Palace Medical Office (Chŏnŭigam 殿醫監), one of the four titles was block-printed because it included illustrations, whereas the others were printed with type.123 But having illustrations did not necessarily require block-printing, since illustrations could be printed with blocks, collated separately, and then bound with type-printed written text. Here again, in the case of the Samgang haengsil-to, however, we see that the principle of “one block per story” was left unchallenged. Finally, there was widespread understanding that movable-type print did not last long. Succeeding that of the late Koryŏ literati, Chosŏn literati

119 Sejong sillok 11:15b (Sejong 3/3/24). 120 Pyŏn Kye-ryang 卞季良, “Postface to Typecasting” (Chuja pal 鑄字跋), in Sejong sillok 18:10b (Sejong 4/10/29). 121 Sejong sillok 65:4a (Sejong 16/7/2). 122 《左傳》，學者所當觀覽。用鑄字印之，則未能廣布，宜令刊板，使之廣行。 Sejong sillok 51:21a (Sejong 13/2/28). 123 Sejong sillok 52:18b (Sejong 13/5/11). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 109 print culture shows an absolute preference for woodblock printing, especially when it comes to texts held in high regard. This attitude toward woodblocks persisted throughout Chosŏn. As Kang Myŏng-gwan has pointed out, we find an interesting account concerning the printing of a posthumous anthology of Ki Chŏng-jin 奇正鎮 (1798–1879) in Maech’ŏn’s Unofficial Records (Maech’ŏn yarok 梅泉野錄) by Hwang Hyŏn 黃玹 (1855–1910).124 Ki Chŏng-jin was an eminent Confucian scholar representing the Kiho 畿湖 School, and his writings were compiled and printed with movable type shortly after his death. Later, his disciples living in the Yŏngnam area (the modern Kyŏngsang region in the southeast) argued that the anthology should be reprinted on blocks because “type prints cannot last long.” This remark hinges on the fact that type sets had to be disassembled after each use, and consequently the true holder of the text would disappear. Such instances, in which books printed with type came to be reprinted later with woodblocks, are not rare. Doing so was even more likely when the text in question was a literatus’s posthumous anthology (munjip 文集). Publishing the collected writings of a literatus posthumously was an act of commemorating him with the utmost honor— in other words, it was a ritual event. Preserving his writings—hopefully in perpetuity—implied that his words and life would materialize into a memorial object, and that his words were worthy of being immortal- ized, making them almost canonical. Therefore, having them inscribed onto blocks was necessary, and it was the blocks themselves, rather than printed copies, that shone as the emblem of his stature in history. The case of the Samgang haengsil-to was not too different from this.

Illustrations—Recounting vs. Recalling Each illustration in the Samgang haengsil-to is composed of pictures that depict the incidents from the story, from a single incident to a collage of as many as eight scenes. Within a single illustration, scenes are divided by cloud edges, buildings, walls, fences, or by natural borders like mountains and rivers. In other words, illustrations simultaneously presented scenes from the narrative within one page, bringing to mind modern comic books. It is not clear who drew the illustrations. Since the work was a court publication, they must have come from the hands of government artists (hwawŏn 畫員). Kim Wŏl-lyong has hypothesized that famous

124 Kang Myŏng-gwan, Ch’aekpŏlle-dŭl Chosŏn ŭl mandŭlda [Bookworms make Chosŏn], (Seoul: P’urŭn yŏksa, 2007), 30. 110 chapter two court artists such as An Kyŏn 安堅 (fl. 1442–64), who is well known for his “Dream of Strolling in a Peach Garden” (Mong yu towŏn-do 夢遊桃源圖), and his contemporary Ch’oe Kyŏng 崔涇, worked on the illustrations of the Samgang haengsil-to.125 It is only logical to assume that illustrations were inserted to facilitate comprehension of the stories. Considering that this book was to be consumed by those who did not have the ability to read the written text on their own, a measure of this sort must have been necessary. But it is not immediately apparent exactly what kind of effect the compilers intended with these illustrations. A passage in Kwŏn Ch’ae’s “Preface” (introduced above) is instructive. To recapitulate: [The text] should be able to make anyone, whether wise or stupid, noble or base, child or woman, view it with pleasure and practice what they perceive there; and open and appreciate its illustrations, by which they can imagine the scenes; as well as intone its poetry, by which they can embody its sentiment and moral nature. All of them, without fail, will be overcome with admiration and sigh with appreciation; will urge and encourage others in order to feel and to bring out the shared mind of goodness that has moved them and to exhaust the responsibilities of their position or lot in life. Interestingly, Kwŏn Ch’ae does not mention anything about illustrations assisting the illiterate to understand or follow the stories. Illustrations were meant more to create vivid impressions of the stories in the readers’ minds than to help them follow the narratives. They were to be “appre- ciated,” to make readers (regardless of their literacy level) “imagine the scene,” and, as a result, be inspired to fulfill their own moral responsibilities. In other words, Kwŏn Ch’ae seems to be suggesting that the ultimate purpose of including illustrations did not lie in making readers understand, but in causing them to act. Including multiple scenes in an accompanying illustration makes more sense if they are there to enable an illiterate audience to imagine (or to help literate readers reimagine) the story through visual clues—the illustrations and/or the mental images that stem from the physical images. But the arrangement of the scenes often fails to match the narrative sequence of the story. First of all, the direction in which the scenes flow appears to be arbitrary. Whereas in some stories the scenes in the illustration move from top to bottom or from bottom to top, in other cases scenes are placed randomly. According to Chŏng Pyŏng-mo, of the 324 stories

125 Kim Wŏl-lyong, “Samgang haengsil-to e taehayŏ” [Regarding the Samgang haengsil- to], in Samgang haengsil-to, photographic reproduction (Seoul: Sejong Taewang kinyŏm saŏphoe [King Sejong Memorial Society], 1982), 3–18. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 111 preserved in the copies that are presumably closest to the initial edition, 150 illustrations move from bottom to top, 120 from top to bottom, and 24 are arranged in no particular order (meaning that scenes proceed, for example, from left top to bottom right and then left to right, from the bottom to the top and then to the middle, and the like).126 The remaining 30 consist of single scenes. Let us take the story of a devoted woman, [Zhao] Yuanjiang [趙]媛姜 of Han China, for an example (Figure 3).127 When Yibu 益部 started an insurrection in 200 ce, Yuanjiang’s husband, Sheng Dao 盛道, also gath- ered a crowd and rose up in arms.128 As the revolt ended in failure, the husband and wife were captured and faced death. At night, Yuanjiang told her husband, “The law has immutable punishments, and there surely is no hope [for us] to survive. You can escape secretly in haste to build the family. I will stay here to pay for the wrong in your place.” As Sheng Dao hesitated to go along with it, Yuanjiang took the shackle off Sheng Dao, packed up some grain and money, and had him escape with their five- year-old son. Yuanjiang spent the night in prison in place of Sheng Dao, responding to the guards without making mistakes. Thinking that Sheng Dao must have run far by then, Yuanjiang told them the truth the next day, upon which she was immediately executed. Sheng Dao and their son were eventually pardoned and could return to their home. Deeply moved by his wife’s devotion, Sheng Dao spent the rest of his life unmarried.

126 Chŏng Pyŏng-mo, “Samgang haengsil-to p’anhwa e taehan koch’al” [A study of the printed illustrations of the Samgang haengsil-to], Chindan hakpo 85 (1998): 185–227. 127 The images in Figure 3, 4, 5, and 9 are adapted from the Kugyŏk Samgang haengsil- to 國譯三綱行實圖 [The Samgang haengsil-to, translated into (modern) Korean], digitalized as part of the Korea A to Z database services (http://www.koreaa2z.com), created by Dongbang Media, available through E-Korean Studies (http://e-koreanstudies.com). This digital edition is based on the aforementioned photographic reproduction of the Samgang haengsil-to produced by the King Sejong Memorial Society in 1982 (see note 124), which is comprised of the Hyoja-do in the collection of the King Sejong Memorial Society, the Ch’ungsin-do in the Kyujanggak Library, and the Yŏllyŏ-do of Kim Wŏl-lyong’s collection (currently at the Samsung Museum of Art). 128 “Wŏn’gang haegok, Han” 媛姜解梏 (漢) [Yuanjiang takes off the cangue, Han dynasty], Samgang haengsil-to (initial edition), Yŏllyŏ 24a–b. The original narrative text in classical Chinese reads as follows: 盛道妻趙氏。字媛姜。建安五年。益部亂。道聚衆起兵。事敗。夫妻執繫當死。媛姜。夜中告道曰。法有常刑。必無生望。君可速潛逃。建立門戶。妾自留獄代君塞咎。道依違未從。媛姜。便解道桎梏。爲齎粮貨。翔年五歲。使道持而走。媛姜。代道持夜。應對不失。度道已遠。乃以實告。吏應時見殺。道父子。會赦得歸。道感其義。終身不娶。This story is found in the Chinese Later Han History (Hou Han shu 后漢書), 48.2799 (Biographies of Exemplary Women [Lienü zhuan 列女傳] 74). 112 chapter two

Figure 3. “[Zhao] Yuanjiang Takes Off the Cangue” (Wŏn’gang haegok 媛姜解梏). Image from the Kugyŏk Samgang haengsil-to 國譯三綱行實圖 (The Samgang haengsil-to, translated into Korean), digitalized as part of the Korea A to Z database services (http://www.koreaa2z.com). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 113

As can be seen in Figure 3, the scene in which Yuanjiang persuades Sheng Dao, wearing the cangue in front of their son and a bundle containing money and grain, separated by the house fence, is at the bottom (①); in the scene in the middle (②) enclosed by hill lines, Sheng Dao is escaping with his son in his arms; and the scene where Yuanjiang is executed by the officials is on top (③). The flow here is thus from bottom to top. The illustration of the story of Xu Ji 徐積 (1028–1103) of Song China provides a more complicated example, in which scenes flow in no predict- able direction (Figure 4).129 Xu Ji, a native of Chuzhou Prefecture, lost his father when he was three. Every morning, the three-year-old Xu Ji grieved deeply, looking for his father (①). Tending to his mother, he never failed to greet her in proper attire every morning (②). When he was studying with Hu Yuan 胡瑗 [993–1059], Hu Yuan sent food to his house, but Xu Ji did not accept it. Departing for the capital to take the civil service examinations, he could not leave his mother unattended, and put her on a cart and pushed it all the way to the west [toward the capital city, Kaifeng] (③). Upon passing the examination, Hu Anguo 胡安國, the Head Graduate of the examination, and the other graduates of the same year visited Xu Ji’s mother and presented her with 100 liang of gold to wish her longevity (④), which Xu Ji refused with appreciation. He never used stoneware, and even walked around stones on the road so that he would not have to step on them, because his father’s given name was Shi 石 ‘stone’. Facing his mother’s passing, Xu Ji vomited blood with grief (⑤), and mourned in a hut next to her grave for three years (⑥). On snowy nights, he would be lying pros- trate by his mother’s grave and his wailing would not stop. Lü Zhen 呂溱 [fl. 1038–65], a Hanlin Academician, who was passing by the grave and heard it [the wailing], also started to cry (⑦). Sweet dew came down on the grave every year; and two apricot branches [by the grave] were con- joined (⑧). Even after the mourning period, he did not remove the straw [mourning] mat, and he stayed there presenting greetings and meals as if

129 “Sŏ Chŏk tŏkhaeng, Song” 徐積篤行 (宋) [The earnest behavior of Xu Ji, Song dynasty], Samgang haengsil-to (initial edition), Hyoja 72a–b. 徐積。楚州人。三歲父死。旦旦求之甚哀。事母朝夕冠帶定省。從胡瑗學。瑗饋以食弗受。應擧入都。不忍捨其親。徒載而西。登第。擧首許安國率同年入拜。且致百金爲壽。謝而却之。以父名石。終身不用石器。行遇石。則避而不踐。母亡。悲慟嘔血。廬墓三年。雪夜伏墓側。哭不絶音。翰林學士呂溱過其墓。聞之。泣下。甘露歲降兆域。杏兩枝合。旣終喪不徹筵。起居饋獻如平生。州以行聞。詔賜粟帛。皇祐初。爲楚州敎授。又轉和州防禦推官。徽宗賜諡節孝處士。 Xu Ji is also known for his poems collected in the Complete Song Prose Works (Quan Song ci 全宋詞). 114 chapter two

Figure 4. “The Earnest Behavior of Xu Ji” (Sŏ Chŏk tokhaeng 徐積篤行). Image from the Kugyŏk Samgang haengsil-to 國譯三綱行實圖 (The Samgang haengsil-to, translated into Korean), digitalized as part of the Korea A to Z database services (http://www.koreaa2z.com). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 115 she were still alive. When [his story] was told to the prefectural office, it issued an edict to bestow upon him grain and cloth (⑨). Another case showing an even more irregular arrangement of scenes within an illustration is the story of Puyan Buhua 普顔不花 (Puyan Buqa, 1295–1367), an official who died to remain loyal to the Yuan dynasty (Figure 5).130 In the eighteenth year [1358] of the Zhizheng Reign, [the court] commissioned Assistant Administrator Puyan Buhua to take charge of Jiangnan (①) together with Li Guofeng, the Attendant Censor. When they reached Jianning, Chen Youliang [1320–63] sent Deng Keming to disrupt [Jianning]. Guofeng ran away, but Puyan Buhua said: “I came here bearing imperial orders. Even if I leave, where would I go? I pledged to survive or to perish along with this fort.” Battling in resistance for sixty-four days (②), he defeated the enemy congregation on a large scale. [The court] summoned him back the next year and appointed him Pacification Officer of Shan- dong, and had him defend Yidao. The troupe of the Great Ming pressed the border, and Puyan Buhua battled for the fort with all his might. The fort fell, and Pingzhang Baobao went out to surrender. Puyan Buhua returned to tell his mother (③), “Your son cannot fulfill both filial piety and loyalty. Fortunately, I have two younger brothers, and they should nourish you until the end.” He paid obeisance to his mother and then went to the office. While he was sitting on the platform, the commanding general [of the Ming army], having always heard tell of his talents, summoned him a couple of times. He did not go. Later on, [the soldiers] tied his hands behind his back, and Puyan Buhua said, “I am a Presented Scholar in the Yuan court and have attained an official position of the highest rank. Things have come thus far; for what would I live?” Eventually, he died without submission (④). His wife, Aluzhen, threw herself into the north well with their son in her arms (⑤); his daughter, his concubine, and his granddaughter all drowned themselves accordingly (⑥). The wives of his

130 “Poan chŏn ch’ung, Wŏn” [Puyan fulfills loyalty, Yuan dynasty], Samgang haengsil- to (initial edition), Ch’ungsin 89a–b. 至正十八年。詔知政事普顔不花。與侍御史李國鳳。經略江南。至建寧。陳友諒。遣鄧克明來寇。國鳳遁去。普顔不花曰。我承制來此。去將何之。誓與此城。同存亡耳。拒戰六十四日。大敗賊衆。明年召還。授山東宣慰使。守益都。大明兵壓境。普顔不花。城力戰。城陷。平章保保出降。普顔不花。還告其母曰。兒不能兩全忠孝。幸有二弟。當終養。拜母趨官舍。坐堂上。主將素聞其賢。召之再三。不往。旣而面縛之。普顔不花曰。我元朝進士。官至極品。事已至此。何以生爲。竟不屈而死。其妻阿魯眞。抱其子。投舍北井。其女。及妾。孫女。皆隨溺。二弟之妻。各抱幼子。及婢妾。溺舍南井死。 This story is found in the History of Yuan (Yuan shi 元史), 196.4429 (Biographies [Liezhuan 列傳] 83). 116 chapter two

Figure 5. “Puyan Fulfills Loyalty” (Poan chŏn ch’ung 普顏全忠). Image from the Kugyŏk Samgang haengsil-to 國譯三綱行實圖 (The Samgang haengsil-to, translated into Korean), digitalized as part of the Korea A to Z database services (http://www.koreaa2z.com). the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 117 two brothers, each with their sons, as well as their maids and concubines, all drowned themselves in the south well. Examples where the flow of scenes in the illustration does not follow any conceivable order are fairly frequent in the Samgang haengsil-to, and it is hard to imagine how these illustrations made sense—with or without the written text. Without the written text, or without the recounting of the story, the viewer would not be able to identify what each scene was depicting; and even while reading the text, the illustration would not provide assistance to the viewer in following the flow of the narrative. The absence of linear connection from one scene to the next thus divorces the function of reconstructing from the illustration. Yet since there are also illustrations that do follow reasonably linear directions (upward and downward), it is perplexing that we cannot detect a rule as to how to engage a visual sequence consistently throughout the book. It seems that the illustrations could only make sense to those who already knew the stories, as many scholars have speculated, meaning that the order of scenes may not have been critical. Even if this were so, however, there is no reason to arrange the flow of scenes so irregularly throughout the book. One possible explanation is that there was an underlying sequence, but the editors had to alter it at times for some compelling reason. A recent study by Cho Hyŏn-u entertains this possibility.131 Cho Hyŏn-u suggests that certain characters or objects from the story have specific positions they must occupy in the illustration based on criteria outside of the narrative sequence. For example, an emperor or a governmental official is more likely than a subject or a commoner to be placed in the upper registers of the illustration, even though he may appear later in the flow of the story. Cho Hyŏn-u found that those of higher status in the socio-cultural hierarchy (e.g., kings, official buildings, fathers, husbands, graves and funerals, etc.) consistently occupy a higher position in the illustrations than do their lower-status counterparts (e.g., subjects, ordinary houses, sons, wives, living quarters, etc.). According to Cho Hyŏn-u, in the example of Xu Ji (see Figure 4) the presence of the grave of Xu Ji’s mother at the top has changed the arrangement of scenes from their narrative order. Considering the ritualistic tenor that prevails in the written text, such a treatment is not surprising. Indeed, depictions of graves are almost always

131 Cho Hyŏn-u, “Samgang haengsil-to p’anhwa ŭi sŏnggyŏk kwa kinŭng yŏn’gu—yech’i rŭl wihan sangha punbyŏl ŭi hyŏngsanghwa” [A study on the characteristics and functions of the Samgang haengsil-to—shaping hierarchy for ritualistic rule], Han’guk munhak iron kwa pip’yŏng 44 (2009): 107–35. 118 chapter two placed on the top register of illustrations in the section on filial sons; and in the illustrations of loyal subject stories, depictions of emperors or officials appear at the top. Cho Hyŏn-u’s approach is certainly refreshing and innovative, but his explanation does not apply all the time; nor, more importantly, does it explain clearly how the rest of the sequence is meant to flow after certain scenes were placed mandatorily on top. The fact that literatus-editors anticipated a mediated reading practice for this text—in other words, that a literate person would read the written text and interpret it for illiterate audiences in the vernacular—must also have affected the formatting of the illustrations. We can picture a room in which an elder of a family, while reading and explaining the story in plain language to his or her children, points to individual images in the illustration. But this still does not explain how the compilers of the Samgang haengsil-to envisioned these illustrations “helping” its viewers. If these illustrations were not meant as an aid to visualizing the story line, how were they expected to edify readers? Was the lack of a clear visual narrative orientation simply to lead viewers and audience to trace and match the illustrations against the recounted story? The aforementioned passage from the preface by Kwŏn Ch’ae affords some insights into this matter when it says that, for those who open and appreciate an illustration by imagining the scene, the images will make them “feel and bring out the shared mind of goodness” (kambal ki tongyŏn chi sŏnsim 感發其同然之善心). To “feel and bring out,” or kambal (Ch. ganfa 感發), is not a usual choice of words in terms of Confucian metaphysics. Zhu Xi’s philosophy of mind maintained that the heart-mind (xin 心) controls moral nature (xing 性) and emotion (qing 情)—a maxim developed by Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–77), echoing the long-standing notion about the affect of texts on the human emotion and moral nature that had already been affirmed since the beginning of Chinese literature as early as the “Great Preface” to the Book of Poetry. The philosophical discourse parallels a value of text production here. As was put forward in the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸), moral nature, which is endowed in all human beings by heaven, is in an unmanifested (weifa 未發 ‘not yet brought-out’) state but contains morality in its potentiality; emotion, in contrast, is in a manifested ( yifa 已發 ‘already brought-out’) state in which diverse consciousnesses (moral, intellectual, and aesthetic, including feelings such as happiness, anger, sadness, and pleasure) come into reality. The manifestation of conscious feelings is instigated by interacting with and responding to (gan 感 ‘to feel’) exterior beings (wu 物). The the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 119

“shared mind of goodness” that Kwŏn Ch’ae mentions thus refers to the moral nature in the unmanifested mind, and viewing and appreciating the illustrations is expected to bring out the moral consciousness by way of feelings in the form of emotion. This anticipated outcome was also expressed in other places. King Sejong himself, in the “Directed Intention on Distribution,” stated: I gave an order to the Confucian subjects to collate [examples of ] those who were extraordinary and deserve to be models [for others], among filial sons, loyal subjects, and devoted women; to record [their stories] in accordance with what happened, and attach to them poems and eulogies. Neverthe- less, concerned that ignorant men and women would still not become easily well-versed, [I ordered] the addition of illustrated images, and named it the Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations [Samgang haengsil], which I print and distribute widely. I hope children on the street and housewives in alleyways all come to know it with ease. When they open and recite it, if there is something that makes them feel [kam 感] and be provoked [bal 發], it would be of some assistance as a way to inspire them with encouragement and lead them with guidance.132 This last sentence echoes Kwŏn Ch’ae’s line in his “Preface.” Illustrations were inserted so as to “provoke” or “bring out” the moral nature within the minds of the ignorant, rather than to help them follow the stories of the exemplary figures. Also repeated is the concern that “ignorant men and women” could not read the verbal text written in classical Chinese. Still, the king did not forget to indicate his expectations of the poems and eulogies added to the texts. Hoping that people would intone and recite (p’ungsong 諷誦) them, Sejong envisioned that both illustration and poetry would bring out people’s moral nature. But the ignorant masses were illiterate. How would they read the classical Chinese poetry, let alone recite or intone it? We must assume that, at least for the illiterate, the king and his compilers relied on the capacity and sensitivity of the mediators who would read and explain the text to the audiences.133

132 爰命儒臣。編輯古今孝子忠臣烈女之卓然可法者。隨事紀載。幷着詩贊。尙慮愚夫愚婦。未易通曉。附以圖形。名曰三綱行實。鋟榟度布。庶幾街童巷婦。皆得易知。披閱諷誦之間。有所感發。則其於誘掖開導之方。“Directed Intention on Distribution,” in the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. 133 This was certainly not a well-grounded hope. In subsequent editions, the poetry in the Samgang haengsil-to texts became less and less significant, and it was eventually removed altogether. 120 chapter two

The combined effect of illustrations and poetry was also meant to bridge the gap in the memory of moral consciousness created by time. Chŏng Ch’o wrote in his “Postface” to the Samgang haengsil-to: The [humble] subject cautiously reflects: As for the people of today and those of ancient days, their times and circumstances do not connect with each other; they do not know each other’s sounds and appearances; what like or dislike do they have for each other? This may be the case, but upon seeing a person who is faithful and sincere, with high integrity, we admire him with utmost respect, lift our hands and put them on our foreheads,134 and would hold a horsewhip [to drive a carriage] for him;135 upon seeing a base, sordidly detestable person, when spitting on him and scolding him is insufficient, we roll up our sleeves and grab one arm with the other hand [to show our indignation], going so far as to want to cut his head off with our own hands.136 This is just [an indication] that the minds of human beings are alike and that heaven’s principles do not vanish; how much more so when one sees the images firsthand and exclaims over those affairs [with admiration]? How deep their feelings will be; how fast their inspiration will come!137

134 “Lifting hands to put them on foreheads” ( ju shou jia e 舉手加額) is also written “raising head and putting [hands] on foreheads” ( ju shou jia e 舉首加額). Chen Liang’s 陳亮 (1143–1194) “Letter to Vice-Director Han Zishi [d. 1192]” ( yu Han Zishi shilang shu 與韓子師侍郎書) contains the line, “When people hear that a virtuous envoy is arriving, they lift their hands and put them on their foreheads, thinking that heaven’s gaze has opened.” 百姓聞賢使君之來，舉手加額，以爲天眼開矣。Chen Liang, Chen Liang ji 陳亮集 [Collected writings of Chen Liang], edited by Deng Guangming (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987), 324. The textual variation may be attributed to the homophony between shou 首 ‘head’ and shou 手 ‘hand’. It is clear that they both describe an action showing exhilaration and reverent fear when confronted with examples of moral superiority. 135 The Analects quoted Confucius using this expression: “If riches could be sought, even should I have to be a serviceman holding a horsewhip, I would do it. Since they cannot be sought, I will follow what I like.” 富而可求也，雖執鞭之士，吾亦爲之。如不可求，從吾所好。Analects 7.12. At the end of Yan Ying’s 晏嬰 (d. 500 bce) biography in the Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian has: “If Yanzi [Yan Ying] had been here, even were I to hold a horsewhip for him, it would be what I gladly yearn for.” 假令晏子而在，余雖爲之執鞭，所忻慕焉。“Biographies of Guan Zhong and Yan Ying” (Guan Yan liezhuan 管晏列傳), Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji 史記) 62.2137. 136 “Cutting off someone’s head with one’s own hands” indicates a violent but righteous killing, with extreme outrage. Though it was written later than this postface, a line from one of the stories collected by Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 (1574–1640), describing the resentment against Wang Anshi, may provide a good example: “If I met this heinous rascal, I would surely cut off his head with my own hands, tear out his heart and liver, and eat them. Even if I had to proceed to [an execution by] boiling in a cauldron or being cutting up by blades, I would hold no regret.” 若見此奸賊，必手刃其頭，刳其心肝而食之。雖赴鼎鑊刀鋸，亦無恨矣。“In the Hall Halfway-up-the-Hill, the Stubborn One Dies of Grief ” (Ao xianggong yinhen Banshantang 拗相公飲恨半山堂), in Stories to Caution the World ( Jing- shi tongyan 警世通言), edited by Feng Menglong, seventeenth-century woodblock edition (preface dated 1624) in Waseda University, 4.12b. 137 臣竊惟今人與古人，時勢不相接，音貌不相知，何惡何愛於彼此哉!然而見貞諒高節之人，則忻慕致敬，擧手加額，願爲之執鞭焉，見苟賤汚穢之人， the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 121

Time brings about changes to human beings and their lives. The people of the present are completely detached from those of the past. Like any typical Confucian trope, Chŏng Ch’o’s postface assumes the following: human experience has changed and deteriorated; the antiquity in which the sages once lived and practiced moral principles has long since gone; the morality that once prevailed has become depraved. Unable to experience ancient times, people of today have lost touch with the heroic moral actions that were once performed and accumulated. But while the persist- ing substance of the moral nature of human beings is not felt, as though asleep, it is also true that its manifestations, in the form of admiration for moral superheroes and hatred for villains, have surfaced in history. Showing firsthand images of exemplary manifestations to the people in one place will certainly deepen their appreciation and provoke their inspiration. The outcome, needless to say, is expected to be seen in the actions of the general populace or, more specifically, the illiterate population. As Maeng Sa-sŏng says in his “Note of Presentation” in the Samgang haengsil-to: [He] mandated literati to compose eulogies and poems that well depict their righteousness and heroism; and directed official artists to style their pictures truly resembling their images. We are about to distribute it to the nation’s capital, after which it will reach the small lanes and alleyways. Who among all who behold it would dare not brace up his mind [songsim 竦心]?138 Many will be deeply affected and guided by it, and eventually aspire to move toward the change.139 Without exception, all these writings concerning the compilation of the Samgang haengsil-to profess that the illustrations were devised specifically for the illiterate common people. At the same time, none of them suggests

則唾罵不足，攘袂扼腕，至欲手刃其頭也。是則人心之同然，而天理之不泯也。何況親見形容，詠嘆其事乎? 其感之也必深，其興之也必速矣。Chŏng Ch’o, “Postface” of the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. 138 As used by Han Fei 韓非 (ca. 281–233 bce), songsim 竦心 (Ch. songxin) means “being careful with respect”: “If these fifteen people [of legendary talents] should become subjects, they would all rise early in the morning and sleep late at night; humble themselves and lower their bodies; be careful with respect and keep their intentions forthright; clarify punishments and crimes; and fulfill their official duties, thereby serving their lords.” 此十五人者，爲其臣也，皆夙興夜寐，卑身賤體，竦心白意，明刑辟，治官職，以事其君。Han Feizi jijie 韓非子集解 [Collected exegeses of Han Feizi], compiled by Wang Xianshen (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998), 403. 139 令文士著贊詩，善摹寫其義烈，俾畫工成圖像，眞髣髴其形容。將欲頒於國都，而遂及於閭巷。凡諸寓目，孰不竦心？庶見感激而薰陶，終臻鼓舞而於變。Maeng Sa-sŏng, “Note to Presentation” in the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. 122 chapter two that the illustrations will help the illiterate “understand” or “follow” the written stories, nor do they state that they will also serve the literate who can read the classical Chinese texts. In other words, there is no indication that the illustrations are directly paired with the written texts, despite the fact that they are placed side by side. This implicit separation of illustration from written text provides a significant clue to understanding the format of the Samgang haengsil-to. The stories and purported messages borne in the Samgang haengsil-to were to be conveyed through a mediated reading in which the literate read the text to the illiterate, who made up the majority of the work’s target audience. But the written text was in classical Chinese, a script that posed a twofold impediment to “ignorant men and women,” including “children and housewives on the streets and alleyways”: (1) they could not read the text phonetically, and (2) even if someone vocalized the text for them, it would still be incomprehensible, for it was a foreign language different from the one they spoke. Listening to a simple vocalization of the text would have been no better for illiterate audiences than listening to a meaningless string of sounds. Thus what was indispensable was the literate reader’s interpretation of the text into a vernacular Chosŏn language that the listeners could understand. In this respect, previous studies of Chinese illustrated books and the relationship between the visual and written texts are inevitably limited in helping us account for the effect of the illustrations in the Samgang haengsil-to. In the cases of Chinese books, illustrations—wherever they were placed and however they represented the written scripts—work directly with the verbal texts, for the viewers were the readers themselves and there was no switching of texts or linguistic transference. It is, of course, conceivable that the reader and the viewer were not the same person (that is to say, in some circumstances the text could have been read by a literate person to the illiterate), but both nonetheless shared the same linguistic complex as the written text, even admitting varying degrees in literacy level.140

140 These include such pioneering works as Robert E. Hegel’s on Ming-Qing illustrated fiction and Yao Dajun’s on illustrations in drama texts, as well as (by extension of art historical perspectives) Julia K. Murray’s on narrative illustrations. See Hegel, Reading Illus- trated Fiction in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Yao, “The Pleasure of Reading Drama: Illustrations to the Hongzhi Edition of The Story of the Western Wing,” in The Moon and the Zither, translated and edited Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 437–68; Murray, “Buddhism and Early Nar- rative Illustration in China,” Archives of Asian Art 48 (1995): 17–31; and, idem, “Illustrations of the Life of Confucius: Their Evolution, Functions, and Significance in Late Ming China,” Artibus Asiae, 57.1/2 (1997): 73–134. Exploring the difference of textual syntactic mechanism between written and illustrated texts, which Anne Burkus-Chasson has called the “semiotic the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 123

As a result, the reader and the audience of the Samgang haengsil-to were situated in two very different textual realities: one in literacy and the other in orality. The consumption of the written text by the literate and the (re-)creation of the oral text by the literate—based on their internal- izations of the written text and made ready for the illiterate—must have been done with evident divergences in method. First of all, they utilized different languages: one that was deeply integrated with the written tradition, the core of which was grounded in the texts of Confucian classics; and the other differing from the former syntactically, phonetically, and lexically, not to mention that it had never been written down or developed as a literary language.141 Second, it is conceivable that the oral text created by the literate reader was much more elucidated and expanded than the written text. The reader, assuming the role of a teacher, was expected to interpret and cali- brate the stories and their moral messages so that they would be appropriate for the illiterate audience to receive. Such interpretation, beyond the level of mere linguistic transformation of the text, would have been accompanied by an explanation of the story, appropriating didactic lessons from it, and, if necessary, repeating, emphasizing, and reiterating difference between visual and verbal texts,” could be worth pursuing for further discussion of the narrative structure of the Samgang haengsil-to illustrations; Chasson, “Visual Herme- neutics and the Act of Turning the Leaf: A Genealogy of Liu Yuan’s Lingyan ge,” in Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, edited by Cynthia Brokaw and Kai-Wing Chow (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 375. See also idem, “The Temple of Confucius and Pictorial Biographies of the Sage,” Journal of Asian Studies 55.2 (May 1996): 269–300. 141 This statement does not include the early attempts to record or to transcribe Korean using Chinese characters as phonograms. In addition to idu (clerk readings), introduced earlier in this chapter (see note 16 above), we can count hyangch’al 鄉札 ‘local letters’ and kugyŏl 口訣 ‘vocal particles’ as such practices. Hyangch’al has a limited denotation, referring to the transcription method with which the twenty-five songs from Silla and early Koryŏ (known as hyangga 鄉歌 ‘local songs’) were recorded. With its precise decipherment still in dispute, hyangch’al generally wrote content words (nouns, verb stems, etc.) in Chi- nese characters, to be pronounced according to their vernacular Korean glosses, and grammatical words (i.e., morpho-syntactic devices such as particles and verb endings) in Chinese characters used as phonograms, which found their phonetic values in the Sino-Korean pronunciations or sometimes in the vernacular Korean glosses. It somewhat resembles Japanese writing, in which vernacular syntactic devices written in kana prompt readers to pronounce adjacent kanji words according to their Japanese glosses (kun 訓). If hyangch’al was a method to create complete vernacular Korean sentences, kugyŏl is a less assertive method to add grammatical devices (such as particles and postpositions) in smaller—often abbreviated—Chinese characters to otherwise intact literary Chinese sentences. Similarly to the early Japanese kunten 訓点 (reading marks for Chinese texts), kugyŏl was extensively used in Buddhist sutras. But idu, hyangch’al, and kugyŏl were employed as something like technical code sets to facilitate reading literary Chinese, and never developed and transformed into written languages on their own. 124 chapter two parts of the oral texts, plus perhaps even some performative innovations to contextualize the lessons. Third, the consumption of texts would have also differed. Reading written texts was in principle an activity in which the reader’s subjectivity confronted the written texts in solitude, though he might have needed to read and interpret the content almost simultaneously. In contrast, the consumption of the oral text was intrinsically a communal activity, in which the reader-interpreter and listener (or listeners) constantly interacted ver- bally and intellectually through spontaneous questions and answers; the content of the text stayed rather flexible while new context encompassing the reader-interpreter and the listener was created; and listener appreciation and construal of the text were frequently checked and reconfirmed by the reader-interpreter. Time is perceived differently in orality-based reality than it is in literacy- based reality. As Walter Ong has warned in his celebrated work, Orality and Literacy, “Before writing was deeply interiorized by print, people did not feel themselves situated every moment of their lives in abstract computed time of any sort.”142 Writing (even writing of narratives of a biographical nature or the recounting of events) analyzes reality—which in itself is a phenomenal continuum of movements of images and sounds—into “meaningful” pieces, and then reconstructs them into a comprehensible, linear discourse consisting of interconnected sequences of causes, effects, reasons, results, subjects, contradictions, addenda, examples, corollaries, and so forth. Ong continues: Persons whose world view has been formed by high literacy need to remind themselves that in functionally oral cultures the past is not felt as an itemized terrain, peppered with verifiable and disputed “facts” or bits of information. It is the domain of the ancestors, a resonant source for renewing awareness of present existence, which itself is not an itemized terrain either. Orality knows no lists or charts or figures. . . . Orally presented sequences are always occur- rences in time, impossible to “examine,” because they are not presented visually but rather are utterances which are heard. In a primary oral culture or a culture with heavy oral residue, even genealogies are not “lists” of data but rather “memory of songs sung.” Texts are thing-like, immobilized in visual space, subject to what Goody calls “backward scanning” (1977: 49–50). Goody shows in detail how, when anthropologists display on a written or printed surface lists of various items found in oral myths (clans, regions of the earth,

142 Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London; New York: Methuen, 1982), 97. the conception of the samgang haengsil-to 125

kinds of winds, and so on), they actually deform the mental world in which the myths have their own existence. The satisfaction that myths provide is essentially not “coherent” in a tabular way.143 The chronology inscribed in written scripts inevitably follows the way our consciousness can examine and analyze, dividing a chunk of reality into event-sized pieces and sequencing them so that they can be listed and scanned. Stories in the Samgang haengsil-to are all either taken from the records in the long tradition of classical Chinese, a written language that epitomizes what Ong might have called “grapholects,”144 or created by modeling their transcription after such records. The oral text of these stories that the target audience consumed was a recreation by the reader-interpreter (or literatus-teacher) based on the written text, which was already “literarized” from the beginning.145 The illustrations were inserted to cooperate with this orally recreated text. But the illustrations were not for bringing the reader back to orality. The painters or the editors could not have foreseen the retold or recreated oral text, for it would change every time this mediated reading—whereby written script was transformed into orality—took place, and therefore was expected to be fluid. What needed to be checked, however, was that the illiterate listeners formed correct images of the moral actions of the heroes and heroines of the stories—exemplary deeds that would properly inspire and provoke them into comparably virtuous actions. Thus the illustrations were col- lages of scenes containing images of the highest importance; and their role as aids in recounting the story as it was written was of little concern. They were supposed to be a collection of iconic images vividly evoking

143 Ong, Orality and Literacy, 98; 99–100. 144 Ong, Orality and Literacy, 107. As Ong states, this term “grapholect,” referring to established written languages, was coined by Einar Haugen in his “Linguistics and Language Plan- ning,” in Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the UCLA Sociolinguistics Conference 1964, edited by William Bright (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), 50–71. What is noteworthy with respect to the concept of grapholect is its separation from any existing dialect, which in turn leads to its decoupling from actual sounds. This is discussed further in Chapter 3. 145 “Literarization,” which occurs after the “literization” of local languages, is a concept borrowed from Sheldon Pollock’s discussion of Sanskrit textualization of the religious discourse in Southern Asia. The written texts on which the literatus-teacher based his teaching should be viewed as literarized texts that had been woven and crafted within the context of cultural and political power over a long period of time—in this case, as the texts of the Con- fucian classics. See Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), esp. chapter 8. 126 chapter two the actions of moral superheroes, recalling their feelings and inspiration. Since the recalling of the text, unlike its written presentation, is more simultaneous than sequential, there is really no need for the illustrations to match the progress of the written narrative, their itemized order or space-defined sequence. Temporally ordered sequences, well parceled-out arrangements of scenes, and so on are intimately connected to the literary narrative, or literacy. chapter three

Vernacular Sounds and the Reduced Edition

The second phase in the printing history of the Samgang haengsil-to invited reinforcement in two aspects: textual language and doctrinal refinement. Linguistic reinforcement augmented the text of the Sam- gang haengsil-to with an additional language (the vernacular edition, or ŏnhaebon 諺解本, 1481),1 and with doctrinal refinement came an excision of the text (reduced edition, or sanjŏngbon 刪定本, 1490). The result of this two-pronged reinforcement is the version of the Samgang haengsil- to with which we are most familiar. The reduced edition of 1490 is the most widely circulated, with copies and reprints found in many archives in modern Korea. Reprints made from recut blocks also continued to appear even after later editions came out. If the initial edition managed to create a carefully wrought prototype of a textual format covering various moral examples collectively (but less selectively), then this second phase invested its effort in achieving coherence among the messages conveyed by the stories contained in the text. Adding the vernacular text was possible with the invention of a new writing system, but behind this decision was the ultimate task with which this book was charged: working on the minds of the illiterate by means of literacy. The editors had to interject their conceptualized ideals throughout these stories. Collecting and selecting praiseworthy feats of remarkable predecessors was a process of designing the society’s past in a way that it could endorse and reinforce the values and moral future that that society envisioned for itself. That is to say, this second stage of the Samgang haengsil-to editions unveils a scene in which Chosŏn society began to stipulate its social memories. In what follows, I discuss the history of the Samgang haengsil-to vernacular editions, the integration of the vernacular text into the book, and the reduction of its content. I suggest that the vernacular editions joined the vernacular text and the classical Chinese not to provide translations

1 As mentioned in Chapter 2, some scholars categorize all Samgang haengsil-to editions into either Hanmunbon 漢文本 ‘literary Chinese edition’ or ŏnhaebon ‘vernacular edition’, and refer collectively to editions with vernacular text by the latter term. I reserve the designation ŏnhaebon for this 1481 edition only, however, to distinguish the 1481 edition from the others. 128 chapter three into written vernacular but to assist the reader-reciters—those who read and interpreted the stories to the illiterate—in creating the oral text. This design fits the kind of reading practice that Zhu Xi advocated, in which he invited orality into reading to make up for the absence of teachers for the generation of printed books, and especially to ensure their moral cultivation through reading (see Chaper 1). To ascertain this aspect of the Samgang haengsil-to as a Confucian moral primer, I first provide an understanding of the linguistic situation of Chosŏn and the relation between literary Chinese and Korean, and then examine how the vernacular editions housed the vernacular text. Finally, I trace the process of reducing the contents of the Samgang haengsil-to, focusing on what kinds of stories were selected and, by implication, what kinds of virtuous models were chosen for Chosŏn society.

Editions with Vernacular Texts

It was in 1444 when King Sejong invented the new writing system, which was called Hunmin chŏng’ŭm 訓民正音 (Correct sounds to instruct the people; hereafter Chŏng’ŭm) at the time and which is now commonly known as Han’gŭl 한글.2 In the beginning of the document entitled Hun- min chŏng’ŭm (1446), a handbook explaining the principles underlying the writing system, Sejong pronounced, “The speech sounds of our country differ from those of Chinese and do not easily fit into letters. Therefore, when ignorant people have things they wish to say, there are many things the states of which they can never express. Saddened by this, I have newly made twenty-eight letters. I wish that every man may learn [them] easily and find [them] convenient in daily use.”3 The first “letters” here evidently

2 It was Chu Si-gyŏng 주시경 (1876–1914) who coined the name “Han’gŭl” around 1912; yet Han’gŭl began to replace its previous appellation, Ŏnmun 諺文 ‘vernacular writing’, only in the 1930s. Ŏn also meaning ‘vulgar’ or ‘boorish’, Ŏnmun certainly carried a demean- ing connotation to nationalistic intellectuals of early twentieth-century Korea, whereas classical Chinese was revered as an elegant textual language for embodying sacred messages. With the change in Korea’s geopolitical fate and the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early 1900s—though it remained an unfamiliar term to general masses until the 1930s—Han’gŭl gradually but naturally became one of the cultural products emblematic of something purely Korean. But both Ŏnmun and Chŏng’ŭm were used interchangeably without a sense of one being more condescending than the other throughout the Chosŏn. In fact, the name Chŏng’ŭm or Hunmin chŏng’ŭm was hardly used even in court. Sejong himself often called it Ŏnmun or Ŏncha 諺字 ‘vernacular graphs’. 3 國之語音，異乎中國，與文字不相流通，故愚民有所欲言，而終不得伸其情者多矣。予爲此憫然，新制二十八字，欲使人人易習，便於日用耳。Hunmin vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 129 refers to Chinese characters. In other words, Chŏng’ŭm was devised for the ignorant to bridge the gap between spoken Korean and literary Chi- nese. Therefore, there are two pairs of discrepancies that Chŏng’ŭm was intended to overcome: sounds and scripts; Korean and Chinese.4 Need- less to say, the “ignorant people” (umin 愚民) for whom Chŏng’ŭm was invented were the same “ignorant men and women” (ubu ubu) for whom the Samgang haengsil-to was compiled, as indicated in its “Preface.” An actual copy of the original 1481 edition of the Samgang haengsil- to, which supposedly included the vernacular text for the first time, does not exist. And all existing copies entitled “Samgang haengsil-to” are of the reduced edition (discussed below). That is to say, there is no extant copy of the 1481 edition. In fact, there is no record directly affirming that it ever existed, except for King Sŏngjong’s 成宗 (r. 1469–94) decree issued in 1481: [We] should print several cased copies of the vernacular texts of the Sam- gang haengsil Yŏllyŏ-do 三綱行實烈女圖 [Illustrated guide to the Three Relations: Devoted women] and distribute them to the five districts of the capital and all provinces, so that “all womenfolk of villages and alleyways may have access to hearing lectures on them and practice them. The rise and fall of a state is ascribable to the thick and thin of custom; and cor- recting customs must start with rectifying the family. It was said in the past that the [custom of the] Eastern Region [i.e., the Korean peninsula] was chaste, honest, and never dissipated. But recently, there are even some women of gentry families who commit moral misconduct, about which I worry profoundly.5 The King’s reference to the text as The Illustrated Guide to the Three Rela- tions: Devoted Women (Samgang haengsil Yŏllyŏ-do) can be understood in light of the possibility, as discussed in Chapter 2, that the first 1434 edition chŏng’ŭm. A photographically reproduced text of the Hunmin chŏng’ŭm is contained in Kang Sin-hang, Hunmin chŏng’ŭm yŏn’gu [A study of the Hunmin chŏng’ŭm], Chŭngbop’an (Supplemented edition), (Seoul: Sŏnggyungwan taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu 1990), 421–86. 4 Gary Ledyard translates the beginning of Sejong’s pronouncement as follows: “The sounds of our country’s language are different from those of the Middle Kingdom and are not confluent with the sound of characters.” Although slightly incongruent with the original sentence, it is correct to interpret that Sejong meant by “characters” the sounds (i.e., pronunciations) of Chinese characters, as Ledyard’s translation renders it; see Ledyard, “The Korean Language Reform of 1446,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berke- ley, 1966, 124. 5 其印諺文《三綱行實列女圖》若干帙，頒賜京中五部及諸道，使村婦巷女，皆得講習。國家興亡，由於風俗淳薄，而正風俗，必自正家始。古稱東方貞信不淫，近者士族婦女，或有失行者，予甚慮焉。Sŏngjong sillok 成宗實錄 127:7a (Sŏngjong 12/3/24). 130 chapter three was distributed as three separate titles. But it is not clear whether the king was ordering the printing of the “Devoted Women” section of the Sam- gang haengsil-to with its vernacular text already composed, or whether he was ordering first the composition of a vernacular text for the “Devoted Women” section and then a printing of it. At any rate, this record suggests that a vernacular text was made available around 1481, at least for the category of female devotion. But why the “Devoted Women” section—and what did Sŏngjong mean at the end of his decree by “recently, there are even some women of gentry families who commit moral misconduct”? Kim Hun-sik observed that there was a particular incident that prompted Sŏngjong to order the distribution of this section of the Samgang haengsil-to.6 In 1480, a few months before Sŏngjong’s decree, a woman named Pak Ŏudong 朴於宇同 was arraigned for committing adultery with a dozen men, after becoming estranged from her husband due to her promiscuous behavior.7 Since she was married to Yi Tong 李仝, a member of the royal family, and was a daughter of the scholar-official Pak Yun-ch’ang 朴允昌, Second Official in the Office of Diplomatic Documents (sŭngmun-wŏn chisa 承文院知事), the case dis- turbed the court greatly. The matter ended by punishing her with death by strangulation, but Sŏngjong’s concern did not end here. He ordered another printing of the Samgang haengsil-to, this time with vernacular texts. It appears that printing and distributing the Samgang haengsil-to had become an institutional routine by this time. The section “Codicils on Rit- ual and Encouragement” (Changgwŏn 獎勸) in the Great Compendium of Administration (Kyŏngguk taejŏn), which was revised in 1484, specified: The Samgang haengsil-to shall be translated into the vernacular language, with which the patriarchs and elders of literati families inside and outside the capital, or their teachers and instructors, can instruct women and children, so that they may be apprised of it and clearly understand it. If there are those who can penetrate the principle of righteousness and whose moral conduct is outstanding, then the Hansŏng-bu [Seoul Magistracy], if inside the capital, or surveillance commissioners, if outside, shall submit their cases and have them rewarded.8

6 Kim Hun-sik, “Chosŏn ch’ogi Samgang haengsil-to pogŭp ŭi taesang” [The target of distribution of the Samgang haengsil-to in Early Chosŏn], Inje nonch’ong 12.1 (1996): 153. 7 Sŏngjong sillok 122:6–7a (Sŏngjong 11/10/18). The incident of Pak Ŏudong (also written as Pak Ŏŭrudong 朴於乙宇同) is well known even in modern Korea and has been adapted in fiction and film. 8 三綱行實，翻以諺文，令京內外士族家長父老，或其教授訓導等，教誨婦女小子，使知曉解。若能通大義有操行卓異者，京漢城府外觀察使，啓聞行賞。 “Codicils on Ritual and Encouragement,” Great Compendium of Administration 3:43b. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 131

Assuming that this codicil and Sŏngjong’s decree were followed through on, scholars generally postulate that a vernacular edition for all three categories, not just the “Devoted Women” section, was available by 1484, despite the absence of an actual copy. Presumably, this early edition provided the pattern for the format and folio layout of the 1490 reduced edition and the 1514 sequel. Unlike the 1481 vernacular edition, which was initiated by the king, the 1490 reduced edition was proposed by literatus-officials. In 1489, on his way to a new post as Surveillance Commissioner (kwanch’alsa 觀察使) of Kyŏnggi 京畿 Province, Pak Sung-jil 朴崇質 met with King Sŏngjong to present a valediction. In the meeting, they communicated: [Pak Sung-jil] again said, “Your servant had a [family] funeral recently and stayed in the country, where he saw there were ignorant people rebuking their parents, and brothers being discordant with each other. It is not right that this kind of custom exists in a time of prosperity. The court of Sejong distributed the Samgang haengsil-to inside and outside the capital to inspire benevolent minds in the people. But [now] even the government offices do not have this book, and would it not be more so among the people? Your servant ventures to think that, since the book of the Samgang haengsil-to has an image illustrated in front and the contents recorded on the back [of each page], if we educate with this, customs can change and the people’s minds can be reformed. Nevertheless, this book is rather broad and ambiguous, and the ignorant people cannot peruse it with ease. If we select among them those whose virtuous actions are extraordinary, block-print them concisely and compactly, and distribute them in the villages and fields so that everyone knows about it widely, perhaps there would be repairs in the public moral atmosphere.” The king said, “The minister’s words are correct. This is truly a beautiful matter.” [Pak] Sung-jil said: “In the provinces, block- printing is very difficult; what if we were to print it by cast-types and distribute it?” The king said: “So it shall be done.”9 It is interesting that Pak Sung-jil first suggested block-printing (kanin) the Samgang haengsil-to and then asked permission to type-print (chujain) it, citing the difficulty of block-printing for local offices. This means that the expense of acquiring wood for blocks, having them carved and printed, and then storing the blocks in each individual office would cost more than

9 仍啓曰: . . . “臣近年遭喪在鄕，見愚民與父母相詰者有之，兄弟不和者有之，不宜盛時有此風俗也。世宗朝以《三綱行實》頒諸中外，使人興起善心。然官府尙未有此書，況民間乎?臣意以爲《三綱行實》之書，圖形於前，記實於後，若敎之以此，則風俗可變，人心可改。但此書汗漫，愚民未易編覽。其中擇節行特異者，抄略刊印，頒諸村野，使閭閻小氓，無不周知，庶有補於風化矣。”上曰:“卿言是。此眞美事也。”崇質曰:“道內刊印甚難，以鑄字印頒何如?”上曰:“然。”Sŏngjong sillok, 229:1a (Sŏngjong 20/6/1). 132 chapter three the central government casting type, printing the books, and sending the prints to local offices. Furthermore, the typefaces necessary to print the Samgang haengsil-to were already cast by this time.10 The court did not, however, print it with movable type. A few days later, when Sŏngjong ordered Hŏ Ch’im 許琛 (1444–1505) in the Office of Royal Lectures (Sigangwŏn 侍講院) and others to make a reduced redac- tion of the text, Hŏ Ch’im reported that they had already selected 35 cases in each category of the Three Relations, 105 stories altogether, that people should easily understand and be inspired by. But the text, according to Hŏ Ch’im, was already concise and brief, so they could not cut it down further. Moreover, he added, it did not seem appropriate to them to add to or reduce the text that had been completed by the previous regime. He suggested: The printing blocks of the Samgang haengsil-to preserved in the Hall of Doc- ument Collation have one person’s case per folio. What if we were to take 105 people culled [from the old edition], having received an edict to make selections, and print them using the old blocks, bind them into one book, and disseminate them widely?11 By not altering the text but instead selecting individual cases, the court could avoid several difficulties. It would not need to set type; lock up forms or cast additional typefaces if necessary, which would inevitably involve significantly more time and resources; or reedit the text, which would have violated what had become a part of recorded literature. Thus the layout of “one sheet for one person” or “one story per folio” remained intact. Of the 331 stories in the first edition, they chose 31 Chinese and 4 Korean filial sons; 29 Chinese and 6 Korean loyal subjects; and 29 Chinese and 6 Korean devoted women. A survey of the extant copies seems to affirm that the recommendation of the Office of Royal Lectures to reuse existing blocks was followed. The question, then, is how the Chŏng’ŭm text was created and incorporated into the printing. As decided, the reduced edition selected 105 examples from the previous edition and reused the old blocks. But the initial edition lacked Chŏng’ŭm texts. How, then, did the Chŏng’ŭm text appear in this edition? All vernacular texts in the reduced editions and the sequel

10 Ok Yŏng-jŏng, personal communication (November 27, 2011). 11 校書館所藏《三綱行實》板本，以一人之事，各爲一張，今所抄一百五人，稟旨取捨，用舊本印出，裝爲一冊，廣布何如? Sŏngjong sillok, 229:16b–17a (Sŏngjong 20/6/18). vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 133 editions are placed in the upper margin of each folio. As Ok Yŏng-jŏng has considered, there are two possibilities.12 In the first scenario, the printing blocks preserved in the Hall of Document Collation already incorporated the vernacular text in Chŏng’ŭm, which may have been the blocks carved for the ŏnhae edition in 1481 under King Sŏngjong’s decree. This would then mean that the blocks containing the vernacular text were available already before 1481. Sŏngjong’s 1481 order, however, was to print only the stories of devoted women in the Samgang haengsil-to, not the entire book. The second possibility is that a new set of blocks was produced, repli- cating the old ones but supplemented with vernacular texts. This opens up the possibility that the reduced edition was printed in two formats: one with Chŏng’ŭm text and one without. In fact, Ok has identified a copy of the reduced edition without the vernacular texts in the upper margin (Figure 6A). In contrast to reduced editions containing vernacular texts (Figure 6B), this copy of the “Filial Sons” section of the reduced edition lacks the Chŏng’ŭm text.13 Also hinting at the existence of a reduced edition without the vernacular text is a copy preserved in the Mansong 만송 Collection of the Korea University library that is missing the vernacular text in the first story of loyal subjects. Since the size and carving of the first folio appear to be consistent with the rest of the book, whoever owned the book replaced the first folio with one without the vernacular text after it was damaged or fell off. We also realize that the copy at the Sŏng’am Museum of Old Books (shown in Figure 7 below) maintains the same distance between the vernacular text and the upper border of the kwanggwak 匡郭 (outer square of the printed text) consistently on every page. All these observations lead us to entertain yet another possible scenario: perhaps a separate set of smaller blocks was made for the vernacular texts and printed alongside the original blocks with the classical Chinese texts. Shibu Shōhei has made a particularly convincing case for this possibility by carefully examining various copies available.14

12 Ok Yŏng-jŏng, “Samgang haengsil-to p’anbon ŭi kanhaeng kwa yut’ong,” 43. 13 According to Ok Yŏng-jŏng (ibid.), this copy appears to have been recently rebound and has “Sohak-to” 小學圖 [Illustrated guide to the Elementary Learning] written on the cover. But it contains 32 of the 35 filial-son stories from the reduced edition. 14 Shibu Shōhei, Genkai Sankō gyōjitsuzu kenkyū [A study of vernacular editions of the Samgang haengsil-to], (Tokyō: Kyūko shōin, 1990), 417, 429–30, and 457–59. Shibu Shōhei also pointed out that some of these earlier imprints of the reduced edition were unusually large, with proportionally longer vertical lengths, compared to most books at the time. This suggests that for some redactions of the reduced edition, each folio was printed on two blocks put together vertically, whereas for others a set of whole blocks was carved (ibid., 474). 134 chapter three

Figure 6A. Page (left) showing “Ŭnbo Impresses the Crow” (Ŭnbo kam’o 殷保感烏) in a reduced edition (unknown date) without the vernacular text in the top margin. Private collection. Courtesy of Ok Yŏng-jŏng.

Since reduced editions included vernacular texts (with possible but unat- tested exceptions), it is customary to refer to both the 1481 edition and the reduced editions as “vernacular editions” (ŏnhaebon). In discussing extant copies, then, we need to address these editions together. Without any extant copy of the 1481 edition, all prints discussed here are of reduced editions. According to Shibu Shōhei, there are three groups of ŏnhaebon reduced editions: (1) the original imprint of 1490 (Sŏngjong’s reign); (2) the retranslated edition in (approximately) 1579 (Sŏnjo’s 宣祖 reign); and (3) another retranslated edition in 1726 (Yŏngjo’s 英祖 reign).15 These

15 Shibu Shōhei, “Genkai Sankō gyōjitsuzu no denbon to keiho” [Transmitted copies of the vernacular editions of the Samgang haengsil-to and their lineage], Tongyanghak (Dankook University) 19 (1989): 71–72. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 135

Figure 6B. Page (left) showing “Ŭnbo Impresses the Crow” (Ŭnbo kam’o 殷保感烏) in the reduced edition (1726) with the vernacular in the top margin. Collection of Changsŏgak Library at the Academy of Korean Studies. Courtesy of Ok Yŏng-jŏng.

retranslated editions were printed by provincial governments (kamyŏng 監營), perhaps at the court’s behest. With minor disagreements on detailed dates, scholars have sorted out five kinds of vernacular (reduced) editions that fall under two categories, summarized in Tables 2 and 3.16

16 Table 2 is closer to the categorization in Song and Yi, “Chosŏn sidae ‘Haengsil-to’ p’anbon mit p’anhwa e kwanhan yŏn’gu,” 86, than to Shibu Shōhei’s first category. The actual classification and lineages of extant copies of Category 1 can be much more complicated, as Shibu Shōhei has shown in the entire volume he has dedicated to the topic. My Tables 2 and 3 exclude two of Shibu’s subcategories—what he called T2 and T3, for Shibu’s assessment of their publication dates is not soundly sustained; see Shibu Shōhei, Genkai Sankō gyōjitsuzu kenkyū, 393–401; 417–23. Although it is certain that these texts are clearly distinguished from the others in their shapes, and that Shibu supports his assessment in terms of the historical development of Middle Korean, their actual publication history remains uncertain, as does 136 chapter three

Table 2. Category 1: Vernacular Texts of the Samgang haengsil-to in Chŏng’ŭm (Han’gŭl) with Chinese Characters Mixed In Year (Reign) Style of Engraving Size of Text Textual Marks: Vernacular Box Punctuation on Chinese, Language Accents on Korean 1490 paraphrase original 25 × 17.5 cm punctuation (Ch.) (Sŏngjong) accent (Kr.) before 1580 paraphrase recut 24.5 × 17.5 cm punctuation (Ch.) (Sŏnjo) accent (Kr.) before 1608 paraphrase recut 25 × 17 cm punctuation (Ch.) (Sŏnjo) x x = no mark on the text

Table 3. Category 2: Vernacular Texts of the Samgang haengsil-to in Chŏng’ŭm (Han’gŭl) without Interspersed Chinese Characters Year (Reign) Style of Engraving Size of Text Textual Marks: Vernacular Box Punctuation on Language Chinese, Accents on Korean 1570s paraphrase original 26.7 × 17.5 cm punctuation (Ch.) (Sŏnjo) x before 1653 paraphrase recut 22.2 × 16.5 cm x (Hyojong) x 1726 paraphrase recut 24 × 17 cm x (Yŏngjo) x 1882 paraphrase recut 23.7 × 16.7 cm x (Kojong) x 1726 translation original 26 × 18.5 cm x (Yŏngjo) (P’yŏng’an) x 1730 translation original 25.3 × 18.6 cm x (Yŏngjo) (Kangwŏn) x 1730 translation original 24.6 × 18.5 cm x (Yŏngjo) (Hwanghae) x 1730 translation original 26 × 18.1 cm x (Yŏngjo) (Hamgyŏng) x x = no mark on the text their lineage. Still, it must be acknowleged that there are additional copies that do not belong to any of my categories and need further bibliographical research. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 137

The above categorization is based on the characteristics of the vernacular text added in the upper margin. Editions in Category 1 (Table 2) relayed the vernacular texts in mixed script (Chinese and Chŏng’ŭm), where the pronunciation was given for each Chinese character in Chŏng’ŭm (see Fig- ure 8 below); whereas Category 2 editions (Table 3) used only Chŏng’ŭm in the vernacular text. Several changes are noticed among these editions. First, according to many scholars, the language of the vernacular texts in Category 1 and in all editions before Yŏngjo’s reign is more a paraphrase than a direct translation of the Chinese texts. The vernacular text does not necessarily match its Chinese counterpart, conveying the meaning only in the form of explanation, by adding, omitting, or adapting information for Chosŏn readers instead of adhering to one-to-one congruence in linguistic forms. Most scholars contend that the eighteenth-century editions produced a more direct translational style, maintaining faithful corre- spondences both syntactically and semantically. As we shall see later, this assessment is debatable, and the switchover to a style that may be called literal translation takes place in the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom of 1617. Second, the 1490 edition employed the reformed Sino-Korean pronunciation in the 1447 Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk chŏng’un 東國正韻), whereas the later editions abandoned the reformed sounds and switched to the traditional Sino-Korean pronunciations. Third, the 1490 edition (both the original and the recut) contained diacritics for Middle Korean pitch accents on the left side of Korean syllables; these tone dots disappeared in later editions. Finally, the earlier editions had punctuation marks in the Chinese text, but these disappeared in later editions. Recall that the punctuation marks were significant, in that they indicated the connection between the initial edition and the books published by the Ming Palace Treasury. There are a few reprints or prints with recarved blocks of the 1490 edition. Most bibliographers have estimated that the one bearing a seal of royal gift (naesain 內賜印), kept in the collection of the Sŏng’am Museum of Old Books in Seoul, is the closest to the 1490 reduced edition.17 Based on careful linguistic and textual analyses of the vernacular texts in various extant copies, Shibu Shōhei has identified two prints as the earliest—one in the Sŏng’am collection, and one (consisting of the “Filial Sons” section only) owned by a Kim Yŏng-jung 金泳沖—and conjectures that the

17 Song and Yi, “Chosŏn sidae ‘Haengsil-to’ p’anbon mit p’anhwa e kwanhan yŏn’gu,” 88–89; and Ok Yŏng-jŏng, “Samgang haengsil-to p’anbon ŭi kanhaeng kwa yut’ong,” 50. 138 chapter three

latter may date slightly earlier than the former.18 Another copy of an early edition was found in the collection of the British Library (item number 15113e.2). Sŏk Chu-yŏn has reported with caution that this copy is comparable to the aforementioned two earliest copies, but closer to the one owned by Kim Yŏng-jung.19 Fujimoto Yukio, who evaluated the Korean rare books at the British Library in 2007, assessed it as having been printed roughly “between Myŏngjong’s 明宗 (r. 1545–67) and early Sŏnjo’s reign (r. 1567–1608).”20 This is somewhat later than the original printing of 1490, but the textual features are almost indistinguishable from those of the ones in the Sŏng’am and Kim Yŏng-jung collections.21 As for Category 2 (see Table 3), there are quite a few copies preserved in various archives in Korea and abroad. Again, Shibu Shōhei has surveyed them in great detail, especially those in Korea and Japan.22 We find additional copies with vernacular texts free of Chinese characters in the United States, China, and Australia. For example, a copy of an earlier edition of Category 2 is in the Peking University Library. It was erroneously cata- logued as a typographic edition printed in 1432, the year that the very first edition was published.23 According to Chang Hyang-sil, it appears to be

18 Shibu Shōhei, Genkai Sankō gyōjitsuzu kenkyū, 385–93. 19 Sŏk Chu-yŏn, “Tae-yŏng tosŏgwan sojang kugŏ-sa charyo e taehayŏ” [On the materials for the history of Korean in the British Library collection], Kugŏ kungmunhak 129 (2001), 117–37 (119–23 in particular). 20 Fujimoto Yukio et al., Daiei toshōkan shozō Chōsenbon oyobi Nihon kosho no bunkengaku teki gogaku teki kenkyū [A bibliographical and linguistic study of old Korean books and old Japanese books in British Library], Heisei jūroku-jūhachi nendo kagaku kenkyūhi hojōkin (kiban kenkyū B) seika hōkokusho [A report of the results of a study sponsored by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Category B), 2004–6], (Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 2007), 21. This copy was among the Japanese and Korean books donated by Ernest Satow (1843–1929), who had collected them during his tenure as a diplo- mat in Japan in the 1870s. It was found bound together with another text, the Sok Samgang haengsil-to [Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to]—discussed in the Chapter 4—perhaps by the library staff. See Elizabeth D. Mckillop, “Early Printed Books from Korea in the British Library,” in ibid., 98–124. 21 According to Ross King (personal communication, January 7, 2013), a careful examination of the British Library copy reveals that the language of its vernacular text is in fact close to that of the edition owned by Kim Yŏng-jung, which Shibu Shōhei believes to be older than the one in Sŏng’am collection. It follows the former closely, and where it differs, the explanation is always that the British Library copy was printed on tired blocks—in other words, it was printed on the same blocks but much later—for more tone-marking dots fell off. 22 Shibu Shōhei, Genkai Sankō gyōjitsuzu kenkyū, 416. 23 Li Xianzhu et al., Beijing daxue tushuguan guancang gudai Chaoxian wenxian jieti [Précis of ancient Chosŏn documents in the collection of the Peking University Library], (Beijing: Beida chubanshe, 1997), 171–72. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 139 the same edition as those collected in the University of Tokyo and Waseda University in Japan.24 The imprint in Waseda’s collection has written in it a note of issuance (pansagi 頒賜記) on the first leaf saying that it was bestowed to a County School in the seventh month of a kimyo 己卯 cyclic year. Based on this, Shibu Shōhei has concluded that it was printed some time before 1579 (a kimyo year),25 which also applies to the one in Peking University. The Asami Collection at the C. V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley, includes a copy of the Samgang haengsil-to, and at the end of its third volume (“Devoted Women”) is a colophon indicating that it was printed in 1726 by the P’yŏngan provincial government (also known as Kiyŏng 箕營). A similar edition is in the collection of the National Library of Australia, which its catalogue dates as 1729. Although it is not certain whether they were of Category 1 or Category 2, these reduced editions were widely circulated in large quantities, so much so that some of them not only made their way to Japan but were also adapted to the Japanese readership. Kim Yŏng-ho holds that in 1630 the Samgang haengsil-to was printed in Japan with the Chŏng’ŭm vernacular texts excised and kunten reading marks and okurigana (kana indicating the Japanese declension) added to the Chinese text, and that this was subsequently translated into Japanese—including a translation by Asai Ryōi 浅井了意 (1612–91), a kanazōshi 仮名草子 (storybooks in kana) writer well known for the Ukiyo monogatari 浮世物語 (A tale of the floating world).26

24 Chang Hyang-sil, “Chungguk Pukkyŏng-dae sojang Samgang haengsil-to e taehayŏ” [Regarding the Samgang haengsil-to in the collection of Peking University], Uri ŏmun yŏn’gu 23 (2004): 245–77. Interestingly, the copy in Waseda’s collection (Call number: ロ 0901076) is trimmed in the middle of the upper margin, perhaps in an attempt to reduce the height of the book, as a result of which the upper halves of the vernacular texts were all cut off. 25 Shibu Shōhei, “Sensoji kaiyaku no Sankō gyōjitsu ni tsuite—omo ni Jinshin no ranzen kohon ni tsuite” [On the Samgang haengsil-to retranslated during the reign of King Sŏnjo—primarily on the old editions before the Imjin Wars], Chōsen gakuhō 145 (1992): 87 and 95. 26 Kimu Yonho [Kim Yŏng-ho], “Asai Ryōi no Sankō gyōjitsuzu hon’yaku—wakokubon, wayakubon no teihon to Ryōi” [Asai Ryōi’s translation of the Samgang haengsil-to—its Japanese-carved edition and Japanese-translated edition as base texts and Ryōi], Kinsei bungei 91 (2010): 16–29. 140 chapter three

The Problem of Language in Chosŏn As discussed in Chapter 2, it was expected that the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to would be transmitted in two ways: (1) either literate members of individual families would interpret and teach the text to the illiterate, or (2) schools and regional government offices would use the text to instruct the literate first, so that they could help the illiterate understand the lessons. Therefore, the consumers the book targeted were not its readers but an audience that had to wait for the mediation of a reader-interpreter acting in the role of teacher. Nevertheless, passing on the role of teacher to unknown readers created some unease among the literatus-editors at the court. Just as the Confucian literati of Song China had been uncomfortable about the classics becoming available in printed editions for novices and anonymous readers to consume at affordable prices without proper interpretation, so the inevitable reliance on those who might not necessarily know how to properly interpret the text and the messages of the Samgang haengsil-to was certainly a concern to the literatus-editors. Until the invention of Chŏng’ŭm, premodern Korea had borrowed literary Chinese as its written language. Making use of Chinese characters and utilizing literary Chinese are two different matters. It was not just the characters but the literary language itself that Koreans borrowed. Korean and Chinese—borrowed in written form—were and are very different languages. Not only do they belong to different language families (Chinese to Sino-Tibetan and Korean putatively to Altaic), but they also operate according to structural principles that show significant typological distance. The default word order of Chinese is verb-medial (or Subject- Verb-Object), whereas Korean is verb-final (Subject-Object-Verb). Korean also uses extensive inflectional morphology, whereas Chinese does not, with the possible exception of Old Chinese roughly in the pre-Qin era. Korean uses particles extensively for marking case, tense, and aspect, while Chinese makes only provisional use of particles. Morphologically, a Chinese syllable in most cases signifies a morpheme, whereas Korean mostly uses polysyllabic morphemes. Even with all these divergences between Chinese and Korean, premodern Korea employed Chinese as its written language. That is, the society had no linguistic experience whereby its members expressed or interchanged discourses in their native tongue through a literary medium. There was no written code in which the leading elites or any others could record a culture deeply rooted in their lives, apart from the learned foreign language. The memory of Korean culture, vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 141 encompassing intellectual discourses, historical events, emotions of human experiences, liturgical pronouncements and ceremonial speeches, was all encoded in Chinese, a code technologically detached from the spoken language. Koreans had a written language that could not be spoken, and a spoken language that could not be written. Literary Chinese acquired and enjoyed its socio-cultural preeminence in Korea over a long period of time, and proficiency in literary Chinese was the first requirement on the road to social privileges. The Chinese that became the substratum of what is now commonly referred to as Hanmun (漢文 ‘Han-Chinese writing’) in Korea is fundamentally in the form of classical Chinese, or the language of the Confucian classics. The implementation of Hanmun must have started quite early in Korea, when the Three Kingdoms of Koguryŏ, Paekche, and Silla started to teach the Confucian classics to their aristocratic sons in state universities, compiled histories, and sent students and scholars to Chinese states. But it was limited to a small number of people with specific roles and the capacity for service in the administration, and hardly became a part of the general linguistic life. A more significant moment at which classical Chinese turned into a language shared by a more open class of people, comprising aristocrats and local officials from land-owning families, came with the establishment of the Koryŏ civil service examinations (kwagŏ 科舉, after the eponymous Chinese institution, keju) in 958. As the civil service examinations rose to play the central role in assembling bureaucratic and political powers, not to mention in the continuous intensification of Sinitic statecraft and administration, Hanmun became the language at the core of prestige and success. At the same time, it also became the language for ritualistic purposes. Rituals of the state and in families were not only written but also performed in Hanmun. For instance, a typical memorial ritual for ancestors used formulaic invocations in writing (ch’ungmun 祝文) that would be read aloud and then burned after the service.27 All this encased the ritual within an aura of authority and solemnity. Modern standard Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters (called Hanchaŭm 漢字音) is without exception monosyllabic, following the Chi- nese way. In its development, Sino-Korean pronunciation overall conforms

27 Kim Chang-saeng 金長生, Karye chimnam tosŏl 家禮輯覽圖說 [Collected commentaries to the Family Rites (of Master Zhu, or Zhuzi jiali 朱子家禮) with illustrated explanations], woodblock print (n.d., preface dated 1599; postface dated 1685), 10:22b–23a; tosŏl:71b. 142 chapter three to the norms in traditional Chinese rhyme dictionaries (yunshu 韻書) with their phonological categories and distinctions, oftentimes relying also on homophony, as suggested by shared phonetics among characters (i.e., xiesheng 諧聲). But because Korean was not tonal in the way that Middle Chinese was and underwent its own phonological changes, Sino-Korean was unable to indicate many of the distinctions made in the Chinese rhyme dictionaries. This resulted in a great many homophonous pronunciations in the Sino-Korean readings, where one Korean syllable can correspond to multiple Chinese characters. For instance, the syllable chŏng 정 can correspond to almost seventy Chinese characters. That is to say, sounds alone could not deliver precise meanings unless they were paired up visually with characters, and the association between sounds and graphs was fundamentally a loose one. The pronunciations of Chinese characters in China and Korea diverged into different directions of change fairly early in history.28 By the time the Chosŏn was launched, Sino-Korean pronunciation had already become appreciably different from the Chinese sounds, at least from those perceived to be ideal. This deviation from the ideal sounds was a dire concern for the early Chosŏn court. Sejong’s invention of Chŏng’ŭm was conspicuously a technological preparation for another project he had in mind, the 1447 Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk chŏng’un), which corresponded to the publication of the 1375 Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign (洪武正韵 Hongwu zhengyun), an imperial project commissioned by Emperor Taizu of the Ming to rectify—or to reerect—the phonetic

28 In later stages of the history of the Korean language, Chinese vocabulary spread increasingly throughout vernacular Korean, accompanied by syntactic structures based distinctively on literal translations of classical Chinese, a trend that became quite noticeable after the sixteenth century. This is not irrelevant to the proliferation of education through printed books, such as the series of ŏnhae editions (discussed later) in which literary Chinese classics and Buddhist sutras were translated into vernacular Korean using Han’gŭl; see Yi Ki-mun [Ki-Moon Lee], “Pŏnyŏkch’e ŭi munje” [The issue of translation style], in Kkok ilgŏya hal kugŏhak nonmunjip [Collection of must-read articles on Korean linguistics], edited by Yi Tong-nim (Seoul: Chimmundang, 1988), 354–62. Just as David Hall likened the culture of European peasants in the seventeenth century to a “river full of debris,” much of which can be recognized as bits and pieces of literary culture, so later Chosŏn society, especially after the 1700s, circulated the basics (or clichés) of literary Chi- nese texts to the masses outside literati circles through printed books; these clichés in turn were disseminated to commoners and the lower-class populace through both literacy and orality. See David Hall, “The World of Print and Collective Mentality in Seventeenth- Century New England,” in New Directions in American Intellectual History, edited by John Higham and Paul Conkin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 166–80, reprinted in Hall, Cultures of Print: Essays in the History of the Book (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996), 84. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 143 norms of the dynasty. A conversation between Chosŏn scholar-officials (Chŏng In-ji 鄭麟趾, Sŏng Sam-mun 成三問, Kim Ha 金何, and Sin Suk- chu 申叔舟) and envoys from Ming China (Ni Qian 倪謙 and Sima Xun 司馬恂) in 1450 illustrates the court’s concerns with “correct sounds” at the juncture of a new Confucian state joining the Sinitic imperial order: Chŏng In-ji said, “Because the humble state [Chosŏn] is far [from China] outside the sea, though we wish to investigate correct sounds, there is no teacher from whom we can learn. The sounds [of Chinese characters] in our state were at first taught by Academician Shuang Ji, but [Shuang] Ji himself was from Fujian Prefecture.” “The sounds of Fujian are certainly the same as [those of] this state, and it would be good to use them,” said the envoys. [Kim] Ha said: “These two wish to learn the correct sounds from Your Excellency; I beseech Your Excellency to instruct them.” [Sŏng] Sam- mun and [Sin] Suk-chu discussed [with the envoys] about the sounds of the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign [Hongwu zhengyun] for quite a while. The envoys asked about the civil service examinations, saying, “Do you also have Provincial Examinations and Metropolitan Examinations?” [The officials] replied, “[Ours] is entirely modeled after the Ming institution.” The envoys asked, “What do you call the most excellent [candidate]?” [The officials] replied, “[We call him] the first of the Second Grade.” The envoys asked, “Why not call it First Grade but call it Second Grade?” [The officials] replied, “Since the [Ming] court labels theirs the First Grade, [we] would not dare to make him equal.” The envoys said, “Indeed.”29 According to these Chosŏn scholar-officials, who had also actively assisted in Sejong’s invention of Chŏng’ŭm, the Chosŏn pronunciation of Chinese characters had been appropriated when King Sŏngjong launched the civil service examinations in Koryŏ (958). This appropriation, in the perception of the literati of early Chosŏn, was not of something ideal enough to be called “correct sounds.” It was based on a consultation with Shuang Ji, the Chinese advisor to King Sŏngjong. But Shuang Ji was a native of Fujian, a southeastern region in China, and supposedly spoke a variety of the Min 閩 dialect. Already in the Song, the Min dialect was frequently associated with “incorrect” speech—more incorrect than other dialects—in China.

29 鄭麟趾曰：“小邦遠在海外，欲質正音，無師可學。本國之音，初學於雙冀學士，冀亦福建州人也。”使臣曰：“福建之音，正與此國同，良以此也。”何曰：“此二子，欲從大人學正音，願大人敎之。”三問、叔舟將《洪武韻》講論良久，使臣問科擧之制曰：“亦有鄕試會試乎?”答曰：“悉倣朝廷之制。”使臣曰：“爲魁者，何以爲號?”答曰：“乙科第一人。”使臣曰：“何不稱甲科，而稱乙科乎?”答曰：“朝廷稱甲科，故不敢比擬也。”使臣曰：“然。”Sejong sillok 127:22b (Sejong 32/1[intercalary]/24). 144 chapter three

Although the great Zhu Xi was also a speaker of Min,30 Chosŏn scholars were not comfortable with the sounds they themselves were using. Then, compared to what language was the Fujian dialect (as well as the Sino- Korean that supposedly came from the Fujian dialect and was used by Chosŏn literati) incorrect? Was it the speech of the capital city or the educated class of China? To present the conclusion first, the correct sounds the Chosŏn scholars were looking for were not at all speech sounds. The Ming envoys, being esteemed scholars themselves, did not clearly answer the Chosŏn officials’ question about correct sounds. Rather, it sounds as though the envoys condoned Chosŏn’s use of the ostensibly incorrect sounds of Min to read Chinese characters. This response can be read in two ways. On the one hand, the Ming envoys may have meant, with a condescending touch, that Chosŏn readers need not be concerned with correct Chinese pronunciation when reading classical Chinese texts because Chosŏn was not China. On the other hand, their response may have reflected their implicit yet evident understanding of the reality of reading classical Chinese: namely, that no one was a native speaker of classical Chinese, no matter when or where he lived. Virtually all regions of China used their own local varieties of sounds when vocalizing classical Chinese; and there was no variety of spoken Chinese that one could unequivocally assert as “correct sounds.” The Ming envoys’ half-hearted response prompts us to think more about the concept of “correct sounds.” The notion of correct sounds has deep roots in the Chinese literary tradition. It had been closely associated with classics and rituals ever since the time of Confucius, as described in the Analects: “Those for which the Master used elegant speech were the [Book of] Poetry, the [Book of] Documents, and performing rituals. For all of them, the Master used elegant speech.”31 This was not the colloquial form of language that Confucius would have used to converse in his everyday life, but one that was reserved for special purposes such as reciting

30 Pan Weishui, “Minbei fangyan dui Zhu Xi xieyin fanqie de yingxiang” [The influence of Northern Min dialect on Zhu Xi’s harmonized sounds and fanqie spelling], Zhuzi yanjiu 1 (1997). According to Pan Weishui, Zhu Xi was likely speaking a Northern Min (Minbei) variety. Zhu Xi did make use of his mother tongue to discuss some glosses in classical texts and to account for the inexplicable rhyming practices in the Book of Poetry, employing the anachronistic notion of “harmonized rhyme” (xieyun 叶韻) in his Collected Commentaries on the Book of Poetry (Shi ji zhuan 詩集傳), although he maintained the practice of distinguishing pronunciations for speaking from those for reading. See Liu Xiaonan, “Zhu Xi yu Min fangyan” [Zhu Xi and Min dialect], Fangyan 1 (2000): 17–33. 31 子所雅言，詩、書、執禮，皆雅言也。Analects 7:17. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 145 classics or articulation and incantation during rituals. The language described as “elegant speech” was not grounded in actual, human communication; or it may not have reflected any actual set of speech sounds of a living language, except that it found its matrix in the sage’s—which one might say was “unnatural”—vocalization of texts.32 We can list three things about “correct” or “elegant” sounds in the Chinese literary tradition: (1) they are invariably associated with written language, transcending the dialectal differences in spoken languages; (2) they find their archetype in the (often archaistic) past, by derogating contemporaneous linguistic reality; and (3) they tend to act as prescriptive norms with synthetic or “imagined” sounds. Lu Fayan’s 陸法言 (581–618) description in the preface to the Spelling Rhymes (Qieyun 切韻) provides an example of how the very first rhyme dictionary took into consideration the diverse pronunciations of different regions and of the past and present, stemming from a discussion of nine scholars (including Lu Fayan himself) representing diverse regions.33 When the Spelling Rhymes was revised into the Broad

32 Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990) noted that “elegant speech” referred to the language of the Western Zhou, called ya 雅, which was also similar to a modern-day “national language” or “standard language.” See Qian Mu, Lunyu xinjie [New explanations of the Analects], Vol. 2 (Beijing: Sanlian shuju, 2002), 180. Liu Baonan 劉寶楠 (1791–1855) in his Lunyu zhengyi 論語正義 [Correct meanings of the Analects] also stated that yayan must have been the dialect spoken in the Western Zhou capital, which Edward Slingerland assumes was kept alive, at least in the state of Lu, through formal and ritual context and so translates as “classical pronunciation”; see Slingerland, trans., Confucius Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003), 70. Based on parts of the Xunzi 荀子 text, some scholars also identified ya 雅 with xia 夏, as in zhu xia 諸夏. See Yang Shuda (1885–1956), Lunyu shuzheng [Exegeses and verifications on the Analects], (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1986), 164–65. Zheng Xuan commented in the second century, “In reading ritual canons and codes of the ancient kings, one must use correct language for their sounds; only after that do their meanings become complete.” 讀先王典法，必正言其音，然後義全。After this, most traditional commentaries yielded the notion of “correctness” to ya. See Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Analects (Lunyu zhushu 論語注疏), 7.6b. 33 The words of Lu Fayan were: “And so we discussed the right and the wrong of South and North, and the prevailing and the obsolete of past and present; wishing to present a more refined and precise standard, we discarded all that was ill-defined and lacked pre- ciseness.” Translated into English by Göran Malmqvist, “Chou Tsu-mo on the Ch’ieh-yün,” BMFEA 40 (1968): 35, which is a translation of Zhou Zumo, “Qieyun de xingzhi he ta de yinxi jichu” [The nature of the Spelling Rhymes and the foundation of its phonological system], Yuyanxue luncong 5 (1963): 39–70. Scholars are careful enough to postulate that the Spelling Rhymes was meant to provide a norm that conformed to the linguistic reality at the time (as Zhou Zumo also did in p. 41 of Malmqvist’s translation), but the point remains that its rime distinctions were not to be found as a set in a single stratum of the spoken languages at the time. That is, no living spoken variety of the language was regarded as the standard. 146 chapter three

Rhymes (Guangyun 廣韻) by Chen Pengnian 陳彭年 between 1007 and 1008 during the Song, the phonological system of the latter showed little change from that of the former despite the fact that nearly four centuries had passed since the initial compilation of the Spelling Rhymes. As Hirata Shōji insightfully delineates, the idea of “correct sounds” was also something that was formed among Chinese literati particularly during the Southern Song and the Ming.34 When the Jurchens seized the old capital Bianjing 汴京 (modern Kaifeng), Emperor Gaozong 高宗 (r. 1127–62) and the literati population of the Northern Song fled to Lin’an 臨安 (modern Hangzhou). Spreading at first as a nostalgic fad of the old metropolitan literati culture, the northern speech of Bianjing seeped gradually into Jiangnan society, which caused the language of Hangzhou to be viewed for some time as the inheritor of old Bianjing speech. As a result of this infatuation, the idea of zhengyin 正音 (“correct sounds”) or “elegant sounds of the Central Plain” (Zhongyuan yayin 中原雅音) representing a formerly highly cultivated and morally idealistic era emerged in the minds of the Southern Song literati. Song-dynasty “Learning of the Way” (daoxue) Confucians, in line with their view that erstwhile scholarship since the Qin was a deviation from the archaic orthodoxy of the Zhou, now aspired to recover the language of the sages and reconnect to the ancient. They believed that the language of the classics and the words of the sages had died in the brutality of the Qin; and previous rhyme dictionaries such as the Spelling Rhymes and its descendants, the Broad Rhymes and Concise Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites (Libu yunlüe 禮部韻略), were mere stopgap measures based on the sounds of the Wu 吳 speech of Jiangnan—albeit not a valid assessment—and not orthodox enough to reveal the original foundations of civilization. The Song-Ming literati, as Hirata phrases it, “philosophized rhyme dictionaries with the Learning of the Principle ( yunshu de lixuehua 韻書的理學化)” to restore linguistic orthodoxy in the Han-Chinese cultural order. In doing so, they expounded metaphysical discourses on sounds, requiring supplementation by reinter- preting the surviving rhyme dictionaries and rhyme tables, as there were no other references available.

34 Hirata Shōji, “Huiwang Zhongyuan xiai shi—shixian Bian Luo hou de yayin xiangxiang” [Looking back at the time of evening mist over the Central Plain—imagining “elegant sounds” after the fall of Bian (Kaifeng) and Luo (Luoyang)], paper presented at the conference on “Kaifeng: Dushi xiangxiang yu wenhua jiyi” [Kaifeng: Imagining the city and cultural memory], Henan Daxue, Kaifeng, October 21–25, 2011. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 147

The compilation of the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign stands as a result of this phonological ideology. As mentioned above, the philosophizing of rhyme dictionaries went hand in hand with the scholarly orientation of the Song Neo-Confucians, who had set out to revive and retrieve the primordial state of Confucianism, and to reconnect the lineage of the Way (daotong 道統) directly from Mencius, bypassing Han-Tang scholarship. Shao Yong’s 邵雍 (1011–77) treatise entitled “The Leading and Fol- lowing of the Sounds and Notes: Chart of the Numbers of the Four Images and Heaven and Earth” (Shengyin changhe sixiang tiandi zhi shu tu 聲音唱和四象天地之數圖), in his Book of the Supreme Ultimate Ordering the World (Huangji jingshi shu 皇極經世書), was one influential work in this pursuit, and was continued in the Concise Rhymes of the Minis- try of Rites with Added Corrections and Correlated Commentaries (Zengxiu huzhu Libu yunlüe 增修互注禮部韻略, 1194–1223) by Mao Huang 毛晃 and Mao Juzheng 毛居正, as well as in the Abridged Collection of Rhymes of the Ancient and Modern (Gujin yunhui juyao 古今韻會舉要, 1297), and, finally, in the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign. Therefore, the language rendered by the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign was a reconstituted one, declaring how the ideal language should sound, rather than how the language (whichever variety it could have been) was actually pronounced.35 Naturally, the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign presented a quite different picture of the language than that of the “Northern Sounds” appearing in the Phonetic Rhymes of the Central Plain (Zhongyuan yinyun 中原音韻, 1324) and others. The rimes sorted out in the Phonetic Rhymes of the Central Plain were much simpler than those of the Broad Rhymes and Concise Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites, and display attributes more realistic for a natural language in constant change, which the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign does not reflect, despite the fact that it was completed half a century after the Phonetic Rhymes of the Central Plain.36 Enforced by

35 Some have maintained that the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign actually reflected the Nanjing dialect; see Shizhen Chou, “Hongwu Zhengyun: Its Relation to the Nanjing Dia- lect and Its Impact on Standard Mandarin,” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1989. But rhyme dictionaries’ commitment was to systematic structures for pigeonholing characters in rimes, not to actual sound values. Even if the rhyming system were congruent with the modern Nanjing dialect, this does not mean the Hongwu zhangyun represented contemporary Nanjing dialect. 36 Zhou Deqing’s 周德清 Phonetic Rhymes of the Central Plain was compiled in Dadu during the Yuan dynasty as a guide to writers of qu 曲 verses in vernacular dramas. It disbanded the traditional entering-tone (rusheng 入聲) characters and merged them into the other tones, noting only that they used to be entering-tone words, e.g., “[characters] of 148 chapter three the imperial court for the civil service examinations, the Concise Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites and the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign—the structures of which continued in so-called Pingshui rhymes (Pingshui yun 平水韻)—maintained their course as the binding norm for poetic rhyming of literati all the way to the end of the premodern era. In short, no Chinese rhyme book has ever described a natural language. Rather, they always served to prescribe how characters were supposed to rhyme and how to group them together, reminiscent of Kantian “Categories” for sounds. The compilation of the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign was in such a prescriptive tradition, as the words of one of the compilers, Yue Shaofeng 樂韶鳳 (d. 1380), indicate: “The emperor supposed that the previous rhymes came from Jiangzuo [Eastern Yangzi, i.e., the Wu region] and often missed correctness. He ordered the court officials to correct them by consulting the elegant sounds of the Central Plain, and, when the book was completed, he named it the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign.”37 It is clear now why the conversation between the Ming envoys and the Chosŏn literati moved on to the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign and the civil service examinations. In order to subscribe to the Ming-Chinese imperial order as a legitimate member following Confucian literary philosophy, a reformative standardization of the Sino-Korean pronunciation and rhyming system was necessary. In fact, the influence of Shao Yong’s “The Leading and Following of the Sounds and Notes” on early Chosŏn linguistic scholarship, especially on the invention of Chŏng’ŭm, was profound,38

entering tone made departing tone” (rusheng zuo qusheng 入聲作去聲). Since the entering tone was reserved for a class of syllables that ended in final consonants (-p, -t, -k), such a treatment should indicate that the syllable-final consonants of these characters were neutralized and merged into the other tones, coinciding with phonological changes that occurred in northern speech later. Furthermore, no distinction was made between Middle Chinese voiced and voiceless initials, in addition to Middle Chinese rising-tone characters with voiced initials merging with the departing tone—another phonological shift waiting to happen later in modern Mandarin; and the distinction of rimes underwent a substantial restructuring from that of old rhyme dictionaries. 37 帝以舊韻出江左，多失正，命與廷臣參考中原雅音正之，書成，名洪武正韻。 “Biography of Yue Shaofeng” (Yue Shaofeng zhuan 樂韶鳳傳), History of Ming (Ming shi 明史) 136:3938. 38 Shao Yong’s philosophical phonology continued to resonate among later Chosŏn scholars. See Cho Sŏng-san, “Chosŏn hugi Soron’gye ŭi Tong’ŭm insik kwa Hunmin chŏng’ŭm yŏn’gu” [The Soron faction’s understanding of Eastern Sounds and their study of Correct Sounds to Instruct the People in late Chosŏn ], Han’guksa hakpo 36 (2009): 87–118. Also, for the manifestation of Shao Yong’s notion of correct sounds in the Chŏng’ŭm, see Sim So-hŭi, “Huangji jingshi ‘Shengyin changhe tu’ suo biaoxian de zhengyinguan” [The idea of correct sounds expressed in the “Chart of the Leading and Following of the Sounds and Notes” in the Book of the Supreme Ultimate Ordering the World], Chungguk ŏmunhak nonjip 9 (1997): 51–67. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 149 as was Song Confucian scholarship on Chosŏn philosophy. Therefore, the preface to the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom stated: It is not that there is sameness and difference between sounds, but between people; it is not that there is sameness and difference between people, but between regions. When geographical features differ, the climates differ; if the climates differ, then [people’s] breathing is different. This is why people of the east and south use more dental and lingual sounds, and people of the west and north use more guttural sounds. Thus, even though the writing and axle length are interchangeable, peoples’ sounds are not the same. Besides, we the east [Chosŏn], with our mountains and rivers, naturally form a divi- sion between inside and outside; the air and climate have already deviated from those of China. How could the breathing tally with the sounds of China? . . . His Majesty, in respecting and revering the Confucian Way, and in supporting and promoting cultural transformation, [though] nowhere has he failed to do his utmost, extended His keen concern to this matter [of sounds] at his leisure between His ten thousand important affairs. . . . More- over, when writing and scripts were not yet created, the Ways of the sages stayed in heaven-and-earth; after writing and scripts were created, the Ways of the sages were recorded in tablets and scripts. If one wants to examine the Ways of the sages, he must first [work on] the meanings of the written scripts; if one wants to know the meanings of written scripts, one must first start with the sounds and rhymes. Sounds and rhymes, therefore, are the beginnings of learning, so how can one be proficient in them easily? This is why Our Majesty spared His heed to [the matters of] sounds and rhymes, deliberated over the ancient and modern, and devised a guide, to which the dimwitted shall listen for a hundred million years.39 Nowhere in the preface do we find any mention that the difference in pronunciation between Chosŏn and China caused difficulties in, say, communication. As a result, though it did not completely abolish the existing Sino-Korean pronunciations (called sogŭm 俗音 ‘customary sounds’)40 that had developed in previous dynasties, the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern

39 夫音非有異同，人有異同。人非有異同，方有異同。盖以地勢別，而風氣殊而呼吸異。東南之齒唇，西北之頰喉，是已。遂使文軌雖通，聲音不同焉。矧吾東方表裏山河，自爲一區，風氣已殊於中國，呼吸豈與華音相合歟。. . . 主上殿下，崇儒重道，右文興化，無所不用其極。萬機之暇，慨念及此。. . . 况乎書契未作，聖人之道，寓於天地。書契旣作，聖人之道，載諸方策。欲究聖人之道，當先文義，欲知文義之要，當自聲韻，聲韻乃學道之權輿也，而亦豈易能哉！此我聖上所以留心聲韻，斟酌古今，作爲指南，以聞億載之羣蒙者也。“Preface to the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom” (Tongguk chŏng’un sŏ 東國正韻序), in Sin Suk-chu, Sŏng Sam-mun, et al., Tongguk chŏng’un 東國正韻 [Correct rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom], 1448; photographic reprint (Seoul: Kŏn’guk taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 1973). 40 Lee and Ramsey, The Korean Language, 56. 150 chapter three

Kingdom made adjustments to them using the Chŏng’ŭm alphabet following the norms of the Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign. Of course, this adjust- ment did not have an actual effect on later Sino-Korean pronunciation. The customary sounds (also called Tong’ŭm 東音 ‘Eastern sounds’) had already been conventionally associated with Chinese characters, and it took only fifty years or so for the reformed sounds to fall out of use. Apparently, the Samgang haengsil-to was one of the first test cases where the newly invented Chŏng’ŭm was put into use. Did Chŏng’ŭm then find its place in the book right away, fully serving its purpose of mediating the texts for the formerly illiterate masses? As we shall see later, it did not. One clear outcome of the invention of the Chŏng’ŭm was a new hierarchy of textual languages, in which literary Chinese was placed higher than Korean, and the Samgang haengsil-to presented a textual space where the two languages met. The cachet of classical Chinese was irrefutable (and remained so throughout premodern Korea), and by extension, the Chi- nese script itself had enjoyed blind respect, regardless of the content or style that it recorded, as the only the written script. Now the invention of Chŏng’ŭm provided a contrast, projecting the Chinese script as the default “formal” language. From the discussion above on “correct sounds,” we see that the history of the Chinese script as a writing system is interspersed with repeated attempts to establish ideal pronunciations and, consequently, to alienate the actual sounds produced by living human speakers. The collateral outcome of establishing prescriptive “correct sounds” was the divorce of written script from the actual human voice in its entirety. The pronunciation of Chinese script in these attempts then became an artificial system that served to complete the “written world”—the world of literature (wen 文), such as poetic rhymes—and that lost its connection to the spoken-linguistic realm. Especially in premodern Korea, where the Chinese script was almost always associated with written Chinese literature, the Chinese script maintained its authority through its detachment from spoken sounds. It was a system in which visual symbols prompted their meanings by way of proxy pronunciations. Whether they were legitimate sounds registered in official dictionaries or customary pronunciations circulating among the literati, these proxy pronunciations did not evoke meanings by virtue of being the sounds of spoken words. A proxy sound was only a temporary surrogate, filling in the gap until the visual symbol recalled the vernacular word that glossed it.41

41 This is not to provoke yet again the debate over what John De Francis has called the “ideographic myth.” Already in the 1930s, the ideographic view of Chinese script was refuted, as specifically epitomized in a series of debates between H. G. Creel and Peter vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 151

A writing system is bound to invite conservatism and disjuncture with linguistic reality in its orthography, for the spoken language constantly changes. When the phonetic value represented by a symbol changes, the link between symbol and sound is broken. In contrast, the visuality of the symbol remains static. The visual forms of Chinese characters have changed little since the Han dynasty, and those who see ancient writings in the original are often surprised by the fact that they still can recognize most of the characters. We need not know how those characters were pronounced when they were written. Still, the characters are expected to indicate now more or less the same meanings as they did then. The images and ideas remain static, whereas the sounds of the words they designated change ceaselessly, with few visible traces left in the graphic dimension. As their links to sounds blur repeatedly, the characters regain the other quality of symbols: visual image. Released from the sounds that were ascribed to them through convention at one time or another, characters revert to being images. A character that is an image, even though its signi- fication may vary depending on the viewer’s semiotic experiences, is open

Boodberg, and more recently critically debunked by William G. Boltz and other Sinolo- gists, and the idea has now fallen out of currency. The debate continued for five years, starting with Creel’s article. Creel’s point was on rediscovering the expandability of the category of “compound ideographs” (huiyi 會意) over “phonetic compounds” (xingsheng 形聲), among the six principles of writing put forth by Xu Shen 許慎 (58–147) in the Shuo- wen jiezi 說文解字 (literally, “Explaining and analyzing characters,” the oldest dictionary to analyze the structure of Chinese characters and organize them by radicals). Boodberg, in contrast, maintained the case was the other way around; that is, most Chinese characters had developed on the basis of graphemes using phonetic determinatives. In terms of developmental process, there is no disputing the fact that commitment to sound was indispensible in the formation of virtually every Chinese character. At least one of the constituent graphemes of every character must have evoked the sound of the morpheme as a phonetic determinative, which renders the Chinese script just as phonetic as any other writing system in the world. What is not to be ignored, however, is how later users have construed the system after its sedimentation in literary culture; nor can we ignore the effect of such comprehension on the socio-linguistic conception of the Chinese script. The fact remains that the system does not present itself as phonographic (alphabetic) to the naked eyes of users. Users of the system often fail to see, or forget, the grapho-etymological connections to sounds. The opacity of sound cues in Chinese characters sanctioned the constant alienation of spoken sounds—or the lack of efforts to update the system based on them; endorsed rhyme dictionaries constantly to envision the most ideal and self- contained system of harmonious sounds; and even inspired literati to interpret phonological structure on moral-philosophical grounds. A writing system with only hidden sounds hence invited new hermeneutical possibilities: namely, taking the graphs as immediate visual symbols (or combinations of them) that evoke meanings, bypassing sound. See H. G. Creel, “On the Nature of Chinese Ideography,” T’oung Pao 32 (1936): 85–161; Peter Boodberg, “Some Proleptical Remarks on the Evolution of Archaic Chinese,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 2 (1937): 329–72; Creel, “On the Ideographic Element in Ancient Chinese,” T’oung Pao 34 (1938): 265–94; and Boodberg, “ ‘Ideography’ or Iconolatry?” T’oung Pao 35 (1940): 266–88. 152 chapter three to new interpretation. The room for imagination that enables viewers to instigate novel meanings is an important attribute of Chinese characters. This is hardly a modern phenomenon. Already in the Chronicle of Zuo, we find the idea of interpreting characters based on their visual formations: “To cease halberds is military [i.e., The military is to maintain peace]” (zhi ge wei wu 止戈為武—analyzing the character wu 武 ‘military’ as a combination of zhi 止 ‘to cease’ and ge 戈 ‘halberd’); and “Reversing the just is downfall” (fan zheng wei fa 反正為乏—on the grounds that the older form for fa 乏 was similar to a reversed image of zheng 正). Though the usage of these characters in the Chronicle of Zuo was more rhetorical than etymological, these examples reappeared in Xu Shen’s Shuowen jiezi42 and became well-known references for later generations. Such hermeneutic romanticism leading to mystification of the Chinese script as a store of wisdom has been practiced repeatedly throughout history up to the present day.43 The ability to invoke the human voice and sound secularizes written language. Only when the sound is muted do visual images come back to life with all of their potential forms. This notion seemed particularly engrained, albeit not consciously, in early Chosŏn literati. The memorial presented by Ch’oe Mal-li 崔萬里, Vice Academic Counselor in the Hall of Worthies, at the time of Sejong’s promulgation of Chŏng’ŭm, illustrates this mindset:

42 For Xu Shen’s Shuowen, see note 41 above. 43 The situation is by no means localized to Chinese script. The case of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, introduced by Umberto Eco, draws an interesting parallel between Chi- nese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Hieroglyphica was a manuscript of the Greek translation of the Horapòllos Neiloùs ieroglyphikà, a fifth-century text explaining the ancient use of hieroglyphs. The way Horapollo, belonging to the priesthood of the fifth century ce (by which time hieroglyphs had fallen out of use), explicated and preserved this ancient language, “a semiotic tradition whose key was, by now, entirely lost,” attracted the intellectual appetite of the Renaissance Europeans. In many ways, this is reminiscent of what has happened to the Chinese script. To both Horapollo and European intellectuals—perhaps the latter rediscovered its potential significance through the insin- uations of the former—hieroglyphics were a writing system capable of conveying sacred truth and wisdom, devoid of phonetic encoding, and therefore deliberately bypassing any kind of human sounds, but consisting of a hoard of meanings and their associated ancient connotations and symbolisms, using only iconic images. Until Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone with the hypothesis that hieroglyphs, too, must have operated on a phonographic mechanism, European intellectuals continued to elaborate the possibility of finding there wisdom and truth in the form of a visual grammar. See Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language, translated by James Fentress (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995): 144–77. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 153

Ever since the time of our royal ancestors, our court has served the Great with utmost sincerity and abided respectfully by the Chinese institutions exclusively. But now, at this time of uniform characters and uniform axle lengths,44 [Your Highness] has created the Vulgar Script [i.e., Chŏng’ŭm], which we see and hear with astonishment. As for the proposition that the Vulgar Script is based on the old graphs and is not a new [set of] writing symbols, even though the shapes of the graphs are modeled on the ancient [Chinese] Seal Script, combining graphs using sounds is completely the opposite of the ancient [ways], and truly there is no basis for it . . . . From antiquity in the Nine Regions, although local customs have differed, there has never been a case of creating a written language based on local speech. The categories of Mongolians, Tanguts, Jurchen, Japanese, and Tibetans all have their own graphs, but these are just matters of the barbarians and are not worth mentioning. The commentary [i.e., the Mencius] remarks, “Change the barbarians with Chinese ways; I have never heard of being changed by the barbarian ways. . . .”45 Ch’oe Mal-li problematized precisely this point—that the new writing system was based on local speech sounds. A phonetic writing system would spawn secularity in the literary world. Moreover, creating a writing system that did not conform to the Sinitic norm was a disruptive action and would mean an act of defiance of, or even withdrawal from, the world order descending from antiquity.46 Sejong’s immediate reaction to this was nothing short of outrage: “Before this, Kim Mun said in his statement, ‘Making the Vulgar Script is nothing unacceptable.’ Now he has reversed it and says that it should not be permitted. Chŏng Ch’ang-son also said, ‘I have not seen loyal subjects, filial sons, or devoted women coming forth in droves since the circulation of the Samgang haengsil-to. Whether or not a person performs [moral conduct] depends solely on his inborn character. Why would people imitate

44 The expression “uniform writing and uniform axle lengths” is from a chapter of the Records of Rites, a chapter that later became the Doctrine of the Mean, describing an ideal Confucian state as having carriages of the same axle lengths, a writing system using the same standardized characters, and conduct of uniform ethics (車同軌，書同文，行同倫). 45 我朝自祖宗以來，至誠事大，一遵華制，今當同文同軌之時，創作諺文，有駭觀聽。儻曰諺文皆本古字，非新字也，則字形雖倣古之篆文，用音合字，盡反於古，實無所據 . . . 自古九州之內，風土雖異，未有因方言而別爲文字者，唯蒙古、西夏、女眞、日本、西蕃之類，各有其字，是皆夷狄事耳，無足道者。傳曰:“用夏變夷，未聞變於夷者也 . . .。”Sejong sillok 103:19b–20a (Sejong 26/9/9). 46 The argument between Sejong and Ch’oe Mal-li (and literatus-officials), as well as the intellectual atmosphere around the time of the invention of the Chŏng’ŭm are described in full detail in Gary Ledyard, “The Korean Language Reform of 1446” (especially in chap. 3). 154 chapter three

[the precepts of the Samgang haengsil-to] only after you translate it into the vernacular?’ How would comments like these be the words of Confucians who understand principle? Indeed, these are useless scholars with superficial learning!” Previously, His Highness had instructed [Chŏng] Ch’ang-son, saying, “If I translate the Samgang haengsil-to into the vernacular and distribute it among the people, ignorant men and women alike will be able to understand it with ease, and loyal subjects, filial sons, and devoted women will certainly come forth in droves.” This instruction right now is because Ch’ang-son made his opinion known through the above-cited missive.47 It is clear from this passage that, just as he initiated numerous ŏnhae vernacular exegeses of canonical Chinese texts, so Sejong had planned an ŏnhae edition of the Samgang haengsil-to right after he invented the Chŏng’ŭm. The king’s invention of the Chŏng’ŭm was rooted in the belief that all men and women, regardless of their inborn capacity and character, could realize their moral selves—a notion that was consistent with Mencius’s doctrine of human nature. It was only a matter of giving them the right instructions and directions, and the Chŏng’ŭm was a device to make this possible. At the same time, this was the mark of a committed monarch who had the intention of ruling all of his people directly, without relying on the intermediary authority of literati. The seed of discord between the king and the literati had already sprouted.

Housing the Vernacular Text

Having a new script to accommodate should have changed the physical format of the Samgang haengsil-to, but rather oddly, the physical format of the vernacular edition remained the same as that of the initial edition. It is almost as if the vernacular text sneaked onto the pages without receiving a warm welcome or even interrupting the existing format. The Chŏng’ŭm vernacular text was added in the upper margin (sŏmi, “eyebrow of the book”) of each folio throughout the book. In each story, the vernacular text runs from the right-most line above the illustration, often spilling over to the next side on top of the classical Chinese text. As seen in Figure 7, the vernacular text of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass,” the story of a chaste

47“前此金汶啓曰 :‘制作諺文，未爲不可。’今反以爲不可。又鄭昌孫曰:‘頒布《三綱行實》之後，未見有忠臣孝子烈女輩出。人之行不行，只在人之資質如何耳，何必以諺文譯之，而後人皆效之?’此等之言，豈儒者識理之言乎? 甚無用之俗儒也。”前此，上敎昌孫曰:‘予若以諺文譯《三綱行實》，頒諸民間，則愚夫愚婦，皆得易曉，忠臣孝子烈女，必輩出矣。’昌孫乃以此啓達，故今有是敎。Sejong sillok 103:21b (Sejong 26/2/20). vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 155

Figure 7. Illustration of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass” (Mi ch’ŏ tam ch’o 彌妻啖草) on the left, and written text of “Chastity of a Ning-Family Daughter” (Yŏng nyŏ chŏngjŏl 寧女貞節) on the right, from the 1490 edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. Collection of Sŏng’am Museum of Old Books. Courtesy of Ok Yŏng-jŏng. wife in Paekche, starts its vernacular text on top of the illustration. On the right, the vernacular text of “Chastity of a Ning-Family Daughter,” a Ming Chinese story, continues from the previous leaf. The arrangement of the Chŏng’ŭm vernacular text in the upper margin is quite telling. In terms of the page (or half-leaf) layout hierarchy of East Asian books, the margins surrounding the text box (kwanggwak), enclosed on four sides, were of secondary importance compared to the space within the box. Unlike the upper registers of divided boxes, which are nonetheless inside the regular page space, margins were not the site for main texts. This space was often reserved for paratextual components, such as commentaries, subcommentaries (when the main text included canonical commentaries), glosses, readers’ handwritten reading notes, and the like. 156 chapter three

The upper margin was outside the top border of the text box that holds the main text, and in principle was not carved on. This “eyebrow of the book” was the most frequent space for notes in pingdian 評點 (“evaluated and punctuated”) criticism in Chinese fiction texts, which started from handwritten notes jotted in the upper margin during reading practice, and was thus called meipi 眉批 ‘eyebrow criticism’.48 In other words, the Chŏng’ŭm vernacular text was not part of the main text but counted as a paratextual component, and the main text in classical Chinese was not to be interrupted. Although it was customary to term collectively all books containing vernacular translations ŏnhaebon, the vernacular editions of the Samgang haengsil-to distinguished themselves from other ŏnhaebon titles in their deployment of the vernacular text. Most ŏnhaebon included vernacular texts in the regular space along with the main texts, either placing Chŏng’ŭm script after each Chinese character (rendering pronunciation), in separate paragraphs, or (rarely) as titles independent from the original text. By contrast, the vernacular texts in the Samgang haengsil-to did not intrude into the space of the main text, looking as though they were surtitles. This tells us something more about these vernacular texts: they were meant more for the use of the reader-interpreter of the stories than for the audience. Members of the audience were still assumed to be predominantly illiterate, even in the new Chŏng’ŭm vernacular script. If the reader-interpreter was expected to understand classical Chinese, then why was it necessary to provide surtitles in the vernacular? Would they not have known how to translate classical Chinese and explain it orally to the audience? As Kim Hang-su has pointed out in his discussion of ŏnhae production in Chosŏn, the vernacular exegesis of Confucian classics was not simply a linguistic transfer from one language to another but an act of interpreting teachings. Therefore it had first to be preceded by establishing the kugyŏl—the practice of punctuating classical texts and adding conventionalized phonograms for marking syntactic and morphological features of Korean to facilitate reading.49 Interpreting moral- philosophical texts of the highest importance was a grave concern for both the court and the literatus-officials. Even choosing between possible kugyŏl renderings was not a simple matter to settle. For example, during

48 Tan Fan, Zhongguo xiaoshuo pingdian yanjiu [A study of the commentarial criticism in Chinese fiction texts], (Shanghai: Huadong shida chubanshe, 2001), 48. 49 Kim Hang-su, “16-segi kyŏngsŏ ŏnhae ŭi sasangsa-jŏk koch’al” [An examination on the sixteenth-century vernacular renderings of classical documents from the perspective of intellectual history], Kyujanggak 10 (1987): 17–40. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 157 the reign of Sejo, who continued the ŏnhae projects initiated by Sejong, the court and scholar-officials disputed over whose kugyŏl renderings were closer to the orthodox teachings. Sejo also participated in this project, taking upon himself the rendering of the Changes of Zhou (Zhouyi) and the Elementary Learning (Xiaoxue), but the scholar-officials would not agree to adopt the king’s work on the former and favored instead an existing work by Kwŏn Kŭn 權近 (1352–1409). Sejo even tried to push it forward with his authority as king, but the scholar-officials’ resistance was quite resolute, delaying the entire kugyŏl project.50 The Samgang haengsil-to was as important as, if not more crucial than, the classics, for it would have to speak to the general masses who were not ready for Confucian ethics. In addition to placing the vernacular text in the upper margin and excluding it from the regular textual space, there is another indication that the vernacular rendition of the Samgang haengsil-to was different from other ŏnhae texts. In other ŏnhae texts, the authors of vernacular texts were mostly identified, and also specifically included “ŏnhae” in the titles. That is to say, regular ŏnhae texts were independent printing projects, separated from their original texts. The Samgang haengsil-to was another matter. The author (or authors) of the vernacular text was not identified, nor was the vernacular edition separated from the classical Chinese edition—even the title did not mention its inclusion of the vernacular text. All this was not to be taken as insinuating that the text was not respected enough to be associated with renowned scholars or to be made into an independent book. Rather, it should be understood as an indication that the vernacular text was not meant to be a part of the regular texts. This formatting principle continued in later editions and in the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to, until the vernacular text finally came down into the regular textual site, occupying the space next to classical Chinese. The vernacular text itself deserves some attention. As noted above in this chapter, earlier vernacular texts and later ones show some salient differences. In addition to mixing in Chinese characters with Chŏng’ŭm, the 1490 edition appended a sound gloss to each Chinese character it contained. These sound glosses conformed to the Sino-Korean pronunciations mandated in the artificial Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom, a reformed standard clearly departing from the customary Sino-Korean

50 Kim Hang-su, “16-segi kyŏngsŏ ŏnhae ŭi sasangsa-jŏk koch’al,” 24–26. 158 chapter three sounds of the time. The Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom pronunciation is known to be theoretically reconstructed in the way that Chi- nese characters were supposed to sound in Korea, and thus does not resemble any natural language. For example, the character 宣 (Ch. xuan; Middle Chinese sjwen; Modern Sino-Korean sŏn)51 was spelled sywuyen in Chŏng’ŭm, which in other contemporary documents was transcribed syen.52 The extra vocalic element in the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk chŏngun) spelling was designed to accommodate phonological distinctions indicated in the Chinese rhyme dictionaries, in particular, the aforementioned 1297 Abridged Collection of Rhymes of the Ancient and Modern (Gujin yunhui juyao).53 As mentioned above, however, the so-called Tongguk-chŏng’un-style Sino-Korean readings fell out of common usage fairly soon, and publications after 1490 abandoned it. Except for these official Sino-Korean sounds, the regular vernacular Korean segments were written following the orthographic practice exemplified by other Chŏng’ŭm texts of the time. Therefore, symbols that became obsolete after the fifteenth century (e.g., ᄫ [W], ᅀ [z], ᇙ [lq] and ᅘ [hh]) still appear in the 1490 editions. Also worthy of note is the notation of Middle Korean accent. Commonly termed sŏngjo 聲調—the same word used to refer to Chinese tones— these phonemic segments were pitch-accents rather than Chinese-style contour tones. Middle Korean accentual registers adopted the categorical terms used in Middle Chinese: p’yŏngsŏng 平聲, sangsŏng 上聲, kŏsŏng

51 Middle Chinese is given following the Baxter-Sagart reconstruction system as shown in William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart, Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese Reconstruction, accessi- ble online at http://crlao.ehess.fr/document.php?id=1217 (accessed on September 1, 2012). 52 The Middle Korean sounds are romanized according to the Yale Romanization Sys- tem for Middle Korean. For detail conventions, see Samuel E. Martin, A Reference Gram- mar of Korean (Rutland, Vt.; Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 1992), Part I (especially 42 ff). 53 Many have studied the Sino-Korean pronunciations of the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom. For more details, see such classic studies as Nam Kwang-u, Tongguk chŏng’un-sik hanchaŭm yŏn’gu [A study on the Sino-Korean pronunciations of the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom], (Seoul: Han’guk yŏn’guwŏn, 1966). The Tongguk chŏngun standard devised more ways to accommodate reconstructively the phonological system of Chinese rhyme dictionaries. For example, it added a Chŏng’ŭm symbol for q (ᅙ) in the coda position of entering-tone Chinese characters with final -l, rendering a coda cluster -lq, to indicate that they came from Middle Chinese -t; or placed the symbol for -W (ᄝ), which was otherwise not used anywhere, for codaless even-tone Chinese characters cor- responding to those with final -m and -p. These artificial treatments were either to appropriate then-customary pronunciations to the system of Chinese rhyme dictionaries or to establish a symmetrical balance among rimes following the ideal phonological system of Shao Yong and others. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 159

Figure 8A. Magnified image of the vernacular text of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass” (Mi ch’ŏ tam ch’o 彌妻啖草), 1490 edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. Collection of Sŏng’am Museum of Old Books.

Figure 8B. The vernacular text of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass” (Mi ch’ŏ tam ch’o 彌妻啖草), 1570s edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. Courtesy of Ok Yŏng-jŏng.

去聲, and ipsŏng 入聲. All syllables were divided into ipsŏng and non- ipsŏng categories, in which the former designated syllables with conso- nantal codas (-p, -t, -k); then both categories were further divided into p’yŏngsŏng (low), sangsŏng (low-high, i.e., rising), and kŏsŏng (high). Accent was marked with varying numbers of dots (pangchŏm 旁點 ‘side-dot’) on the left of each character: no dot (low), one dot (high), and two dots (low-high). Figure 8A is a magnified image of the vernacular text of “[To] Mi’s Wife Chews Grass” from the 1490 edition (see Figure 7). Com- pare it with the vernacular text of the same story taken from the 1570s edition (Figure 8B). All Chinese characters have disappeared in Figure 8B, as have the accentual dots. 160 chapter three

The evident demarcation between Chinese and Korean languages is another visible trait of the earlier (1490) vernacular text. For example, in almost all cases where words made up of Chinese morphemes had to appear in the vernacular text, these words were first written in Chinese characters and then given pronunciations in Chŏng’ŭm, one character at a time. In addition to personal names, regular lexical items which were already in use in Korean (e.g., kwuho- ‘to seek’ < kwu 求 [Ch. qiu ‘to seek’] + ho- ‘to do’) and even numbers (e.g., SWUSIP 數十 ‘dozens of’) were given their Chinese characters followed by Sino-Korean readings. This treatment disappeared in later post-1490 editions, and the Sino-Korean words within the vernacular texts were transcribed exclusively in Chŏng’ŭm. As a result, Figure 8B shows no Chinese characters. That is to say, Chinese characters were never mixed in as a part of the written script with Chŏng’ŭm without being glossed. More important is the style of phrasing employed in the vernacular text. The style used in the 1490 editions (including recuts and reprints) was indeed not really a translation. Scholars have conventionally labeled this style ŭiyŏk 意譯 (‘meaning-translation’ or ‘paraphrasing’), that is to say, a translation of the gist of the original text. Since, as discussed above, the actual function of the vernacular text was to provide additional material for the reader-reciter to consult while interpreting and explaining the Chinese text to an illiterate audience, this choice of style might be an excusable, even inevitable, one. The classical Chinese text was in that sense hidden to the audience, who were only to consume the oral text the reader-reciter created based on the Chinese and vernacular texts. Literal translation, truthful and unadorned though it may be, entails the danger of exposing the original text as it is, or even making it incomprehensible, risking potential “misunderstandings” of the intended message on the part of audiences untrained in literacy, not to mention in discourses on Confu- cian ethics. After all, the role of reader-reciter did not stop at merely reciting the stories but included interpreting, explaining, and teaching them. The vernacular text in Chŏng’ŭm in the Samgang haengsil-to, therefore, was not intended to translate the Chinese text but to provide a script of the oral text to the reader-teachers. Several strategies are identified in relation to this purpose. First, the vernacular text often chose not to translate original phrases with their literal meaning but instead to transpose them approximately, with cor- responding terms using Chosŏn colloquialisms. Unlike other contemporaneous ŏnhae texts, the vernacular text of the Samgang haengsil-to shows a deliberate preference for colloquial expressions, even for commonly vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 161 used Sino-Korean terms, such as ustum pyesol ‘number-one official’, a combination of two non-Chinese morphemes, for Chinese shangqing 上卿 ‘high-ranking minister’ (Sino-Korean sanggyŏng).54 There are also frequent cases in which items with specific identity have been rendered into generic terms. For example, in the story “Buhai Lifts Corpses” (Pul- hae pong si 不害捧尸), Emperor Jianwen (Jianwen di 簡文帝) of Liang (503–51) is simply identified as hwangtyey ‘emperor’ (Ch. huangdi 皇帝) in the 1490 edition and as THYENCO ‘Son of Heaven’ (Ch. tianzi 天子) in the 1726 edition. Replacing items that were not familiar to ordinary people or that were plainly converted into the vernacular with a functionally tantamount expression is also frequent. In “[Wen] Tianxiang Does Not Surrender” (Ch’ŏn-sang pul kul 天祥不屈), we find in the vernacular that the term naozi 腦子 is replaced with the phrase “a toxic drug” (twok.hon yak). Naozi, also called longnao 龍腦, refers to Borneo camphor, a white crystalline substance derived from tree-oil essence, which was often used in medicinal moxibustion but was regarded as toxic. The author of the vernacular texts must have thought that since naozi was not something with which the ordinary folk of the Chosŏn were familiar, simply identifying it with its functional effect in the story would not change the overall understanding.55 As mentioned before, the common modern-day conception of the vernacular texts of the Samgang haengsil-to assumes that they started out as looser “meaning translations” and then morphed into more literal direct translations in the later—eighteenth-century, specifically—editions. 56

54 Kim Yŏng-su and Chŏn In-ju, “Samgang haengsil-to ŏnhae ŭi pŏnyŏk sang ŭi t’ŭkching” [Characteristics of translation in the vernacular edition of the Samgang haengsil-to], Chungguk chosŏn ŏmun 134 (2004): 9–13. Kim Yŏng-su and Chŏn In-ju mention as an example of colloquialism converting Chinese taishou 太守 (Grand Protector, Prefect) to NGWEN 원, a common unofficial Chosŏn word for “governor.” But the former being also an unofficial designation in China, the latter was not necessarily an unusual choice, especially when ·THAY·SYWUW (the Sino-Korean reading of taishou) was equally frequent in the vernacular texts of the Samgang haengsil-to; see Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, 482–83. 55 We may wonder whether the reader-teacher could explain these terms to the illiterate audience, since even if naozi was perhaps too technical a term, shangqing was most certainly plain enough for any literate person to know. But the purpose of the vernacular text was not simply teaching the audience individual terms but assisting reader-teachers to instruct their audience in the moral lessons of the stories in understandable language. In other words, replacing difficult terms with vernacular substitutes provided an example of an interpretive strategy for the reader-reciters, so that they could convey the ethical messages without being interrupted by technical details. 56 Shibu Shōhei, “Genkai Sankō gyōjitsuzu no denbon to keiho,” 76; Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho, “Chosŏn Sidae ‘Haengsil-to’ p’anbon mit p’anhwa e kwanhan yŏn’gu,” 85–95. 162 chapter three

This assessment, however, should be reconsidered. Neither the earlier (1490 and 1570s) nor the later (1720s) editions can truly be labeled as rendering in their vernacular texts the kind of literal translation that faithfully observes the syntactic and semantic structures of the original Chinese text. The tendency toward “meaning translation” is in fact quite consistent throughout all vernacular editions of the Samgang haengsil-to (1490, 1570s, and 1726–30, i.e., both Category 1 and Category 2; see Tables 2 and 3 above), including the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of 1514.57 That said, I argue that the dichotomy of “meaning translation” and “literal translation” is meaningless, because all vernacular texts of the Samgang haengsil-to, earlier and later ones alike, failed to connect with the original Chinese at the textual-linguistic level, and therefore were not at all translations in the strict sense. The vernacular text placed in the upper margin was a narration cue, not a written text. Moreover, the earlier vernacular editions exhibit frequent omissions of original content, perhaps for the purpose of filtering out what was deemed unnecessary to convey the story. This is not limited to the earlier editions, however, although later ones at times added supplementary content. Omitting unnecessary details is especially prevalent in the beginning part of each story, where the Chinese text as a rule begins with a short phrase about the protagonist’s identity (name, place of origin, official title, family relations, etc.), which the vernacular text habitually forgoes, except for the name and details necessary for the story. For example, the 1490 vernacular text of the above-mentioned story “[Wen] Tianxiang Does Not Surrender” begins, “Grand Councilor Wen Tianxiang was captured by Zhang Hongfan 張弘範 [1238–80] of the Yuan and ate naozi, but could not die,” whereas the vernacular text in the 1726 edition reads, “When the Song was collapsing, Zhang Shijie 張世傑 [?–1279] and Lu Xiufu 陸秀夫 [1237–79] escorted the emperor on a boat into the sea of Aishan, and Grand Councilor Wen Tianxiang was captured by the barbarians and swallowed a toxic drug but did not die.” But the Chinese text reads: “In the wuyin 戊寅 year [1278] of the Xiangxing 祥興 reign [of Emperor Bing of Song], Zhang Hongfan of the Yuan reached Chaoyang 潮陽. Grand Councilor Wen Tianxiang was captured and swallowed naozi, but did not die.” Compared to the original text in Chinese, both the 1490 and 1726 editions do not really translate but rather explain the story. The 1490 edition leaves out the temporal and

57 Yi Yŏng-gyŏng, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to ŏnhae ŭi sŏnggyŏk e taehayŏ” [On the characteristics of the vernacular texts in the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom], Chindan hakpo 112 (2011): 103–25. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 163 spatial references of the original, and abridges the next two clauses into one. The 1726 edition, in contrast, adds something that is not in the Chi- nese original, introducing the historical background of Wen Tianxiang’s story. With more detail than the original text, this added part brings the famous Naval Battle of Yashan (Yashan haizhan 崖山海戰) and the three loyal heroes of the Song (Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu, and Zhang Shijie) into the context. This may not have been a coincidence or an offhand show of historical erudition by the author of the 1726 vernacular text, for the story of Lu Xiufu, one of the three heroes, had been included in the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to but was excised in this reduced edition. Therefore, the added vernacular is an evocation of an intertextual reference internal to the Samgang haengsil-to that had been lost in the reduced edition. In this respect, at any rate, we cannot really determine which is more literal or translational. Neither edition is sufficiently literal or observant of the original text to be called “direct translation.” To have a better look at the diachronic changes in the vernacular texts, let us take as example the story of “Xiama Immolates Himself” (Hama cha pun 蝦䗫自焚), about a loyal general of Jin 金 China (1115–1234) called Guo Xiama 郭蝦䗫. Its Chinese text translates as follows: (For the sake of comparison, I have made my translations as literal as possible in what follows.) Jin collapsed and not one [town] in Xizhou did not submit. Only Guo Xiama, marshal of Taohe, firmly defended the isolated fort. The Yuan army attacked, and Xiama estimated that he could not sustain. He collected gold, silver, copper, and iron in the town to mix them, and cast cannons with which to hit the attackers; and killed cows and horses to feed his soldiers. He also burned down houses and the stockpile [of grain], and said, “There should be nothing to end up as sustenance for the [enemy] army.” As he undertook bloody battles, the dead and wounded among his troops multiplied. Thus he ordered that firewood be piled up in the prefecture administration building. When the fire blazed, he had his soldiers wait in front of the fire with their bows drawn to the fullest. The fortress was breached, and the [enemy] soldiers swarmed in. As the fierce battle lasted long, soldiers who had exhausted their arrows and bows went into the fire with their heads held high. Xiama [remained] alone on top of a big pile of grass, shielding himself with a door, shot two to three hundred arrows, and not one of them failed to hit [the enemy]. When he ran out of arrows, he threw his bow and sword into the fire and incinerated himself. No one in the fortress willingly surrendered. When he died, Xiama was forty-five. The local people erected a memorial hall for him. “Lamentable! The general facing the demise of Jin at Tao River! / Alone, he defended the fortress, but his strength was failing. / He fed his soldiers full, then ordered them to burn the stockpile; / ending in bloody battles, he pledged his death. / Prefectural Hall is in flames, and the power is already 164 chapter three

tilting; / exerting themselves to the fierce battle, they took their lives lightly. / In the entire fortress, no one remained who did not discard his life; / Their unblemished names will live on for a thousand years!”58 Below, for each vernacular edition (1490, 1570s, and 1726), I first romanize the Chŏng’ŭm text and then append its translation.59 T1 (Chŏng’ŭm text of the 1490 edition)60 金 KUM ·i 亡 MANGkhe·nul 西 SYEY s nyek kowol·h i 歸 KWUY 順 ·SSY- WUN ·a·ni ho·l i :epte·ni {歸 KWUY 順 ·SSYWUN ·un 元 NGWEN ·ey ·ka·a 順 ·SYWUN 從 CCYWONGhol ·ss i·la} wo·cik 洮 THWOW 河 HHA 元 NGWEN 帥 ·SYWUY 郭 ·KWAK 蝦 HHA 䗫 MA y ·woyloWoyn 城 SSYENG ·ul kwu·ti 守 ·SYWUW·ho·ya i·sye kowol s 内 ·NOY ·yey 金 KUM 銀·UN 銅 TWONG 鐵 ·THYELQ :ul mwo·two·a 砲 ·PHWOW ·tiye ·thinon :salo:m ol {砲 ·PHWOW ·non ·thul mey·Gwe me·li ka·kuy ·ho·non :twolh i·la} ·thi·mye molsywo cwu·kye 軍 KWUN 士 :SSO ·lol ipatomye stwo cip ·kwa ssa·hwon ke·s ol ·so·la poli·kwo 每 :MOY 日 ·ZILQ ·phissa·hwom honi 軍 KWUN 士 :SSO y cwu·ku·n i :man·ho teni kowol·h oy sepnamwo ssa·ha ·pul tilukwo 將 ·CYANG 士 :SSO te·pulGwo ·pul al ·ph oy hwal me·kye ·sye·a ki·tu·lite ·ni 城 SSYENG ·i he·le 兵 PYENG 馬 :MA y tawa·ta ·tulGe·nul ko·cang wolay ssa·hwo·ni 士 :SSO 卒 ·CWOLQ ·i hwa ·sal :ep·sun :salom on ·pu·l ey to·la tute·ni 蝦 HHA 䗫 MA y howo ·za ·khun ·phul ssahon ·toy wol·Ga 門 MWON s pwu·chey lwo :ce y ko·liGwo·kwo 三 SAM 百 ·POYK ·sa·l ol :sswo·toy :mwot ma·chi ·n i ·epte·ni ·sal :epke·nul hwal ·Gwa 環 ·HHWAN 刀 TWOW ·[G]wa ·lol ·pu·l ey te·ti ·kwo :ce y ·so·la cwu·kuni 城 SSY- ENG 中 TYWUNG ·ey s :salo·m i hona·thwo 降 HHANG ho·l i :epte·ni kowol s :salo·m i 為 ·WUY·hoya 祠 SSO 堂 TTANG :syeyni·la

T1 (Translation) As Jin collapsed, no town of the west side did not submit. {“To submit” is to turn to the Yuan and to obey them.} Only the Marshal of Taohe, Guo Xiama, was firmly guarding the isolated fortress. He collected the gold, silver, cop-

58 金亡。西州無不歸順。獨洮河元帥郭蝦䗫。堅守孤城。元兵攻之。蝦䗫度不能支。集州中金銀銅鐵。雜鑄爲砲。以擊攻者。殺牛馬以食戰士。又焚廬舍積聚曰。無至資兵。日與血戰。軍士死傷者衆。乃命積薪於州廨。火旣熾。率將士於火前持滿以待。城破兵塡委以入。鏖戰旣久。士卒有弓盡矢絶者。挺身入火中。蝦䗫獨上大草積。以門扉自蔽發二三百失。無不中者。矢盡投弓劒于火。自焚。城中無一人肯降者。蝦䗫死時年四十五。土人爲立祠。《詩》可憐金末洮河帥。獨守孤城力不支。餉士仍令焚積聚。終焉血戰死爲期。州廨燔薪勢已傾。奮身鏖戰共輕生。闔城自斃無遺孑。千載流傳不朽名。 59 Here, in order to transliterate the text as spelled, I forgo some of the morphophone- mic notations (such as “.” for syllabic divisions, word- or phrase-internal spaces for morphological breaks, and apostrophes indicating ellipses) unless they are reflected in the spelling. In cases of aberrant spellings that seem to have been due to carving errors or damaged blocks, they are transcribed as they appear. 60 From the Mansong Collection at Korea University, as photographically reproduced in the Samgang haengsil-to—Koryŏdae-bon, Sangbaek mun’go-bon 三綱行實圖—高麗大本、想白文庫本 (Seoul: Hongmun’gak, 1990). vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 165

per, and iron in the town and made cannons [with them] {cannons mean the stones that are made to rise and go far by being loaded on a frame} and hit those who hit [i.e., attacked]; killed horses and cows to feed the soldiers; and burned down the houses and that which he piled up. As they had bloody battles every day, dead ones among the soldiers were many; he piled up firewood in the town and set it on fire, and together with his officers notched [arrows] to their bows and waited [for the enemy]. When the fortress was breached and [the enemy] soldiers and horses swarmed in, he fought for the longest time. Those among the soldiers [of Guo] who ran out of arrows jumped into the fire. As Xiama alone climbed up on a huge pile of grass, shielding himself with a door, he shot three hundred arrows; there was no one he did not hit. Running out of arrows, he threw his bow and saber into the fire and died after incinerating himself. Not one person in the fortress surrendered. The townspeople built a memorial hall for him.

T2 (Chŏng’ŭm text of the 1570s edition)61 Kum nalah i mangmyelkhenol62 syennyek kwoulh oy tolaka sywuncywong ani hol i epteni wocik Tywoha wensywu Kwak Hama y woylwoun syeng ul kwuti tikhoye isye kwowol nay yey kum un twong thyel ul mwotwoa thanco tie thinon salo m ol thimye molsywo cwukye kwunsa lol ipatomye stwo cip kwa sahun kes ol pul ay sola polikwo moyil phi nakey ssahwom honi kwunsa y cwukun i man- hoteni kwowolh oy sepnamwo ssaha pul tilwokwo cyangso tepulGwo pul alph oy hwal mekyesye kituliteni syeng i hele pyeng ma y tawata tulGenul kocang wolay ssahwoni kwunso y hwasal ta kuchyetin i non pul ey tola tuteni Hama y huwonca63 khukey phul sahon toy wola mwunpcak olwo koliwokwo sampoyk sa l ol pswotoy mwot machil cek k-i yepteni sal epkenul hwal Gwa hwantwo wa lol pul ay tetikwo cey pul ay tule sola cwukuni syeng tywung ey salom i honathwo hangpwok hol i epteni kwoul salom i wuyhoya sotang syeynila

T2 (Translation) As the country of Jin perished, no town of the west side did not turn to and obey [the Yuan]. Only the Marshal of Taohe, Guo Xiama, was firmly guarding the isolated fortress. He collected the gold, silver, copper, and iron in town; and made cannonballs [with them] and hit those who hit [i.e., attacked]; killed horses and cows to feed the soldiers; and burned down the

61 From the Sangbaek mun’go collection at Seoul National University, as photographically reproduced in Samgang haengsil-to—Koryŏdae-bon, Sangbaek mun’go-bon. 62 “Mingmyel” should be read “mangmyel” to mean ‘perish’, but the Sangbaek mun’go copy is missing a stroke. It appears to be a case of carving error, which is verified by another imprint in the collection of the Sungkyunkwan University Library, photographically reproduced in the Samgang haengsil-to—Sunggyun’gwandae-bon, Kyujanggak-pon 三綱行實圖—成均館大本、奎章閣本 (Seoul: Hongmun’gak, 1990). 63 “Huwonca” should be read “hwowonca,” meaning ‘alone’, but the Chŏng’ŭm character for the first syllable has its symbols for consonant (ㅎ) and vowel (ㅗ) almost touching each other (흐) and fails to render the correct vowel. Again, the imprint at the Sungkyunk- wan University Library shows the correct form: 호. 166 chapter three

houses and that which he piled up. And they fought every day so much as to bleed; dead ones among the soldiers were many. He piled up firewood in the town and set it on fire, and together with his officers notched [arrows] to their bows and waited [for the enemy]. When the fortress was breached and [the enemy] soldiers and horses swarmed in, he fought for the longest time. Those among the soldiers [of Guo] who ran out of arrows jumped into the fire. As Xiama alone climbed up on a huge pile of grass, shielding himself with a door, he shot three hundred arrows; there was no one he did not hit. Running out of arrows, he threw his bow and saber into the fire and died after incinerating himself. Not one person in the fortress surrendered. The townspeople built a memorial hall for him.

T3 (Chŏng’ŭm text of the 1726 edition)64 Kum nalah i manghol stay yey Wen nala kwunso khukey tulewoni syecywu y mwotun kwowol i hangpwok ‘ti ani hol i epsotwoy hwollwo Tywoha wensywu pyesol hoyasnon Kwak Hama y kwuci cikhoyyessteni Wen pyeng i kuphi chini Hama y him ul tahoya ssahwa nyangsik i cinhom ay mol kwa sywo lol ta capa kwunso lol mekikwo seph ul cip aph oy ssakhwo pul ul nwokhwo kwunso lol kenolikwo pul aph oy syesye hwal ul mekye tulkwo cek ul kitolini cekpyeng i mwuswuhi tulewonon tila chuschye ssahwa sal i cinham ay kwunsa toth- wowa pul uy tolatunon cila Hama y hwollwo phul ssahun toy wolla mwunscak ulwo steyhye mwom ul koliwokwo sal sampoyk ul sswoa twocek ul mwuswuhi cwukikwo sal i cinhom ay pul uy stwuyyetule cwukuni syengtywung salom i honathwo hangpwokhol cya y eptela i stay ye Hama y nahi maun tasos s-ila ku sta salom i sotang ul syeywokwo hoy mata cyey hononila

T3 (Translation) When the country of Jin was collapsing, the Yuan-country army entered on a large scale and not one of all the towns in the Xizhou did not surrender. Guo Xiama, who was serving in the post of marshal of Taohe, alone firmly defended [the fortress]. The Yuan army fiercely attacked; and Xiama fought [back] with all his strength. When their victuals were exhausted, [he] butch- ered all the horses and cows and fed [them to] the soldiers. And he piled up firewood in front of the house, set it on fire, and led his soldiers; they stood in front of the fire waiting, with their [arrows] notched on their bows, for the bandits. In came the enemy soldiers in countless numbers, and, as their arrows ran out while fighting severely, the soldiers vied with each other in jumping into the fire. Xiama alone climbed up on the pile of grass; shielding himself with a door he had taken off, he shot three hundred arrows to kill countless bandits. As he ran out of arrows, he dove into the fire and died. Not one person in the fortress would surrender. At this time, Xiama’s age was forty-five. People of that land built a memorial hall [for him] and held a commemorating ceremony every year.

64 From the collection of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of Califor- nia, Berkeley. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 167

First of all, notice that T1 includes two double-line comments (indicated with { } above). Emulating the commentarial format that was usual in other Chinese texts, these comments add explanations or glosses in places that might need extra clarification, using half-sized characters, two lines of which occupied one regular line. The first one, “‘To submit’ is to turn to and to obey the Yuan,” explains the term Chinese term guishun (K. kwisun), not just in plain colloquial Korean but also by contextualizing it in the story. The second comment, “Cannons mean the stones that are made to rise and go far by being loaded on a frame,” is clarification that “cannon” here did not mean the frame but the projectiles, for that was what Guo Xiama and his soldiers made with all the metal they collected.65 These comments disappear in T2 but are reflected in the text: “submit” (kwuy. ssywun) has been changed to “turn to and obey”; and “cannon” (phwow) to “cannonballs” (thanco), another Sino-Korean term from Chinese danzi (彈子 ‘bullets, cannonballs’). T3, however, pays no mind to the comments made in T1, for “submit” is replaced with “surrender” and the part containing “cannon” is simply skipped in the translation. Both T1 and T2 choose not to translate the Chinese text, “The army of Yuan attacked and Xiama estimated that he could not sustain.” T3 does, but only the first half of it. Guo Xiama’s words, “There should be nothing to end up being sustenance for the [enemy] army,” is likewise not found in any of the three vernacular texts. The Chinese phrase “in the prefecture administration building” (yu zhoujie 於州廨) is either skipped (T1 and T2) or rendered as “in front of the house” (T3); none of the texts translates “with their heads held high” (Ch. tingshen 挺身); and all of them say “three hundred arrows” for “two to three hundred arrows.” T1 and T2 do not translate the part stating that Guo Xiama was forty-five years old when he died, whereas T3 does. But T3 also adds “[the people of the land] held a commemorating ceremony every year,” which is absent from the original text. Inserting phrases that were not in the original is particularly frequent in T3, such as “the Yuan army entered on a large scale,” “when their victuals were exhausted,” and “Xiama fought [back] with all his strength.” T3 also calls the Yuan army “bandits” a couple of times. All in all, phrases left out in T1 and T2 are also (more or less) forgone in T3; and sometimes T3 is found to have made further omissions. Though

65 It is not clear on what grounds such a clarification was made or why it was necessary. Perhaps it was because casting cannons requires time and facilities, which Guo Xiama could not likely have afforded, or because the illustration did not show cannons but only metal fragments. 168 chapter three it appears that T3 contains more details, they are often not found in the original Chinese text. Therefore, none of these can be described as exactly literal, or even translational in the sense of keenly minding the original text. The double-line comments are not something unique to T1, either. As inconsistently as T1, T3 also makes use of them every now and then. Adding double-line comments facilitated the explanation of the story by supplementing content absent in the original and was likely meant for the reader-teachers to consult when they created oral texts for the illiterate. All these versions share the same spirit in this regard: their primary concern lay in conveying the stories and their messages orally, rather than in creating written vernacular texts that conformed to the original Chinese text. The vernacular texts did not posit “ignorant men and women” as their readers, but as their audiences. Furthermore, with regard to the colloquialism of the vernacular text, the issue is not very simple. We find cases in which the earlier vernacular text rendered its linguistic transpositions more literally than later editions did. The example of naozi is a case in point. It was the later editions that loosely rendered it as a “toxic drug” (twokhan yak, 1726 edition) or even just “drug” ( yak, 1570s edition); but the 1490 edition, which is said to contain more paraphrasing, simply transliterated it as 腦 NWOW 子:CO. It is problematic here to evaluate which was more literal and which was looser as a translated text. Did the latter intend to be a translation or a mere transliteration? Is “toxic drug” translational or paraphrasal? There- fore, it would be reasonable to conclude that the concept of “translation” applies poorly to the vernacular texts of the Samgang haengsil-to. Trans- lation, after all, presupposes that the two languages are hierarchically equal or comparable, or at least that whatever was expressed in one could be articulated in the other, which was not conceivable at this stage for Chosŏn literati. There is one additional part of the Chinese text that none of the three Chŏng’ŭm texts translated: the poem. We have seen in the preface to the initial edition that Sejong and his editors valued the poems and eulogies highly as integral parts of the text. Poems and eulogies were there to complete the moral discourse with the lyrical tradition. The idea was that readers and audiences would intone these poems and that the aesthetic beauty glimpsed by doing so would further inspire them to emulate the heroes being thus eulogized. But the poems were in classical Chinese and followed the generic paradigms and conventions of the Chinese literary tradition, the effects of which Chosŏn vernacular Korean could not echo. The simplest aspect of rhyming, for example, could not be recreated in vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 169 the vernacular. The vernacular text therefore omitted all the poems and eulogies, consigning the Chinese poems to silence. Perhaps it would be more precise to say that the hierarchy between the Chinese and the Chŏng’ŭm, as well as between the written and the spoken, continued to be observed strictly throughout the vernacular editions of the Samgang haengsil-to. The physical format of the textual arrangement bespeaks this hierarchy—or perhaps it was the physical format that maintained, or even dictated, the hierarchy. In the meantime, we also realize that Zhu Xi’s masterful design was leaving its trace here. For the new generation of people with printed books in their hands, and especially for beginning practitioners of moral learning, Zhu Xi invoked orality as the way to internally engrave morality on the mind. Learners were taught to fill in the void left by teachers with the spoken voice of the text, and that was Zhu Xi’s prescription for educational reading—reading for moral education. The original Samgang haengsil-to was in classical Chi- nese, a text that, as mentioned earlier, came with a double bind: it was a written foreign language that the lay people of the Chosŏn could not read out loud, and even if it were read out loud, they still would not be able to understand it. The role of injecting understandable orality—the teacher’s voice—was left, of necessity, to literati and their assistant reader-reciters. The vernacular text was a way to prompt that oral text conveying the teachings, while also maintaining control of the text itself.

Reduction or Selection

The matter of size was a practical concern. Though the editors in the court could have altered the length of written texts, the size of illustrations, or the arrangement of layout, they did not choose to take any such measures. They decided instead to maintain the original layout principle of “one story per folio” by retaining a smaller selection of stories for each category and discarding the rest. The resultant reduced edition tells us that the editorial project went beyond simply accommodating the need for a concise edition and aimed at a deliberate and fundamental level of editing that entailed eliminating problematic, unfit, or redundant stories. It must have been crucial for the Samgang haengsil-to, as a moral primer, to maintain a coherent tone and perspective throughout its content, which required some careful moral and pedagogical deliberation on the part of the editors. But the editorial conference behind this reduction was never recorded, nor was a new preface or postface added to this 1490 170 chapter three reduced edition. Therefore, we are left to infer from its selection of stories the considerations and effort that went into this new edition. Any such inferences, however—no matter how careful and comprehensive—are essentially hypothetical. Chŏn Kyŏng-mok has noticed that the reduction excised stories that contained conflicting moral lessons. The story of Zhu Shouchang 朱壽昌 of Song China, who gave up his position as a government official and spent decades trying to locate his mother, who had been abandoned by his father, is one such example.66 Zhu Shouchang was finally reunited with his mother after fifty years, and took care of her and his half-siblings. This story was problematic for two reasons. First, since his mother had remarried, she had violated the moral law of widow-chastity. Even though she had been abandoned rather than widowed, the same moral expectation that she remain chaste to her original husband remained in force. Second, Zhu Shouchang went against his father’s wishes in tracking down his mother.67 Another example is a Silla-Korean story, “Miss Sŏl Breaks a Mirror” (Sŏl-ssi pun kyŏng 薛氏分鏡). In this story, a daughter of the Sŏl family promised to marry a young man named Ka Sil 賈實 in exchange for his going away to serve military duty in her father’s place. Arranging to wed upon his return in three years’ time, Miss Sŏl gave Ka Sil half of her mirror. When Ka Sil failed to return after six years, her father attempted to force her to marry another man, but she firmly refused to betray her promise to Ka Sil. Later, Ka Sil came back with his half of the mirror, and they were married. Miss Sŏl’s arranged marriage with Ka Sil was owing to her filial piety, yet she went against her father’s wishes that she abandon Ka Sil and wed another man. She kept the promise she had made because of her father by going against his wishes. She could be said to be honorable, but no longer filial. Stories that posed moral inconsistencies like these were excluded in the reduced edition. Another group of stories to be removed consisted of those that did not fit well in the given category. Broadly speaking, we notice three kinds.

66 “Shouchang Looks for His Mother” (Su-ch’ang sim mo 壽昌尋母). This story also appeared in the Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety of China. 67 Chŏn Kyŏng-mok, “Samgang haengsil-to ui p’yŏnch’an paegyŏng kwa Chosŏn ch’o- chunggi ŭi sahoe pyŏnhwa” [The background to the compilation of the Samgang haengsil- to and social changes in the early to mid-Chosŏn], in Chosŏn sidae ch’aek ŭi munhwasa: Samgang haengsil-to rŭl t’onghan chisik ŭi chŏnp’a wa kwansŭp ŭi hyŏngsŏng [A cultural history of books in the Chosŏn era: Formation of knowledge and customs through the Samgang haengsil-to], edited by Chu Yŏng-ha et al. (Seoul: Hyumŏnisŭt’ŭ, 2008), 63–99 (esp. 77). vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 171

First, some stories did not address the exact virtue purported by the categorical title. An example of this is “The Achievements of Xu Da” (Sŏ Tal kongŏp 徐達功業), the story of Xu Da 徐達 (1332–85), a military general who served under Emperor Taizu of the Ming in his founding of the empire. The story recorded Xu Da’s brilliant triumphs and the commendable maneuvering of his troops during his numerous military expeditions. Although his accomplishments qualify as the works of a loyal subject from a broader perspective, there is no concrete or anecdotal incident in the story that specifically evinces his loyalty—no realistic epitome for the audience. Commendable though they may have been, cases like this were excluded in the reduced edition. Second, most stories of court ladies were left out of the “Devoted Women” section. Since the Samgang haengsil-to targeted ladies of literati families and commoners, stories of courtly decorum and behavior were not universally applicable.68 An example is “Meng Ji Draws a Curtain” (Maeng Hŭi sŏyu 孟姬舒帷), a well-known Chinese story about the wife of Duke Xiao of Qi 齊孝公 (r. 642–33 bce) in the Spring and Autumn period.69 Meng Ji once accompanied her husband on an outing on which she fell from a runaway cart. Duke Xiao sent a four-horse standing-chariot to fetch her, but Meng Ji refused to ride in the chariot, concealing herself by drawing the curtains in her broken cart, because it was inappropriate for a noble wife to ride in a chariot that was not covered with curtains on all four sides. Then she tried to hang herself, saying, “I have had too many cases of impropriety; one would rather die with proprieties observed than live without them.” Cases such as this, relating extreme ritual formalism, were not many in the initial edition, and mostly disappeared in the reduced edition, for they did not fit the target readership. In this respect, it is interesting to notice that Queen Sohye Han-ssi 昭惠王后韓氏 (1438–1504), the mother of King Sŏngjong, authored the Instructions for the Inner Quarters (Naehun 內訓)—not to be mistaken as a rehash of the eponymous text (Neixun) by Empress Renxiao of Ming—in 1475, fifteen years before this reduced edition and six years prior to Sŏngjong’s edict to create vernacular texts for the “Devoted Women” section of the Samgang haengsil-to.

68 Yi Hye-sun, “Yŏllyŏ sang ŭi chŏnt’ong kwa pyŏnmo—Samgang haengsil-to esŏ Chosŏn hugi Yŏllyŏ-jŏn kkaji” [The traditional image of devoted women and its changes— from the Samgang haengsil-to to Biographies of Devoted Women in late Chosŏn].” Chindan hakpo 85 (1998): 181. 69 The story of Meng Ji is collected in the Biographies of Exemplary Women (Lienü zhuan) 4, with more detailed text. 172 chapter three

This work of Queen Sohye specifically addressed the education of court ladies, royal princesses, and ladies-in-waiting, and emphasized as their virtue intellect, moral rectitude, and capability to act as counselors and remonstrators to their men.70 Third, stories of daughters and daughters-in-law more or less disappeared from the “Filial Sons” section in the reduced edition. The initial edition contained stories of filial daughters (hyonyŏ 孝女) and filial daughters-in-law (hyobu 孝婦). Of the 110 stories in the filial section, ten were of filial daughters (four Chinese and six Korean) and eight of filial daughters-in-law (six Chinese and two Korean). The story of Miss Sŏl introduced above was one of them. Pious actions displayed by women were no different from those by men. A sixteen-year-old daughter made soup for her mother with her severed finger, after hearing that a living person’s bone could cure her mother’s epilepsy;71 a daughter-in-law injured herself while saving her ill mother-in-law who could not escape her burning home;72 a daughter was killed while strangling a Japanese pirate who had killed her father;73 and a daughter-in-law sold her second son to buy a coffin for her mother-in-law.74 There are, of course, some actions specific to women. In “Lady Tang Nurses Her Mother-in-law” (Tangssi yugo 唐氏乳姑), Lady Tang combs the hair of her mother-in-law every morning and feeds her at the breast because she had lost all her teeth and cannot chew her food.75 Of these, only three stories (one of a filial daughter and two of filial daughters-in-law) are retained; the other fifteen were discarded. Removing daughters from the “Filial Sons” section could be simply a taxonomical treatment, but its implications for the doctrinal principles of Chosŏn Confucian ethics may have been more than just a classificatory matter. The filial piety of daughters for their own parents was not to be emphasized—not because it was insignificant but because the role of filial daughters became most important after marriage, in their interactions

70 Si Nae Park, “Re-reading Queen Sohye’s Naehun,” M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, 2003), ii; 59–80. The Naehun drew frequently on the text of Women’s Precepts (Nüjie 女誡) by Ban Zhao, though it shared its attention to the intellect of learned instruc- tresses with the Neixun. Park also points out that the use of the “instructress motif” and the emphasis on women’s education in the Naehun demonstrate Queen Sohye’s own interpretation of the Neo-Confucian ideal of universality, particularly of the “sagehood for all humankind” in both men and women. 71 “Ch’unggae Cuts Off Her Finger” (Ch’unggae tan ji 虫介斷指). 72 “Lady Im Saves Her Mother-in-law” (Imssi ku go 林氏救姑). 73 “Miss Sin Strangles a Bandit (Sinssi aek chŏk 辛氏扼賊). 74 “Lady Zhao Sells Her Son” (Chobu yuk cha 趙婦鬻子). 75 This story is also found in the Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety of China. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 173 with their in-laws. Meanwhile, their devotion to their parents-in-law was considered to be on a par with their devotion to their husbands, and thus the filial piety of daughters-in-law came to join the virtue reserved for women, i.e., female devotion. Women’s role as spouses expanded from their husbands to the family to which they were married at large, and their obligations to their in-laws became one of the main responsibilities of married women. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the Samgang haengsil-to lists not a single story about a man who showed his dedication to his wife or his parents-in-law. There are still some issues related to the reduction process that need further careful discussion in order to draw out their connections to the sociological or philosophical context of Chosŏn society. In the following sections, we examine the most prominent of those issues in each category.

Radical Filial Piety There is also a notable excision of radical or dramatic stories in the reduced edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. These stories most typically described physical harm and even death suffered in extreme forms of sacrifice. As a matter of fact, physical violence forms a predominant motif in the Samgang haengsil-to stories, and their cruelty and brutality are quite startling to modern readers. A typical case of radical self-sacrifice that was excised is “Sang Tŏk Slices Off His Thigh” (Sang Tŏk kyu bi 尚德刲髀), a Paekche-Korean story (Figure 9). Sang Tŏk was a resident of Ungch’ŏn Province [of Paekche] and was praised for his filial piety. In the fourteenth year of the Tianbao reign, there was a drought and people were starving, to which was added pestilence. [Sang Tŏk’s] parents were starving and sick. His mother also developed a boil, and was about to die. Sang Tŏk comforted her with his whole devotion, day and night, without loosening his clothes. But as there was no way to nurture her, he sliced off flesh from his own thigh and fed it to her. Then he also sucked her boil, and all this he did to stabilize her. The province reported it to the king, and the king granted 300 kok [of grain], premises for a house, and allocated some pension land. He gave an order to officials to erect a stone commemorating the matter. People called the land the “house of the filial.”76

76 尚德。熊川州人。以孝稱。天寶十四年。歲荒民飢。加以疫厲。父母飢且病。母又發癰。皆瀕於死。尚德日夜不解衣。盡誠安慰。而無以爲養。乃刲髀肉以食之。又吮母癰。皆致之平安。州報於王。王賜租三百斛。宅一區。口分田若干。命攸司立石紀事。人號其地云孝家。“Sang Tŏk Slices Off His Thigh” (Sang Tŏk kyu bi). 174 chapter three

Figure 9. “Sang Tŏk Slices Off His Thigh” (Sang Tŏk kyubi 尚德刲髀). Image from the Kugyŏk Samgang haengsil-to 國譯三綱行實圖 (The Samgang haengsil-to, translated into Korean), digitalized as part of the Korea A to Z database services (http://www.koreaa2z.com).

This story contains two acts of self-dedication in the service of another person, both of which were frequently used in the Samgang haengsil-to: feeding a parent one’s own flesh, and sucking on a parent’s infected wounds. Feeding one’s own flesh was done mostly by cutting off a finger or slicing flesh from a thigh—hence phrased tanji halgo 斷指割股 by later literati critics—in attempts to cure a sickness or to save a starving person. Suck- ing on someone’s infected tissue, perhaps the most effective cure when no other medical treatment was available, appears in literature as early as the Zhuangzi 莊子, when Zhuangzi admonishes Cao Shang 曹商 of the state of Song 宋 (770–476 bce) for his toadyish behavior to the king of Qin, comparing it to squeezing the king’s infection and sucking on his hemorrhoids.77 Since it symbolized the most humble and self-effacing

77 Zhuangzi 32:8. This later coined the famous idiom “to suck on infection and to lick hemorrhoids” (shun yong shi zhi 吮癰舐痔), referring to an extreme form of sycophancy. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 175 thing one could do for someone, willingness to do it for one’s parent or for a husband was seen as indicative of the utmost love and dedication in one’s character. The horridness of these stories was likely chosen for shock value, so that they would attract attention and leave a more profound impression. But the detailed and graphic description in the text was also necessary because it was depicted in the illustration (see Figure 9). It was the physical actions—neither approximated nor figuratively adorned, but the very actions themselves—that the Samgang haengsil-to tried to teach. It is true, however, that these actions also clashed with another maxim of Confucian ethics. Criticism of such extreme exertions accompanying pious actions had already begun when the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to was compiled. In 1433, the Office for the Establishment of Ceremonies (Ŭirye sangjŏngso 儀禮詳定所) made a proposal to the throne: The Office makes known: “We provide official testimonials to flag the households of filial sons, compliant grandsons, and wives of integrity, as well as arranging employment for them and exempting their households from cor- veé labor as a way to encourage posterity, and we should use [as our ratio- nale] the ordinary affairs of the Way of men. Though we may call them ordinary matters, there are certainly things of which others are incapable. For such [actions] as saving a parent from bandits, this is something that comes out of that which is not ordinary: we must praise the extraordinary nature of the action. But when it comes to breaking bones to mix with medicine or living [in a hut] by the grave [to mourn one’s parents] for six years, or for those actions motivated by strange thoughts that cannot be accepted as examples—we fear that we cannot single out these categories as ‘special.’ [We should] provide official testimonials to flag the households and exempt from corvée those who exhausted their filial feeling in nurturing their parents when they were alive and those who completed proper rituals in carrying out their funerals after their death. If they are of the literati class, what if we were to list their names to employ them in offices?”78 This proposal concerned the Bannered Gate (chŏngnyŏ 旌閭) commendation, through which the court honored exemplary moral conduct by rewarding it with such benefits as tax exemptions and investiture, as well as by erecting commemorative gates. In commending filial actions and

78 詳定所啓：“孝子、順孫、節婦，旌表門閭，敍用復戶，所以勸後也，當以人道平常之事。雖云平常之事，實有他人所不及者也。若救親於賊，事出非常，固當褒異，至於折骨和藥，六年居墓，爲行詭激，不可爲訓者，恐不可特異其科也。其父母生前盡孝奉養，死後盡禮行喪者，旌表門閭復戶，若士人則幷敍用何如。”Sejong sillok 59:9b (Sejong 15/1/18). 176 chapter three uxorial constancy, they had to use the criteria of being extraordinary, but found it difficult to promote certain extreme actions. The Bannered Gate commendation is discussed again later (in Chapter 4), for it served as an important measure for selecting exemplary actions for the sequel editions to the Samgang haengsil-to, but it becomes clear that the excessiveness of certain actions was a problem. The spirit of Confucian philosophy was not in dying a heroic death but in maintaining an ethical life. To Confucians, life was filled with a crisscrossing network of relations and responsibilities entailed by them, and for everyone to fulfill all of them was at the heart of ethics. Thus, taking earnest care of one’s parent would be commendable, but cutting off one’s finger would be considered too much; mourning for three years by the parent’s grave, as specified in the proprieties ( ye, or li in Chinese), would be admirable, but doing it for six years would be over the limit. To that extent, Confucian ethics were societal by nature. Actions involving self-inflicted injury clash immediately with the first Confucian principle of filial piety, spelled out in the Book of Filial Piety: “The body, hair, and skin are that which were received from parents; not daring to harm them is the beginning of filial piety.”79 The history of Con- fucianism is in fact filled with similar scenes of ethical zeal, however, showing excellent examples of how ideology can authorize violent acts. In the reduced edition of the Samgang haengsil-to, most of the radical actions— for example, of filial sons harming themselves to save their parents’ lives or sacrificing their own sons for their parents—are excluded, except for two cases: “Sŏk-chin Cuts Off His Own Finger” 石珍斷指, a Korean story, and “Guo Ju Buries His Own Son” 郭巨埋子, a Chinese one. As a surviving example in this reduced edition, “Sŏk-chin Cuts Off His Own Finger” related a typical story: A man named Yu Sŏk-chin had a father who suffered from a malignant disease that flared up and made him faint every day. Constantly at his father’s side, Sŏk-chin prayed for help and searched for a cure. Someone told him one day that a living person’s bone and blood could cure his father’s illness. Sŏk-chin cut off his left fourth finger and had his father drink the blood from it (with his medicine), whereby his father’s illness was cured. “Guo Ju Buries His Own Son” is a case where violence was extended to another generation. To give more food to his old mother, Guo Ju decided to bury his own three-year-old son because his mother kept giving her own food to the child. When they dug a hole to

79 身體髮膚，受之父母，不敢毀傷，孝之始也。 This appears in the first chapter of the Book of Filial Piety. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 177 bury the child, they found a lump of gold as a reward from heaven for his filial behavior.80 Why these two cases remained in the reduced edition, if the editorial intention did indeed include removing radical examples, remains an open question. This question will be addressed at the end of this chapter.

Loyalty of Reproaching Subjects Editing out extreme and violent actions did not apply to loyalty. This was perhaps inevitable because the necessary condition of loyalty was to remain in the relation with one’s liege, and it required the subordinate to make every effort to repel any threats that might harm that relation. One can hardly imagine any other way for loyalty to be tested but in extraordinary circumstances such as war, invasion, exile, imprisonment, and the like. Such circumstances appear frequently as backdrops in the “Loyal Subjects” stories of the Samgang haengsil-to, and extreme actions displayed in such circumstances were too many to avoid. Therefore, the editors had to look to other criteria in finding stories of loyal subjects they could remove for the reduced edition. There were several types of loyal subjects depicted in the initial edition: those who died fighting battles to defend their country, those who died with their lords, those who avenged the deaths of their kings, those who refused to serve new (often illegiti- mate) rulers, those who punished treacherous or corrupt officials, those who remained loyal despite being misunderstood by their lords, and, finally, those who reproached their kings for their misrule or mischief. Among these, the reduced edition excised stories of subjects who unyield- ingly reproached their kings. Reproaching one’s liege is in fact one of the oldest prototypes of loyal action, appearing as early as in the stories of such legendary tyrants as Jie 桀 (the last thearch of the Xia 夏) and Zhou 紂 (the last thearch of the Shang 商), who killed those ministers who admonished them for their dissipated lifestyles. The story of Bigan of Shang is a typical example. Bigan was a royal relative who spoke straightforwardly in reproaching King Zhou. Enraged, the king said, “I heard that there are seven holes in a sage’s heart. Are they really there?” Then he killed Bigan to see his heart.81

80 This story is also found in the Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety of China. 81 “Bigan Gets His Heart Carved Out” (Pigan kwa sim 比干刳心). 178 chapter three

Of the numerous stories of ministers reproaching their kings in the face of persecution, only three were retained in the reduced edition.82 At first glance, it is not immediately clear why these stories were removed. A subject’s honest and candid advice to the throne, however, may be taken as an act of defying sovereignty, or at least of challenging the king. In 1410, when ministers repeatedly requested King T’aejong to punish the queen’s two brothers (Min Mu-gu 閔無咎 and Min Mu-jil 閔無疾) for treason, the king repeatedly refused, saying: As for this matter, I will never listen [to you] and you shall never mention it again. In the past, a remonstrator [ŏn’gwan 言官, Speaking Official] would leave [his lord] after three unheeded reproaches. I did not decide earlier whether or not it should be permitted, though you submitted the petition not just once or twice recently, because I expected you to submit requests to be excused.83 T’aejong apparently took the ministers’ reproach as a personal challenge against himself, and issued a stern warning, quoting the old saying from the Records of Rites, “If a minister reproaches three times but is not heard, he flees.”84 Thus, the fact that tales of remonstrating subjects decreased may be a consequence of a change in the king’s authority, or, more concretely, a sign that sovereign hegemony was reinforced. But it seems that the political state of affairs during Sŏngjong’s reign does not comply with this hypothesis. It was under Sŏngjong’s rule that the sarim literatus-officials came to the surface in politics, and supported the king by filing frequent remonstrances targeting old meritorious elites (hun’gu 勳舊), that is, ministers who had assisted King Sejo (r. 1455–68) to the throne.85 These old meritorious officials often presented themselves as a political obstacle to

82 Chŏn Kyŏng-mok, “Samgang haengsil-to ui p’yŏnch’an paegyŏng kwa Chosŏn ch’o- chunggi ŭi sahoe pyŏnhwa,” 80. 83 此事，予固不聽，其勿復言。古者，言官三諫不聽則去。近日疏請非一再，予不早決其可否者，意其呈辭請免也。T’aejong sillok 19:4b (T’aejong 10/1/20). 84 “The propriety of being a minister has it that one does not openly reproach [his lord]. If he reproaches three times but is not heard, he flees” 爲人臣之禮不顯諫，三諫而不聽，則逃之。“Quli” 曲禮, Records of Rites (Liji 禮記). 85 The term sarim has two ranges of denotation. In the Chosŏn usage, the sarim often refers to Confucian literati in general, as a collective noun, without designating an exclusive group of people or doctrinal specification. In another sense, however, sarim is reserved for a set of literati who stalwartly pursued the philosophical teachings of the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism, a term most Korean historians adopted to distinguish them from old meritorious elites. Professionally, the sarim literati were related to one another, and worked as censors (at least when they started to grow as a political power) in the government after passing the civil service examinations, while personally and ideologically they were related through teacher-disciple and cliquish connections. Sarim in this book speci- fies the latter. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 179 the throne, wielding their vested rights. Sarim literati advanced in politics, especially by serving actively in the so-called Three Bureaus (Samsa 三司)—the Saganwŏn 司諫院 (Institute of Remonstrators), Sahŏnbu 司憲部 (Department of the Censorate), and Hongmun’gwan 弘文館 (Office of Advancement of Literature)—whose operations included policy censorship and relating remonstrances to the king. Meritorious elites exerted their influence as regents (called wŏnsang 院相, provisional executive ministers) on the king when Sŏngjong was still young. From the seventh year of Sŏngjong’s reign (1476), when the provisional executive ministry was dismissed, the king started running his administration directly. He appointed young sarim literati to positions as censorate officials, which proved most effective in gaining control over meritorious elites. The sarim’s ideal of strict moral purism quickly debili- tated the restraints of the old powers and paved the way for the king. Hŏ Ch’im, the chief editor commissioned to reduce the Samgang haengsil- to, was also in the sarim faction. But, as mentioned above, the method the sarim employed to secure the place for the king was that of filing remonstrances accusing old meritorious elites of corruption or violation of moral codes. The sarim’s remonstrations and reproaches were especially conspicuous during the decade leading up to 1490. The correlation between the sarim’s role and the reduction in the number of remonstra- tion stories, therefore, is not what we would expect. It would make sense if there were more, not fewer, tales of reproaching subjects included in this edition. We can think of two possible factors contributing to the excision of reproaching subjects from loyal subject tales. First, it could reflect a change in the nature of reproaching—perhaps the communication between ministers and the king through remonstrance became routine and formulaic. Earlier kings, namely, T’aejong and Sejong, held strong authority over their ministers, as epitomized in T’aejong’s response to the repeated remonstrance above. Sejong had a similar reaction to objections to his decision to allow the Ceremony of Exuberant Praise (Kyŏngch’anhoe 慶贊會) at Hŭngch’ŏnsa 興天寺 Temple. Sejong responded: You ministers have been waiting at the palace gate to advance your remonstrance. I am a lord who rejected remonstrance. People in the past had a saying: “[A subject] would leave [his lord] after three unheeded reproaches.” Why are you ministers not leaving?86

86 卿等守闕進諫久矣。予拒諫之主也。古人云:“三諫不聽則去。”卿等何不去乎? Sejong sillok 94:40a (Sejong 23/12/3). 180 chapter three

The original sense of “leaving” was undoubtedly a subject’s voluntary termination of his service and association with his lord in the context of the pre-Qin Chinese feudal system, and leaving a liege meant moving to a different state and serving a new lord. In Chosŏn, however, circumstances only allowed a subject to resign from his post,87 and Sejong used this against his ministers to dismiss them. But ministers continued to reproach, even if they risked dismissal in the form of having to resign their posts. By King Sŏngjong’s era, as Yi Hŭi-ju has observed, reproachment had become a routine between the king and remonstrators (especially those called taegan 臺諫, censors), whereby subjects continued to reproach, then resign, and the king responded by declining their petitions and resignations.88 Censors took it as their responsibility as Confucian subjects to make official remonstrance when they deemed a decision by the king to be ill advised. The king, for his part, had an obligation as a Confucian monarch to listen to and follow the advice of his ministers; ignoring his ministers’ advice could cause him to be recorded as a tyrant in history. An exchange between Sŏngjong and taegan officials in 1477, in the middle of a long series of debates surrounding the wrongdoings of Hyŏn Sŏk-kyu 玄碩圭, then Minister of Punishments (Hyŏngjo p’ansŏ 刑曹判書), is a case in point: Yi Sung-wŏn, Inspector-General, and others of the Department of the Cen- sorate, as well as Kim Kye-ch’ang, Second Censor, and others of the Institute of Remonstrators, proffered a plaint to resign that stated: “The depraved and the upright are not compatible; if [Hyŏn] Sŏk-kyu is upright, then those who attack him are depraved. Your Majesty considers that [Hyŏn] Sŏk-kyu is

87 After T’aejong refused to punish the queen’s two brothers, quoting, “A minister leaves after reproaching three times but not being heard,” Yi Myŏng-dŏk 李明德 replied: “Your servant considers: People in antiquity traveled to serve as subjects of various states and had the righteous cause to leave or to stay. Therefore, they left if they reproached three times but were not heard. If one did not get used in Qi, he went to Chu; if not in Chu, then to Qin. Now, if we, your servants, abandon this country, where would we go?” 臣則以爲古者遊事列國之臣，有去就之義，故三諫不聽則去，如於齊不得則適楚，於楚不得則適秦。今臣等捨本國而何適乎? 今日之請，期於蒙允而後已。T’aejong sillok 19:4b (T’aejong 10/1/20). 88 Yi Hŭi-ju, “Chosŏn ch’ogi kanŏn hyŏngt’ae wa kwŏnjo kujo—‘samgan pulch’ŏng chŭk kŏ’ rŭl chungsim ŭro’ ” [Forms of reproach and the power structure in early Chosŏn— with a focus on “leaving after three unheeded reproaches”], Han’guk chŏngch’i hakhoebo 36.4 (2002): 65–86. The role of censors included supervising and advising both officials and the king in the traditional Chinese system, but in Chosŏn over the aspect of advising the king was much more emphasized. See Son Po-gi [Sohn Pow-Key], “Chosŏn chŏn’gi ŭi wanggwŏn kwa ŏn’gwan” [Sovereignty and remonstrators in early Chosŏn], Sejonghak yŏn’gu 1 (1986): 5–20; and Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi, “Chosŏn ch’ogi ŭi ŏn’gwan e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study on remonstrating officials in early Chosŏn], Han’gukhak nonjip 1 (1980): 125–69. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 181

upright, and with this [Your Majesty] makes the arguments of [us] servants depraved. If [You] consider us servants depraved and appoint us servants to the positions of censor, would it not also be erroneous? That being so, we servants serving at posts would be no more than tolerating ourselves, just to hold on to our wages [without achieving anything]; what kind of assistance would that be to the state? We request to be dismissed from our posts.” His Majesty wrote: “You ministers wish by resigning to follow up what you have said, but it is difficult for me to concede [your request]. What you ministers have said is: if one is talented, then I employ him; if he is not talented, then I renounce him. [If I were to] take Hyŏn Sŏk-kyu to be depraved, Hyŏn Sŏk- kyu had no wrongdoings; [if I were to] take you ministers to be depraved, then [what you did] was no more than an error in evaluating matters. Tak- ing these two clues, I can follow neither of them. You should proceed to each of your duties.”89 Censors proffered a plaint of resignation, to which His Majesty wrote: “Even if you ministers had indeed said ludicrous words, I would still have treated it leniently, and would I not do it more so with an error in estimating matters? You should proceed with your duties.” Censors forwarded a note: “We servants cannot bear the responsibilities, so please dismiss us.” [His Maj- esty] related: “As for a king to censors, if [censors] say something, does [the king] have to concede it? As for one who became a censor, if his words are not heard, does he have to leave?” [The ministers] replied: “Your Majesty thinks that what we servants have said is wrong, but if we should still proceed with our duties, we would only feel remorseful inside our hearts and afraid of public opinions outside. Your Majesty said, ‘Since ancient times, people are generally bothered by the upright.’ This is what we feel all the more remorseful about. Please dismiss us.” [His Majesty] conveyed: “Are you ministers going to have me assume the ignominy of punishing censors? You should proceed to your duties.”90 The officials repeatedly demanded the punishment of Hyŏn Sŏk-kyu and the king resolutely defended him, and one of the censors was even

89 司憲府大司憲李崇元等司諫院司諫金季昌等上狀辭職曰：“邪正不兩立，碩圭正，則攻之者邪也。殿下旣以碩圭爲正，是以臣之論爲邪也，若以臣等之爲邪，殿下以臣等置之言官，不亦舛乎? 然則臣等之在職，不過持祿容身而已，何補於國家? 請亟罷臣等之職。”御書曰：“卿等辭職，冀從所言，吾難聽焉。卿等所言，善則用之，不善則舍之。以碩圭爲邪，則碩圭無邪事，以卿等爲邪，則亦不過料事之誤耳。執此兩端，皆莫能從，其各就職。”Sŏngjong sillok 84:27a–b (Sŏngjong 8/9/11). 90 臺諫上狀辭職，御書曰：“卿等雖實爲謬言，尙且優容，而況料事之誤乎? 其就乃職。”臺諫來啓曰：“臣等不堪其任，請罷之。”傳曰：“人君之於言官，言則必聽乎? 爲言官者，言不聽則必去乎?”對曰：“殿下以臣言爲非，而臣等就職，內愧於心，外懼物論耳。殿下言：‘自古直者，人皆忌之。’此尤臣等之所愧也。請罷臣職。”傳曰：“卿等使我受罪諫官之名耶? 其就職。”Sŏngjong sillok 84:27b (Sŏngjong 8/9/12). 182 chapter three

imprisoned during the process.91 After confronting each other with threats to resign and declining resignation requests, the king and ministers finally agreed to drop the matter, and no one suffered any damage in terms of career or dignity. Incidents such as this show that remonstrance had become a political routine in the court, which in turn led to the phasing out of reproachment—perhaps the most dynamic action through which literatus-officials participated in the monarchial environment—from the realm of ethical virtue in Confucianism. The moral responsibility of a subject was not to connive in any wrongdoings of the king or fellow officials; and that of a king was not to persecute reproaching subjects. Viola- tion of these responsibilities was now converted into more of a nominal stigma or insignia of corrupt officials and of a despotic king. The price a subject could pay for fulfilling his responsibility to reproach, namely, “leaving,” had also been reformatted into requesting permission to resign. Reproachment finally turned into a professional political gesture, and the ethical nature it represented, as a type of action exemplifying the virtue of loyalty, was diluted as a result. Another factor contributing to the excision of reproachment stories was the transformation of the relationship between king and subject. Already in the time of T’aejong, the relationship between king and subject was often compared to that between father and son. Petitioning to discipline Pang Mun-jung 房文仲, who had criticized T’aejong by submitting a formal memorial, Chŏng Sang 鄭尚, Second Remonstrator-Officer (u sagan taebu 右司諫大夫), and Chŏng Ch’o 鄭招, Second Censorate-Inspector (sahŏn chibŭi 司憲執義), stated: The king and parents are one; subjects and sons are one. A son to his parent, if [the parent] has an error, [the son] must criticize him, but he would reproach with a soft voice and dare not reveal the parent’s error. This is the utmost of human sentiment by celestial principle. How could there be a Way by which one discredits someone with groundless accusations and exposes it before other people? One who is like this while being a son should be executed; one who is like this while being a subject should be executed: this is a code not to be altered in ten thousand generations.92

91 Sŏngjong sillok 84:12a (Sŏngjong 13/9/6). Sŏngjong ordered Kim Ŏn-sin 金彥信, a minor inspector (chip’yŏng 持平), put in prison to be interrogated for calumniating Hyŏn Sŏk-kyu’s character before the king. 92 君親一也, 臣子一也。子之於親, 有過當諍，猶且柔聲以諫，未敢顯其親之過，此天理人情之至也。豈有以所無之事，誣妄非毁，暴揚於人之道乎? 爲子而如此者必誅；爲臣而如此者必誅，萬世不易之典也。T’aejong sillok 36:9a (T’aejong 16/7/16). vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 183

Transposing the discourse of loyalty with that of filial piety was nothing new. Early Confucian classics had already associated filial piety with loyalty. The Records of Rites, for example, states: As for a loyal subject’s serving his lord and a filial son’s attending to his parents, their roots are one. To the above, he is obedient to the spirits and deities; outside, he is obedient to his lord and elders; inside, he behaves with filial piety to his parents: Being like this is called “complete.”93 Identifying filial piety with loyalty also justified the Bannered Gate commendation whereby filial exemplars were rewarded with investiture, for, as Wei Biao 韋彪 (d. 89) said, quoting Confucius, “[A gentleman] serves his parents filially; therefore loyalty can be transplanted toward his lord,” and “because of this, one seeks loyal subjects in the households of filial sons.”94 A person’s filial perfection was the potential that could be transformed into loyalty as a subject, as the nature of the relationship between ruler and subject was fundamentally the same as, or comparable to, that between father and son. Putting this potential ethical nature into practice, however, was another matter. The way a subject served his lord might entail an obligation different from that accompanying the way a son served his father, particularly with respect to how to handle a superior’s error. Early Confucians also addressed this point. The Records of Rites spelled it out: “Serving parents, [a son] should conceal and not transgress . . . ; serving a lord, [a subject] should transgress and not conceal.”95 A son should conceal his father’s error and not aggressively admonish him, but a subject should openly remonstrate with his lord and not conceal his fault. It was also said, “The Master mentioned, ‘A gentleman is lenient of his parents’ errors and reveres their excellence.’ The Analects said, ‘He who does not change from his father’s ways can be said to be filial.’ ”96 Caring and reverence were all the same, but dealing with errors was where the two relations diverged, because the domains on which these relations stood were

93 忠臣以事其，孝子以事其親，其本一也。上則順於鬼神，外則順於君長，內則以孝於親。如此之謂備。“Jitong” 祭統, 2, Records of Rites. 94 事親孝，故忠可移於君，是以求忠臣必於孝子之門。“Biography of Wei Biao” 韋彪傳, History of Later Han (Hou Han shu 後漢書) 26.917–18. The first part of this quote appears without the rest in the Book of Filial Piety (14) as “The Master said: ‘A gentleman serves his parents filially, thus loyalty can be transplanted toward his lord. . . .’ ” 子曰：“君子之事親孝，故忠可移於君. . .。” 95 事親有隱而無犯，. . . 事君有犯而無隱。“Tangong” 壇弓, Records of Rites 3.2. 96 “Fangji” 坊記, Records of Rites 31.17. 子云，君子弛其親之過，而敬其美。《論語》曰，三年無改於父之道，可謂孝矣。 184 chapter three apparently different. A father’s error affected the family, but a king’s error affected the entire state. Thus, the ethical protocol for a son and that for a subject could not be immediately identical. The discrepancy in moral conduct between a son and a subject was a logical consequence of Confucian familism that monistically expands the paradigmatic structure of family to all forms of organization. Reproachment, or dealing with the errors of superiors, was the only aspect that presented a dilemma for a loyal subject. At any rate, the fact that the perspective of comparing subject–king to son–father was frequently acknowledged, particularly in the context of reproachment, supports the idea that sovereign authority was strongly assumed in early Chosŏn. In its initial compilation, however, the Samgang haengsil-to still collected a fair number of reproachment tales for loyal subjects, because reproaching without hesitation, despite the danger of persecution, was one of the prototypical images of loyal subjects. But literatus-officials must have soon realized the confusion such stories might induce, especially in the commoner and illiterate communities. This is probably what Pak Sung-jil meant when he described the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to as “rather broad and ambiguous” in his proposal quoted at the beginning of this section. Such moral ambiguity was exactly what the editors of the reduced edition tried to avoid. The trend of downplaying stories of loyalty continued in later editions of the Samgang haengsil-to and started with this edition: loyalty was moving into the political realm.

Chastity Matters As with the tales of loyal subjects, extreme actions involving violent scenes did not cause stories to be removed from the “Devoted Women” section of the Samgang haengsil-to. On the contrary, the majority of devoted women’s stories in the reduced edition are filled with radical actions. A quick survey of the stories in the reduced “Devoted Women” section reveals a multitude of self-mutilations, suicides, and strenuous sacrifices made by women. Most of the 35 stories selected from the initial 110 deal with various forms of self-destruction by women, in the name of maintaining chastity or dedication to one man. Before discussing the handling of chastity matters, we must address the fact that the stories of virginal maidens who died to protect their honor and chastity were excised in the reduced edition. Some have hypothesized that this was because the notion of chastity as a virtue became connected vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 185 more to married women,97 a logical scenario considering the strength of the cult of chaste widowhood that flourished in the late Ming and the influence of Ming culture on Korean literati.98 But the stories of virginal maidens may also have been excised simply because the editors had to reduce the number of stories about women, and widowhood chastity carried more moral weight than virginal purity. Certainly the status of women as mothers and wives was complicated by the ritual and social relations within the patriarchal family, and by the status of affiliated men. Without these ties, a story became more about personal shame (although the family was clearly involved in that shame), as well as more clearly associated with the idea of “harming the self.” It was less clear, in this premodern context, for whom a woman remained constant if she was not married, since she had not assumed a ritual role in a man’s family or status as a mother. The predominance of chaste wives in the devoted women section corresponds to a change in the legal system of the time. Kim Hun-sik has pointed out that the court’s policy on women’s remarriage became stricter not too long before the reduced edition came out.99 This change was sparked by an incident in 1477, in which a widow known only as Lady Cho (Cho-ssi 趙氏) remarried and her brother accused her new husband of sexual abuse. But in Lady Cho’s defense, her brother and her sister’s husband had earlier taken her property and servants away from her, leaving her in a desperate situation where she had no choice but to remarry.100 Before this, according to court records, the Great Compendium of Admin- istration specified that direct descendants of women who married three times or more were not allowed to be appointed to positions in the civil and military orders or even to take the civil service examinations; as for a

97 Chŏn Kyŏng-mok, “Samgang haengsil-to ui p’yŏnch’an paegyŏng kwa Chosŏn ch’o- chunggi ŭi sahoe pyŏnhwa,” 81–82. 98 The state’s rewarding of virtuous widows who epitomized female chastity by remaining unmarried after their husbands’ death or by committing suicide was also practiced in China. The so-called “chaste-widow cult” started during and after Song-dynasty China (Mark Elvin, “Female Virtue and the State in China,” Past and Present 104 [1984]: 111–52) and proliferated in mid- to late Ming and Qing times. Katherine Carlitz has observed that by the late fifteenth century, “virtually all local histories contained relatively formulaic lists of faithful widows and widow-suicides,” and that “from the sixteenth century on, monu- ments to the heroines of fidelity were to be found in every county.” See Carlitz, “Shrines, Governing-Class Identity, and the Cult of Widow Fidelity in Mid-Ming Jiangnan,” Journal of Asian Studies 56.3 (1997): 612. 99 Kim Hun-sik, “Chosŏn ch’ogi Samgang haengsil-to pogŭp ŭi taesang,” 154. 100 Sŏngjong sillok 82:3b–4a (Sŏngjong 8/7/8). 186 chapter three woman who married twice, the only disadvantage was that she would not be granted a position as a primary wife.101 After extensive discussions with his ministers about this case, Sŏngjong concluded that faithfulness is the virtue of women, and that violating the “Standard of Three Obediences” once was enough.102 The revised Great Compendium of Statecraft reflects this change, spelling out that anyone whose mother married more than once or committed moral misconduct should not be given an opportunity to serve as an officer.103 This resolution was also a sign of the growing emphasis of the time on widow chastity and on married women accepting death to remain chaste. But there is something more than just widow chastity to the female virtue depicted in the reduced edition. The focal point of the entire section is a woman’s sole commitment to one man. From this point of view, the themes of these stories can be grouped into three large categories: (1) remaining chaste for one man (dead or alive); (2) being widowed and supporting the surviving family; and (3) protecting or saving the husband from deadly circumstances. The majority of stories fall into the first category. Women in these stories mostly endured horrendous hardship and physical violence in order to remain committed and chaste. But widowhood per se is not yet the crux of the theme, for although some women in these stories accept suffering because their husbands have died, others do so on behalf of living husbands. The key constituent to the theme is nevertheless a woman’s efforts to remain faithful to, and unblemished for, one man. Take “Gaox- ing [Lofty Behavior] Cuts Off Her Nose” (Kohaeng hal pi 高行割鼻), for example. Gaoxing of the state of Liang 梁 (475–221 bce) was widowed at a young age but did not remarry despite numerous proposals by noble men. When the king of Liang proposed to her, Gaoxing replied, “I hear that a

101 A particular sillok record that displays scholar-officials’ discussion of women’s remarriage and related legal issues is Sŏngjong sillok 82:9b–16b (Sŏngjong 8/7/17). 102 Sŏngjong sillok 82:19a (Sŏngjong 8/7/18). The “Standard of Three Obediences” (samjong chi ŭi 三從之義) is a clichéd reference to the same phrase in the Ceremonies and Ritu- als (Yili 儀禮), meaning a woman should obey her father at home, obey her husband when married, and obey her son when her husband dies. When a minister appealed that Lady Cho’s violation of chastity was due to her desolate situation and should be distinguished from behaving licentiously, the king responded: “It is not so. The matter of Gong Jiang’s ‘Cypress Boat’ can be set as a model for posterity. If one could indeed violate her chastity because of hunger and cold, how would the custom of lasciviousness ever cease?” 不然。共姜《栢舟》之事，可以垂法後世。苟以飢寒而失節，則淫亂之風，曷有其已? “Cypress Boat” refers to the poem (in the Book of Poetry, Mao 26) attributed to Gong Jiang, the widow of Prince Gong Bo 共伯 of Wei 衛, about her distress and loneliness. 103 “Code of Personnel” (Ijŏn 吏典), Great Compendium of Administration 1:4a; “Code of Rites” (Yejŏn 禮典), Great Compendium of Administration 3:1a. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 187 woman’s rectitude is not to remarry once she has married, whereby she completes her integrity of virtuousness and faithfulness. Forgetting the dead and moving on with life is not faithful; being noble and neglecting the base is not virtuous; abandoning the just and following the profitable is no way to be human.” She then cut off her own nose, saying, “What the king desires me for is my beauty. I am now one who has received corporal punishment, and perhaps he can release me.”104 Equally as frequently, women faced threats on behalf of living husbands in these stories. In “Lady Ch’oe Scolds Fiercely” (Ch’oe ssi pun mae 崔氏奮罵), Lady Ch’oe, the wife of a literatus in Chinju during Koryŏ, was chased by Japanese bandits while her husband was away at the capital. Captured by the bandits, she grabbed a tree in resistance and reviled them: “Dying is all the same. I would rather die righteously than live disgraced by you bandits!” She did not stop scolding while the bandits slashed her to death. They then took away two of her older children and left the other two, one of whom died after suckling at her bloody breast.105 The second category is more concerned with life after being widowed, although there are fewer such stories relative to the first category. Some widows supported surviving in-laws, while others nurtured children from their husbands’ other wives or even took care of their concubines.106 “The Chastity of Miss Ning” (chŏngjŏl 甯女貞節) recounts the story of a daughter of the Ning family during the Ming dynasty. Miss Ning was sixteen

104 The text in classical Chinese is as follows: 高行。梁之寡婦夫死早寡不嫁。梁貴人。爭欲娶之。不能得。梁王聞之。使相聘焉。高行曰。妾聞婦人之義。一往而不改。以全貞信之節。忘死而生。是不信也。貴而忘賤。是不貞也。棄義而從利。無以爲人。乃援鏡持刀以割其鼻曰。妾已刑矣。所以不死者。不忍幼弱之重孤也。王之求妾者。以其色也。今刑餘之人。殆可釋矣。於是相以報。王大其義。高其行。乃復其身。尊其號曰高行。By corporal punishment, Gaoxing is referring to the punishment of yi 劓 (cutting off the nose), one of the Five Corporal Punishments (wuxing 五刑) of ancient China. An early reference is found in the Book of Documents; see “Marquis of Lü on Punishments” (Lüxing 呂刑) in the “Book of Zhou” (Zhoushu 周書) 39, Book of Documents. 105 The classical Chinese text reads: 烈婦崔氏。靈巖士人仁祐女也。適晉州戶長鄭滿。生子女四人。其季在襁褓。洪武己未。倭賊寇晉。闔境奔竄。時滿因事如京。賊入里閭。崔年方三十餘。且有姿色。抱携諸息走避山中。賊四出驅掠。遇崔露刃以脅。崔抱樹而拒。奮罵曰。死等爾。汚賊以生。無寧死義。罵不絶口。賊遂害之。斃於樹下。賊擄二息以去。第三兒習。甫六歲。啼號屍側。襁褓兒猶匍匐就乳。血淋入口。尋亦斃焉。後十年己巳。都觀察使張夏以聞。乃命旌門。習吏役。 106 An example of the last case is “Nüzong [Prime-Woman] Knows Propriety” (Yŏjong chirye 女宗知禮), in which Nüzong of the state of Song in China attended to the well- being of both her husband (who was away for his appointment) and his concubines, while nurturing her mother-in-law. This story is originally from Liu Xiang’s Biographies of Exem- plary Women. 188 chapter three when her fiancé died right before the wedding. She insisted on moving in with her fiancé’s parents to look after them, saying, “It has been said that a devoted woman does not serve two husbands. Though I have not had the wedding libation with him, our matchmaking and [exchange of] betrothal gifts, as well as the mandates of our parents, have been completed. Now, unfortunately, he is dead, and his parents are old and have no one to rely on. How could I turn my back on them?” Upon persuading her parents, Miss Ning went to live with her fiancé’s parents, whom she supported for the next fifty-two years.107 Such supporting of the surviving family, however, features only rarely in this edition, but gradually increases in the sequels to the Samgang haengsil-to. The third category of stories, in which wives protect or save their husbands from dangerous circumstances, sometimes at the expense of their own lives, also occupies a relatively small portion of the reduced edition. “Yuanjiang Takes Off the Cangue” (Won’gang haegok), introduced in Chap- ter 2 (and illustrated there in Figure 3), is one such story. “Cuige Proceeds To Be Boiled” (Ch’wiga ch’wip’aeng 翠哥就烹) presents an even more gruesome tale. Li Zhongyi 李仲義 and his wife Liu Cuige 劉翠哥 lived in Fangshan 房山 during the Yuan. In the twentieth year of the Zhizheng reign (1360), a serious famine hit the district and caused a shortage of food for the Mongol army. The soldiers captured Li Zhongyi to boil him for food, and Li’s brother immediately told Liu Cuige of it. Liu Cuige rushed to the site and tried to persuade the soldiers to take instead a jar of soy sauce and one-and-a-half dou 斗 (approximately 15 liters) of rice buried in their house and release her husband. When the soldiers refused, Liu Cuige said, “My husband is too skinny and small to eat. I heard that women who are fat with dark skin taste delicious. I am fat and dark-skinned. I wish to be boiled to death in place of my husband.” The soldiers released the husband and boiled Liu Cuige.108

107 The text in Chinese reads: 寗氏女。許嫁劉眞兒。未嫁而眞兒死。寗氏年十六。聞訃哭甚哀。旣而謂父母曰。古云烈女不更二夫。吾雖未與之醮。然媒聘幣。父母之命。皆已定矣。今不幸而死。其父母老無所依。吾豈忍背之。操他人家箕邪。遂請往夫家。侍養舅姑。父母初未之許。寗請益堅。卒許之。寗至其家。哭臨葬祭無違禮。執婦道甚恭。織以供甘旨。如是者凡五十二年。事聞。詔旌表其門曰貞節。 108 The text in Chinese reads: 李仲義妻劉氏。名翠哥。房山人。至正二十年。縣大饑。平章劉哈剌不花兵乏食。執仲義欲烹之。仲義弟馬兒。走報劉氏。劉遽往救之。涕泣伏地告於兵曰。所執者。是吾夫也。乞矜憐之貸其生。吾家有醬一甕米一斗五升于地中。可掘取之。以代吾夫。兵不從。劉曰。吾夫瘦小不可食。吾聞婦人肥黑者味美。吾肥且黑。願就烹以代夫死。兵遂釋其夫而烹 vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 189

Not all of these stories depicted wives in despair or pathos. Some were triumphant heroines. “Lady Kim Pounces on a Tiger” (Kim ssi pakho 金氏撲虎) is one such case (Figure 10). The day before Lady Kim’s husband left to serve his border-guard duty, he told her that he would sleep outside because it was an auspicious day. Lady Kim said that she would join him and went back inside the house to get some food. Meanwhile, a tiger attacked her husband and all the servants ran away. Hearing her husband’s screams, she came out to find that the tiger had already snatched her husband away. She tracked down the tiger, grabbed her husband with her left hand, and kept beating the tiger with a wooden bow in her right hand. She finally saved her husband and chased after the tiger, shouting, “Now that you have harmed my husband, what are you going to do to me?” After

Figure 10. Folio image showing “Lady Kim Pounces on a Tiger” (Kim ssi pakho 金氏撲虎), in the Samgang haengsil-to, 1726 reduced edition. Image from the Internet Archive at http://archive.org.

劉氏。This story is found in the History of the Yuan (Yuan shi) 201.4510 (Biographies [Lie- zhuan] 88). 190 chapter three the tiger ran away, she resuscitated her husband, who had passed out. A few days later, the tiger reappeared in front of their house, and Lady Kim came out with a club, scolding the tiger, “Why is such a spiritual animal as you doing this?” upon which the tiger bit the bottom of the pear tree in front of the house and walked away. The tree died.109

Dramatic Rehearsals for Moral Actions In summarizing the kinds of stories retained in the reduced edition, I have tried to interpret what their retention tells us about the intellectual shifts in the minds of the literatus-editors and how this reflects the social transformations of Chosŏn at this stage. We must bear in mind, however, that although the reduced edition weeded out certain kinds of stories, it did not eradicate them. Rather, removing or retaining stories appears to have been a matter of adjusting the numbers of stories in each category, but never of excising all the stories of any category established in the initial edition. Thus although the reduced edition omitted most stories with radical filial actions, it still retained two such cases, namely, “Sŏk-chin Cuts Off His Own Finger” and “Guo Ju Buries His Own Son.” The question, then, is why these stories were retained. The change in the Samgang haengsil-to from its initial to its reduced edition filters a series of prototypes of moral behavior. The application of doctrinal principles of moral philosophy to real-life situations can manifest in various ways, depending on the moral agent’s spatio-temporal circumstances. Ideally, someone who has attained moral principles would be able to adjust his or her conduct in the most appropriate way in each life situation, taking into consideration all the conditions and variables as they come. In teaching ethical novices (or “ignorant men and women”), however, for whom education in moral philosophy through the Confucian classics was not feasible, the Samgang haengsil-to had to rely almost solely on instruction by example. This was the very spirit in which the Samgang haengsil-to was compiled as a book for the illiterate masses. The initial

109 The text in Chinese is as follows: 金氏。安東人。適散員兪天桂。洪武辛巳。天桂當行戌。謂其妻曰。今日吉。吾將出宿於外。其妻曰。吾亦出宿矣。遂入室裝糧。夜半忽有人驚呼聲。婢僕皆縮頸。金挺身出。虎已攫夫去。金把木弓。呼而前。左手執夫。右手撲虎。幾至六十步許。虎委之而止。金曰。爾旣攫我夫。欲幷取我邪。虎乃去。夫氣絶。金負而歸家。黎明夫甦。其夜虎又至。唐突大吼。金又開門荷杖語虎曰。爾亦含靈之物。何若是之甚乎。虎舍傍梨樹而去。樹乃枯。 vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 191 edition had collected numerous examples of ethical scenes almost randomly, from all the records of human affairs available at the time. Now the reduced edition sorted them out into several types, and then promoted some types by retaining more stories belonging to those categories than to others. That is to say, all the thematic types were retained but the frequency of their examples was adjusted. It was a matter of emphasis, and was never intended to obviate any conceivable types of reality. This is why, even though the stories of court ladies adhering to propriety were downplayed, “Bo Ji Lingers in the Flames” (Paek Hŭi ch’ehwa 伯姬逮火) and “[Qi] Zhi’s Wife Weeps for Her Husband” (Sik ch’ŏ kokpu 殖妻哭夫) remained in the reduced edition.110 For the same reason, “[Guan] Long- feng Dies Reproaching” (Yongbong kansa 龍逢諫死) and “Zhu Yun Breaks the Banister” (Chu Un chŏl ham 朱雲折檻) were retained even though other stories of reproaching ministers were cut.111 Let us employ a concept we shall call “story primes.” By a “story prime” I mean a skeletal pattern of a story, or a story line under which a multitude of stories can be grouped. This is somewhat different from the notion of “deep structure” used by structuralists. It does not concern the syntax of stories, nor does it focus exclusively on elements that make up the surface representation of stories. Rather, story primes are surface stories themselves, merely combining several stories together. These stories may share similar themes, motifs, or imagery, but they are not required to have, nor are they reducible to, a few constants. As a surface story by itself, a story prime represents multiple stories as one story. To identify a

110 Both these stories are from Liu Xiang’s Biographies of Exemplary Women. The former is about the wife of Duke Gong of Song 宋恭公 (d. 576 bce), who would not step out of the house when it was on fire because it was not proper for a lady to go out at night without being accompanied by her instructor. The latter is about the wife of Qi Zhi 杞殖 (also called Qi Liang 杞梁, ca. 550 bce), who told Duke Zhuang of Qi 齊莊公 that it was inappropriate for him to offer her condolences out in the fields, when he had a servant convey condolences to her when he encountered her on his way back from the battle where Qi Zhi had perished. 111 (Guan) Longfeng was killed while admonishing Jie, the ruler of the Xia and an arche- typal despot in Chinese history, for his dissipation and cruelty to his people; and Zhu Yun was removed from the palace by Emperor Cheng of the Han 漢成帝 (r. 33–7 bce) when he reproached the emperor to renounce Zhang Yu 張禹 (d. 5 bce), the imperial preceptor favored by the emperor. While being dragged out of the palace, he clung to the banister and shouted, “If I could roam along with Longfeng and Bigan, I would be content!” 192 chapter three given story, we can even refer to it as “a story like X” (where X designates a story prime).112 Thus a story prime is like a prototypical model. For example, (1) a widow injuring her own body in resistance against the family’s demands that she remarry, and (2) a filial son tasting his parent’s stool to check the gravity of his or her ailment both appear more than once in the Sam- gang haengsil-to. These groups of stories may differ in their details (protagonists’ status, age, and gender; relationship between characters; part of the body mutilated; etc.) and also in their additional plots and motifs (which can affect the consequences and even the messages of the stories). Yet the stories of the Samgang haengsil-to can nevertheless be viewed as a collection of story groups, each sharing a story prime. In fact, surveying the stories often yields the impression that there are certain patterns among them, or elicits a feeling of déjà vu. And even though the numbers of similar stories or the size of each story group can be adjusted, the story primes themselves seem to carry over from edition to edition. These patterns provided by story primes afford us further insights into the violence prevalent in the Samgang haengsil-to. The violence depicted in the Samgang haengsil-to has triggered a series of conversations among some scholars in Korea, especially vis-à-vis the cruelty and trauma inflicted on women by Confucian ethics. Yi Hye-sun, for example, has investigated the social and historical effects of the Sam- gang haengsil-to, examining the Chosŏn ideal of devoted women (yŏllyŏ); and Kang Myŏng-gwan has examined various Chosŏn texts on devoted women from literary perspectives, calling them the “violence of morality imposed on the weak.”113 Whether it be sons or daughters, however, the nature of the violence is always the same. One can detect violence in every aspect of Confucian ethics. Most philosophical treatises by

112 In this sense a “story prime” can be said to be a metonymic head of a set of stories, but the metonymy is in fact blurred because the identificatory designation is flexible. For example, “Sŏk-chin Cuts Off His Own Finger,” where a filial son cuts off his own finger to save his dying father, can be designated in various ways and hence represent different kinds of stories: “a story of a filial son cutting off his own finger,” “the story of Sŏk-chin who cut off his own finger and saved his own father,” or even “a story of saving someone with a cut-off finger.” 113 See several articles by Yi Hye-sun, including “Yŏllyŏ sang ŭi chŏnt’ong kwa pyŏnmo,” 163–83; Kang Myŏng-gwan, “Samgang haengsil-to—yakcha ege kahaejin todŏk ŭi p’ongnyŏk” [The Samgang haengsil-to—the violence of morality imposed on the weak], Han’guk kojŏn yŏsŏng munhak yŏn’gu 5 (2002): 5–32; and Yŏllyŏ ŭi t’ansaeng [The birth of the devoted woman—patriarchy and the cruel history of Chosŏn women], (Seoul: Tolbege, 2009). vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 193

Confucian ethicists do not mention explicit scenes of violence, but the implications of their discourses for individual lives is obvious. Without having to engage in Foucauldian revelation, or in more normative and ontological discourses, violence resides in the very foundation of human relations in a Confucian society: all human relations are hierarchical, and all human beings are defined by the relations in which they are placed. Any two human beings are bound to be placed on the rungs of the relational ladder, and this is the case even between peers and siblings. The hierarchy is determined by a set of criteria beyond seniority. Therefore, power is always distributed unevenly and one’s hegemonic dominance over another is necessarily assumed—and the hierarchy sustained by this uneven allotment of power is at the core of the Samgang haengsil-to. What, then, do these story primes tell us about the Samgang haengsil-to? We must recognize that, as with many other cultural traditions in the world, post-Zhu Xi Confucian ethics have authored and operated on two kinds of texts. One kind ventured to secure the foundation of normative ethical principles, well argued and well reasoned philosophically and metaphysically. This kind of text strove to establish an indisputable bedrock of ethical indoctrination, from which individuals could deduc- tively discern their obligations and the what-to-do’s at hand in their life situations, justify or self-censure their own actions, or criticize others for what they had done. The other kind of text dealt directly with common folks, who were admittedly not ready to engage in such philosophical and literary deliberations as expounded by the first kind because they were uncivilized, illiterate, immature, or simply “ignorant.” Initiating them into complicated moral ideals—and, more importantly, having them perform morally acceptable actions—demanded more strategic texts invested with descriptions of real and physical events. This second kind of text also springs from the strong Confucian conviction that moral laws— natural laws essentially built into the universe as ontic laws—manifest themselves in the history of material-physical events. But Confucians had conspicuously closed the border between these two territories by creating different kinds of texts targeting two different groups of readers. The Samgang haengsil-to is the second kind of text, and story primes are the units of this text. Each story prime in the Samgang haengsil-to is a moral scenario introducing an episode presumed to materialize, or embody, the doctrinal axioms of Confucian ethics. These scenarios, however, do not claim any logical connections to the system of ethical principles by themselves, nor do they engage in complete moral-philosophical deliberation. Story primes 194 chapter three are like disconnected scenarios, each of which constitutes an ethical drill, or what John Dewey might call a “dramatic rehearsal.”114 A dramatic rehearsal is different from the complete and self-coherent deliberation of ethical principles and justifications that is required to answer traditional ethical theories and issues. It is an imaginative deliberation, in which we put ourselves in different scenarios and alternative circumstances so as to ponder them constantly and realistically, taking into consideration situations in our own lives. And this imagination continues until we are stimulated to act. But dramatic rehearsals cannot and do not purport to be complete or deductive. Rather, they are intended to be collective of as many scenarios as possible, and as the collection grows larger, they are ordered so that they will enhance the effect of “crystallizing possibilities and transforming them into directive hypotheses.”115 Thus, such dramatic rehearsals are more holistic than are complete deliberations of ethical principles, in the sense that they tend to integrate and entertain various necessary and contingent factors—as well as being positively conscious of the fact that those factors and scenarios are not exhaustive—and are also more realistic than are applied examples based on a rock-bottom theoretical foundation of ethics. The stories of the Samgang haengsil-to certainly resemble Dewey’s dramatic rehearsals. They ostensibly conformed to what most Confucians would commonly perceive as virtuous behaviors, especially on the somatic level, but were less committed to theoretical details and justification. As Steven Fesmire emphasizes, Dewey’s theory of deliberation and dramatic rehearsal is not cephalocentric.116 Neither were the stories of the Samgang haengsil-to. These stories were like drill scenarios devised by Confucian historiographers and editors, telling people what to do when confronted with similar situations. Story primes established plot patterns according to which multiple stories were reproduced as dramatic rehearsals; and the frequency of stories—in other words, the size of the collection of rehearsals—was adjusted by the editors in the reduced edition.

114 John Dewey’s idea of deliberation and dramatic rehearsal developed over a period of time in several of his writings, but is discussed most extensively in his Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Henry Holt, 1922) and How We Think: A Restatement of the Rela- tion of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process (Boston; New York: D. C. Heath and Company, 1933). 115 Steven Fesmire, John Dewey and Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in Ethics (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 70. 116 Fesmire, John Dewey and Moral Imagination, 71. vernacular sounds and the reduced edition 195

The Samgang haengsil-to did not attempt to explain the moral laws, but rather displayed how moral laws were performed in real life. To that extent, the Samgang haengsil-to was an orthopractical text, a text showing “how it is done,” not a text to explicate the teachings of the classics or ethical principles set out by the sages. Mary Carruthers brings out the distinction between orthodoxy and orthopraxis in the beginning of her book on medieval monastic texts on meditation: Orthodoxy explicates canonical texts, whereas orthopraxis emphasizes a set of experiences and techniques, conceived as a “way” to be followed, leading one to relive the founder’s path to enlightenment . . . it relies upon patterns of oral formulae and ritualized behavior to prepare for an experience of God. . . . Yet orthopraxis is a concept not unique to religion. Any craft devel- ops an orthopraxis, a craft “knowledge” which is learned, and indeed can only be learned, by the painstaking practical imitation and complete famil- iarization of exemplary masters’ techniques and experiences. . . . [Monastic education is] more like masonry or carpentry than anything in the modern academy. It is an apprenticeship to a craft which is also a way of life. . . . The early desert monks called this set of practices mneme theou, “the memory of God.” This kind of “memory” is not restricted to what we now call memory, but is a much more expansive concept, for it recognizes the essential roles of emotion, imagination, and cogitation within the activity of recollection.117 Except for the religious context (or perhaps including it), Carruthers’s discourse on the monastic practice of orthopraxis of medieval Europe is highly reminiscent the Samgang haengsil-to. The stories of the Samgang haengsil-to, with their texts created literally and orally, and their illustrations representing those heroic moments, may be viewed as “orthopractical.” The textual continuum (literary, oral, and imaged) for stories was intended to stimulate and restore the moral mind to the audience. They were to provide a set of experiences to be followed, leading one to relive the moral heroes’ path to piety. These heroic experiences can never be explained or articulated, but only shown. They can be learned by practical imitation, or through the quasi-experience of rehearsing such acts, for the process was like acquiring skills, a craft knowledge about a way of life. Thus the Samgang haengsil-to worked on people’s memory. It was not just the memory of how the story went or the message of it that the book’s literatus-editors aimed to emulate, but the kind of memory that would make audiences relive the experiences of moral heroes. The book that

117 Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1–2. 196 chapter three was the Samgang haengsil-to, therefore, recognized exactly “the essential roles of emotion, imagination, and cogitation within the activity of recollection.” As the preface to the initial edition had underscored, it was expected that the book would stimulate the moral emotion of people to act accordingly. Finally, we come to realize through the editorial history of the Sam- gang haengsil-to that all ethical discourses eventually converge on the body, that is, on what to do with our bodies. The stories in the Samgang haengsil-to have to explain why we have to do certain things, but it is also imperative for them to serve to establish what to do and how to do it in real life. In other words, ethics is about the training of the body. Regret- tably but admittedly, violence is the key to our bodily behavior, an effi- cient way to train our bodies. If ethics and morality are what distinguish humans from animals, then violence is what trains us, through physical pain, to perform actions prompted by ethical principles—in other words, to become human. chapter four

The Sequels: Here and Now in the Chosŏn

With the advent of the sixteenth century, printing of the Samgang haengsil-to entered a new phase—sequels. Creating sequels to existing texts gained generic autonomy fairly early in East Asia. By adding such pre- fixes as hou-後 (Kr. hu-; Jp. go-), meaning “later,” and xu-續 (Kr. sok-; Jp. zoku-), meaning “coninuation,” to the titles of the original texts, several earlier texts—especially histories and biographies—were given sequels, which were often written by different writers. These early sequels in most cases served to provide an update, or content that belonged to the same topic but was not covered by the original. In later periods, more genres started to make use of sequels, the purpose of which sometimes went beyond updating or supplementing the records. For example, in the seventeenth century the late Ming saw a number of sequels to well-known titles of vernacular fiction. The reason or motivation for creating a sequel to an existing title varies, but as Gérard Genette’s summarized it, a sequel “continues a work not in order to bring it to a close but to take it beyond what was initially considered to be its ending.”1 Making a sequel to an existing title requires a wide circulation of the original text, successful enough to create the requisite attention to it in the readers’ cognitive space. Certainly the Samgang haengsil-to already had two major editions and, most of all, it was a book that the government had continued to distribute extensively through various channels. But what was it about the previous editions that prompted the need to compile sequels for them? What aspects of the previous editions were considered for expansion, intensification, or development? This chapter discusses two sequels to the Samgang haengsil-to: the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (Sok Samgang haengsil-to; hereafter the Sequel ) of 1514, and the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to; hereafter the New Sequel) of 1617. These two sequels did take what had been completed by the previous editions to a new phase, a process I summarize as “Chosŏnization.”

1 Gérard Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 206. 198 chapter four

Collecting new stories that happened after the time periods covered by the original compilation, the primary purpose of these two sequels was to update the previous editions, just as their prefaces specified. But surveying them as books allows us to realize that what happened in the process was much more multifaceted and not free of unexpected editorial choices. In contrast to the initial edition, which contained an equal number of stories for each of the three categories, the Sequel collected significantly fewer stories about loyalty to one’s lord. The predominance of Chinese stories over Korean ones in the previous edition was also reversed in the Sequel, indicating that the focal point of the editors was moving from China to Korea. The New Sequel was a massive undertaking, collecting more than fifteen hundred stories in eighteen volumes. It maintained the trends that were initiated in the Sequel and pursued them even farther: the stories were all of Korean cases; and only 6 percent were about loyal subjects, while the rest were divided almost equally between filial sons and devoted women. In addition, the Chŏng’ŭm (vernacular Korean) text finally moved down onto the main part of the page, standing right next to the classical Chinese. And written text of the stories and the illustrations were vastly simplified. The physical format of the New Sequel reflects, albeit subtly, unmistakable shifts in Chosŏn society. The details behind the production of the sequels and their distribution also show that the nature of these books, as well as the perceptions surrounding them, had undergone some fundamental changes.

The Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (1514)

Under King Chungjong’s 中宗 (r. 1506–44) mandate, Sin Yong-gae 申用溉 (1463–1519) and others collected new stories and published them as a separate edition in 1514.2 They collated a total of 67 stories of the three virtues: 36 stories of filial sons, 5 of loyal subjects, and 26 of devoted women. Thus, unlike the previous editions, the number of stories in each category was not even. In fact, there were significantly fewer stories of loyal subjects compared to the others. Also, Korean stories predominantly outnumbered Chinese ones: 3 Chinese and 33 Korean stories of filial sons, 3 Chinese and 2 Korean of loyal subjects, and 8 Chinese and 18 Korean stories of devoted women.

2 Nam Kon, “Preface to the Sok Samgang haengsil-to” 續三綱行實圖序, Sok Samgang haengsil-to. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 199

Chungjong’s intention to compile a new Samgang haengsil-to appears in 1511: [His Majesty] decreed: “Since our customs are not agreeable recently, print the Samgang haengsil-to in large quantities and distribute it inside and outside [the capital]; and let all common people in the streets and alleyways know [this book] comprehensively. As concerns devoted women and filial sons since the beginning of [our] state [i.e., Chosŏn] who were not mentioned [in the previous edition], collate them also this time, with illustrations and written texts, and describe them as well with eulogizing poems with which to publish and circulate them, so as to make people understand with ease.”3 The publication of a new edition including additional stories, however, did not appear after this pronouncement. A year later, Chungjong issued the same decree again, which was then delegated to provincial offices: Before this, His Majesty issued his edict inside and outside [the capital] and stated: “Among loyal subjects, filial sons, and devoted women of our dynasty, find and collect those who did not reach being illustrated and written about, without omitting anyone, and print a sequel so as to render a book.” The Ministry of Rites issued an order to each province and had them record and report without omission the names, posts, and ranks of those whose ethical integrity was worthy of banner commendation.4 Following this, Nam Kon 南袞 (1471–1527), then Surveillance Commis- sioner of Chŏlla 全羅 Province, reported seven examples of devoted women and filial sons from his district. These cases were all similar to those collected in the previous edition, such as a wife who had remained chaste for fifteen years for her dead husband, or a son who sucked on his father’s abscess to save his life. But still no actual compilation ensued for another five months. Chungjong then mandated yet again the compilation of a new Samgang haengsil-to, and made it clear that he meant it as a continuation to the previous one: Recently, the ethics of the Three Relations have fallen to the ground, and our customs have become confused and disarrayed; people have lost their

3 傳曰:“近來風俗不美，《三綱行實》多印頒布中外，使閭巷小民，無不周知。國初以來，烈女、孝子之不及與者，亦令撰集圖寫，竝述詩贊，刊以行之，俾民易知。”Chungjong sillok 中宗實錄 14:24b (Chungjong 6/8/28). 4 先是，上敎諭中外曰:“本朝忠臣、孝子、烈婦事績，未及圖寫者，竝無遺搜摭，續印成冊。”禮曹行移各道，節義可旌人姓名職銜，使無遺牒報。Chungjong sillok 15:49a (Chungjong 7/5/9). It is not clear whether this refers to the same decree Chungjong had made the year before or to a new one, for the wording of the two records is slightly different. 200 chapter four

innate nature, and no one knows how to return to substantiality. Our founding fathers fostered the permanence of human relations—namely, loyal subjects, filial sons, and devoted wives—illustrating their images and recording their episodes, which they made into a book and entitled the Samgang haengsil. They distributed it inside and outside the capital; and the common people in the streets and alleyways laid their eyes on it to develop [moral] feelings; did it not become a help in governing? With this idea, I intend to compile a continuation in compliance with the past [example], and you should establish an office at once.5 Meanwhile, Chungjong distributed the existing Samgang haengsil-to three times, once in 1510, then again in 1511, and 1515.6 The second distribution was on a massive scale: 2,940 sets at one time. Why was Chungjong so eager to reinstate the distribution of the Samgang haengsil-to? And why did he feel it was necessary to compile a new one, when the existing Sam- gang haengsil-to was available for mass production? Previously the court’s publications of the Samgang haengsil-to appear to have been triggered by discrete incidents of moral hazard that drew immediate attention at the time. But this time, no such momentous incident surfaced. Besides, the reduced edition had already resolved the problems of size (i.e., number of episodes) and preservation of blocks. Yet Chungjong’s effort to continue the old tradition established by his predecessors is unmistakably insistent. The preface to the Sequel drafted by Nam Kon describes the details of its compilation as follows: Thus [His Highness] summoned the officials in charge of rites and said, “Recently, moral principles have fallen to the ground, and I am deeply pained by this. Therefore, I wish to compile a Samgang haengsil; to augment it by collecting people of filial piety, loyalty, and honorable integrity [who appeared] since the beginning of our state, and to make it an edition continuing [the previous ones] and to let people view it with inspiration.” Accordingly, [His Highness] launched an office and installed the staff, and ordered his official Sin Yong-gae, First Academician, to take charge of the matter. [His Highness] also ordered his official Kang Hon, Supervisor of the Central Council; official Kim Chŏn, Minister of Personnel; official Pak Yŏl, Minister of Rites; official Yi Kye-maeng, Administrator of the Central Council; official Sŏng Mong-jŏng, Prince Hasan; official Yi Chang-gon, Vice

5 邇來三綱墜地，風俗淆訛，民失本性，莫知歸厚。祖宗朝務扶植綱常，忠臣、孝子、烈女，圖形記事，作爲一書，名之曰《三綱行實》，頒諸中外，閭巷小民，觸目生感，豈非爲治之一助? 予爲是念，欲依前圖形續撰，其速設局。Chungjong sillok 17:4a (Chungjong 7/10/8). 6 Chungjong sillok 10:27a (Chungjong 5/7/4) and Chungjong sillok 14:39b (Chungjong 6/10/20). the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 201

Minister of Personnel; official Ch’oe Suk-saeng, Third Minister of the Mili- tary; and official [Nam] Kon to prepare an edition. His Highness handed down a manuscript copy of Sima Guang’s historical treatise, summoned His servants, and said, “While reading history, I ran across this treatise and was profoundly fond of its remarks about the cardinal human relations. [It says,] ‘All in all, if one is a woman and not constant, even with the beauty of voluptuous looks and the skill of weaving, she is not worthy enough; if one is a servant but not loyal, even with a wealth of talents and intelligence, and with excellence in administrative actions, he is not worthy of value. Why is this? The great principle has already waned.’7 Small aptitudes are not sufficient for praise. Now that several of you are about to compile this book, be sure to use this intent and express it in the beginning of the edition.” We servants, upon hearing this order, were all the more trembling with respect. Therefore, as for the affairs of the Upper Regime [Ming], we based ourselves on what the Comprehensive Gazetteer [Yitong zhi] recorded about those who conferred awards for virtuous merits,8 and selected outstanding cases; for our own country, we examined the state history and consulted [sources ranging] from geographical records to official notes kept in private households, and transcribed files preserved in the government offices; there was nothing we did not peruse. In addition, intendants from all provinces reported outstanding actions in the area of their own administration. Alto- gether we acquired 36 filial sons and 28 devoted women; and as concerns the 7 loyal and righteous, because [loyalty] is displayed mostly in times of danger and turmoil since ancient days, the number is particularly small.9 We embarked upon work on the project in the tenth month of the imsin cyclic year [1512], but the office retired [twice] due to the harvest seasons in between, and the book manuscript was not completed until the sixth month of the kapsul year [1514].10

7 This is from Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government (Zizhi tongjian) 291.9511. 8 The Yitong zhi here is the Da Ming yitong zhi 大明一統志 (Comprehensive gazetteer of the Great Ming, 1461). 9 That is to say, the loyalty stories related only to unusual circumstances, hence their smaller number. 10 乃召禮官曰。近來綱常墜地。予甚痛焉。茲欲做三鋼行實。益採國朝以來忠孝節義之人。續為一編。使民觀感。遂開局置員。命大提學臣申用溉。掌其事。仍令判中樞府事臣姜渾。吏曹判書臣金詮。禮曹判書臣朴説。知中樞府事臣李繼孟。夏山君臣成夢井。吏曹參判臣李長坤。兵曹參知臣崔淑生。暨臣衮。並預編摩一日。殿下降抄本司馬光史論一通。召示臣等曰。予因讀史。偶閱此論。深嘉其言。有關於彛倫。夫為女子不正。雖復華色之美。織紝之巧。不足賢矣。為臣不忠。雖復材智之多。治行之優。不足貴矣。何則大節已虧。小善不足稱也。爾等。今方纂書。須用此意。叙諸編首。臣等。聞命益慄。於是上國之事則据一統志所紀封贈旌表之人。而取其尤異者。本國則攷諸國乘參以圖誌。以至人家狀牒。官府謄卷。靡不蒐閱。又諸道監司。各上所部卓異之行。凡得孝子三十六。烈女二十八。若夫忠義之七。自古多見於危亂之祭。故數獨尠焉。始事於壬申十月。間因年歉。罷局。至甲戍六月。書乃脫稿。 202 chapter four

From this we notice first that Chungjong intended to compile a new Samgang haengsil-to to augment the old one with moral heroes who had appeared since the publication of the earlier edition. His intention was perhaps to integrate these new finds into the old edition rather than to publish them separately. New heroes were sought from both the Ming and Chosŏn. For the Ming heroes, they consulted the Comprehensive Gazet- teer of the Great Ming (Da Ming yitong zhi 大明一統志, 1461); for Chosŏn, they examined official documents and records. The Comprehensive Gazet- teer became the model for the Geographical Survey of the Territory of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk yŏji sŭngnam 東國輿地勝覽, 1481) of Chosŏn. King Sŏngjong commissioned No Sa-sin 盧思慎, Kang Hŭi-maeng 姜希孟, Yang Sŏng-ji 梁誠之, Sŏ Kŏ-jŏng 徐居正, and others to compile a new national geography to replace the existing Newly Compiled Geography of the Eight Provinces (Sinch’an P’aldo chiri-ji 新撰八道地理志, 1432). As Kim Hang-su has pointed out, the collation of this Sequel became possible because the court had accumulated enough cases of exemplary conduct since King Sejong’s reign, by honoring them and marking their households as being those of exemplary and filial people (via the Bannered Gate commendation—chŏngnyŏ 旌閭).11 Approximately half the cases in the Sequel were recorded in the Annals (sillok) as having been recognized with laudation; and almost all the stories can be identified in the Newly Augmented Geographical Survey of the Territory of the Eastern Kingdom (Sinjŭng Tongguk yŏji sŭngnam 新增東國輿地勝覽, 1530). As introduced in Chapter 3, the Bannered Gate commendation was an administrative recognition of moral behavior that had been part of the legal system since the Koryŏ era and was reinforced in the Chosŏn. The court honored families with members or ancestors whose laudable actions or achievements were recognized, by erecting commemorative gates, bestowing monetary awards, and providing direct descendants with positions in the government. This practice was obviously closely related to the production of the Samgang haengsil-to. For example, just before King Sejong ordered the printing of the initial edition, the court decided to systematically reform the Bannered Gate commendation system by ranking categories of moral behavior;12 and later, in 1446, the king ordered posthumous awards for women of integrity whose stories were listed in the Samgang haengsil-to

11 Kim Hang-su, “Samgang haengsil-to p’yŏnch’an ŭi ch’ui” [Changes in the compilation of the Samgang haengsil-to], Chindan hakpo 85, (1998): 238. 12 Sejong sillok 58:19b (Sejong 14/11/28). the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 203 but who had yet to receive their laudations.13 Unlike the compilation for the initial edition, it was now official that for a case to be chosen for the Samgang haengsil-to, it had to be formally screened and approved by the government first. This criterion was reinforced again later, when the court compiled the New Sequel. We also notice here that the court acknowledged that the Sequel contained uneven numbers of cases in the three categories. The initial edition and the reduced edition had stories allocated equally to each of the three virtues, but the Sequel contained 36 filial sons, 7 loyal subjects, and 28 devoted women. At the same time, the preface mentioned and explained the peculiarly smaller number of loyal subjects. According to the explanation, the number was small because loyal actions are by their nature most conspicuous in times of danger and turmoil. This implied that there had not been many crises tantamount to danger and turmoil since the compilation of the first edition during Sejong’s reign. It is true that there had been no foreign invasions, wars, or large-scale rebellions. But it is also true that there had just been two brutal purges of literatus- officials by King Yŏnsan’gun 燕山君 (r. 1494–1506), which had resulted in the mutinous dethronement of Yŏnsan’gun and the installation of his brother, Great Prince Chinsŏng (晉城大君, i.e., Chungjong), as the new king. (Yŏnsan’gun’s literati purges and the Chungjong Restoration are discussed in more detail below.) This series of events must have still been vivid in the memory of the king and his officials—and it was, in fact, one of the reasons Chungjong ordered the collation of the Sequel, for he had of necessity to acknowledge those who had assisted him to the throne. A year before the printing of the Sequel, Chungjong ordered: We are about to compile the Samgang haengsil-to. Since time immemorial, it has been necessary, after a period of grave disorder, to possess a canonical text praising and rewarding those who were righteous. I still do not have detailed knowledge of what happened in the past during the Restoration, but could there not have been at least one person who died for loyalty and righteousness? We must search [for such cases] and record them as well.14 Here Chungjong clearly indicates his desire to make this publication about those who had led the Restoration that brought him to the throne.

13 Sejong sillok 106:15a (Sejong 26/10/20). 14 今方撰集《三綱行實》。自古大亂之後，必有褒賞節義之典。往者反正時事，予未之詳知，然豈無一人死於忠節者乎? 當搜訪，竝撰錄。Chungjong sillok 17:58 (Chungjong 8/2/28). 204 chapter four

Why, then, did the Sequel contain far fewer stories of loyal subjects than of filial sons and devoted wives? While this question will be discussed in the next section, let us for a moment continue with Chungjong’s intentions regarding the Sequel. The preface also states: All in all, after King Sejong took over the creation [of our dynasty], he dili- gently kept up with it [the original dynastic mission]. At first, he exerted his efforts toward ethical relations; then he instigated a sagacious thought to compile a book with illustrations. It posted the moral laws for people on wood, as if pointing to it on the palm of the hand.15 King Sŏngjong respectfully followed the established model, and carefully, appropriately, and earnestly expounded [the teachings] so that it would excuse people from deafness and blindness. His Majesty [Chungjong] started anew to ably restore the standards left by the two previous reigns for his people; he encouraged and promoted them; and he made the old state renew itself.16 The three sages [Sejong, Sŏngjong, and Chungjong],17 one after another, transmitted what was already created, pulled [people’s] ears and charged them face to face,18 and soaked people in goodness; would the Zhou royal house be the only one who had its official-teachers urge and maintain them [i.e., moral laws]? Some may say, “That in which human minds are the same is goodness. One edition of the book is enough to make the minds of tens of millions of people feel and be inspired; there is no need to add to it or make a sequel to it.” [This] hardly realizes the reality of ordinary people who neglect the old and hold dear the new. It would be even more so, for people of antiquity carried out [such deeds] a hundred generations ago, when their names and the traces of their achievements have been destroyed altogether. Those who look at the book would not view them as ordinary, but find them

15 It may not be too far-fetched here to read this as an allusion to block-printing as engraving moral virtue. 16 “To make the old state renew itself ” is a reference to a famous line from the Book of Poetry: “Although Zhou is an old state, heaven’s mandate on it is new” 周雖舊邦，其命維新。“King Wen” 文王 (Ode 235) in the “Greater Odes” section of the Book of Poetry. 17 The traditional referents of the “Three Sages” can differ depending on the context, but should be King Wen, King Wu, and the Duke of Zhou when it comes to the Zhou house. By calling the three kings of Chosŏn (Sejong, Sŏngjong, and Chungjong) “Three Sages,” the preface is drawing a comparison between the Chosŏn and Zhou courts, and thus depicting both sets of three as endeavoring to morally transform their peoples through education. Compiling the Samgang haengsil-to, therefore, is comparable to the Zhou court’s employment of official-teachers. 18 This expression is from the poem “Yi” (Ode 256) in the “Greater Odes” section of the Book of Poetry: “Oh! My son / When you did not know what was good / and what was not good / Not [only] did I lead you on by the hand / But I showed the difference by appealing to affairs / Not [only] did I charge you face to face / But I held you by the ears.” 於乎小子，未知藏否。匪手攜之，言示之事。匪面命之，言提其耳。Translation by James Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. 4, 516–17. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 205

troublesome for being too lofty and distant to reach, and would not make efforts to attain them. These things that this new sequel records, for the most part, are things encountered by the ears and eyes [of the living, i.e., within living memory]. If in the future one should obtain this new edition, one will find listed at the head of the chapters those people one has actually encountered in the past, and will surely say, ‘If a person such as this was able to do it, am I alone incapable?’ One would then be moved by admiration and unable to stop oneself [from carrying out similar actions]. If so, is His Majesty’s method of motivating and guiding [people to heroic actions] not more appropriate than that of his predecessors? Oh! From the Yu Xia19 to the beginning of our state, among the outstanding actions of high morals, some 330 people were collected in one book, whereby the Way of human relations was equipped. Since then until now, one hundred some years have passed; and those who rose up therein are also a few, with whom we can show that the goodness under heaven is endless and that our dynasty amply accommodates honest and sincere teachings. That with which we correct the people is all the more verified here. From now on, for all that belongs to the Three Relations [samgang], where should we exert our minds? If only we could individually exhaust what we must do for our naturally allotted roles and respectfully accept what the great celestial thearch has mandated to us, there should be nothing more to say about the intention of the state in compiling again a new book to do good tirelessly for the people.20 It is clear that Chungjong and his literatus-editors tried to carry on the tradition started by Sejong, identifying the dynastic mission with that of the Zhou royal house when it was morally perfect. Evoking the Three Sages and comparing Sejong, Sŏngjong, and himself to King Wen, King Wu, and the Duke of Zhou, the preface was setting the pedigree straight. Chungjong was claiming that he was the rightful successor to the throne, one who could resume the moral legacy after the deviation of immoral

19 Yu Xia 虞夏 refers to the Xia dynasty and the legendary Yu era before it. 20 盖世宗承草剏之後。靡遑他及。而首急於人倫。至乃創出機智。具圖成書。揭木民彛。如指諸掌。成宗聿遵成規。是脩是飭。丁寧開釋。免民聾瞽。殿下與民更始。克恢兩朝之遺範。而鼓舞振作。使舊邦維新。三聖相繼。既作迺述。耳提面命。漸民於善。豈特周家。使官師勸之而止者哉。說者或曰。人心之所同然者。善也。一編之書。足以感發千萬人之心。不必增而續之。殊不知常人之情。忽舊而貴新。況古人作於百世之上。其姓名行蹟。俱已湮滅。觀書者不以為尋常。則必諉之於高遠難及。而不之勉焉。今新編所錄。大抵。皆耳目之所逮也。將人之得是編者。忽覩平昔所見聞之人。列在卷上。必曰彼且能是。我獨、不能是耶。感勵歆羨。不能自已。夫如是。則我殿下誘掖開導之方。豈不益切於前乎。嗚呼。自虞夏以來至于國初。卓行高節。亡慮三百三十人。而萃于一書人倫之道備矣。自爾至今。百許年間。興起者。又若干人。有以見天下之善無窮。而我盛朝優游敦厚之教。矯揉斯民者。於此益可驗矣。由今以徃。凡屬於三綱者。宜何所用其心乎。但能各盡本分之所當爲。而顧諟皇天上帝之所畀付。則於國家重輯新書。惓惓爲民之意。庶無負云。 206 chapter four rule by Yŏnsan’gun, just as his father, Sŏngjong, had done after Sejo’s regime.21 Chungjong thus had to publish another Samgang haengsil-to: this would be the proof of his legitimacy and the mark of a moral king. He had already printed and distributed large quantities of the Samgang haengsil-to that had been redacted during Sŏngjong’s reign, but this was not enough to mark the beginning of a new era. He needed to have his own Samgang haengsil-to, one that would focus on his rule. Even with the instructions of sage-kings, whose intention was noble and method sagacious, the goodness of human beings was susceptible to corruption and oblivion, and societal ills constantly ensued. The years under Sejo and Yŏnsan’gun had seen the epitome of such ills. Yet it was also true that brilliant actions of moral heroes continuously appeared during deviant times because morality was a part of human nature, and Chungjong’s own enthronement was due to just such morality. In other words, the purported goal of compiling a sequel was to create a reminder of the sprouts of human nature that were still vividly continuing to bloom. The purpose was to reinforce the memory of the facts of morality, and to supplement it with live characters and stories, since it was the court’s responsibility to provoke the heart-minds of its people toward their moral nature. The vividness of the stories, which the editors hoped would be intense enough to stir up emotions from within the moral nature of the people, relied on individuals’ direct and indirect memories of their own temporal and spatial surroundings. Stories close to their lives would give new meaning to personal memories and eventually speak to each person’s moral subjectivity. As the preface puts it, a recipient of such stories “will surely say, ‘If a person such as this was able to do it, am I alone incapable?’ ” Thus the editors expected such a person to draw personal connections to the constituents of these stories—such as living in the same region where the hero lived, having heard of the incident before, or remembering the historical backdrop to the episode—when reading or listening to the story, and to realize that such examples could still take place within the parameters of his everyday life. The story then would become a part of his (or her) personal memory, just like other experiences. The Chosŏnization of the stories was not a deliberate choice based on a sudden awareness of the cultural self versus others, but a logical move designed to maximize the effect of moral transformation through the book.

21 Technically speaking, it was Yejong 睿宗 who came to the throne after Sejo and before Sŏngjong. But Yejong’s reign lasted only a year (1468–69). the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 207

Naturally, the kinds of moral prototypes established by the original Samgang Haensil-to (those dubbed “story prime” in Chapter 3) were repeated in the Sequel. Stories of filial sons cutting off their fingers and of devoted wives dying with their husbands reappeared, but with different protagonists. Take “Chŏng-myŏng Shares Lice” (Chŏngmyŏng punsŭl 正命分蝨), for example: An Chŏng-myŏng was a native of Ch’angp’yŏng. After his father’s death, he mourned for three years in a hut next to the grave, grieving without eating greens or fruit, and his grieving went above and beyond [what was expected by] the rituals. His mother had an illness from which she could not recover for a long time. Since she could not comb her hair for so long, she suffered from a terrible itch because of lice. Wishing to share her itch, Chŏng-myŏng untied his hair and laid it down next to hers, so as to share her lice [by making them move over to his hair]. To see if [her illness] would become better or worse, he tasted her stool. Upon his mother’s death, he grieved and stayed next to her grave just as he did after his father’s death.22

The Politics of Loyalty The timing of this compilation was not random. The Chungjong Res- toration marked the return of Chosŏn society from a deviation during Yŏnsan’gun’s regime to its correct path. Therefore, the significance of those who had sacrificed themselves to resist the abominations of despotic rule had to be commended. Even if Chungjong had not necessarily orchestrated or masterminded his accession to the throne himself, he was still obliged to address the efforts of those who had made it happen. The “Note to Present the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to,” drafted by Sin Yong-gae and others, quotes Chungjong as stating again that the publication of the sequel was a timely one: The permanence of human relations is [like] the ridgepoles of the universe. It exists in human minds and is never lost. But its renewal awaits inspiration by the king and the teacher, which is what should be done first after corrupt rule.23

22 The full text in Chinese is as follows: 安正命。昌平縣人。嘗居父喪。廬墓三年。不食菜菓。哀毀過禮。母病沉綿。久廢梳櫛。苦蝨繁癢悶。正命欲分癢。散其髮。承接母首。以分其蝨。又嘗糞以驗吉凶。及歿。守墓愛慕。一如前喪。 23 綱常爲宇宙之棟樑。在人心猶不墜而作新。待君師之鼓舞。承亂政所當先。“Note to Present the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to” (Chin Samgang haengsil-to chŏn 進續三綱行實圖箋). 208 chapter four

In other words, the timing of compiling the Sequel had much to do with the context of loyalty, for deposing a king was, more than anything, a typical moment when a subject’s loyalty was tested. But why, then, were only seven stories of loyalty harvested?24 Sin Yong-gae, who oversaw the entire publication, was a grandson of Sin Suk-chu 申叔舟 (1417–75), an emblematic scholar-official in the Hall of Worthies during Sejong’s reign. Sin Suk-chu is most recognized for his scholarship and dramatic political career, having served in the administration under six kings. He had been dispatched to Japan and China as Document Officer (sŏjanggwan 書狀官) in his early years of tenure; had contributed his expertise in phonetics to the invention of the Chŏng’ŭm and the compilation of the Sino-Korean rhyme dictionary, the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk chŏng’un); and later became Chief State Councilor (yŏngŭijŏng 領議政), the highest-level minister in the administration. But he was one of the ministers who assisted Prince Suyang 首陽大君 in his coup, called Kyeyu chŏngnan 癸酉靖難 (Plight stabilization of the kyeyu year, 1453). Prince Suyang’s usurpation of the throne was the first Chosŏn incident in which a hegemonic confrontation between scholar-officials and the sovereign surfaced. Upon the untimely death of King Munjong 文宗 (r. 1451–52), who succeeded Sejong, King Tanjong 端宗 inherited the throne at the age of twelve. The void left by Sejong’s strong kingship, followed by the weak sovereignty of Mun- jong and Tanjong, unsettled the equanimity among scholar-officials and between officials and the court. With his strong and ambitious character, Prince Suyang forced Tanjong to abdicate and became the next king, Sejo. During this process, Sejo encountered resistance from scholar-officials— especially from those who had served under T’aejong and Sejong. Some of them were eventually executed by Sejo (e.g., the so-called sa yuksin 死六臣, “six martyred ministers”) along with their families, while others abandoned their official careers (e.g., the so-calledsaeng yuksin 生六臣, “six surviving ministers”). There were also ministers who chose to join the new regime, providing their proficiency in learning and its application to statecraft. One of these was Sin Suk-chu. This brought upon Sin Suk-chu the tainted characterization of a minister who had failed to maintain loyalty to his king. That Sin Suk-chu was the grandfather of Sin Yong-gae may

24 In fact, the original edition of the Sequel contains only five stories of loyalty. This is described again below. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 209 not be irrelevant to why the Sequel contained far fewer stories of loyal subjects than stories of filial sons and devoted women. There were, however, larger political circumstances that contributed to the subtext of the compilation and printing of the Sequel. As mentioned above, Chungjong’s enthronement was no ordinary succession but the result of the overthrowing of his brother, Yŏnsan’gun, known in history for his despotic, autocratic rule. The nearly psychotic behavior he showed toward the end of his reign has often been attributed to the terrible treatment and ultimate demise of his birth mother at the hands of his father (Sŏngjong).25 Yŏnsan’gun’s hatred of his father was intense. The Annals of King Yŏnsan’gun did not fail to record what he did out of malevolence toward Sŏngjong: he roasted and ate the deer that his father had raised; beat and discarded his father’s portrait; had his father’s concubines flogged to death in the courtyard; abolished the laws enacted by his father; and punished those who mourned the death of his father.26 He also made a point of going hunting on the day of his father’s memorial, holding a banquet at Sŏllŭng 宣陵, the tomb of Queen Chŏnghyŏn貞顯王后 (1462–1530, who had raised Yŏnsan’gun as her own son),27 and shooting arrows at Sŏngjong’s portrait. It would not be sensible to connect all the political calamities of the Yŏnsan’gun era to the psychopathic behavior provoked by his personal tragedy, despite the fact that that tragedy certainly transformed the dynamics between the king and his officials into a hegemonic confrontation that defined subsequent eras, and particularly the era of Chungjong. One characteristic of Sŏngjong’s statecraft was to place constraints on the meritorious elites’ political power using the voice of censors, remonstrators, and historians (the “Three Bureaus”), posts to which he appointed young sarim literatus-officials. The escalation of remonstrance and the emergence of the sarim as a strong political clique had already become a concern for the court. Confronting repeated remonstrance and memorials after his enthronement, Yŏnsan’gun immediately perceived the role of these sarim officials as a direct threat or opposition to his sovereignty.

25 Yŏnsan’gun’s mother, the Deposed Lady Yun, was abandoned and later executed by order of Sŏngjong for excessive jealousy on her part. The incident is discussed in many entries of the Sŏngjong sillok, including 105:1–3b (Sŏngjong 10/6/2) and 144:21 (Sŏngjong 13/8/16). Yŏnsan’gun grew up thinking that Queen Chŏnghyŏn, Sŏngjong’s second queen, was his own mother. After he discovered the truth, he tried to restore the Deposed Lady Yun posthumously, only to be met with adamant opposition on the part of his officials. 26 Yŏnsan’gun ilgi 63:3b (Yŏnsan’gun 12/7/10). 27 Yŏnsan’gun ilgi 60:20b (Yŏnsan’gun 11/12/23). 210 chapter four

Whether Yŏnsan’gun’s behavior, often described as erratic, contributed to the rivalry between the king and the sarim literati, or whether the latter revealed the king’s behavior to be erratic and even drove the king into a psychotic mental state, is still debatable, and does not fall within the immediate purview of our discussion. But as a result Yŏnsan’gun did stage two sanguinary literati purges (sahwa 士禍), in 1498 (Muo sahwa 戊午士禍) and 1504 (Kapcha sahwa 甲子士禍). The Purge of 1498 targeted the sarim faction. Merit subjects (kongsin 功臣) Yu Cha-gwang 柳子光 (1439–1512) and Yi Kŭk-ton 李克墩 (1435– 1503) accused a former historian, Kim Il-son 金馹孫 (1464–98), of inserting criticism against Sejo’s usurpation into the draft of the Annals. The spark then fell onto other sarim literati, as Yu Cha-gwang disclosed that Kim Il-son’s teacher, Kim Chong-jik 金宗直 (1431–93), had written a “Lament for Emperor Yi” (Cho Ŭije mun 弔義帝文). According to his own foreword, Kim Chong-jik had written it after he met in a dream King Huai of Chu 楚懷王 (d. 205 bce, also known as Emperor Yi, installed by Xiang Liang 項梁 and Xiang Yu 項羽 as their emperor for the purpose of claiming legitimacy for the old state of Chu, but later killed by Xiang Yu). Kim Chong-jik was accused of having composed this poem to criticize Sejo’s usurpation of the throne and killing of Tanjong.28 Kim Chong-jik had been dead for more than a decade when Kim Il-son attempted to insert this piece into the official state history, but Yŏnsan’gun nevertheless ordered his grave dug up and his corpse decapitated (pugwan ch’amsi 剖棺斬屍). Kim Chong-jik was a central figure of the sarim who had inherited the mantle of the “Learning of the Way” (daoxue) Confucian scholarship of Chŏng Mong-ju and Kil Chae of late Koryŏ, and been a mentor and teacher to many sarim literatus-officials in the Three Bureaus. Persecuting those who had been connected with or disciples of Kim Chong-jik was a damaging blow to the sarim faction. The impetus for the Purge of 1504 was the issue of posthumously restoring the Deposed Lady Yun, Yŏnsan’gun’s birth mother. Im Sa-hong 任士洪 (1445–1506), a merit subject and a consort-kin member, and Yu Cha-gwang reignited the matter in front of Yŏnsan’gun in order to seize power over censors and the Three Bureaus. Yŏnsan’gun launched a series of vicious

28 The Muo sahwa, or Purge of 1498, has been documented repeatedly in history. The text of the “Lament for Emperor Yi” and related details can be found in “Factual Records of Muo sahwa” (Muo sahwa sajŏk 戊午士禍事蹟), in the posthumous anthology of Kim Chong-jik, Chŏmp’iljae-jip 佔畢齋集 [Collected writings of Mr. Chŏmp’iljae], woodblock print in 1520, Sajŏk 事蹟: 1–5. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 211 and vengeful executions of those who had participated in deposing his mother and those who opposed restoring her status as a queen. There were also financial considerations under the surface. Fitting the description of a typical despot, Yŏnsan’gun filled his days with endless banquets and hunting, indulging in women and displaying outrageous behavior in his lavish and extravagant life,29 all of which drained the court’s fiscal resources. To overcome his financial difficulties, Yŏnsan’gun would even attempt to confiscate the lands and slaves owned by the meritorious elites,30 and the accusation made by Im Sa-hong provided an opportunity for him to also subdue the censorate officials’ repeated remonstrances, which he viewed as “insulting the superior” (nŭngsang 凌上). Another background factor was the overall misrule of the regime. Yŏnsan’gun’s negligence and failures as king destroyed the entire economy, which compelled both the censors and ministers to file continuous remonstrations and admonishing memorials.31 Yŏnsan’gun again viewed such reproaches as “insulting a superior.” We may construe the purges as attempts by a monarch to centralize sovereignty, or as manifestations of pure eccentricity by a manic tyrant. Whatever the case, it is certain that confrontation between the king and the bureaucrats became salient during Yŏnsan’gun’s regime. The sarim censors of the Three Bureaus represented the Confucian conscience, armed with strongly puritanical rhetoric and ethical standards. As Edward W. Wagner has observed, the literati purges were characterized by “periods of steady accretion of power on the part of the censoring organs,” but “as their power grew, the censoring organs wielded it with decreasing wisdom and increasing intolerance and partisanship, until the process was joltingly arrested by violent means”32 (i.e., the literati purges). From this point of view, it appears that these purges reflected a contest between the censors, on the one hand, and ministers from the meritorious elites, on

29 Edward Wagner, The Literati Purges: Political Conflict in Early Yi Korea (Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1974), 55. 30 Lee, A New History of Korea, 205. 31 See Seno Makuma, “Enzan-chō no nidai kagoku” [Two purging imprisonments during the reign of Yŏnsan’gun], Seikyū gakusō 3 (1931): 40–67; and Yun Chŏng, “Chosŏn Chungjong-dae Hun’gup’a ŭi sallim ch’ŏnt’aek unyŏng kwa chaejŏng hwakch’ung ch’aek” [The management of forests, streams, and marshes by the Old Meritorious faction and policies of financial growth during the era of King Chungjong of Chosŏn], Yŏksa wa hyŏnsil 29 (1998): 144–81. The latter, in particular, provides a detailed argument that the Chungjong Restoration was caused by Yŏnsan’gun’s attempt to monopolize rights to natural resources and by the resistance of meritorious elites. 32 Wagner, The Literati Purges 3. 212 chapter four the other, as many historians have agreed. But the contestation eventually headed toward a battle between the king and the literati. The power of the meritorious elites was anchored in a sovereign hegemony that was presumed to be absolute, even though their influence over the king varied widely; and their privileges, nominally speaking, were a reward for their loyal actions for the king. As such, the sarim literati gradually monopolized Chosŏn politics by continuously undercutting the power of the king and the merit subjects. Although the Chungjong Restoration did create another group of merit subjects, their power did not last long, for many of them were sarim themselves or closely related to the sarim. Soon after the disintegration of the meritorious elites following Chungjong’s reign, the sarim censors emerged as the sole powerful political force, dividing into further multiple factions that would direct Confucian scholarship and politics for the rest of the Chosŏn era. Yŏnsan’gun’s regime did influence the creation of the Sequel. The most apparent impact was that of the actual example of a despotic king. His tyrannical behavior, as recorded in the Annals and other documents, was enough to turn loyalty into a questionable virtue. A number of officials visibly resisted the depraved king during and after the Purge of 1504, and the fact that the horrors of execution did not distinguish between meritorious elites and censors revealed the intensity of the antipathy between the king and the literati in general. The kind of loyalty that had been praised—namely, that of subjects and officials self-sacrificingly protecting or pledging allegiance to their king—was, therefore, justifiably losing its validity. Neither the indisputable legitimacy of the monarchy nor the ideal image of a benevolent ruler, drawn from the ancient sage-kings, could be assumed any longer, thanks to Yŏnsan’gun. The responsibility to rule the state and lead the society now fell on the shoulders of literati, whether they served in officialdom or chose to morally transform their local communities from beyond the government’s reach. The political backgrounds of those who participated in the compilation of the Sequel are telling in this respect. Those mentioned in the preface are Sin Yong-gae, Kang Hon 姜渾 (1464–1519), Kim Chŏn 金詮 (b. 1458), Pak Yŏl 朴説 (1464–1517), Yi Kye-maeng 李繼孟 (1458–1523), Sŏng Mong-jŏng 成夢井 (1471–1517), Yi Chang-gon 李長坤 (1479–1519), Ch’oe Suk-saeng 崔淑生 (1457–1520), and Nam Kon. All six had crossed paths at one time or another in their political careers and had maintained close ties with the sarim faction, though they were not necessarily in continuous agreement. Kang Hon, Sin Yong-gae, Yi Kye-Maeng, and the historian Kim Il-son had all been students of Kim Chong-jik and had spent their the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 213

Endowed Reading Leave (saga toksŏ 賜假讀書),33 granted by Sŏngjong, together.34 Nam Kon and Ch’oe Suk-saeng were friends, and both owed their career advances to Sin Yong-gae’s recommendations. Nam Kon had also been a student of Kim Chong-jik and was granted Leave of Absence with Kim Chŏn, Kang Hon, and Ch’oe Suk-saeng.35 Yi Chang-gon was a student of Kim Koeng-p’il 金宏弼 (1454–1504), who was banished during the Purge of 1498 for being Kim Chong-jik’s disciple, and was involved in the Purge of 1504. Sŏng Mong-jŏng participated in the Chungjong Resto- ration and was a close friend of Cho Kwang-jo 趙光祖 (1482–1519), who studied with Kim Koeng-p’il and became a central figure in sarim politics during Chungjong’s reign. Kang Hon, Kim Chŏn, and Yi Kye-maeng, along with Kim Il-son and Kim Koeng-p’il, were all persecuted in the Purge of 1498. These people all personally witnessed and experienced the blades in the purges wielded by a despotic king who was not worthy of loyalty. A sarim stance was forming of defying the inviolable authority of a king who identified kingship with the state, and this posture would later further affect the collation of the New Sequel. The last reason the Sequel downplayed loyalty stories is related to the point just discussed, but is more practical. Unlike the cases of filial sons and devoted women, the loyalty of a subject was a sensitive issue, one that still affected, or was affected by, contemporary politics. Thus, before including loyalty cases associated with the Restoration, the issue of earlier cases had to be sorted out. Before the Chungjong Restoration, Chosŏn had experienced two comparable incidents: the founding of Chosŏn, which Yi Sŏng-gye and other Koryŏ officials accomplished through a coup against the court to which they swore loyalty, and Sejo’s usurpation of the throne, in which Prince Suyang, with the assistance of a cohort of a few literatus- officials, forced his nephew Tanjong to abdicate. The court discussions therefore naturally focused on the cases of Sŏng Sam-mun (1418–56) and Pak P’aeng-nyŏn 朴彭年 (1427–56), who chose death to maintain their loyalty to Tanjong. When it was suggested to the court that their stories be

33 Endowed Reading Leave (saga toksŏ) was a paid leave given to young civil officials that allowed them to study together at the Hodang 湖堂 Library without performing their regular duties. Sejong initiated the practice, and it was revived by Sŏngjong after Sejo abandoned it. 34 Kim Ŭn-jŏng, “Irakchŏng Sin Yong-gae ŭi sam kwa si segye” [The life and poetic world of Sin Yong-gae, Mr. Pavilion of Two Pleasures], Han’guk hansi chakka yŏn’gu 3 (1998): 388. 35 Yi Chong-muk, “Nam Kon ŭi sam kwa munhak” [The life and literature of Nam Kon], Han’guk hansi chakka yŏn’gu 4 (1999): 34. 214 chapter four included in the Sequel, a series of debates ensued, challenging the appro- priateness of such a move. In contrast, the cases of Koryŏ officials more distant in history, such as Chŏng Mong-ju and Kil Chae, with which those court debates constantly drew parallels, were treated differently. Both Chŏng Mong-ju and Kil Chae had remained loyal to the Koryŏ court and refused to participate in the foundation of Chosŏn, as a result of which Chŏng Mong-ju had been assassinated and Kil Chae became a recluse. But no one took issue with the retention of their stories from the inception of the text (these stories being entitled “Mong-ju Passes Away” 夢周隕命 and “Kil Chae Maintains Honor” 吉再抗節). The loyalty of the actions of Chŏng Mong-ju and Kil Chae was agreed upon with relative ease because they were from the previous dynasty—not to mention that there was a sense of generosity toward worthy opponents. Moreover, the scholarship of Chŏng Mong-ju and Kil Chae was directly followed by that of the sarim literati, who rose as a political power during Chungjong’s reign—a fact that may also have protected the legitimacy of their loyalty from criticism. The stories of Sŏng Sam-mun and Pak P’aeng-nyŏn, however, provoked so many disputes each time they were discussed that they had to be left out of the Sequel due to being too recent for consideration.36 Even more typical of how complicated it was to reach an agreement on a loyal action was the case of Yi Sim-wŏn 李深源 (1454–1504). As will be introduced below, the Sequel was revised in the 1570s. This revised edition was augmented with one more story, entitled “Sim-wŏn Repels the Treacherous” (Sim-won ch’ŏk’kan 深源斥奸), under the category of loyal subjects. Yi Sim-wŏn was a royal relation who had memorialized King Sŏngjong to appoint more young sarim literati to important positions instead of meritorious elites, and to keep away from treacherous “base people” (soin 小人)—specifically, Im Wŏn-jun 林元濬 (1423–1500) and his son, Im Sa-hong.37 (Im Sa-hong was in fact the husband of Yi Sim-wŏn’s paternal aunt.) This caused a feud between Im Sa-hong and Yi Sim-wŏn that lasted for decades. Im Sa-hong and his cohort persistently accused Yi Sim-wŏn of various wrongdoings, depriving him of his office, and eventually had him executed by Yŏnsan’gun during the Purge of 1504.38 As soon as Chungjong came to the throne, Yi Sim-wŏn’s honor was restored.39 When the Sequel was compiled, however, though his case

36 Chungjong sillok 29:11–12a (Chungjong 12/8/5). 37 Sŏngjong sillok 91:13–14a (Sŏngjong 9/4/9). 38 Yŏnsan’gun ilgi 62:5a (Yŏnsan’gun 12/4/17). 39 Chungjong sillok 1:16b (Chungjong 1/10/2). the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 215 was originally considered to be included, it was stopped by Kim Al-lo 金安老 (1481–1537),40 then an official working at the Hall of (Compiling) the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (Sok Samgang haengsil ch’ŏng 續三綱行實廳) who later gained political power by having his son marry Chung jong’s daughter.41 Kim Al-lo had reservations about Yi Sim-won, for Yi Sim-wŏn had earlier rejected his promotion.42 In 1518 a group of ministers, including some of the compiling editors (Sin Yong-gae, Kim Chŏn, Yi Kye- maeng, and Ch’oe Suk-saeng) requested that the king allow Yi Sim-wŏn’s case to be added to the Sequel and give laudatory reward to his household for his loyalty.43 Chungjong agreed, and Yi’s family was given the reward, but the Sequel was not revised until later. In 1560, Yi Sim-wŏn’s brother Yi Ho-wŏn 李浩源 submitted a memorial to King Myŏngjong 明宗 (r. 1534–67) requesting the inclusion of his brother’s story in the Sequel that was about to be reedited and printed.44 The request was granted and the story finally appeared in the revised edition of the Sequel in the 1570s (see Table 4 below). As already mentioned, the front matter of the Sequel in 1514 stated that it included seven stories of loyal subjects, when the actual text only contained five. Yi Sim-wŏn’s case accounts for one of the two missing stories. There is no way to find out what happened to the other missing story; and we can only guess that it fell victim to a fate similar to that of Yi Sim-wŏn’s but did not survive.

Editions of the Sequel The print history of the Sequel is somewhat unclear. By the time of the Sequel, vernacular text had become an essential part of the layout. The editorial format of the Sequel editions was more or less the same as that of the previous vernacular and reduced editions of the Samgang haengsil-to. Each folio contained one story; each folio had an illustration on the right and verbal text on the left, so that, when folded and bound, the illustration opened the story on the verso, followed by the written text on the

40 Chungjong sillok 29:17a–18a (Chungjong 12/8/8). 41 Kim Al-lo was also a nephew of one of the editors, Kim Chŏn. See Kim Al-lo, Yongch’ŏn tamjŏk ki 龍泉談寂記 [Records of Mr. Dragon Spring’s talks in solitude], (1525); collected in Taedong yasŭng 大東野乘 [An unofficial history of the Great East], (compiler unknown, n.d.; lithographically reprinted in Hansŏng [Seoul]: Chōsen kosho kankōkai, 1909), 114. 42 Chungjong sillok 85:91b (Chungjong 32/10/27). 43 Chungjong sillok 29:9 (Chungjong 12/8/9). 44 Myŏngjong sillok 26:42b–43b (Myŏngjong 15/6/26). 216 chapter four recto of the next page. The written text had the text in classical Chinese in the main page space—first the narrative and then a poem. Unlike previous editions that had both poems and eulogies, the Sequel included only poems. The vernacular text was placed in the top margin, just as in the earlier editions. Somewhat differently from the previous edition, the size of the vernacular Chŏng’ŭm letters is larger in this Sequel (Figure 11). Chung jong issued an edict to enlarge the size of Chŏng’ŭm letters because those in the previous Samgang haengsil-to were too small.45 This may indicate that some commoners—the target audiences of oral texts created by a literate teacher—had started to read the vernacular texts by themselves, or that more commoners had begun to read the Chŏng’ŭm in general. The language of the vernacular text in the Sequel is closer to what we might consider a translational style when compared with the previous Samgang haengsil-to. The vernacular text conveyed most of the information in the Chinese text, including the names of characters and places that had often been left out in the vernacular text of the reduced edition. Let us compare the Chinese and Chŏng’ŭm texts of “Lady Zhang Carries a Corpse on Her Back” (Chang ssi pusi 張氏負屍) in translation. Lady Zhang Carries a Corpse on Her Back Lady Zhang was a native of Chenzhou. At the age of fourteen, she was betrothed to a Meng Qibao of the same town. Before long, Qibao, transport- ing his tax [in goods] to Kaifeng, died on the road. [His body] was [temporarily] buried and covered with weed stalks in Xiangfu. Her parents wanted to have her marry [another man], and Lady Zhang said, “I have already been betrothed to Mr. Meng. Now, although he is gone, his mother has nothing to rely on. I wish to be married to nourish her.” Her parents respected her intention and followed it. Then she set out for Xiangfu with her mother-in- law and carried her husband’s remains on her back to inter them back home with a funeral. [She] nourished her mother-in-law for the rest of her life. When her mother-in-law died, she buried her with a funeral according to the rites. The case was reported and a bannered gate was bestowed.46

45 The edict stated: “Those printed by the previous reigns interpreted [the text] using the Vulgar Script because [they] wished to have the ignorant people in the streets and alleyways understand with ease. But the character faces were small; print it with large faces this time and facilitate their viewing.” 祖宗朝所印，欲使閭巷愚民，皆得易知，故用諺字飜譯。但字體微小，今以大字印出，以便觀覽。Chungjong sillok 20:19b (Chungjong 9/4/2). 46 張氏。陳州人。年十四。許同郡孟七保為婚。未幾。七保輸稅於開封。道死。蒿葬祥符。父母欲嫁之。張曰。既許孟氏。今雖亡。其母無所依。願歸以養之。父母重其意。從之。乃與姑。詣祥符負其夫屍還葬。終身養姑。姑卒。以禮葬之。事聞。旌閭。 the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 217

Figure 11. Folio image showing “Wang Zhong Moves Heaven” (Wang Chung kamch’ŏn 王中感天), in the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (1727?). Collection of Waseda University Library.

Lady Zhang was a native of Chenzhou. At the age of fourteen, she promised to wed Meng Qibao who was in the same town. Not long [after that], Qibao died on the road while going to Kaifeng to deliver his tax [in goods]. [His body] was buried temporarily in grass. Her parents wanted to have her marry a [new] husband, and Lady Zhang said, “I have already promised Mr. Meng. Although he is dead, his mother has nothing to depend upon. I pray you, I wish to go to nourish her.” Her parents respected her intention and followed it. Then with her mother-in-law she went to the place where [Meng Qibao] was buried in grass, returned carrying the corpse on her back, and buried it permanently. [She] served her mother-in-law until she died. When her mother-in-law died, she performed her funeral as [specified in] the rites. It was told [to the authorities] and they erected a red gate [of honor].47

47 The vernacular text in romanization is as follows: 張 TYANG氏 :SSI ·non 陳 TTIN 州 CYWUW y :sa·lom ·i·ni ·na·h i ·yel:neyh ·ey hon kowol isnon 孟 ·MOYNG 七 ·CHILQ 保 218 chapter four

The vernacular text that we see here corresponds fairly faithfully to its original in Chinese. But we also notice some discrepancies. First, the term haozang (Kr. hojang 蒿葬, “artemisia burial”) used in the Chinese original was replaced with another Chinese term, caozang 草葬 (Kr. ch’ojang, “grass burial”), in the vernacular text. Both haozang and caozang appear in Sino-Korean documents, although the latter more frequently, meaning to bury someone without proper rituals because of dire circumstances such as war, epidemic, or expeditions.48 It appears that the vernacular text changed haozang to ch’ojang (or chwocang in Yale romanization) because the latter was more familiar to Chosŏn readers. Second, the vernacular text omitted the place where Meng Qibao was temporarily buried, Xiangfu (older name of Kaifeng). Perhaps Xiangfu was not well known in Chosŏn. When it was mentioned the second time in the original, the vernacular rendered it simply as “the place where (Meng Qibao) was buried in grass.” Third, when Lady Zhang told her parents that she still wished to be married, the verb gui 歸 (Kr. kwi), meaning “to return” or, for a woman, “to wed,” was translated in the vernacular simply as “go.” Finally, the vernacular text replaced the Chinese huanzang 還葬 (Kr. hwanjang), “to inter a body with a funeral,” with another Sino-Korean term, yŏngjang 永葬 (or yengcang in Yale romanization), “to bury a body permanently with a funeral.” Discrepancies such as these are still very common in the

:PWOW ·wa 婚 HWON 姻 QIN ho·cya 期 KKUY 約 ·QYAK ·ho·yaste·ni a·ni wo·la 七 ·CHILQ 保 :PWOW y 開 KHOY 封 PWONG ·sta.h ay 貢 ·KWONG 稅 ·SYEY pa·thi·la ·ka·ta·ka kilh ey cwukke·nul 草 :CHWOW 葬 ·CANG ·ho·yaste·ni 張 TYANG 氏 :SSI uy epe·i namcin el·Gywo·lye ·ho·te·ni 張 TYANG 氏 :SSI nil·Gwo·toy ho·ma 孟 MOYNG 氏 :SSI ·uyke ·kuy 期 KKUY 約 ·QYAK ho·ni ·pi·lwok cwu·ke·two cey ·e·mi 依 UY 據 KE hol ·toy :ep·su·ni 願 ·WEN hon·ton ·ka syem·kye ·ci·la ·ho·ya·nol epe·i ku ·ptu·t ul 重 ·TYWUNG·hi ne·kye cwo·chon·tay ·suy·e·mi wa 草 :CHWOW 葬 ·CANG hon ·toy ·ka 屍 :SI 體 :THYEY ·lol ·ci·ye ·wa 永 ·YENG 葬 ·CANG ho·kwo cwuk·twolwok ·suy·e·mi ·lol syem·kite·ni ·suy·e·mi cwukke·nul 禮 ·LYEY ·ta·Wi 送 ·SWONG 葬 ·CANG ho·ni :yet·ca·Wa·nol 紅 HHWONG 門 MWON :syey·ni·la. 48 Haozang means to bury someone before the actual time they are to be ritually buried on a propitious day. By the time of Pu Songling’s 蒲松齡 (1640–1715) use in the Qing, it means a hurried burial, one just to get the body in the ground before it reeks. In our case here, it must mean “to be buried in the artemesia, i.e., buried out in the wilds.” Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–11) uses the expression this way. In reference to Du Fu, it is “wrapped in a rush mat and buried without the proper rituals” (葦席蒿葬). Caozang is connected to a funerary practice in which a corpse is left above ground, covered in grass, until the flesh completely decays so that the bones can be collected at a later time—a funerary procedure practiced in southern China that is also found in southern coastal regions in Korea today. See Pak Chong-o, “Songi-do ŭi ch’obun koch’al” [A study of the grass graves of Songi-do Island], Han’guk minsokhak 41 (2005): 303–31. But in Chosŏn the term was also used in the sense of a makeshift funeral in dire financial situations. See “Relief and Aid” (Kuhyul 救恤), Great Compendium of Administration, 4:65. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 219

Sequel, but it tends not to add or omit content when compared with the original. Still, there are parts habitually omitted in the vernacular text, such as honorary titles bestowed posthumously upon the protagonist by the court, which usually appear at the end of the Chinese texts. There are largely two kinds of Sequel edition: (1) ones that contained Chinese characters mixed in with the vernacular text, and (2) ones with the vernacular text rendered exclusively in Chŏng’ŭm. Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho have summarized these as shown in Table 4. The two extant copies described here are both in the Kyujanggak collection. The copy estimated to be the earliest was not printed in 1514 but is a recut print made some time later in the sixteenth century (see Table 4). According to Fujimoto Yukio, a copy of the Sequel held in the Toyō Bunkō (Call number: XI–4–B–3) in Japan is affixed with a seal reading “Dazai Daiji 太宰/ 大弍.” This was the seal of Ōuchi Yoshitaka 大内義隆 (1507–51) of the powerful Ōuchi family of Yamaguchi 山口, and it is therefore thought to have been acquired by Ōuchi before 1551.49 The other extant copy, which Song and Yi identify as a recut copy of an earlier edition made during the 1570s (see Table 4), has a colophon at the end of the text of the last story in the “Devoted Women” section that reads: “Chŏngmi year, intercalary third month, [blank] day, Kiyŏng [the provincial government of P’yŏngyang] engraved” 丁未閏三月日箕營開刊. Based on this, bibliographers have dated it to 1727. Some have also suggested 1607 for the sexagenary cycle chŏngmi, especially because the Chŏng’ŭm orthography shows the characteristics of the Korean language of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.50 An Pyŏng-hŭi, however, has pointed out that 1727 is the only possibility of a chŏngmi year that had an intercalary third month, thus settling the controversy.51 Another edition of the Sequel was suggested to have come out in 1581, based on the copies collected in the National Diet Library (NDLC number: W941) and the Naikaku Bunkō 內閣文庫 (Cabinet Library, Call number: 299–0154) of Japan and the National Central Library in Taiwan (Book number: 02640). According to An Pyŏng-hŭi, these copies differed from

49 Fujimoto Yukio, “Old Korean Books Preserved in Japan,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 69 (2012): 4. 50 Hong Yun-p’yo, “Sok Samgang haengsil-to haeje” [Précis of the Sequel to the Sam- gang haengsil-to], in the Sok haengsil-to, photographic reprint, no pagination (Seoul: Hongmun’gwan, 1988). 51 An Pyŏng-hŭi, “Kyujanggak sojang kŭndae kugŏ charyo ŭi sŏjihak-chŏk kŏmt’o” [A bibliographical examination of the early modern Korean materials in the Kyujanggak collection], Kyegan sŏjihakpo 2 (1990): 16. 220 chapter four

Table 4. Editions of the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to Outlined by Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho Vernacular Engraving Year Physical Extant Textual Marks: Text Format Description Punctuation on Chinese, Accents on Korean Chŏng’ŭm original 1514 no (Han’gŭl) recut 16th 23 × 16 cm, yes punctuation (Ch.) with Chinese century black fishtail accent (Kr.) characters Chŏng’ŭm original 1570s no only recut 1727 27.7 × 16.4 cm, yes no marks flower- patterned fishtail Source: Adapted from Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho, “Chosŏn sidae ‘Haengsil-to’ p’anbon mit p’anhwa e kwanhan yŏn’gu” [A study on the editions and printed illustrations of Haengsil- to during the Chosŏn era], Sŏjihak yŏn’gu 21 (2001): 97. the 1727 edition in that the vernacular text still used the Chŏng’ŭm symbol for a syllable-final velar nasal consonant ng (ᇰ), which disappeared along with the other obsolete symbols (ᄫ W and ᅀ z) in the 1727 edition. An Pyŏng-hŭi dates these copies to 1581 because they are similar (though he does not explain in what aspect) to the Samgang haengsil-to in the private collection of Yi Hŭi-sŭng 李熙昇 (1896–1989), which was attached with a note of royal gift (naesagi 內賜記) of 1581. 52 This is also supported by another note of royal gift of the same year left on the one in Taiwan.53 But if the note of royal gift on the Samgang haengsil-to is the only grounds for dating the copies to 1581, then the assessment is less than convincing. A note of royal gift does not mean that the book was printed in the same year. It only means that the royal gift was bestowed then, and that the prints were ready by then. This is probably why Song and Yi hypothesized an original edition of the 1727 recut prints and dated it to the 1570s,

52 An Pyŏng-hŭi, “Chungseŏ ŭi Han’gŭl charyo e taehan chonghapchŏgin koch’al” [A comprehensive examination of Han’gŭl materials in Middle (Korean) language], Kyu- janggak 3 (1979): 131. 53 Shibu Shōhei, Genkai Sanko gyojitsuzu kenkyū, 471. This perhaps persuaded Chŏng et al. to list the copies in the archives in Japan and Taiwan as 1581 editions, though they did not explain them further. See Chŏng U-yŏng, Yi Chŏng-il ,and Chŏng Sang-hun, Yŏkchu Sok Samgang haengsil-to [Translated and annotated Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to], (Seoul: Han’guk munhwasa, 2008), xv–xvi. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 221

Table 5. Editions of the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to, Revised Summary Vernacular Year Physical Marks and Location Text Format Description Old Chŏng’ŭm Symbols Chŏng’ŭm 1514 not extant (Han’gŭl) before 23 × 16 cm, black punctuation Kyujanggak, Toyō Bunkō with 1551 fishtail, 13 lines × (Ch.), (Japan), Changsŏgak Chinese 22 characters accent (Kr.) characters ᇰ, ᄫ, ᅀ, ᇢ etc. Chŏng’ŭm 1570s 25.5 × 17.5 cm, no marks Tongsan Library only (1581?) flower-patterned ᇰ (Keimyung University); fishtail, 13 lines × Cabinet Library, National 22 characters Diet Library (Japan); National Central Library (Taiwan)* 1727 27.7 × 16.4 cm, no marks Kyujanggak, National flower-patterned Library of Korea fishtail, 13 lines × 22 characters * Online catalogue services provided by these archives verify the existence of these copies, but I have not been able to verify the details myself. Hence this list remains tentative except for the Tongsan Library. instead of to 1581, though they wrote that an actual extant copy of such an edition is unknown (see Table 4). Despite the fact that dating it specifically to 1581 may be disputed, however, the existence of a third kind of edition appears irrefutable. Two copies of the Sequel found recently in the archives of the Tongsan Library of Keimyung (Kyemyŏng) University, Taegu, display the same features as those An Pyŏng-hŭi mentions for the copies outside Korea: it uses the symbol ᇰ but not the other obsolete ones.54 Thus we can revise the summary of the editions of the Sequel as shown in Table 5. The vernacular text of the sixteenth-century edition (before 1551; see Table 5) displays Sino-Korean words and personal and place names in Chi- nese characters, each of which is followed by pronunciations in Chŏng’ŭm. It also indicates Middle Korean pitch accents, just as the earlier reduced

54 Paek Tu-hyŏn, “Kyemyŏng taehakkyo Tongsan Tosŏgwan sojang kugŏsa charyo ŭi kach’i” [The value of the materials for the history of Korean in the collection of the Tong- san Library, Keimyung University], Han’gukhak nonjip 37 (2008): 75–81. 222 chapter four editions did. As a matter of fact, the Chŏng’ŭm transcription exhibits the same linguistic features represented by the vernacular texts of the 1490 edition (i.e., the reduced Samgang haengsil-to). The pronunciation of the Chinese characters even observes the conventions of the Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk chŏng’un). This shows the conservative nature of this early edition of the Sequel, which followed all the proto- cols of the previous reduced edition when it was conceived. As discussed above, the language of the vernacular text is more translational than that in the reduced edition, in the sense that it reflects the contents of the Chinese text somewhat more faithfully, but it is still far from being legitimately translational. True, it did not add, as the reduced edition did, more content than what was written in the Chinese text. But the habitual omission and paraphrasing of details are still noticed quite frequently. We might understand this as an intermediate stage in the development of the cognizance of translational style. Unlike what happened to the earlier and later editions of the reduced Samgang haengsil-to, the Chŏng’ŭm text of the Sequel did not change between its earlier sixteenth-century and later 1727 editions. Only the inscriptional surface was modified: the Chinese characters were removed, accent marks disappeared, and orthographical details were adjusted to accommodate a newer phonological phase of the language. The sentence structure, lexical choice, and contents conveyed remained unchanged. Finally, poetry still retained its place in the Sequel. The previous initial edition attached poems and/or eulogies to all stories, as did the reduced edition because they did not entail any changes to the original layout (though the vernacular text omitted them). The Sequel repeated this format and attached a heptasyllabic poem (but no eulogy) to each story. The physical layout reveals some changes from the earlier to later editions. First, the punctuation marks of the Chinese text have all disappeared in the 1727 edition. Proper punctuation was perceived, however symbolically, as critical to establishing unequivocal messages from the Chinese text. This was one of the practices that had been observed steadily since the Palace Treasury titles of the Ming (see Figure 2), as well as the Chosŏn court publications, as discussed in Chapter 2. Second, and perhaps in a similar vein, the format of the block-center (p’ansim 板心; Ch. banxin) underwent some simplification. The sixteenth-century edition had large black mouths (tae hŭkku 大黑口) with black fishtails (hŭgŏmi 黑魚尾) on both the upper and lower ends, but these were altered to double-petal flower-pattern fishtails (iyŏp hwamun ŏmi 二葉花紋魚尾) in the 1727 edition. These changes may have something to do with the fact that the 1727 the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 223 edition was carved and printed not by the court but by a regional office, which allowed for the loss of some typical features of court publications. The reduced edition of the original Samgang haengsil-to published by provincial governments in 1730 shows similar changes. Lastly, the practice of starting the text at the top of the next line (kaehaeng) whenever the text mentioned monarchs in the preface (see Chapter 2) was replaced in the later edition by simply leaving two character spaces within the same line. Kaehaeng had been part of the common editorial practice, especially in court publications, to indicate social hierarchy. Song and Yi suspect that this change may be related to the fact that Nam Kon, who wrote the preface to the Sequel, had been divested posthumously of his title.55 Nam Kon had played a leading role in launching yet another literati purge (called Kimyo sahwa 己卯士禍, or the Purge of 1519) in which a number of young sarim officials, including Cho Kwang-jo, were persecuted. Nam Kon advanced his political career to reach the position of Chief State Councilor, but was impeached in 1558, after his death, during King Myŏngjong’s reign, when the sarim regained their hegemony. According to Song and Yi, the editors tried to reduce the physical length of the preface written by Nam Kon, who had committed such unforgivable wrongs against the sarim literati. The illustrations in the Sequel are almost indistinguishable from those of the original Samgang haengsil-to. Scenes of each story are divided by natural lines such as clouds, mountains, and buildings, and are deployed in sequences that do not match the narrative sequences of the stories. Yet compared with the original Samgang haengsil-to, the illustrations in the Sequel reveal two subtle but conspicuous shifts. First, scenes that include graves (such as a filial son mourning by his parent’s grave) are almost always placed at the top of the illustration. This was also noticed in the original Samgang haengsil-to, and Cho Hyŏn-u has hypothesized that certain ritual objects were purposefully situated in the top registers of illustrations. But unlike the original Samgang haengsil-to, for which Cho Hyŏn-u could find a list of objects that were treated similarly, the Sequel placed only graves in the top registers. It is as though an illustrational convention was being established. The other items that Cho Hyŏn-u noticed in the upper portion of illusrations in the original do not always appear in the upper portion of the illustrations in the Sequel.

55 Song and Yi, “Chosŏn sidae ‘Haengsil-to’ p’anbon mit p’anhwa e kwanhan yŏn’gu,” 98. 224 chapter four

The second change in the Sequel illustrations that draws our attention is the bannered gates (also customarily called hongmun 紅門, literally, “red gates”).56 As introduced earlier, many of these stories were chosen from cases that were reported to and approved by the court as exemplary. The approval and acknowledgment came both (1) in the form of honorary awards (e.g., Bannered Gates) and monetary benefits (pokho 復戶, exemption from corvée and tax duties), and (2) in the form of actual bannered gates, as symbolic signs for others to recognize. In the stories of those to whom the Bannered Gates were given, the text does not fail to mention this fact at the end; and if a bannered gate was erected, it is always shown in the illustration.

The New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom

The Sarim and the Haengsil-to During Chungjong’s reign, Chosŏn politics prepared for a transition from the opposition between the old meritorious ministers and the censoring sarim literati to a new phase. The old meritorious ministers as a political power in the traditional sense, with hereditary privileges based on the king’s political debt to them, began to disintegrate; at the same time, more ideologically united sarim literati inside and outside officialdom emerged at the forefront of society. The sarim literati then dominated Chosŏn politics for the next three hundred-odd years, in what historians often refer to as “faction (pungdang 朋黨) politics,” a quasi-parliamentarism in which different literati factions competed in wielding their influence on every policy issue. The king thus had to constantly assume the role of arbiter of factional conflicts, and sometimes had to claim authority in defense of his sovereignty. Though there were consort kin who became powerful due to being relatives of the king, they were different from the traditional merit subjects. The sarim’s philosophical stance clearly emphasized the role of literati in constructing and leading a moral community that took fundamental primacy over the state. The moral-political activism of the sarim was represented by Cho Kwang-jo, who, as a censor at the Institute

56 The Bannered Gate was in one of two forms: either laudatory banners were hung on existing gates at individual houses, or the government erected new red gates near their residence as a symbol of their virtuous conduct. These gates are what are referred to as “red gates.” the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 225 of Remonstrators, remonstrated several times with Chungjong about the undeserved leniency he had shown toward the presumptuous acts of the high officials who had helped achieve his enthronement.57 Cho’s forthright protests, firmly grounded in Confucian ethics, were the first foot in the door for the sarim officials, who wanted to put their political philosophy into practice. As a result, the group redirected Chosŏn Confucian discourse along the lines of the daoxue and Neo-Confucian fundamentalism formulated by Zhu Xi. This Neo-Confucian discourse focused on the perfection of man’s moral mind through the process of self-cultivation (xiushen 修身).58 The Zhu Xi school emphasized that all men are capable of autonomously realizing moral virtue through ceaseless learning, which to its adherents meant understanding moral value and the difference between right and wrong— qualities that were repeatedly affirmed in the prefaces of the Samgang haengsil-to. This knowledge was inherent in the universal principle (li 理) that was open to investigation and understanding. Thus each person was ontologically self-sufficient, since he (or she) partook of and embodied this same principle, and society and civilization relied on each person’s realization of his moral nature. In Neo-Confucian political philosophy, moral perfection, rather than military or raw political power, also provided the legitimacy for rule. For the sarim Confucians, it was self-evident that only literati who had the ability to read were capable of such learning, for the moral teachings were encoded in the Confucian classics in the form of the sages’ words and actions. A literatus’s learning and self- cultivation were no less than a constant preparatory effort to attain and to materialize moral principle through action, a process by which he could transform his family, local community, and, finally, the world. The sarim faction thus advanced a literati ethical meritocracy that constantly put limits on monarchical power, eventually weakening the sovereign’s authority while establishing a pattern of government by moral

57 Cho Kwang-jo studied with Kim Koeng-p’il, who succeeded the scholarship of Kim Chong-jik and Kil Chae. As introduced above, Kim Chong-jik was posthumously persecuted along with his sarim disciples during the Purge of 1498, and Kil Chae, who had refused to cooperate with the founders of Chosŏn, was one of the early founders of sarim Confucianism. 58 The Great Learning (Daxue 大學) clearly outlined that self-cultivation, which in essence is the process of “illuminating the illustrious virtue” (ming mingde 明明德), is the necessary condition to “regulate one’s family” (qi jia 齊家), “rule the nation” (zhi guo 治國), and eventually “pacify heaven-and-earth” (ping tianxia 平天下). 226 chapter four suasion.59 With their relentless naturalistic, ethico-metaphysical perspective, the sarim underscored the importance of the family (ka 家) as the center of primary human bonds, over that of the state (kuk 國). We may portray them as stern moralists, adhering to strict and literal practices of ethical decorum, whose most important tool was one text—the Elemen- tary Learning (Xiaoxue 小學; Kr. Sohak), a primer of moral education compiled by Zhu Xi in 1189—and who emphasized family rites (karye 家禮), especially as specified in the Family Rites of Master Zhu (Zhuzi jiali 朱子家禮). Realizing what Zhu Xi had attempted in China during the Southern Song, the sarim promoted their political ideals to run the state through local-communal self-government, such as village covenants (hyangyak 鄉約), and to morally transform communities under the guidance of private academies (sŏwŏn 書院). Thus loyalty to the king was by no means the most important virtue for the sarim. The ramifications of sarim politics are detectable in two aspects of the entire Samgang haengsil-to print history. One is the criticism of the radical actions contained in the Samgang haengsil-to. We have already seen the moral dilemma that actions such as severing a finger or sacrificing one’s life had caused, and how, as a result, many such stories were left out in the reduced edition. The sarim could not approve of such actions, either. Ethi- cal actions were to be performed in the normal course of quotidian life, as a natural manifestation of the moral self, for under the daoxue paradigm the social order was ultimately a natural order, and actions undertaken in extreme and unusual situations were not to be made into models for the masses. Instead, the sarim literati asserted that the Elementary Learning, which spelled out the daily routines of propriety, could serve as a much better ethical primer for the uneducated. A proposal issued by the Office of Advancement of Literature (Hongmun’gwan 弘文館) to King Chung jong in 1517 illustrated this point: What is contained in the Samgang haengsil-to, however, are actions which are so out of the ordinary or at such a far remove, generally all taking place at times of untoward change and difficult peril; they are not the [normal] Way of daily activities and routine conduct—so not every person can be held accountable to them. The book of Elementary Learning is crucial for day-to-day use, but the eyes of the folk in the alleyways and streets and of housewives do not know books, and it is difficult for them to read and practice it. We plead that, among all books available, [the court] translate

59 For more on the socio-political ideals of the sarim and their influence on Chosŏn society, see Ki-Baik Lee, A New History of Korea, 205. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 227

into Vulgar Script those [books] crucial for daily use, such as the Elementary Learning, Biographies of Exemplary Women [Yŏllyŏ-jŏn 列女傳], Women’s Precepts [Yŏgye女誡], and Women’s Principles [Yŏch’ik 女則], and have them printed and distributed inside and outside the capital.60 The sarim ethical and political agenda also led to the publication of the Iryun haengsil-to 二倫行實圖 (Illustrated guide to the Two Relations) in 1518. Because of the importance of local-communal governance, the two of the five canonical human relationships omitted in the Samgang haengsil- to—namely, “trust between friends” 朋友有信 (Pungu yu sin, Ch. Pengyou you xin) and “order between seniors and juniors” 長幼有序 (Changyu yu sŏ, Ch. Zhangyao you xu)—needed to be promoted.61 Its publication was proposed by a member of Cho Kwang-jo’s cohort, Kim An-guk 金安國 (1478–1543), when he was serving in the Royal Secretariat (Sŭngjŏng-wŏn 承政院).62 It followed the same format as the Samgang haengsil-to, and contained forty-eight cases (all Chinese) under four categories: hyŏngje 兄弟 (siblings), chongjok 宗族 (lineage family), pung’u 朋友 (friends), and sasaeng 師生 (teacher-disciple).63 The diminishing number of loyal subjects in the Sequel, and also in this subsequent augmentation of extra- familial (or pan-familial) values, are illustrative of the sarim’s shift in ethical focus. Though they still regarded filial piety and female devotion as indispensible values fundamental to a Confucian society, loyalty to the king, or to the state as represented by the king, was not. The operative core for leading the state (and, by extension, the world at large) was the literati community. Filial piety and female devotion were required for everyone, regardless of gender or social class, but the other two cardinal values—trust between peers and seniority-based order, as delineated in the Iryun haengsil-to—were intended for a specific group of people, namely, the literati. Although it contained vernacular text in the top

60 然《三綱行實》所載，率皆遭變故艱危之際，孤特激越之行，非日用動靜常行之道，固不可人人而責之。《小學》之書，廼切於日用，而閭巷庶民及婦人之目不知書者，難以讀習矣。乞於群書內，最切日用者，如《小學》、如《列女傳》、如《女誡》、《女則》之類，譯以諺字，仍令印頒中外。Chungjong sillok 28 21b–22a (Chungjong 12/6/27). 61 Kim Hun-sik, “16 segi Iryun haengsil-to pogŭp ŭi sahoesa-jŏk koch’al” [A socio-historical study of the dissemination of the Iryun haengsil-to in the sixteenth century], Yŏksa hakpo 107 (1985): 15–68. 62 Chungjong sillok 32:42b–43a (Chungjong 13/4/1). In the same proposal, Kim An-guk also affirmed that he had already finished printing the Iryun haengsil-to in Kyŏngsang 慶尚 Province while he was working as Surveillance Commissioner of the region. 63 For a detailed bibliographical study of the Iryun haengsil-to, see Song Chong-suk, “Iryun haengsil-to ko” [A study of the Iryun haengsil-to], Sŏjihak yŏn’gu 4 (1989): 223–56. 228 chapter four margin to be consistent with the Samgang haengsil-to, all the stories collected in the Iryun haengsil-to were Chinese, and most of them were about male literati characters. This influence of the sarim on Chosŏn society is key to our understanding of the New Sequel.

The Compilation of the New Sequel From 1592 to 1598, Chosŏn experienced the Imjin Wars with Japan (Imjin waeran 壬辰倭亂, also known as the Hideyoshi Invasions). Consisting of two major invasions by Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豐臣秀吉 (1537–98), this seven-year conflict threw the entire Korean peninsula into great turmoil. The Japanese pillaged and slaughtered, and destroyed Chosŏn in all aspects, something for which the court and its people were completely unprepared. King Sŏnjo (r. 1568–1608) even had to flee to the north (Ŭiju 義州, near the Yalu River), and two royal princes were briefly held hos- tage by the Japanese army. At first, Chosŏn defenses relied on voluntary guerilla forces (ŭibyŏng 義兵, “righteous armies”), but the court eventually requested that the Ming dispatch a relief army. In 1595, during a lull after the first Hideyoshi invasion, Sŏnjo mandated the compilation of a book recording those who had been martyred during the war: The ills of the literati are excessive in our country. For private academies [sŏwŏn] that are not significant, abolish them for the time being. It is necessary to install military schools such as Hullyŏnwŏn [Military Train- ing Bureaus] at the large Military Commands in each province, and have them raise soldiers and train them in [martial] skills. In addition, for those who were given Bannered Gate commendations after the disturbance, having died for honor, we should first of all print [their stories] and disseminate them inside and outside [the country]. Tell this matter to the Border Defense Council.64 It is interesting how Sŏnjo related the matter. He ordered a reduction in the number of private academies instituted by large literati families, holding the literati responsible for the crisis, and emphasized military prepa- rations. Then he ordered the compilation of the stories of those who had been martyred during the war and singled out the Border Defense Coun- cil, a military command office, to take charge of this task. The martyrs,

64 我國文弊太勝，如不關書院，姑爲革罷。各道大都護，宜立武學，如訓鍊院，使之養兵鍊業。且事變後，死節旌表之人，宜先印出，頒諸中外事，言于備邊司。Sŏnjo sillok 宣祖實錄 65:20a (Sŏnjo 28/7/12). the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 229 then, were those who had died for their loyalty to the country—not the filial or the devoted. His intention was specific and clear: loyalty needed to be rewarded. Seven days later, the Ministry of Rites reported that those who had received laudations were scarce, and suggested the need to solicit more recommendations. The ministry then added that the book should include filial sons and devoted women in addition to loyal subjects. This may not have been intended merely to fill out the number of stories for the book. Literatus-officials’ diluting of the king’s wish to commemorate loyal heroes is redolent of what had happened to Chungjong and his initiative in publishing the Sequel after the Chungjong Restoration. The Ministry of Rites went on to request that Sŏnjo charge the relevant offices to accumu- late more cases of loyalty as exhaustively as possible. True, any laudation had to be preceded by a process of recommendation and verification, but it was already taking a long time simply to review loyalty cases. This was due to the sensitive political nature of the idea of loyalty, but also suggests that the literatus-officials did not think terribly highly of loyalty as virtue. Adding the other two categories now would mean a further setback. Yet to the minds of the officials, the three fundamental virtues ought to be promoted together and loyalty could not be singled out. Sŏnjo had to agree to this recommendation, though he ordered once again that the officials expedite the process, even if they had to include the records of subjects who had been recommended for laudation but not yet verified.65 Despite this, however, his earlier mandate to select heroes from among those who had already been commended remained the inviolable principle for the rest of the compilation procedure of the New Sequel. The project was delayed by yet another invasion in 1597 (often separately called the Chŏngyu chaeran 丁酉再亂), and had to resume in 1598. The verification of recommended laudable actions presented even more difficulties than usual because the country was still at war. As the number of recommendations continued to increase, so did the destruction of documents and records due to the depredations of war, which threw the entire laudation process into confusion. The matter of fairness also arose, as it became known that cases in the remote countryside might remained unnoticed or be ignored while proportionately more cases were recorded and awarded for members of the literati families living in the

65 Sŏnjo sillok 65:34a (Sŏnjo 28/7/19). 230 chapter four city.66 The Ministry of Rites finally categorized recommendations into different grades of laudation—namely, Bannered Gate (chŏngmun 旌門, i.e., chŏngnyŏ), awarding employment (sangjik 賞職), and exemption from duties (pokho)—and sped up the process, which resulted in a tentative completion of sorting out the cases and relevant records from which the editors of the New Sequel were to choose its stories.67 But the publishing project had to face yet another delay. The problem this time was selecting merit subjects (kongsin 功臣) and determining their decoration. The difficulty lay primarily in Sŏnjo’s insistence on giving more generous rewards to those who had escorted him to his Travel Pal- ace (haengjaeso 行在所)—called Subjects of Merit in Guarding the King (hosŏng kongsin 扈聖功臣)—than were given to those who had actually fought the Japanese in battle. Sŏnjo attributed the final fending off of the Japanese attacks and regaining of control to the Ming relief army, rather than to the domestic forces of the Chosŏn government troops and the righteous armies. Perhaps this was Sŏnjo’s effort to maintain diplomatic stability with the Ming,68 but it was also due to the fact that Sŏnjo and those named Subjects of Merit in Guarding the King had been instrumental in facilitating the intervention of the Ming relief army and had cooper- ated with them in the north.69 Since Sŏnjo’s initial failure to respond to the Japanese invasion had brought about such disastrous results in the country, promoting the merits of the Ming army and those who had facilitated it would help downplay his errors. We can find another political calculation behind Sŏnjo’s stance on the aftermath of the war as well. While Sŏnjo was on the road to the north, Kwanghaegun 光海君 (Prince Kwanghae) had led the Detached Court (punjo 分朝) as the crown prince, and made successful defensive strategies in the south near the battle lines by integrating the righteous armies under government military command. Sŏnjo was not fully trusting of Kwanghaegun and constantly tried to keep his power from growing. Thus he was reluctant to commend either Chosŏn troops and generals or the righteous armies. Since Sŏnjo repeatedly refused to approve recommendations for Subjects of Merit in Military Brilliance (sŏnmu kongsin 宣武功臣), except for naval generals whose

66 Sŏnjo sillok 134:16b (Sŏnjo 34/2/10). 67 Sŏnjo sillok 163:6b (Sŏnjo 36/6/9). 68 Han Myŏng-gi, Imjin Waeran kwa Han-Chung kwan’gye [The Imjin Wars and Sino- Korean relations], (Seoul: Yŏksa pip’yŏngsa, 1999), 80–81. 69 Sŏnjo sillok 135:9b (Sŏnjo 34/3/14). the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 231 triumphs were undeniable, and since the ministers objected to the king’s refusals, the selection of merit subjects was delayed even further.70 After Kwanghaegun’s (r. 1608–23) succession to the throne, the publication project of the New Sequel resumed apace. In 1612, almost twenty years after its initial conception by Sŏnjo, Kwanghaegun ordered the resump- tion of its compilation.71 Three years later, once again upon Kwanghae- gun’s urging,72 the Ministry of Rites reported that it had finally sorted out all the cases to be commended. In accord with the censors’ requests, the matter had become the responsibility of the Office of Advancement of Literature, which composed the texts and illustrations for publication. At this point, Kwanghaegun still conceived of the publication as recording exclusively wartime examples. But the Ministry of Rites contended that the book ought to become another Sequel to the Samgang haengsil (Sok Samgang haengsil ) and should therefore also include cases from before the wars.73 This was the first time the title of the new book was proposed, which would become a continuation of the previous tradition of court publishing of the Samgang haengsil-to. The Office of Advancement of Lit- erature then proposed establishing a unit dedicated to publishing the new book, for the project was of grave importance but was facing additional difficulties in verifying the massive pile of records.74 As a result, the Hall of Collation for the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng 東國新續三綱行實撰集廳; hereafter, the Hall of Collation) was created under the Ministry of Personnel (Ijo 吏曹).75 In addition to compiling the text for publication, the Hall of Collation documented the publication process in an ŭigwe 儀軌 (record of procedures) entitled the Record of Procedures of the Hall of Collation for the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe 東國新續三綱行實撰集廳

70 For the unfolding of the determination of merit subjects during the Imjin Wars, see Yi Chŏng-il, “Imnan si ŭi kongsin ch’aekhun ko” [A study on the recording of service by merit subjects in the Imjin Wars], Ulsan sahak 3 (1990). 71 Kwanghaegun ilgi 光海君日記 8:73a (Kwanghaegun 1/10/17). 72 Kwanghaegun ilgi 14:1a (Kwanghaegun 3/2/2). 73 Kwanghaegun ilgi 19:1a (Kwanghaegun 4/6/1). 74 Kwanghaegun ilgi 19:12a (Kwanghaegun 4/6/4). 75 The actual establishment of the Hall of Collation did not happen until two years later, in 1614. For details, see Yi Kwang-nyŏl, “Kwanghaegun-dae Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to p’yŏnch’an ŭi ŭiŭi” [The significance of the compilation of the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom during the reign of Kwanghaegun], Han’guksa-ron 53 (2007): 159–60. 232 chapter four

儀軌), which provides valuable details about the participants, orders and decisions, interdepartmental communications, and so forth, all in chronological order. It also spends pages listing the names of all the people whose stories are contained in the New Sequel. The fact that an ŭigwe was compiled for the publication of the New Sequel is noteworthy because the Chosŏn court typically published ŭigwe to document procedures for such ritual events as state worship ceremonies, royal banquets, marches, wed- dings, diplomatic receptions, construction of palace buildings, and the like. Apart from the compilation of the Annals, the New Sequel was one of the few books whose publication was recorded in an ŭigwe. In other words, the publication of the New Sequel became a ritualistic event, unlike the other previous Samgang haengsil-to or other Haengsil-to. The first order of business at the Hall of Collation was to decide on the scope of stories to include and the layout of the new book.76 The original plan was to publish three volumes, according to the three piles of stories that had accumulated: upper (sang 上), middle (chung 中), and lower (ha 下) groups. The upper group contained 775 people who had already been awarded laudations; the middle, those who had been recommended but had yet to be awarded; and the lower, those whose actions were commendable but not as laudable as the other two groups.77 With the 348 people in the middle and lower groups, the total number of stories came to 1,123. Following the old layout, in which one folio was dedicated to one person, more than 1,100 folios would be needed, which would result in eleven or twelve 100-folio volumes for one set. Trying to reduce the number of stories, the Hall of Collation decided to include all the cases in the upper group and select only outstanding examples from the other two groups, communicating with the Ministry of Rites to rank the cases in the middle and lower groups.78 This would certainly delay the publication even further. Because of the overwhelming size of the contents, the layout format was also reconsidered. The proposal by the Hall of Colla- tion was: (1) to allocate two persons to one folio (i.e., one story per leaf); (2) to divide each leaf into three registers and place the vernacular text in the first register, the Chinese text in the second, and the illustration

76 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe [The record of procedures of the Hall of Collation for the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom], photographically reprinted (Seoul: Kyujanggak, 2002), 23–24. 77 Yi Kwang-nyŏl, “Kwanghaegun-dae Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to p’yŏnch’an ŭi ŭiŭi,” 161 fn. 78 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 33. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 233 in the third;79 (3) to include the name of the hero or heroine in the first line of the text; and (4) not to include poems or eulogies. By the end of that month (i.e., the seventh month of 1614), these layout principles were approved as proposed. Two things should be noted here. First, there was a discussion as to whether or not to include poems and eulogies, since they were integral parts of the previous Samgang haengsil-to editions. But the Hall of Colla- tion insisted on forgoing them, stating, “The true intention of compiling the Samgang haengsil-to, as a matter of fact, is to have housewives and children view it and be inspired, and especially such things as poems and eulogies are superfluous material. Housewives and children would only view the factual records. How would they know the profound meanings of poems and eulogies?”80 Second, it was decided, for some reason that was not documented, not to include illustrations. This is an understandable decision because having court artists produce and carve illustrations was a major obstacle to expediting the publication. Still, these were certainly two major deviations from the previous format. The final decision also incorporated another idea to minimize the court’s burden: distributing the printing production to each province. The rest of the year was rather smooth sailing for the Hall of Collation. The first draft of the texts was completed by the first month of 1615, and the second draft by the second month. When this version was submitted to the king for approval, however, two problems arose. First, court officials contended that recording only wartime examples was not in keeping with the tradition of the Samgang haengsil-to, and hence that it was necessary to include stories of moral actions reported during ordinary times.81 This would entail additional visits to and reports from regional governments, and cause further delays. The second matter was more serious: Kwang- haegun decided that the text needed illustrations. Although the Hall of Collation resisted, stating that drawing the images of merit subjects was not something to be done in haste, and that even the Sequel, with far fewer cases, had taken three years,82 Kwanghaegun remained firm. As a result, not only was the number of stories increased further but the layout

79 It is not clear whether the first register starts from the bottom or the top. 80 撰集三綱行實本意，實欲使中外婦人少子無不覽觀而有所感發也。若詩若讚，特其餘事。婦人少子但觀其事實而已。何知詩讚之深意乎? Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 29. 81 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 50–51. 82 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 54–56. 234 chapter four had to include illustrations as well, which meant that it reverted to the one-story-per-folio format. Each folio would have the illustration on the recto and the text on the verso, just as in previous editions. According to the calculations of the Hall of Collation, the printed set would comprise approximately 1,000 folios, in either ten volumes (if binding 100 stories per volume) or eleven volumes (if binding 90 per volume).83 But by the time the work was finalized four months later (in the tenth month of 1615), the number of folios had increased to some 1,500, divided into seventeen volumes.84 Over the next two months, the king ordered the inclusion of a few more people to those whose stories were to appear in the publication. His orders were explicit, and most of those to be added were loyal subjects.85 Then, on the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth month, the Hall of Collation proposed the addition of an eighteenth volume: an appendix dedicated to all the Korean examples that had appeared in the previous editions (the reduced edition and the Sequel), since the new publication would consist entirely of Korean cases. Kwanghaegun approved this proposal for augmentation.86 To be precise, the eighteen volumes of the New Sequel (Tong- guk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to) were to be comprised of three subtitles, the first two of which were combined into the new (eighteenth) volume: (1) the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk Samgang haengsil-to), with Korean examples collected from the reduced edition of the Samgang haengsil-to; (2) the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk sok Samgang haengsil-to), with Korean examples collected from the Sequel; and (3) the seventeen-volume New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom, with the newly harvested examples. As had been suggested, the printing production was divided among five provincial offices. But instead of giving each province a quota of copies to print of the entire set, each was assigned to produce copies of certain volumes among the eighteen. Supplying wooden blocks and carving text on them was also quite costly, so the court and regional offices could share the expenses this way. Thus Kyŏngsang Province was charged with four volumes; Chŏlla 全羅 Province, six; Konghong 公洪 (modern Ch’ungch’ŏng) Province, four; Hwanghae 黃海 Province, three; and

83 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 59. 84 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 133. 85 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 135–42. 86 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 141. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 235

P’yŏngan 平安 Province, one.87 The original plan was first to print 400 sets. But they ended up printing no more than 50 sets,88 and then the project ground to a halt. No reasons are recorded for this sudden stop or information as to whether more prints followed. This small number of copies produced belies all the years of painstaking work that had continued over two reigns to prepare the text of the New Sequel: collecting, verifying, and screening cases; composing the texts in Chinese and in Korean; devising a new layout to accommodate the large number of stories; scribes writing out the text; court painters drawing illustrations; carvers engraving them onto blocks; and the five provinces participating in the printing process. How should we interpret this? There are some circumstantial factors. In 1623, five years after the publication, Kwanghaegun was dethroned by a coup called the Injo Restoration (Injo panjŏng 仁祖反正) and King Injo’s reign (1623–49) began. Thus the last years of Kwanghaegun’s reign may not have been stable enough to produce and circulate additional copies of the New Sequel. But a more important problem was found in the contents of the book. Insofar as the contents had been repeatedly challenged and changed during the stages of compilation, the final product did not satisfy many people. This is exemplified by the following remark of a sillok historian: The Samgang haengsil-to was originally collated during King Sejong’s reign; and the Sequel, during King Chungjong’s. That which the [newly] established office [i.e., Hall of Collation] collated are the group [of stories of people] who died in service [for the country] or for honor from the times of Chungjong to the Imjin Wars, as well as officially documented moral actions in local areas reported later by the regional offices, which they turned into three sets. After establishing the office, they—without distinguishing between original and sequel—turned the two fascicles compiled during Sejong’s and Chungjong’s reigns and the one collated this time into one set. Then, in the end, they removed the prefaces and postfaces composed in the two reigns, and made it as though it was collated all at the same time. This was all led by the cohort of Ki Cha-hŏn and Yi I-ch’ŏm. [Ki] Cha-hŏn’s father, Ŭng-se, was said to be perverse and a reprobate, but was collected into [the book] as a filial son; [Yi] Ig-yŏp, the son whom [Yi] I-ch’ŏm had while he was still in his mourning period, was once impeached but is listed [in the book] as a filial son. Also, [Yi] I-ch’ŏm inserted himself into the group of loyal subjects on account of having been in exile [after being] plotted against by Yu Yŏng-gyŏng, and words of praise were exhausted in commending him. They

87 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 154. It was not documented which volumes were assigned to each province. 88 Kwanghaegun ilgi 113:53b (Kwanghaegun 9/3/11). 236 chapter four

had their minions fabricate these. Although plenty of women died during the wars, because the Japanese bandits enjoy killing, there were those who were slain for no reason, and they were without virtuous behavior worthy of recording. But because their families and kin wanted to exaggerate the incident, there were cases they reported fictitiously with embellishments. In worse cases, some had lost their honor after being abducted, but their fathers and brothers, because they wanted to cover up this ugliness, reported [the matters] with distortions or made up [the stories] with falsehoods. Since this book was made by mixing in everything, without considering truthful- ness and weight, when it was circulated, the people and crowds laughed at it, and some even used it for plastering walls or covering the mouths of jars.89 The problem pointed out most frequently concerned the fairness involved in whose stories the New Sequel recorded. Ki Cha-hŏn 奇自獻 (1562–1624), Chief State Councilor, and Yi I-ch’ŏm 李爾瞻 (1560–1623), Inspector- General (tae sahŏn 大司憲), had played a central role in enthroning Kwanghaegun when he was the crown prince, in the face of Sŏnjo’s doubts and second thoughts. Ki Cha-hŏn also wrote the “Note of Presen- tation” for the New Sequel. Thus later generations often faulted them for their shamelessness and for corrupting the integrity of the New Sequel. But such defamation can be construed as a part of the expected hatred of the Sŏin 西人 (Westerner) faction of sarim literati—who launched the coup d’état to depose Kwanghaegun—against the Taebuk 大北 (Great North- erner) faction (another sarim faction), led by Ki Cha-hŏn and Yi I-ch’ŏm. The Westerner faction finally came to power with the Injo Restoration,

89 《三綱行實》，本世宗朝所撰，《續三綱行實》，中宗朝所撰也。今設局所撰，乃以中宗以後及壬辰之亂，死事死節之類、其後八道所報鄕行狀牒者，爲三編。而設局之後，不分原、續，直以世宗、中宗朝所撰二卷，竝今所撰，合爲一帙。盡去兩朝序、跋文字，有若一時撰成者然。皆奇自獻、李爾瞻等主之。而自獻之父應世，以淫悖無賴稱，而以孝子編入，李爾瞻喪中産子益燁，曾被彈論，而亦以孝子編入。爾瞻又自以曾爲柳永慶所搆遠竄，竝編於忠臣之類，贊辭極其褒揚，皆令門下製之。亂離婦人死兵者雖多，本因倭奴嗜殺，無故被刃者，無節可錄，而因其門族，欲侈大其事，有張皇瞞報者。甚則或被俘失節，而父兄子弟欲掩其醜，有謬報而僞成者。今一切不考虛實、輕重，混爲是書，書行而人群笑之，或爲塗壁、覆瓿之資。Kwanghaegun ilgi (redrafted edition [chungch’obon 重抄本]) 26:78a (Kwanghaegun 5/12/12). The redrafted edition was composed during Injo’s reign, after Kwanghaegun was deposed. The historian’s opinion, therefore, represents the opinion of his time. There is some discrepancy: Ki Ŭng-se’s story does appear in kwŏn 6 of the New Sequel, entitled “The Most Virtu- ous Actions of Ŭng-se” (Ŭng-se chihaeng 應世至行); but Yi I-ch’ŏm’s story, entitled “The Most Virtuous Actions of I-ch’ŏm” (I-ch’ŏm chihaeng 爾瞻至行; see Figure 13 below) is in the “Filial Sons” rather than “Loyal Subjects” section, right after Ki Ŭng-se. Yi Ig-yŏp’s story is not found anywhere in the New Sequel. This might be an error, for there is no alternative edition of the New Sequel found or recorded. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 237 after having been spurned politically by the Pug’in 北人 (Northerners) for a long time. The kind of cronyism that the book was accused of is not immediately detected. Rather, a perusal of the titles in the New Sequel reveals that a variety of people, from butchers to high officials and royal- house members, were covered in this book.90 We may have to consider this question from a broader perspective. The New Sequel, although initiated by Sŏnjo, was a work of Kwanghae- gun. As we have seen, most of its work was carried out during Kwang- haegun’s regime, under his repeated and sometimes relentless directions. Kwanghaegun’s intention with the New Sequel was, as Yi Kwang-nyŏl has contended, to reinforce his sovereignty and his political high ground.91 That was why he insisted on having the New Sequel contain as many stories as he could, even after the drafting of its text was finished at the Hall of Collation, and also why the examples he wished to add were mostly loyal subjects—though ultimately he did not get his way. As a matter of fact, Kwanghaegun showed signs of being a remarkable ruler, both domestically and diplomatically.92 He was deposed later, but he was not a psychotic despot like Yŏnsan’gun. Though his reign allowed the Northerner faction to become the strongest political power among the bureaucratic factions, his court was hardly swayed by bureaucratic officials, and the ultimate source of power remained with the king himself. As James Palais has observed, bureaucratic strife reached its height, paradoxically, under a strong king, not a weak one.93 Until the enthronement of Injo restored a balance of power between king and bureaucracy, Kwanghaegun’s reign was a period when the king was the anchoring authority of power. At the same time, the rise of the Westerner faction to political hegemony signaled the advent of the hard-line rule of the sarim in post-Imjin Chosŏn. The faction’s justification for launching a coup to depose Kwanghaegun

90 Yi Kwang-nyŏl points out a much more critical flaw in the New Sequel. Since the New Sequel was to include only cases that had already been acknowledged and commended by the court, Kwanghaegun had to bestow laudations as fast as he could in order to increase the number of stories. For example, 782 of the 852 wartime cases (out of the total 1,587) were given laudations within two months (between the second and fourth month) in 1612. This alone was enough to undermine the integrity of the New Sequel stories. Yi Kwang- nyŏl, “Kwanghaegun-dae Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to p’yŏnch’an ŭi ŭiŭi,” 173. 91 Yi Kwang-nyŏl, “Kwanghaegun-dae Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to p’yŏnch’an ŭi ŭiŭi,” 179. 92 Ki-Baik Lee, A New History of Korea, 215. 93 James Palais, “Political Leadership in the Yi Dynasty,” in Political Leadership in Korea, edited by Dae-sook Suh and Chae-jin Lee (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976), 10. 238 chapter four was his immoral behavior. Aspiring to be a strong monarch, Kwanghaegun eliminated his threats, which involved killing or harming members of the royal household. He had Prince Imhae (Imhaegun 臨海君, 1574–1609, his older brother) and the Great Prince Yŏngch’ang (Yŏngch’ang taegun 永昌大君, 1606–14, his younger stepbrother) killed, and deposed the Dowa- ger Queen Inmok (Inmok taebi 仁穆大妃 1584–1632, his stepmother). He thereby violated two of the fundamental tenets of Confucian virtue: filial piety and brotherly love. According to the strict ethical requirements for kings that Cho Kwang-jo and other earlier sarim scholars advocated, Kwanghaegun’s moral flaws were unforgivable.94 Therefore, the New Sequel was a moral guide composed under the direction of an immoral king, and could not be promoted. Discussions started during Injo’s reign about rectifying the contents of the New Sequel, but no action followed. War memory was another issue. We have already seen that Kwanghae- gun strove to have more leaders of government troops and the righteous armies, with whom he worked during the war, recognized as merit subjects (sŏnmu kongsin). He also tried to include more of them in the New Sequel. Though perhaps not on a par with what he had planned, the New Sequel did insert the meritorious services of a few leaders of the righteous armies into the memory of the Imjin Wars. According to No Yŏng-gu, it was thanks to the New Sequel that the services of the righteous armies were finally acknowledged in the aftermath of the Imjin Wars. The memory of the Imjin Wars thus moved from recognizing as Chosŏn’s saviors only the Ming relief army and those who escorted the king (hosŏng kongsin) in Sŏnjo’s era, to recognizing government troops and the righteous armies during Kwanghaegun’s reign, and finally to recognizing the Ming relief army and the righteous armies after the Injo Restoration.95 Quite a few Westerner-faction literati had participated in the righteous armies, and had not been satisfied when Sŏnjo ignored the merits of their military contributions. Although Kwanghaegun and the New Sequel contributed to including the righteous armies as war heroes, this did not quell the qualms of the Westerner faction. Most Westerner-faction leaders of righteous armies, without being integrated into the government troops, had

94 The Westerner faction succeeded the scholarship of Yi I 李珥 (1536–84) and Sŏng Hon 成渾 (1535–98), who both studied with Paek In-gŏl 白仁傑 (1497–1579), a disciple of Cho Kwang-jo. 95 No Yŏng-gu, “Kongsin sŏnjŏng kwa chŏnjaeng p’yŏngga rŭl t’onghan Imjin Waeran kiŏk ŭi hyŏngsŏng” [The formation of the memory of the Imjin Wars through the selection of merit subjects and evaluating the war].” Yŏksa wa hyŏnsil 51 (2004): 11–35. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 239 been attacked by the Japanese on major bases in the southwest region (Kyŏngsangjwa-do and Chŏlla-do) and the central region, and many of them had died in battle. The righteous armies of the Northerner faction, however, were associated with then-prince Kwanghaegun and suffered relatively fewer casualties. Moreover, since the Northerner faction monopolized the political scene during Kwanghaegun’s regime, the sacrifices of the righteous army leaders from the Westerner faction received less attention than those of the Northerner faction.96 Lastly, there was the China factor. The Westerner-faction sarim were characterized by a pro-Ming stance. They advised Injo’s court to declare a clear allegiance to the Ming and a rejection of the Qing, which later resulted in two Manchu invasions (1627 and 1636). Kwanghaegun, in contrast, had displayed skillful leadership in international relations, carefully treading a middle path between the declining Ming and the rising Later Jin 後金 (a former title of the Manchu-Qing dynasty) until his dethronement. To the Westerner faction, the Ming was not only the provenance of the imperial order, but also the ally (apart from the righteous armies) who had come to the rescue when Chosŏn was suffering the Japanese pillaging. Publishing a book containing exclusively Korean examples could not be agreeable to them. Meanwhile, Kwanghaegun’s attitude toward the Ming was rather different from that of other kings. He seems to have been more attentive to Chosŏn’s autonomy and more ambitious about his own sovereignty. In 1616, Kwanghaegun ordered the selection of a place to build the Round Mound Altar (Wŏn’gudan 圓丘壇) on which he would perform a Suburban Sacrifice (kyoje 郊祭).97 Kwanghaegun wanted to perform the ceremony of accepting his title (chonho 尊號) at the Southern Suburb (Namgyo 南郊) with a sacrifice to heaven, following the example of Sejo. But the Suburban Sacrifice was, according to the rites, a ceremony that only the emperor, or the Son of Heaven, could perform, and would be taken as an act of presumption against the Ming—the suzerain state—if a Chosŏn king performed it. It was performed in Korea as early as the Three Kingdoms Period, but its ritual and diplomatic implications for the Ming became a concern after Chosŏn was launched.98 Although the ministers

96 No Yŏng-gu, “Kongsin Sŏnjŏng kwa chŏnjaeng p’yŏngga rŭl t’onghan Imjin Waeran kiŏk ŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 26–27. 97 Kwanghaegun ilgi 106:11a (Kwanghaegun 8/8/17). 98 An illustrative example is Pyŏn Kye-ryang’s memorial in 1416 to perform the South- ern Suburban Sacrifice to heaven and the sillok historian’s criticism against it; see T’aejong sillok 31:44a–47a (T’aejong 16/6/1). Sacrifices at the Southern Suburb were kept only as occasional rituals for rain, and the practice of the king performing a sacrifice in person 240 chapter four at large strongly objected to Kwanghaegun’s order and the sacrifice did not in fact happen, the incident reveals his stance toward the hierarchy between the Ming and Chosŏn. The Westerner-faction sarim, with their pro-Ming attitude, would not have condoned Kwanghaegun’s approach. That the New Sequel turned out to be a Samgang haengsil-to made up exclusively of stories of exemplary Koreans was perhaps closely related to Kwanghaegun’s policy toward Ming-Chosŏn relations and his estimation of the fate of the Ming. But it may also have been connected to other subtle changes that were taking place in Chosŏn society. Around the early seventeenth century, some Chosŏn scholars began to evince a strong interest in the study of Chosŏn and Korea—an interest that had always been faint, for the scholarly interest of literati lay mostly in learning Chinese culture, but one that later blossomed into widespread attention to the knowledge of their own culture and history among eighteenth-century Chosŏn intellectuals. The Topical Discourses of Mr. Chibong (Chibong yusŏl 芝峰類說), written in 1614 by Yi Su-gwang 李睟光 (1563–1628), and Mr. Sŏngho’s Dis- courses on the Minute (Sŏngho sasŏl 星湖僿說), published posthumously in 1740 by Yi Ik 李瀷 (1579–1624), are examples of this florescence.99 There is yet another reason as well, perhaps of more profound import, that this book was no longer printed. This will be explained below, when we discuss the extant edition.

The House of Chosŏn Heroes There is only one edition of the New Sequel. Apart from the 50 sets of copies that the court published with the cooperation of the five provincial offices in 1617, there was no other or additional printing recorded or found. The physical size of the New Sequel is larger than the previous versions of the Samgang haengsil-to we have discussed. The outside measures 37.9 × 25.2 cm, and the inside half-folio text box measures 27.2 × 20.5 cm. Because the main page inside the text box needed to hold both the Chi- nese and the Chŏng’ŭm texts (discussed later), the box had to be enlarged. Each half-folio text box holds sixteen lines, twenty-six characters per line. The previous editions were all of thirteen lines with twenty-two characters. Surveying the frame of the folios, it is immediately apparent that the

ceased. Sejo was the last Chosŏn king before Kwanghaegun to perform a sacrifice to heaven in person at the Southern Suburb, and the only king who performed it to accept his title; see Sejo sillok 6:13b–14a (Sejo 3/1/16). 99 Lee, A New History of Korea, 236–38. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 241 block-center format is not consistent. Overall, the set maintains a white- mouth, flower-pattern black fishtail (paekku hwamun hŭgŏmi 白口花紋黑魚尾), but the number of flower petals varies from zero to four, the size of the fishtails is uneven, and the thin line put above the fishtail is often missing. This could be due to the fact that different provincial offices took part in carving the blocks with the texts they received from the court, but the inconsistency is quite striking even within one and the same volume. Perhaps it is an indication that the entire process was done in haste. There is also an inexplicable irregularity: the volume of “Loyal Subjects” stories is missing the entire fishtail as a rule, showing only the block-center titles and folio numbers. Three structural issues of this edition deserve some attention: (1) the exact title of this publication; (2) the organization of this set; and (3) the position of the volume that recollected Korean examples from previous editions, which we will call the appendix volume. We have been referring to this publication as the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to), but the fact is that this exact title does not appear on all the volumes in the set as their general title. Each section bears an independent title in the list of contents (mongnok 目錄) at its beginning: for example, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil hyoja-do” 東國新續三綱行實孝子圖 (New sequel to the Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom: Filial sons). Its block-center title ( p’ansimje 板心題) abbreviates this title as “Sinsok hyoja-do” 新續孝子圖 (New sequel to the Illustrated Guide: Filial sons). The cover titles, which were written by hand, simply state “Tongguk Samgang haengsil” 東國三綱行實 (Actions of the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom) on all volumes, with fascicle (kwŏn) numbers and indications of the section—hyoja, ch’ungsin, and yŏllyŏ—in small characters in the upper-right corners. Therefore, the title “New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom,” as we have been referring to it, is not found anywhere on the physical surface of the book. This raises the question not only of the acceptability of this title but also of the validity of treating these volumes as one continuous set, rather than as multiple titles published at one time. Using it as the general title to refer to the whole set is, however, substantiated by the Hall of Collation. The Record of Procedures (Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe) employs this title and, as we have seen above, describes the details of the publication process, inclusive of all three sections and the volume of old Korean examples, as one project. Since the unit that was in charge of their publication referred to them as one set 242 chapter four under this title—and based on the indisputably consistent layout, theme, and textual uniformity that its eighteen volumes display—it is only reasonable for us to do the same. The organization of this set comprising eighteen volumes presents another surprise: there is no continuous numbering encompassing all the volumes in the set. The eight volumes (eight fascicles) of the “Filial Sons” section are numbered from kwŏn 1 through kwŏn 8 next to their block-center titles (as well as below the handwritten cover titles); so are the eight volumes in the “Devoted Women” section. The one volume of loyal subjects also bears its number as kwŏn 1, which seems to suggest that it is recognized as a continuous and self-contained fascicle, whereas the appendix volume containing old examples is not so recognized (as is discussed in detail below). Moreover, arranging the three sections in the order of filial sons, loyal subjects, and devoted women is not validated by the book itself, for the order is specfied within each of the three sections but not among them. Though we can safely assume that the “Filial Sons” section (Hyoja-do) precedes the other two because it contains the preface and other front matter to the entire publication, whether the “Loyal Sub- jects” section comes before or after the “Devoted Women” section is not clearly indicated in the book. Again, it is in the Record of Procedures by the Hall of Collation that we find the lists of contents arranged in the order of filial sons, loyal subjects, and devoted women. Lastly, the position of the appendix volume deserves a look. As mentioned above, the Record of Procedures considered this volume housing Korean examples culled from the previous versions of the Samgang haengsil-to (the reduced edition and the Sequel) as a part of the New Sequel. It comprises six sections, the first three of which contain examples from the reduced edition, and the other three from the Sequel: (1) “Tong- guk Samgang haengsil hyoja-do” 東國三綱行實孝子圖 (Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom: Filial sons), (2) “Tongguk Samgang haengsil ch’ungsin-do” 東國三綱行實忠臣圖 (Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom: Loyal subjects), (3) “Tongguk Samgang haengsil yŏllyŏ-do” 東國三綱行實烈女圖 (Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom: Devoted women), (4) “Tong- guk sok Samgang haengsil hyoja-do” 東國續三綱行實孝子圖 (Sequel to the Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom: Filial sons), (5) “Tongguk sok Samgang haengsil ch’ungsin-do” 東國續三綱行實忠臣圖 (Sequel to the Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom: Loyal subjects), and (6) “Tongguk sok Samgang haengsil the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 243 yŏllyŏ-do” 東國續三綱行實烈女孝子圖 (Sequel to the Illustrated Guide to the Three Relations of the Eastern Kingdom: Devoted women). But a problem similar to what we have seen with the whole set is also present here—the absence of overall continuation or cohesion within the volume. For each section, the list of stories is given separately; the block- center title changes; and even the folio number restarts. There is no general title uniting these titles, except for the handwritten title on its cover, which is the same as the other volumes of the set, “Tongguk Samgang haengsil.” But, as pointed out above, the cover title is not marked with a kwŏn number, whereas that of the one-volume “Loyal Subjects” section is (i.e., kwŏn 1). Whoever wrote on the cover of these volumes perhaps acknowledged the “Loyal Subjects” section as an enclosed fascicle, but did not so recognize this appendix volume. It is almost as if these six titles were simply bound together into a volume. Should we then regard it as one fascicle? If it is indeed one single fascicle, where should it be placed, before or after the other volumes? The answer is found in the addendum appended to the last folio of this appendix volume, which states that, as we have seen earlier, the Hall of Collation had presented a memorial proposing to publish a collection of previous Korean examples, and the king approved it. Since the memorial requested that the Hall of Collation “make another volume and add it on top of the new collection,” we can reasonably consider that this volume, as an appendix, was meant to be attached before the New Sequel. Some- what supportive of this assessment is the copy in a set of the New Sequel archived in the National Library of Korea,100 on the cover of which the title “Tongguk Samgang haengsil” is subjoined with “sokpu” 續附 (supplementary attachment) in small characters. To summarize, the New Sequel consists of seventeen fascicles in seventeen volumes and an appendix volume, the entire set comprising eighteen volumes. After the appendix volume (at the beginning), the main volumes of the New Sequel begin, divided into three sections with “New Sequel” (sinsok) added in the titles: “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil hyoja-do” 東國新續三綱行實孝子圖, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’ungsin-do” 東國新續三綱行實忠臣圖, and “Tongguk sinsok Sam- gang haengsil yŏllyŏ-do” 東國新續三綱行實烈女圖. Each section starts

100 Reference number 古155–4. A memo inside the cover indicates that the set was a royal gift to the Odae-san Depository of Histories (Odae-san sago 五臺山史庫) in 1618. 244 chapter four

Table 6. Distribution of Stories in the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (1617) Volumes Appendix Volume of the New Sequel New Sequel to Total number (1 kwŏn) the Samgang of stories in haengsil-to all 18 volumes Korean stories Korean stories (17 kwŏn) of the New collected from collected Sequel Category the 1490 reduced from the 16th- of Stories edition of the century Sequel Samgang to the Samgang haengsil-to haengsil-to Filial Sons 4 33 705 (kwŏn 1–8) 742 Loyal Subjects 6 3 90 (kwŏn 9) 99 Devoted 6 20 720 (kwŏn 10–17) 746 Women

its own kwŏn number, namely, kwŏn 1 through kwŏn 8 of filial sons, kwŏn 1 of loyal subjects, and kwŏn 1 through kwŏn 8 of devoted women.101 Design- ing the entire title as a combination of the three independent titles, which had appeared in the previous Samgang haengsil-to, was continued here. The distribution of listed stories according to the volumes and categories is shown in Table 6. The first fascicle (kwŏn 1 of the “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil hyoja-do”) starts with a preface written by Yun Kŭn-su 尹根壽 (1537– 1616) followed by Ki Cha-hŏn’s “Note of Presentation.” At the end of kwŏn 8 of “Devoted Women” is a postface by Yu Mong-in 柳夢寅 (1559–1623). Each volume begins with a list of the contents (Figure 12), but unlike the previous versions, in which the list logged the four-character titles of the stories, the New Sequel lists registered the names (and official titles, if any) of people whose stories are recorded in the volume in the order in which they appear. Each story is still given a four-character title on the illustration in its folio. This shows, in other words, that the focus of publication had moved from what kind of stories to whose stories were in the volume. Each name occupies the entire line, differently from the previous editions where two story titles occupied one line. Each folio contains one story,

101 In my earlier article, it was presented as if the seventeen volumes of the New Sequel were numbered continuously from kwŏn 1 to kwŏn 17, which is not the case. See Young Kyun Oh, “Printing the Samgang haengsil-to (Illustrated Guide to the Three Relationships), a Premodern Korean Moral Primer,” 33. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 245 with the illustration on the recto and the written text on the verso. Sto- ries are ordered chronologically, and the folio number restarts with each volume. The vernacular text (ŏnhae) in Chŏng’ŭm is no longer placed in the top margin. It has come down to the main page, right after the Chinese text (Figure 13). The linguistic hierarchy on the folio has changed, with the vernacular Korean and the literary Chinese placed side by side. But there is still a subtle order at work, for the vernacular text follows, rather than leads, the Chinese, and the former occupies a space one-character space lower than the latter. Figure 13 shows the unfolded image of the folio holding the above-mentioned case of Yi I-ch’ŏm. Both texts are given a formulaic frame: the first line starts with a sentence indicating the protagonist’s name and place of origin (e.g., “. . . is a person from . . .”); and the last line ends with whether (and when) the case was recognized with laudation (e.g., “The case was commended with a bannered gate during the reign of . . .”). Because bestowing the laudation was done by the king, the line leaves two-character spaces before mentioning the court. Another modification introduced in the New Sequel is the absence of poetry. Poems and eulogies had been an indispensible part of the Chinese text in the previous Samgang haengsil-to, although the editors had found no way to integrate them into the vernacular text. The Sequel had also attached poems to its stories in the Chinese text, modeling itself after the original edition, but again, its vernacular text paid no attention to them. By dropping the poems or eulogies at the end of the Chinese text, the vernacular text of the New Sequel achieved a more direct correspondence between each piece of vernacular text and its Chinese counterpart. This was a significant editorial decision, because it marked a shift in the anticipated reading practice of the New Sequel as the Hall of Collation juggled two different writing systems: classical written Chinese and the Chŏng’ŭm text. For the affective power of poetry to reach imagined readers, many of whom were women and children, an intermediary teacher was needed to explain the story that preceded the poem and orally transmit its moral message. The editors of the New Sequel, however, must have perceived that the vernacular text juxtaposed against the written Chinese text would command equal attention from the reader. And since the common reader was not considered to have the intellectual capacity to comprehend the moral messages coded in classical Chinese heptasyllabic verse, the Hall of Collation did away with poems and eulogies altogether, keeping only the narrative part of the classical Chinese that matched the juxtaposed Chŏng’ŭm text. 246 chapter four L ibrary of Korea. T he contents give the names (and N ational C ollection of the Samgang haengsil-to ). kwŏn 5, New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to . previous versions of the F igure 12. L ist of contents, official titles, if any) of people whose stories are recorded in the volume, rather than the titles of the stories (as in the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 247 New Sequel to the L ibrary of Korea. U nfolded folio. N ational 爾瞻至行 ). C ollection of the kwŏn 6, 26. I -ch’ŏm” ( I -ch’ŏm chihaeng A ctions of Samgang haengsil-to , “ F ilial Sons” F igure 13. “ T he Most Virtuous 248 chapter four

By presenting a sense of symmetry between the two languages and writing systems, the editors of the New Sequel no longer acknowledged the moralizing function ascribed to poetry in classical Chinese—the idea being that the narrative in both written Chinese and the Chŏng’ŭm text sufficed to teach without the eulogizing effect of poems. This editorial choice also bespeaks a change in the perception of the reading experience of the New Sequel: rather than having an intermediate storyteller pass along the moral messages in poetry via aurality—if the teacher chose to recite the poems or were able to do so—readers were expected to read the text by themselves, without the aid of a teacher. This would indicate that there were now visible readers, who perhaps could not read classical Chinese but were fairly familiar with reading in Chŏng’ŭm. It had been almost two centuries since the invention of the Chŏng’ŭm, so this may not have been as impractical an anticipation as before.

The Emergence of the Translational Vernacular We now turn to some details of the texts. The Chŏng’ŭm transcription in the New Sequel shows characteristics typical of seventeenth-century Chosŏn vernacular texts. It is much more stabilized and consistent than the vernacular texts of the previous Samgang haengsil-to editions. Because it underwent a controlled preparation, was carved carefully and clearly, and was one of the rare Han’gŭl texts from the seventeenth century, the Chŏng’ŭm text of the New Sequel has been a frequent source for the study of the history of the Korean language.102 For example, earlier studies have observed that it captured a variety of dialectal elements, since multiple court officers (nangch’ŏng 廊廳) participated in preparing the vernacular texts.103 The orthography reveals some older conventions, which scholars had regarded as traces of older habits or carryovers from textual ante- cedents104—in other words, the inherently conservative nature of writing systems. Most Chŏng’ŭm symbols that were becoming obsolete (such as ᇫ [z]) rarely made an appearance here. Even the few appearances

102 Yi Sung-nyŏng, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to ŭi ŭmunsa-jŏk koch’al” [An examination on the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom from the perspective of phonological history], Haksurwŏn nonmunjip 17 (1978): 366. 103 Hong Yun-p’yo, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to” [New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom], in Kugŏsa charyo wa kugŏhak ŭi yŏn’gu [Sources for the history of Korean and the study of Korean linguistics], edited by Sŏul taehakkyo taehagwŏn kugŏ yŏn’guhoe (Seoul: Munhak kwa chisŏng sa, 1993), 254. 104 Yi Sung-nyŏng, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to ŭi ŭmunsa-jŏk koch’al,” 390; and Hong Yun-p’yo, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to,” 260. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 249 of ᇫ were mostly instances of hypercorrection.105 Overall, the vernacular text of the New Sequel provides a nice snapshot of a transitional stage of Korean between Middle Korean and Early Modern Korean. Yi Yŏng-gyŏng has made the insightful observation that the vernacular text of the New Sequel evinces a strong tendency to conscientiously (or literally) translate the Chinese text. 106 Yi Yŏng-gyŏng’s careful examination attributes this tendency to the ŏnhae translational style of the vernacular exegeses of the Confucian classics, especially that of the Vernacular Elementary Learning (Sohak ŏnhae 小學諺解) published in 1587. Since the Elementary Learning (Sohak) and the Samgang haengsil-to were often paired as representative Confucian moral primers in Chosŏn, this assessment is quite fitting. Generally speaking, the New Sequel shows more stable and polished language in its vernacular texts than the previous Samgang haengsil-to did. Such a polished language, according to Yi Yŏng- gyŏng, finds its matrix in the model translational language of the ŏnhae texts of the classics, a literary language devised by the Chosŏn Confucian teachers of the sixteenth century. This language is characterized by translating texts literally, neither adding anything nor omitting anything that appears in the original text. We can perhaps add one characteristic feature of the vernacular text of the New Sequel acquiring new literary habits: the demarcation of sentences. Chŏng’ŭm texts did not use punctuation marks until the twentieth century, nor did the New Sequel. But one new peculiarity that we notice in the vernacular texts of the New Sequel is that they began to embody sentential breaks marked by sentential particles. The vernacular texts of the previous editions were more or less unbroken and continuous strings, rather like long run-on sentences. The textual correspondence between the Chinese and the vernacular is a pivotal change that emerged in the New Sequel. In contrast to the previous editions, the effort to match the Chinese and the vernacular was meticulous and conscientious in the New Sequel. Most terms specific to literary Chinese were replaced with the vernacular, except for ones that

105 Kim Yŏng-sin, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to ŭi kugŏhak-chŏk yŏn’gu” [A study of the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom from the perspective of Korean linguistics], Pusan yŏja taehakkyo nonmunjip 9 (1980): 5–6. ᇫ is generally considered to have fallen out of use by the end of the sixteenth century and merged with ㅇ. Interestingly, Hong Yun-p’yo also entertains the possibility that some uses ᇫ of could be carving errors due to the similarity of the two symbols. See Hong Yun-p’yo, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to,” 261. 106 Yi Yŏng-gyŏng, “Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to ŏnhae ŭi sŏnggyŏk e taehayŏ,” 115–18. 250 chapter four were also used in (i.e., lexicalized into) vernacular Korean. Now that all the examples were Korean, the problem was much less difficult than before. One way to ascertain the editors’ awareness of the textual correspon- dences is through the older, re-collected examples in the New Sequel. Let us examine below the case of “[Ch’oe] Nu-baek Captures the Tiger” (Nu- baek p’oho 婁伯捕虎), an example of a filial son from the initial edition. CT1 (Chinese Text in initial and reduced editions) 婁伯捕虎翰林學士崔婁伯。水原戶長尙翥之子。年十五時。父因獵爲虎所害。婁伯欲補虎。母止之。婁伯曰。父讐可不報乎。卽荷斧跡虎。虎旣食飽臥。婁伯直前叱虎曰。汝食吾父。吾當食汝。虎乃掉尾俛伏。遽斫而刳其腹。取父骸肉。安於器。納虎肉於瓮。埋川中。葬父弘法山西廬墓。一日假寐。其父來詠詩云。披榛到孝子廬。情多感淚無窮。負土日加上。知音明月淸風。生則養死則守。誰謂孝無始終。詠訖遂不見。服闋。取虎肉盡食之。《詩》崔父山中獵兎狐。却將肌肉餧於菟。當時不有兒郎孝。誰得揮斤斫虎顱。捕虎償冤最可憐。山西廬墓又三年。小詞來誦眞非夢。端爲哀誠徹九泉。

CT1 (Translation) Nu-baek Captures the Tiger Ch’oe Nu-baek, a Hanlin Academician, was a son of [Ch’oe] Sang-ja, a local headman in Suwŏn. When he was fifteen years old, his father was killed by a tiger while hunting. Nu-baek wished to capture the tiger, but his mother stopped him. Nu-baek said, “Can I not avenge my father?” Then he tracked down the tiger, carrying an axe on his back. The tiger was already full and lying [on the ground]. Nu-baek went right ahead and berated [the tiger], “You ate my father, so I must eat you!” The tiger immediately dropped its tail and lay on it stomach. Quickly, he slew [the tiger] and cut its stomach open. He took his father’s bones and flesh [from the tiger’s stomach], and placed them safely in a vessel. He put the tiger meat in a jar and buried it in the middle of a stream. He buried his father with a funeral on the west side of Mount Hongbŏp and kept vigil next to the grave. One day, while he was dozing, his father came and incanted a poem: “Plowing through shrubs, I arrived at the filial son’s hut; the emotion is felt overwhelmingly, my tears are endless; he carried dirt on his shoulder to add on top [of my grave] day after day; his friends are the bright moon and brisk winds; he nurtured me when I was alive, he guards me when I am dead; who would say that [my son’s] filial piety has no beginning and end?” When the intoning was finished, [his father] was nowhere to be seen. Upon completing [the period of] wearing mourning dress, [Nu-baek] took the tiger meat and ate it up. “While Ch’oe, the father, was hunting hares and foxes in the mountain, / instead, he fed his flesh to the great cat. / At that time, he did not have [by his side] the filiality of his son; / who was there to hack the tiger’s skull with an axe? / Heartening is [the son] capturing the tiger to avenge; / yet, in the west of the mountain, he kept vigil next to [his father’s] grave for three years. / The short poem [that His father] came to intone was not really a dream; / it the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 251

is nothing else but his grief and sincerity piercing through the Nine Springs of the underworld.”

CT 2 (Chinese text in the New Sequel, without punctuation) 婁伯捕虎翰林學士崔婁伯水原戶長尚翥之子年十五時父為虎所害婁伯荷斧迹虎叱虎曰汝食吾父吾當食汝遂斫而刳腹取父骸肉安於器納虎肉於瓮埋川中葬父廬墓一日假寐其父來詠詩云披榛到孝子廬情多感淚無窮負土日加塚上知音明月淸風生則養死則守誰謂孝無始終詠訖遂不見服闋取虎肉盡食之

CT2 (Translation) Nu-baek Captures the Tiger Ch’oe Nu-baek, a Hanlin Academician, was a son of [Ch’oe] Sang-ja, a local headman in Suwŏn. When he was fifteen years old, his father was killed by a tiger, and Nu-baek tracked down the tiger, carrying an axe on his back. He yelled at the tiger, “You ate my father, so I shall have to eat you!” At last, he slew [the tiger] and cut its stomach open. He took his father’s bones and flesh [from the tiger’s stomach] and placed them in a vessel, put the tiger meat in a jar, and buried it in the middle of a stream. He buried his father with a funeral and kept vigil next to the grave. One day, while he was dozing, his father came and incanted a poem: “Plowing through shrubs, I arrived at the filial son’s hut; the emotion is felt overwhelmingly, my tears are endless; he carried dirt on his shoulder to add on top [of my grave] day after day; his friends are the bright moon and brisk winds; he nurtured me when I was alive, he protects me when I am dead; who would say that [my son’s] filial piety has no beginning and end?” When the intoning was finished, [his father] was nowhere to be seen. Upon completing [the period of] wearing mourning dress, [Nu-baek] took the tiger meat and ate it up. First of all, C2 has eliminated from C1 the series of events whereby Ch’oe Nu-baek’s father was snatched by the tiger while hunting, his mother tried to stop him from tracking down the tiger, and finally he found the tiger resting after devouring his father. Then C2 skips again the scene with the tiger lying on its stomach with its tail down, and omits the place where he buried his father’s remains (west of Mount Hongbŏp). Finally, the poem attached to C1 is no longer found in C2, as already discussed above. The result is a pair of perfectly matching Chinese and vernacular texts, as becomes clear when we compare C2 against the vernacular text (VT) below: VT (Vernacular text in the New Sequel, transcribed)107 Hanlimhaksa Chwoy Lwupoyk un Syuwen hwotyang Syangcya uy atol ila | nahi yel tasos in cey api pem uykey hayhon pay twoyyenol Lwupoyk i twochoy

107 Vertical lines (|) indicate sentential breaks made with particles. 252 chapter four

meykwo pem ul cachwoy pata pem ul skwucice kolGwotoy ne y nay api lol mekesini na y tangtangi ne lol mekulila | tetuyye pehye poy lol heythye ap oy spye wa solh ol kacye kulos oy tamkwo pem uy kwoki lol tok uy nyehe nayt- kawontay mwutkwo api mwutkwo simywo hoteni holl on hucomothoyetkenol api wa kul ol upphutwoy kayyem namk ul heyhyekwo hywoca uy cip uy niloni cyeng i kamtwonghom i manhoye nwunmul i taam i eptwota | hulk cye nal mata mwutem wuh uy wollini alosinon i non polkul tol kwa molkon polom ilwota | salatketon chikwo cwukketon tikhuyni nwuy nilGwotoy hywo y cheem nacywong i epta holiwo | upki lol ta hokwo muntuk mwot pwonila | kesang petkwo pem uy kwoki lol kacyetaka mekunila |

VT (Translation) Ch’oe Nu-baek, a Hanlin Academician, was a son of [Ch’oe] Sangja, a local headman in Suwŏn. When he was fifteen years old, his father was killed by a tiger, and Nu-baek tracked down the tiger. carrying an axe on his back. He yelled at the tiger, “You ate my father, so I shall of course eat you!” At last, he slew [the tiger] and cut its stomach open. He placed his father’s bones and flesh in a vessel, put the tiger meat in a jar, and buried it in the middle of a stream. He buried his father and kept vigil next to the grave. One day, while he was dozing, his father came and incanted a verse: “Making my way through hazel trees, I reached the filial son’s house; emotions felt and moved are overwhelming and there is no exhausting of tears; carrying dirt on his shoulder to add on top of the grave every day; those who know it are the bright moon and brisk winds; he nurtured [me] when I was alive, he protects [me] when I am dead; who would say that [my son’s] filial piety has no beginning and end?” Finishing the intoning, [his father] suddenly was not visible. Released from funeral mourning, [Nu-baek] took the tiger meat back and ate it up. Faithfully parallel and matching Chinese and vernacular texts such as these are found throughout the entire New Sequel. At last we witness the emergence of an edition of the Samgang haengsil-to equipped with inter- lingual translation for the first time. Moreover, the vernacular text of the story does not invest much in the details but merely sketches the skeleton of the story. While surveying various editions of the reduced Samgang haengsil- to in Chapter 3, I argued that none of the vernacular texts, regardless of whether the edition was earlier or later, could be labeled “translation” because they all freely added explanations to, or trimmed parts deemed unnecessary from, the contents of the original Chinese text. Linguistic agreement aside, a faithful congruence with the original text, in terms of the conveyed information, is the first requirement of a translation, yet the vernacular texts in those editions were devoid of such considerations. The latest of those editions was published in 1730, during King Yŏngjo’s the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 253 reign, and it did introduce some apparent textual changes to its former imprints. If a translational style, based on congruence between Chinese and Korean texts, was something that developed over time, then why does the seventeenth-century New Sequel already have a refined, well- formed style of translation heedful of the original, whereas an edition of the reduced Samgang haengsil-to published a century later still presents the old interpretive paraphrasing method? The key, which has now become apparent, lies in where the vernacular text is located. In the New Sequel, the Chŏng’ŭm vernacular text has come down to the main page and entered the space next to the Chinese. The physical arrangement of the text situates the two languages side by side. We are forced to hypothesize, then, that the compilers of the New Sequel must have felt it natural to implement a symmetrical agreement between the Chinese and Korean texts when the two languages were side by side. Entering into the primary domain of the readable space, the Chŏng’ŭm finally acquired the status of a textual language of the Samgang haengsil-to, and came closer to being level with Chinese. By contrast, the vernacular text of the 1726 reduced edition, housed as it is in the upper margin, remains a private text—perhaps for the reader-teacher who was responsible for creating the oral texts through which to mediate the Chi- nese for the illiterate, for this was the default structural paradigm of the Samgang haengsil-to. As a recut edition succeeding its predecessors (see Table 3 in Chapter 3), the vernacular text of the 1726 edition continued to paraphrase its original Chinese sentences rather than to translate them. The physical place of the text, in other words, dictated its socio-linguistic status. The conscious effort to maintain a correspondence between the Chi- nese and vernacular texts, as well as the integration of the vernacular text into the main page, should mean that the New Sequel was intended to be a readable book. If so, then why was it printed in no more than 50 copies, depriving it of a wide readership? Here we must notice the significance of the formulaic treatment of the text. Specifying the protagonist’s name and place of origin (and the information on the person’s family, if the person was of the literati class) in the first sentence, and indicating whether and when the case was given laudation, for example, provided an invariable format for the written text in the New Sequel. Both (1) the matching original and translation and (2) the thoughtfully wrought formal structure are signs of not only of readable texts but of presentable books. In other words, the New Sequel had little to do with “moral transformation” (kyohwa) through 254 chapter four books: it was a collection of proofs for moral heroes. That is why the constant discussions between the court and the Hall of Collation focused on whose records to list and how to select them, but hardly ever touched on how to describe them or what kinds of actions needed to be promoted. As discussed later, the majority of stories in the New Sequel are strikingly brief; and the written texts, as well as the illustrations, make frequent use of stereotypical narratives and stock images. We cannot, then, reasonably anticipate from this book the kind of educational effect or inspirational power that King Sejong had aspired to create with the first edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. The editors’ concern had shifted away from telling the story to acknowledging the case. This may have been a book to be read, but more importantly, it was a documentary compendium of testi- monies evidencing the actions of those registered within. What was lost in this shift was the voice of the reader-teacher—the oral text. Moving the vernacular text down into the main page caused the voice of teachers, interpreting and personalizing the moral lessons behind the stories, to lose its place. In addition, the stories housed in this book are mostly simple and straightforward; with the help of the illustrations and the texts in semantic unison, allowing little discrepancy, there was no need for someone to contextualize ambiguous messages. Everything was visible, and visually plain. Visuality thus evicted orality.

Illustrated Guides One immediate impression we receive from the illustrations of the New Sequel is that the scenes are much simpler and less sophisticated than in the previous Samgang haengsil-to editions. This is partially due to the fact that most of the collected stories consist of only one or two episodes. Yi I-ch’ŏm’s case, introduced above (see Figure 13), is one of the infre- quent examples in which the story describes multiple events and provides elaborate details. A more typical example in the New Sequel is “Yun-gŭn Cuts Off His Finger” (Yun-gŭn tanji 允根斷指), shown in Figure 14.108 The written text on the left states in Chinese and in Korean: “Pak Yun-gŭn was a resident of T’aein county. His father suffered a fierce illness, and Yun-gŭn, who was barely fifteen years old, cut off his finger, mixed it in soup, and gave it [to his father], after which the illness got better. He was bestowed a bannered gate during the reign of the Great King Konghŭi

108 Stories of loyal subjects in kwŏn 9 of the New Sequel tend to be more complex because they frequently involve battle scenes. the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 255

恭僖大王 [Chungjong].” The story relates only one event, and the illustration contains two scenes: Yun-kŭn cutting off his finger on the lower left, and presenting the soup to his father on the lower right. Because Pak Yun-gŭn was given the Bannered Gate commendation, the texts specify this at the end. This is also demonstrated in the illustration by the tip of the bannered gate poking out above the fence next to the house gate.109 Another example is “Cho-i Has Her Head Cut Off ” (Cho-i ch’amsu 召史斬首), shown in Figure 15. The text states: “Ch’oe Cho-i was a resident of Ch’ungju, a daughter of Guardsman Ch’oe Mak-chong, and a concubine of Student Hong Chong. She was captured by Japanese bandits who wanted to dishonor her; but she firmly resisted and would not obey them, whereby the bandits killed her seven-year-old son first and again would violate her; so Cho-i scolded the bandits in loud screams, and the bandits in anger cut off her four limbs and head and left.” In the upper scene, a Japanese bandit is seen touching Cho-i on her shoulder as if he is about to attack her; Cho-i, protecting her child behind her back, is screaming back at the bandit. In the lower scene, Cho-i is lying dead next to her son, who has already been killed. The bandit is still holding his sword, wielding it over her, and her severed hands are visible on the ground. The bannered gate bestowed after her death is seen in the background, in the uppermost scene, next to the roof. The quality of the drawings of these horrifying scenes, however, is surprisingly uncaring and crude. This evinces the haste involved in the actual process of drawing, carving, and producing this book, after its long and convoluted earlier phases. As a matter of fact, according to the Record of Procedures, the court suffered from a shortage of court artists when the draft went into production.110 Having to create illustrations for some fifteen hundred stories with only eight artists within a short amount of time, the Hall of Collation and the court likely had to forsake aesthetic quality. Still, as a few scholars have pointed out, the effect of the crude lines was

109 The textual format is “Bestowed {type of accolade} during {reign in which the accolade was given}.” The type of accolade, as we saw in the compilation process, could vary from erecting bannered gate (chŏngmun or chŏngnyŏ) to awarding employment (sangjik) or exemption from duties (pokho), though the illustration indicates it simply with a bannered gate. This phrasing is a standard formula, but there are cases where the text indicates only the type of laudation without mentioning when it was received. 110 Ch’anjipch’ŏng, Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe, 132–33; Yi Kwang-nyŏl, “Kwanghaegun-dae Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil-to p’yŏnch’an ŭi ŭiŭi,” 167–68. 256 chapter four New Sequel to the Samgang L ibrary of Korea. N ational U nfolded folio. 允根斷指 ). C ollection of the kwŏn 4, 25a–b. F inger” (Yun-gŭn tanji H is O ff C uts haengsil-to , “ F ilial Sons,” F igure 14. “Yun-gŭn the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 257 New Sequel to the Samgang L ibrary of Korea. N ational U nfolded folio. C ollection of the 召史斬首 ). kwŏn 7, 35a–b. O ff ” ( C ho-i ch’amsu W omen,” C ut H ead H er H as haengsil-to , “ D evoted F igure 15. “ C ho-i 258 chapter four chilling, rendering such tragic events with emotionless and nonchalant depictions. A number of visual stereotypes are noticeable as well. Such recurrent scenes as severing fingers, tasting stool, hanging oneself, jumping off a cliff, praying to heaven, and keeping vigil next to a grave are repeated with identical angles and postures over and over again, illustration after illustration. It is as though the same actions were performed by the same people in different clothes. Perhaps the shortage of time and resources, as well as streamlining and distributing the labor among several units, allowed for less imagination and variation in creating and carving these scenes, and drove the artists to use stereotypical images to expedite the process. It also appears that by this time a set of images had developed as a genre associated with the Samgang haengsil-to, so that when a story mentioned one of the frequent types of moral action, the artist could readily use the repeated stereotypical image without having to conceptualize a new one. In this sense, these images are less descriptive than index-like, simply signifying the existence of the action in the story. By employing conventional styles (in parallel with the simplicity of images and lines mentioned above), an illustration mnemonically pointed to a mental image from a repertoire that the viewer had already formed from repeated contact with similar stories, whether in previous Samgang haengsil-to editions or the New Sequel itself. That is to say, the index-like images relied on the conceptual habits of the viewers and society. In addition, the stories and their verbal texts were also much stereo- typed in the New Sequel, and the issues of visual sequence and order that we witnessed in the earlier Samgang haengsil-to editions do not arise here. There was no place or need for a teacher-interpreter to point out iconic scenes in the illustration, for most illustrations consisted of only one or two familiar scenes. Conceptual habits may also explain certain repeated landscapes in the illustration. For example, the New Sequel illustrations almost always put graves in the upper register, above everything else. Examining the illustrations of the initial edition of the Samgang haengsil-to, Cho Hyŏn-u supposed that graves were one of the objects occupying the upper register because of their higher status in the hierarchy of socio-cultural importance.111

111 Cho Hyŏn-u, “Samgang haengsil-to p’anhwa ŭi sŏnggyŏk kwa kinŭng yŏn’gu.” For my earlier discussion of this, see the subsection in Chapter 2 entitled “Illustrations—Recount- ing vs. Recalling.” the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 259

But what happened in the New Sequel is somewhat different. Although the other objects Cho Hyŏn-u mentions (official buildings, kings, officials, funerals, etc.) appear arbitrarily in the illustrations, graves are still placed in the upper register. This should be understood in relation to the conceptual geography of life in the premodern world of Korea. Traditional Korean villages typically backed onto mountains (hence the term twitsan 뒷산 ‘hind mountain’), where the graves were kept. In the illustrations, “up” can be hierarchically more important but can also designate “back.”112 The conceptual geography of life space, therefore, rendered an association of “up = mountain = burial site.” Especially for literati, family members living together without clear boundaries between the living space and gravesites in their “ancestral mountains” (sŏnsan 先山), guarding the graves generation after generation became a regular part of the cultural landscape toward the later Chosŏn.113 Of course, having a property for sŏnsan and living there observing the practice of three-year mourning were most likely limited to the literati class, which suggests that it was the literati who actually read and viewed this book. At any rate, the evocation of life scenes is constant in these illustrations, and the capturing of familiar scenes in the illustrations is almost deliberate in the New Sequel. The simplicity of the illustrations, their undistracted emphasis on important scenes, and the index-like patterns of the images all synchro- nize with the fact that the majority of the stories are equally simple, often consisting of single events. It is almost as though the stories in the previous editions have been repeated but split into individual acts (cutting off a finger, slashing a thigh, fighting a tiger, etc.), each becoming a story on its own. In addition, certain actions were now found outside their old categories. For example, in earlier editions feeding one’s severed finger to someone to resuscitate them had usually been the act of a filial son for a dying parent, but now in the New Sequel devoted wives also cut their fingers off to save their dying husbands. Separated into nuclear motifs, these actions started to cross categorial borders. Employing the notion I have used earlier, the New Sequel is, then, a collection of story primes broken further into indivisible episodic units,

112 We may also connect the Chinese etymology in which “north” (bei 北) is cognate to “back (body part)” (bei 背), as well as the fact that the traditional Sino-Korean gloss for the same Chinese character 北 was twi “back, behind.” 113 For gravesites and ancestral mountains in the literati writings of Chosŏn, see Sim Kyŏng-ho, “Chosŏn sidae hanmunhak e nat’anan in’gan kwa chayŏn ŭi kwan’gye pangsik e taehayŏ” [On the forms of engagement between man and nature as represented in classical Chinese literature during the Chosŏn period], Han’gukhak nonjip 41 (2010): 89–124. 260 chapter four somewhat comparable to what some might call leitmotifs. Perhaps we ought to call these stories stereotypical, but many of them are hardly stories by themselves. They are not given contexts or accounts for their circumstantial components. A folio of one such repeated case would, for example, show an illustration of a man kneeling in front of a grave, followed by a text briefly stating, “When his father died, he kept vigil next to the grave for three years.” Without the distraction of details, then, a filial son with a sick parent repeatedly severs his own finger at the side of the front yard, kneeling on the ground with his back hunched over; a devoted wife continues to be murdered by Japanese soldiers at the end of a chase, with her limbs cut off. It is always a tiger that attacks a parent or a husband, and the hero or the heroine always grabs the tiger with one hand and beats it with a club in the other. This directness of the stories and illustrations helps us realize the consistent presence of physicality, which in turn hints at the idea that the New Sequel could be a manual for moral behavior. The orthopractical nature of the Samgang haengsil-to text continued throughout the New Sequel. There is another side to this. Retaining the old format of “one story per folio,” each block of the New Sequel still resembles a shrine, a ritual space of commemoration, for a hero. The bannered gates that have become a visual requirement by now also evoke the ritualistic printing of the previous Samgang haengsil-to. But as the gigantic size of the collection, the continuous deliberations over the criteria of behavior in selecting the cases, the countless repetitions of leitmotifs and images, and the manda- tory requirements for the textual format and illustrational components all suggest, the New Sequel was a collection of proofs—or certificates—for moral heroes. The lists at the beginning of each kwŏn were rosters of certified heroes (see Figure 12 above); a bannered gate in the illustration was a seal of approval from the court for the hero’s worthiness and, more prac- tically, a guarantee of privilege for his family. The heroes were selected through standardized procedures of collecting, screening, and verifying, and their families were rewarded with practical benefits. The fact that a person’s name and his (or her) story were recorded in the New Sequel may even have meant more to the family than the practical benefits. The book was a competitive space—people were literally dying to get in. As we see in numerous family genealogies and posthumous biographies, family members and descendants always made sure it was known if someone in the family was listed in the New Sequel. Naturally, not one of the 1,587 cases was “anonymous.” the sequels: here and now in the chosŏn 261

This kind of notion about the Samgang haengsil-to did not appear for the first time with the New Sequel. At the time of reengraving the Sequel for another dissemination, Yi Ho-wŏn requested King Myŏngjong to allow the story of his brother, Yi Sim-wŏn, in the new edition, even though the court had already granted laudation to the case. In his memorial, Yi Ho-wŏn stated: “Things that are seen at one time with our own eyes and ears can be made known by relying on laudation banners; but after a hundred generations, where will the verification be?”114 Yet as we have seen, producing a large number of copies to disseminate widely was not so much a concern. Rather, it was the verification that a given family looked for, and as long as it was printed, the book would serve this purpose. In other words, it was the event of printing—meaning the engraving onto the blocks—that mattered.

114 一時之耳目，可憑旌表而知之，百世之下，將何所徵焉? Myŏngjong sillok 26:42b–43b (Myŏngjong 15/6/26).

Conclusions

A quick search in a database service of Korean newspapers between 1921 and 1930 using the keyword “finger cutting” (tanji) brings up a few results. One of them draws our attention with its absurdity mixed with pathos: Cut her own finger three times for her 13-year-old husband, hanged herself after losing her husband—in Kŭmgye Village, Haebo Township, Hamp’yŏng County, Chŏlla South Province, a woman who has been married for only a year. Chŏng Pog-wŏn (age 13), the eldest son of Chŏng Chong-sŏp who lives at 337 Kŭmgye Village, Haebo Township, Hamp’yŏng County, Chŏlla-South Province, has suffered from a pestilence since spring this year and lived with the illness all this time. At approximately 11 a.m. on the sixth of this month, when he [Chŏng Pog-wŏn] breathed his last breath, Chŏng Hyo-sun (age 18), his wife who married him in spring of last year, immediately cut off her right long finger with a kitchen knife, and let her crimson blood flow into her husband’s mouth, upon which her husband regained his lost life and stayed alive for three more days. On the eighth, at around 1 p.m., he died again, and she severed her left middle finger this time and let her blood flow in—he was resuscitated for the second time. On the tenth, at around 3 a.m., he again left for the other world; this time she cut her fourth finger off to let her blood flow into his mouth, but perhaps because his life was meant to be only that long, he never came back from death. Not knowing what to do, she hanged herself with her waist cord from the rack in her room at around 10 p.m. on the day before his hearse left the house—that is, the twelfth. Her family found her almost dead and saved her. Though she is still ill, they say that it is not fatal. It is also heard that people have praised her filiality to her parents and her devotion to her husband. Sidae ilbo (December 25, 1925) What went through the mind of this eighteen-year-old wife as she kept cutting her fingers off is beyond our imagination. But how she got the idea of doing so to save her dying husband is not difficult to picture after our examination of the many editions of the Samgang haengsil-to. Severed fingers perhaps became a sort of first-aid remedy in grave emergencies. Repeated in the Samgang haengsil-to and told and retold from generation to generation, scenes of pious self-injury must have joined folk medical knowledge long before the 1920s. The Chosŏn publication of the illustrated moral guides (haengsil-to) saw its last courtly attention in the eighteenth century, under King Yŏngjo’s reign, with the Oryun haengsil-to 五倫行實圖 (Illustrated guide to the 264 conclusions

Five Relations), which combined stories of the Three Relations from the Samgang haengsil-to and stories of the remaining Two Relations from the Iryun haengsil-to into one work. But it did not enjoy the kind of attention that the Samgang haengsil-to had—not to mention that the format of the book had already changed from previous editions of the Samgang haengsil-to. From the eighteenth century on, in fact, the Samgang haengsil as a genre diffused into the private printing world. One after another, large literati families compiled books entitled the Samgangnok 三綱錄 (Records of the Three Relations), which collected records of filial sons, loyal subjects, and devoted women within the family history. These books were not the same as the Samgang haengsil-to we have seen. They did not include illustrations and were mostly composed of lists of names and short biographical descriptions of two or three lines. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, however, Samgang- nok printing suddenly increased. Chu Yŏng-ha has attributed this to newly available modern print technologies: once commercial printing was available, large literati families started using it to print their family Samgangnok and genealogy books (chokpo 族譜).1 Modern print technology certainly served as a vehicle for circulating new knowledge, but the old knowledge also went along for the ride. If the purpose of printing family genealogies was to reconstruct and uphold the family’s history and internal hierarchy, then the Samgangnok was mean to glorify the family’s past with accolades allusive to the tradition established by the Samgang haengsil-to. Records of the Samgangnok usually fall into the categories of filial sons, devoted wives, and loyal subjects, or the highlighting of such examples in the family, for predicating them as such would prove the family’s moral superiority and worthiness. The primary basis for substantiating moral superiority was provided by the act of printing itself; and the precedent for this was, of course, the long tradition of printing the Samgang haengsil-to. The print history of the Samgang haengsil-to produced the effect of endors- ing the ethical ascendancy of individuals through printing accounts of their actions—or to be more concrete, through the act of engraving those stories on woodblocks. The print-worthiness of a person’s achievements

1 Chu Yŏng-ha, “Kŭndae-jŏk inswae kisul kwa ‘Samgang’ ŭi chisik hwaksan” [Modern print technology and the dissemination of Samgang-style knowledge], in Chosŏn sidae ch’aek ŭi munhwasa [A cultural history of books in the Chosŏn era], edited by Chu Yŏng-ha et al., 195–217 (Seoul: Hyumŏnisŭt’ŭ, 2008). conclusions 265 validated his or her ethical worthiness. Blocks, in this sense, are commensurate with epitaphs.

From Orality to Literacy (or From Sounds to Sights)

At its conception, the Samgang haengsil-to allowed for—in fact, relied on—densely permeating sounds, through the oral text. That the covert target readers whom Sejong designated with the phrase “ignorant men and women” were mostly illiterate, and that the language in which the text was written was classical Chinese (a code as literary as it was foreign), represented a conundrum to the court and the literatus-editors. Therefore, they had to depend on literate teachers who would read and interpret the written Chinese text and thereby create an oral text every time they taught audiences with the book. I have demonstrated how the physicality of the book (i.e., the editorial design and layout) anticipated this oral text that the intermediary reader-teacher would create based on the written text. This was carried out, in fact, in the same spirit of learning that Zhu Xi had established in the Southern Song. The presence of the voice of a teacher was a necessary element in an environment for novice education, one designed to prevent any ill-conceived notions caused by reading printed books in solitude. The Samgang haengsil-to was prepared specifically for ethical novices who were neither initiated in Confucian ethics nor able to read classical Chinese. When the reduced edition integrated the vernacular text, penned in the newly invented writing system (Chŏng’ŭm), into the book, the hope was to make learning the morals of its stories easier for the illiterate. The editors did not, however, state that they expected those who could not read classical Chinese to read the vernacular directly from the book, without the help of the intermediary teacher. In addition, an examination of the language of the vernacular text, and of where it was placed in the layout (i.e., outside the text box reserved for classical Chinese), tells us that the vernacular text was initially meant more for the reader-teacher than for the audience—that is, to help him to create oral texts in the vernacular with which to teach to his listeners. Placed in the upper margin, reminiscent of commentaries or surtitles, the vernacular text also paraphrased the Chinese text rather than directly transposing it into Korean. This situation continued in the Sequel. The vernacular text remained in the top margin, assisting the reader-interpreter. 266 conclusions

In the New Sequel, however, the vernacular text moved down into the delineated text box, or readable space proper, and was placed right next to the classcial Chinese. This physical change was accompanied by a transition in the linguistic nature of the vernacular text, from the previous paraphrasing interpretation of the story to a more faithful interlin- gual translation of the Chinese text. With both languages juxtaposed in one space containing all the textual components, room for intermediary teachers and their oral texts disappeared. The book was now completely readable. It was, however, quite different from the kind of book required to educate the “ignorant men and women” in morality, which was what Sejong had envisioned for the first edition of the Samgang haengsil-to. With the New Sequel in particular, the book of the Samgang haengsil-to turned into a physical space in which individual moral martyrs competed to find spots for their stories, while its meaning faded as a genre of reading material through which to morally educate readers. The long and arduous deliberations at the court, and then at the Hall of Collation, as to whose cases deserved to be printed; the various formulaic elements in the written text and illustrations validating the print-worthiness of cases depicted, which were associated with concretely specified institutional awards; the disputes about and challenges to the merits of some of the examples—all these suggest that the New Sequel was intended more to certify and display moral heroes than as a primer for moral education. When we realize that only 50 sets of the 18 volumes of the New Sequel were printed, and that the book contained a great many redundant stories, we cannot help but wonder whether its editors actually took the readability of the book into consideration.

From a Book for the Mind to a Book for the Body

The first edition of the Samgang haengsil-to, as the king and his literatus- officials repeatedly emphasized, was meant to introduce Confucian ethics to the entire society and transform the people through teaching (kyohwa). This initial edition, printed in 1434, included both Chinese and Korean examples from history, following the model set by similar Chinese books for moral education, such as the Real Stories of Filial Piety, the Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety, and the Biographies of Exemplary Women, as well as the Koryŏ-dynasty Records of Filial Action (Hyohaeng-nok). Illiteracy was equated with moral inability or deficiency at the time, so the editors conclusions 267 and compilers had to ensure that the messages in the stories came across to the illiterate appropriately. The editors designed illustrations to high- light scenes of moral actions so that the book’s viewers, with the help of reader-teachers, could be properly inspired; they gave contextual details to the story texts to help the audience comprehend and appreciate the stories; and they added poems and eulogies completing the stories with praise couched in the language of Confucian aesthetics. It was an effort to awaken the moral nature with which all human beings were endowed and to revitalize the minds of “ignorant men and women” into manifesting their moral nature in action, so that the entire society could move toward an ethical, and thus civilized, state. Again, this scheme of situating texts and reading was grounded in the Zhu Xi school of ethical metaphysics, which defined human nature as ontologically participating in the moral universe. In its unmanifest stage, moral nature resides in the mind, sometimes forgotten and at other times clouded by desires; even when manifested while interacting with external stimuli, the mind would often project ill-adjusted emotions and behavior. The Confucian king and his officials believed that a proper and well- calibrated education would prompt consciousness within the moral natures of the people, by initiating them with stories close to their everyday lives, and thus the moral minds of the Chosŏn people would eventually manifest themselves, regardless of their ability to read. In other words, the blueprint that they conceived as a result of hearing salutary stories would excite the moral substance inherent within all human beings. After a few rounds of dissemination and revisions, as well as publication of the Sequel, the focus moved from how to enforce and bolster moral minds to what kind of actions—and, more crucially, whose actions— deserved to be promoted. By the time the New Sequel was published, the editorial effort was vested entirely in whose cases should be included. To be considered for an entry in the New Sequel, the court first had to have bestowed an accolade on a given case, acknowledging its ethical merit; and to be fair in deciding on cases, it had to require verifiable evidence of the person’s achievements. Only those whose behavioral accomplishments met these minimum requirements could eventually be recorded in the book. Therefore, most examples listed in the book are confined to a set of uncomplicated and unambiguous actions, such as cutting off fingers, keeping vigil by a grave for three years, dying in the course of resisting rape, or supporting in-laws without remarrying after being widowed. Compared with those in the first edition, these actions in the New Sequel are not so much “stories” as they are first of all confirmations of facts, and 268 conclusions then reenactments of moral deeds, described in simple and straightforward language; moral values are thus ultimately codified into an assort- ment of actions closely tied to body parts and bodily activities. The effect of this is not difficult to imagine. Repeated in a set of similar examples, these actions became evocative objects that directly connected viewers to the denotational concepts of filial piety, loyalty, and female devotion. Engraved onto blocks, these stories and images were emblems of piety. Typical images to be naturally invoked when one heard the words “filial piety” would, therefore, have included that of a son cutting off his finger; and the usual image of a devoted wife would have been of that of a woman dying under the sword of a rapist. As such, the New Sequel became a practical guide to performing morally acclaimed actions—we might even call it a “manual for ethical performances.” There was no need for a teacher to explain and contextualize the stories, for the illustrations and texts were simple and familiar enough to viewers to be self-explana- tory. But what has been lost is any sign of concern for the moral substance within the minds that produced such actions with clear and conscious motivations and adaptability. The New Sequel was a book for training the body rather than awakening the mind.

From Ethics to Politics

The Samgang haengsil-to was itself a political text, not just in the generalized sense that all ethical discourses are essentially political, but in the sense that subsequent changes made to it reflect how programming moral conditions became a way to negotiate with political power. The first edition integrated this aspect of political discourse into a full-scale Confu- cian language of ethics. Though the court still expected the outcome to be a socio-cultural conditioning to prepare for politics and statecraft, as defined solely by Confucian doctrines, the book itself was meticulously and rigorously focused on moral substance and human minds. The format and layout, as we have discussed in detail, were calculated to amplify the human instinct for morality through a multidimensional guidance. Start- ing with the reduced edition, however, subtle but unmistakably political negotiations emerged on the leaves of the Samgang haengsil-to. The dis- appearance of reproaching subjects from the “Loyal Subjects” stories was a prelude to the subsequent politicization of loyalty and ongoing conten- tion between literatus-officials and the king. This tendency continued in the Sequel, in that the category of loyalty was vastly downsized. When conclusions 269 the New Sequel was compiled, the disproportionate distribution of cases among the three categories grew even greater, and the significance of loyalty as a cardinal virtue became much diluted. Throughout this process, the sarim literati and scholar-officials were in the background, lurking at every stage of planning and revising the text. Hence the literatus-officials were not just the compilers and authors but the active (or implied) readers of the Samgang haengsil-to. No doubt their intention in reading the book was not to be morally transformed by it but to ensure that their ethico-political ideology was correctly represented therein—namely, as a political and philosophical identity that they were, in fact, in the process of writing and rewriting. Thus the members of the leading literati cohort (i.e., the sarim) were in many ways speaking to the rest of the literati (who were the implied readers) through the woodblocks on which the Samgang haengsil-to was engraved. For example, in a record during Sŏnjo’s reign we find the following remark: Answering questions of an envoy from the Ming [hŏjosa 許詔使], the Chief State Councilor, Yi Chun-gyŏng 李浚慶 [1499–1572], stated, “As for the customs of our country, the funerary rites of literati uniformly observe [those specified in] the Family Rites of Master Zhu [Chu Mun’gong karye 朱文公家禮; Ch. Zhu Wengong jiali]. In the funerary rituals for their parents, all [literati] keep vigil next to the [parents’] graves for three years; anyone who neglects this cannot stand alongside the order of literati. Among them, there are some who [only] drink congee or never eat salted vegetables.”2 Interestingly, the New Sequel lists a large number of literati who practiced this three-year-long graveside vigil (yŏmyo 廬墓), and quite a few of them are recorded to have lived on congee without taking salty food. This was a routine that was not common in the previous editions, which shows that the funerary protocol for literati had become stricter and more concrete, as reflected in this new version of the Samgang haengsil-to. In fact, woodblock printing provided a way for the sarim literati to consolidate their power and simultaneously refine their collective political personal- ity. Blocks kept the text contained and permanent, yet could at the same time change it through reengraving. As such, engraving and printing the Samgang haengsil-to were by their very nature political events.

2 宣祖朝，領議政李浚慶答許詔使問曰，“本國風俗，士大夫喪葬禮一依朱文公家禮。父母之喪，皆廬墓三年，若不謹者不齒士列。其間或有啜粥，終喪不食鹽菜者也。”Chŭngbo Munhŏn pigo 增補文獻備考 [Revised and enlarged Complete Examination of Documents], compiled under the auspices of King Kojong 高宗 in 1908 (National Library of Korea e-book: http://www.dibrary.net), 87: 256a. 270 conclusions

From the Confucianization of Chosŏn to the Chosŏnization of Confucianism

It is obvious that the publication of the Samgang haengsil-to shifted its concentration from Chinese to Korean examples. What is somewhat perplexing, however, is that there was no evident attempt to justify the shift of focus, nor anyone arguing for or against the necessity of replacing Chi- nese stories with Korean cases. The undeniable foreignness of Chinese culture did not present itself as an obstacle in this process except in terms of linguistic disparity—specifically, the difficulty of classical Chinese as a written language—that is to say, the barrier of literacy in general. This absence of antipathy to Chinese culture should be attributed to the self- awareness of the founders of Chosŏn, who subscribed to the Song-dynasty Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism. Having already had their seat in the Chinese civilization validated by the imperial authority of the Yuan-Mon- gol Empire, the Chosŏn literati had no doubts about the legitimacy of their citizenship in the Han-Chinese world. This is why they could claim their cultural pedigree and their direct participation in the moral order represented by the Zhou court of ancient China, and it also explains their feeling of self-entitlement—or even sense of duty—as a protector of Han civilization after China fell under the control of the Manchu-Qing court. As far as the Chosŏn literati were concerned, the condition for citizenship in Han-Chinese civilization was perfection and superiority in Con- fucian ethics. Thus the Chosŏn intellectual evolution represented by the print history of the Samgang haengsil-to was in fact a transition from the Confucianization of Chosŏn to the Chosŏnization of Confucian morality. The existential basis for the Chosŏn people as moral beings was already assured by Song Confucian metaphysics: the nature of human beings is fundamentally good, and all human beings, regardless of where they live, are endowed with moral faculties. The proof of this was a matter of establishing the manifestation of such moral nature in Chosŏn. In this sense, the New Sequel was Chosŏn’s declaration of its Confucian independence. With the New Sequel, the Chosŏn literati made sure that Chosŏn was a bona fide Confucian state and even reconstructed Korea’s past before the Chosŏn as a part of general Confucian history. Although the New Sequel did not turn out to be a lasting success as a publication, the Chosŏnization it represented was not arbitrary, and dovetailed with the later Chosŏn’s Sinitic self-positioning that had started in the sixteenth century. As is well known, later Chosŏn saw the rise of an ostensible sinocentricism proclaiming Chosŏn to be a “Little China” conclusions 271

(So Chunghwa 小中華) that had a responsibility to protect and carry on Han-Chinese culture. This presupposes the understanding that Chosŏn was, unlike other barbarian regimes, a legitimate member of Han-Chinese civilization. The sense of legacy went so far as planning a northern conquest (pukpŏl 北伐) during King Hyojong’s 孝宗 reign (1649–59) to force out the Manchu regime and restore Han-Chinese civilization, though this did not come to fruition. The later Chosŏn sinocentric self-positioning was characterized by two approaches in particular. One was viewing Korea’s oldest kingdom, Old Chosŏn (Ko Chosŏn 古朝鮮, ?–108 bce), as having been ruled by Jizi 箕子 (Kr. Kija, ca. 1000 bce) after the fall of Shang China.3 The other was the belief that the denotation of Chinese civilization could change and be joined by a non-Han-Chinese people, as long as they are worthy.4 A remark by Song Si-yŏl 宋時烈 (1607–89), an influential literatus-official in the seventeenth century, illustrates this point: The people in the Central Plain refer to us, the East, as the “Eastern Yi” [Eastern Barbarians]. Though the name may not be elegant, it only matters how [we] rise and flourish [in culture]. Mencius has said that Shun was a man of Eastern Yi and King Wen was a man of Western Yi. If we indeed become sages and worthies, we, the East, need not be concerned that this is not Zou [where Mencius was from] or Lu [where Confucius was from]. In the past, the Seven Min was indeed a dense area of southern barbarians, but

3 Jizi was known as a relative of King Zhou 紂王 of Shang, who was imprisoned after remonstrating against the king’s mischievous behavior and corrupt rule and was then released by King Wu of Zhou who overthrew the Shang; see “Book of Zhou” (Zhoushu 周書), Book of Documents (Shangshu) 3. The evidence for Jizi’s rule of Old Chosŏn (or of any Koreanic society) relies on fragmentary records in Chinese historiographies, such as the “Hereditary House of Weizi of the Song” (Song Weizi shijia 宋微子世家) of the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) 38.8 ,which states that Jizi was enfeoffed in (Old) Chosŏn—or migrated to the territory of Old Chosŏn leading a group of Shang refugees—after he was released. This was also repeated in Korean historical writings during Koryŏ and Chosŏn. Modern historians have questioned the authenticity of these records, however, primarily because the actual remark about Jizi ruling Chosŏn does not appear in documents until the Western Han (206 bce–24 ce) and the descriptions are often inconsistent with other historical circumstances. The story of Jizi’s eastward migration has been reinforced by recent archaeological findings, but whether or not the migration reached and ruled the territory of Old Chosŏn is still very much a controversial issue. See Hyung Il Pai, Construct- ing “Korean” Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000); Jae-Hoon Shim, “A New Understanding of Kija Chosŏn as a Historical Anachronism,” HJAS 62.2 (2002): 271–305; Cho Wŏn-jin, “Kija Chosŏn yŏn’gu ŭi sŏnggwa wa kwaje” [Results and tasks of research on the Kija Chosŏn], Tan’gunhak yŏn’gu 20 (2009): 395–441. 4 Cho Yŏng-nok, “Chosŏn ŭi So Chunghwa gwan” [The notion of Little China in Chosŏn], Yŏksa hakpo 149 (1996): 105–38. 272 conclusions

after Master Zhu [Zhu Xi] rose preeminently from that region, some of the regions of the Chinese rites and music, and civilization, turned humble in front of it. A territory’s being barbaric in the past but Chinese now depends only on change.5 This notion of Confucian universalism, however, was not a new development in mid-Chosŏn. As we have seen in Chapter 1, it was the late Koryŏ Confucian forefathers who had first sowed the seed.

And Beyond

This study has attempted to present an overview of the causes that affected the production of printing. Needless to say, the Samgang haengsil-to can be approached from many angles besides those tried here. For instance, this study has regarded the Samgang haengsil-to as a fundamentally political text bearing a moralistic and narrative outlook. This is in no way intended to ignore other roles it may have played as a text. The Samgang haengsil-to can also be studied as a historical, cultural, linguistic, art-historical, psychological, or even as a medical text. With a more thorough bibliographical study, we would also find that the publications of it discussed here are only a fraction of the print history of the Samgang haengsil-to. For example, I have not discussed prints and editions of the Samgang haengsil-to made in Japan during the Tokugawa era (1603–1867) and their relation with the kanazōshi stories. The connection between the Samgang haengsil-to and moral primers published in China is another area to be explored. The Samgang haengsil-to is certainly a text through which the past memories of East Asian communities could connect with one another. We have also limited our discussion to publications using the actual title “Samgang haengsil-to,” and have had to omit full discussions of other important titles, such as the Oryun haengsil-to and Iryun haengsil-to. Not surprisingly, these titles display still more changes in format, layout, texts, and illustrations. What those changes mean and how to account for the shifts are topics deserving of another full-scale study.

5 中原人指我東爲東夷。號名雖不雅，亦在作興之如何耳。孟子曰舜東夷之人也，文王西夷之人也。苟爲聖人賢人則我東不患不爲鄒魯矣。昔七閩實南夷區藪，而自朱子崛起於此地之後，中華禮樂文物之地，或反遜焉。土地之昔夷而今夏，惟在變化而已。 “Miscellaneous Records” (Chamnok 雜錄), in Song Si-yŏl, Songja taejŏn 宋子大全 [The great compendium of Master Song], woodblock print in 1787; photographic reproduction in Han’guk munjip ch’onggan, Vols. 108–16 (Seoul: Han’guk kojŏn pŏnyŏgwŏn, 1980–95) 131: 24. conclusions 273

Another area to be investigated further is how this book was received, or how readers’ feedback was factored in. The Samgang haengsil-to was in a way a unilateral publishing project, initiated by the court for readers who were rather ambiguously defined. Certainly there was an apparent disregard on the part of the court for the reactions of readers, for its descriptions of public reactions are couched solely in terms of whether or not the book transformed the people’s moral behavior in Confucian ways. But this does not mean that there is no way to study the reception of the Samgang haengsil-to. In fact, there are many ways to do so, such as examining allusions and cross-references in other genres to the events recorded in the Samgang haengsil-to, uncovering more details about the number of prints made and circulated, and observing textual patterns and adaptations in other various official and private redactions.6 True, this book sought to bring about changes in people’s behavior and moral conceptions. In this respect, the early modern zeal for compiling works with the title Samgangnok and the behavioral conformity of their stories to those in the Samgang haengsil-to bear witness to how widely these stories were read and circulated. The Samgang haengsil-to tales also inspired numerous vernacular Han’gŭl storybooks that became popular and enjoyed a wide circulation, particularly among lowbrow commoners and “illiterate” readers, and that became available through commercial prints (panggak-pon 坊刻本) from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century on. These storybooks may not have directly inherited these Samgang haengsil-to stories, but the stereotypes that we have seen earlier are unmistakably repeated in them, which demonstrates that the earlier stories were so well received by common audiences that they entered the public world of popular imagination. Text is malleable; and books, like houses, harbor the malleable text and turn it into a stable, tangible, and comprehensible entity. Based on the function and significance that the editor conceives for the text—in other words, according to what it “should” mean to the readers in his mind— the editor designs the book’s material form of presentation. Book producers also rely on a number of contingent factors, such as the sponsor’s intentions and the availability of supplies and resources needed for production of the book. Yet there are unforeseen effects and manifestations

6 Yi Chŏng-wŏn’s study of the Samgang-style stories appearing in the oral texts of p’ansori (story-singing) is an example of this. See Yi Chŏng-wŏn, “P’ansori munhak esŏ Samgang haengsil-to suyong yangsang” [The reception of the Samgang haengsil-to in p’ansori literature], Han’guk kojŏn yŏsŏng munhak yŏn’gu 14 (2007): 417–51. 274 conclusions of the book in reality—such as a reader’s mode of consumption (which can consist of listening yet be called “reading”), attitudes toward both the meaning of the text and the physical form of the medium, and the values and conscientiousness of its readers—all of which spring from the time and space in which readers find themselves. The text, in this sense, existing as an abstract being—a potentiality—assumes a corporeal mode of actualization, which then reverts to being an abstract entity but with added potentiality. Following the print history of the Samgang haengsil- to, we have seen how the house was designed, built, redesigned, rebuilt, and even enlarged with new additions, or wings. What is remarkable is how much we can still read, and discern, from these books—not just from the texts within, but from their physical form. A book as a material object speaks through and beyond the text that it holds. It incarnates a depth of stories that the text, written or drawn, does not immediately reveal to us unless we look for it. The shifting design of the book is a manifestation of the book’s meaning, absorbed from the time and space in which it existed. Printing, especially with blocks, fixed the malleable texts and housed them intact, as an immovable whole, through the process of engraving. Yet behind the materiality and design of the book were the conceptions of the people who produced it; and as people change, so do books. Bibliography

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Abridged Collection of Rhymes of the Ancient Bol, Peter K. 14 and Modern (Gujin yunhui juyao 古今韻 Boltz, William G. 150 會舉要,) 147, 158 bond between father and son 61–2, 182–3 Analects 4, 14, 19–20, 23–4, 28–30, 34, 120, Boodberg, Peter 150–1 144, 183 Book of Documents (Shangshu 尚書) 73, Ancient Biographies of Exemplary Women 75n, 85n, 87–8, 90, 187n, 271n (Gu lienü zhuan 古列女傳) 76–7; see Book of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經) 91, also Biographies of Exemplary Women 176n, 183n An Hyang 安珦 33–5, 46–51, 53 Book of Poetry (Shijing 詩經) 75n, 86, An Kyŏn 安堅 110 92–3, 118, 144n, 186n, 204n An Pyŏng-hŭi 219–21 Branch Secretariat for Eastern Expeditions An Sa-jun 安社俊 34 (Chŏngdong haengsŏng 征東行省, Ch. An Sung-sŏn 安崇善 75, 96 Zhengdong xingsheng) 34, 43, 48, 50 Appendix volumes (of the New Sequel) British Library collection 138 241–4 Broad Rhymes (Guangyun 廣韻) 146–7 Asai Ryōi 浅井了意 139 Buddhism 48, 68, 75 Asami Collection 139 Buddhist books 54, 73 audiences, direct and indirect 9 Burkus-Chasson, Anne 122n author-editors 2–3 “burning of books and persecution of awarding employment (sangjik 賞職) scholars” (fenshu kengru 焚書坑儒) 230, 255 49

Bannered Gate commendation (chŏngnyŏ Cabinet Library (Naikaku Bunko 內閣文旌閭, Ch. jinglü) 89, 175–6, 183, 202, 庫) 219, 221 216, 224, 230, 245, 254–5, 260 Cai Shen 蔡沈 88 Biographies of Exemplary Women Capital Academy (kyŏnghak 京學) 38 (Yŏllyŏ-jŏn 列女傳) 76, 111, 171, 266; see Carlitz, Katherine 185n also Ancient Biographies of Exemplary Carruthers, Mary 195 Women case-oriented strategy 70 Biographies of Exemplary Women of the Past censors (taegan 臺諫) 178–82, 209–12, and Present (Gujin lienü zhuan 古今列 224, 231 女傳) 68, 77 Central Plain (Zhongyuan 中原) 93, 148, Biography of Empress Xiaoci [the Filial and 271 Compassionate] (Xiaoci huanghou zhuan Ceremonies and Rituals (Yili 儀禮) 19, 孝慈皇后傳) 68 83n, 186n Biography of the Exalted Empress (Gao certified heroes 260 huanghou zhuan 高皇后傳) 68 Chan, Hok-Lam (Chen Xuelin) 45n, 72n block-center 94, 96, 222, 241–2 Chan, Wing-tsit 29, 46–7 block-printing 108, 131, 204 Chang Hyang-sil 138–9 blocks 6, 8, 85, 94, 105–9, 131, 133n, 138n, Changsŏgak Library 135, 221 241, 260–1, 265, 268–9, 274 Chartier, Roger 32, 94n body 5–6, 24, 31–3, 58, 72, 121, 176, 192, 196, chaste widow 185 266, 268 chastity 184, 186n 290 index

Cheng Yi 程頤 25–6 commercial prints (panggak-pon 坊刻本) Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism 13, 33, 273 41, 47, 49, 178n, 270 Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Ming Chinese characters 10, 60–1, 123n, 129, 138, (Da Ming yitong zhi 大明一統志) 99, 142–4, 150–2, 156–60, 219–22 201–2 Chinese Classics Printshop (Hanjing chang Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government 漢經廠) 97 (Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑) 30, 201 Cho Hyŏn-u 117–18, 223, 258 Compendium of the “Comprehensive Cho Kwang-jo 趙光祖 213, 223–5, 227, 238 Mirror to Aid in Government” (Zizhi Ch’oe Ch’unghŏn 崔忠獻 38 tongjian gangmu 資治通鑑綱目) 30 Ch’oe Ch’ung’s 崔冲 39 Essentials of the “Comprehensive Mirror Ch’oe Kyŏng 崔涇 110 to Aid in Government” (Zizhi tongjian Ch’oe Mal-li 崔萬里 152–3 jieyao 資治通鑒節要) 99 Ch’oe Suk-saeng 崔淑生 212–13, 215 Explanation of the “Comprehensive Ch’oe Ŭi 崔竩 42 Mirror [to Aid in Government]” Ch’oe Yŏng 崔營 75 (T’onggam hunŭi 通鑑訓義 65 Chogye sect (Chogyejong 曹溪宗) 48 Concise Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites (Libu Chŏn Kyŏng-mok 170 yunlüe 禮部韻略) 146–8 Chŏng Ch’o 鄭招 96, 182 Confucian classics 3–4, 9–10n, 18–20, 26, Chŏng In-ji 鄭麟趾 143 54, 63, 71, 97, 99, 123, 125n, 141, 156, 190, Chŏng Mong-ju 鄭夢周 52, 75, 104n, 210, 225, 249 214 Confucian ethics 6, 83, 157, 160, 175–6, Chŏng Pyŏng-mo 110–11 192–3, 225, 265–6, 270 Chŏng To-jŏn 鄭道傳 52 Confucian familism 184 Chŏng’ŭm 128–9, 133, 136–7, 148, 150, Confucianism 4–5, 13–14, 20, 34, 43–4, 47, 153–4, 157–8, 160, 169, 198, 208, 216–17, 68, 100, 147, 176, 182 219–21, 245, 248 Confucianization of Chosŏn 270 Chŏng’ŭm texts 132–3, 139, 154–6, 158, Correct Rhymes of the Eastern Kingdom 164–6, 168, 222, 240, 245, 248–9, 253 (Tongguk chŏng’un 東國正韻) 137, 142, Chosŏnization 197, 206, 270 149n, 157–8, 208, 222 Chronicle of Zuo (Zuo zhuan 左傳) 28–9, Correct Rhymes of the Hongwu Reign 87–8, 108, 152 (Hongwu zhengyun 洪武正韵) 142–3, Chu Si-gyŏng 주시경 128n 147–8, 150 Chu Yŏng-ha 264 correct sounds 128, 143–6, 148, 150 Chujahak 朱子學 34 County Schools (hyanggyo 鄉校) 80–3, 139 Chungjong Restoration 203, 207, 211–13, court artists (hwawŏn 畫員) 109–10, 233, 229 255 Ch’ungsin-do 忠臣圖 (Illustrations of loyal Creel, Herrlee G. 150n-1 subjects) 75, 94–5, 111n, 242–3 criminal law 58–9, 61 civil service examinations 15–17, 19, 31, Csikszentmihalyi, Mark 18n 37–41, 50, 54, 65, 80–1, 141, 143, 148, 178n, cultural exclusivism 4, 43 185 customary (Sino-Korean) sounds 149–50 classical Chinese 1, 7–11, 92, 94n, 119, 122, cutting finger 5, 174, 176, 190, 192, 207, 226, 125, 127–8, 141–2, 144, 156–7, 168–9, 248, 265 254–6, 259–60, 263, 267–8 classical Chinese text 9–10, 105, 122, 133, 154, 160 Daoist Classics Printshop (Daojing chang Classified Sayings of Master Zhu (Zhuzi yulei 道經廠) 97 朱子語類) 21 death by slow slicing (nŭngji ch’ŏsa 凌遲處 Collected Commentaries to the Four Books 死, Ch. lingchi) 55, 58, 60 (Sishu jizhu 四書集註) 53, 88, 98 Deuchler, Martina 34, 63 index 291

“Devoted Women” section 76–7, 130–1, Arhats (Zhu Fo shizun Rulai Pusa zunzhe 171, 184–5, 219, 242 mingcheng gequ 諸佛世尊如來菩薩尊 Dewey, John 194 者名稱歌曲) 73–4 “Directed Intention on Distribution of “Feel and bring out” (kambal 感發) the Samgang haengsil-to” (“Samgang 118–19; see also ‘weifa’ and ‘yifa’. haengsil panp’o kyoji” 三綱行實頒布 Fesmire, Steven 194 敎旨) 77–8, 92, 96, 102, 119 filial daughters (hyonyŏ 孝女) 172 District Ceremony of Libation (hyang filial daughters-in-law (hyobu 孝婦) 172 ŭmju rye 鄉飲酒禮, Ch., xiang yinjiu filial piety and fraternal deference (xiaoti li) 82–3, 93 孝悌, Kr. hyoje) 61 Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸) “Filial Sons” section 133, 137, 172, 220–1, 242 4n, 20, 28–30, 118, 153n First Emperor of Qin 49 Duke of Zhou 86n, 204–5 fishtail (ŏmi 魚尾) 96–7, 220–2, 241 dusong 讀誦 22; see also vocalized Five Classics (Wujing 五經) 18–20, 27, 29, reading. 63, 81 flower-pattern (hwamun 花紋) 241 Eco, Umberto 152n Foreign Classics Print-shop (Fanjing chang “elegant sounds of the Central Plain” 番經廠) 97 (Zhongyuan yayin 中原雅音) 146 Four Books (Sishu 四書) 4n, 20, 27–31, 41, Elementary Learning (Xiaoxue 小學, Kr. 47–8, 53–4, 63, 81, 98 Sohak) 27, 47–8, 65, 81–3, 89n, 157, Four Books and Five Classics (Sishu wujing 226–7, 249 四書五經) 20 emotions 47, 118–19, 141, 206 Fujimoto Yukio 138, 219 Emperor Gaozong 高宗 of Song 146 Emperor Hongwu 洪武帝 (Taizu 太祖) of Genette, Gérard 104, 197 Ming 60, 68n-70, 76, 97, 142, 171 Geographical Survey of the Territory of Emperor Shizu 世祖 of Yuan (Khubilai the Eastern Kingdom (Tongguk yŏji Khan) 35, 42 sŭngnam) 東國輿地勝覽 202 Emperor Wu 武帝 of Han 18 Newly Augmented Geographical Survey Emperor Yi 義帝 (King Huai of Chu 楚懷 of the Territory of the Eastern Kingdom 王) 210 (Sinjŭng Tongguk yŏji sŭngnam) 新增 Emperor Yongle 永樂 (Chengzu 成祖) of 東國輿地勝覽 202 Ming 67–70, 72, 75, 97 Grand Academy (Taixue 太学) 17 Empress Renxiao 仁孝 of Ming 67–71, Grand Minister of Education (Da situ 76–7, 171 大司徒) 89 Empress Renxiao’s Book for Promoting Good Grand Pronouncements by the Imperial Deeds (Renxiao huanghou quanshanshu Order (Yuzhi dagao 御製大誥) 69–70, 仁孝皇后勸善書) 68–9, 71; see also 98 shanshu. grapholects 125 Endowed Reading Leave (saga toksŏ 賜假 graves 117, 175, 207, 223, 258–60, 267, 269 讀書) 213 Great College (Taixue 大學) 83 eulogies 65, 84–5, 92, 104, 121, 222, 233, Great Compendium of Administration 245 (Kyŏngguk taejŏn 經國大典) 58–9, 61, “eyebrow criticism” (meipi 眉批) 156 80, 130, 185, 218 Great Descent (daejok 大族) 37–8 “fact-centered” and “ideal-centered” Great Learning 4, 20, 26–31, 225 methods 71 Great Ming Code (Da Ming lü 大明 family rites (karye 家禮) 226 律) 57–61 Famous Songs of the Names of the World- “Great Preface” (Daxu 大序) of the Book of Honored Tathagata, Bodhisattvas, and Poetry 92, 118 292 index

Great Qing Legal Code (Da Qing lüli 大清 illiterate audiences 91, 110, 118, 122–3, 律例) 57 160–1n Guo Jujing 郭居敬 66 illiterate readers 7, 77, 273 Illustrated Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Hall, David 142n Piety (Ershisi xiao tu 二十四孝圖) 65 Hall of (Compiling) the Sequel to the illustrations 6, 8–9, 65, 86, 91, 94, 105, Samgang haengsil-to (Sok Samgang 108–10, 117–23, 125–6, 198–9, 223, 233–4, haengsil ch’ŏng 續三綱行實廳) 215 254–5, 258–60 Hall of Collation for the New Sequel to Im Sa-hong 任士洪 210–11, 214 the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Imjin Wars with Japan (Hideyoshi Kingdom (Tongguk sinsok Samgang Invasions) 228, 231n, 235, 238 haengsil ch’anjipch’ŏng 東國新續三綱 Imperial Academy (Guozijian 國子監) 行實撰集廳 231–5, 237, 241, 243, 245, 19, 52 254–5, 266 initial edition 5, 7, 84, 94–5, 100–1, 121, 127, Hall of Ten Thousand Scrolls 132, 137–8, 140, 171–2, 202–3, 266–8 (Man’gwondang 萬卷堂) 52–3 Injo Restoration 仁祖反正 235–6, 238 Hall of Worthies (Chiphyŏnjŏn 集賢殿) Instructions for the Inner Quarters (Naehun 62–5, 85, 152, 208 內訓) 171 Han-Chinese civilization 270–1 Instructions for the Inner Quarters (Neixun Han-Chinese empires 43–4, 56 內訓) 68, 71, 171–2 Han dynasty 17–18, 57, 102, 151 “insulting the superior” nŭngsang 凌上 Handlin, Joanna 71 211 Han’gŭl 5, 10, 56, 105, 128, 136, 142n, 220–1 intone 74, 119, 168; see also p’ungsang Hanmun 94n, 127, 141 Iryun haengsil-to 二倫行實圖 (Illustrated heart-mind 32–3, 118, 206 guide to the Two Relations) 227–8, Hegel, Robert E. 122n 264, 272 hierarchical order 57, 59, 83, 88 Hirata Shōji 146 Japan 35, 138–9, 208, 219–21, 228, 272 Hŏ Ch’im 許琛 132, 179 jiafa 家法 (lineage method) and shifa Hŏ Cho 許調 55, 57, 59–61, 83 師法 (teacher's method) 18 hojok 豪族 (powerful local families) 38 Jiangnan 江南 53, 115, 146 Hieroglyphica of Horapollo 152n Jin 金 34, 41, 45–6, 101, 163–4 Hua and Yi, Chinese and barbarians 44 Jiujing 九經 (Nine Classics) 19 meritorious elites (hun’gu 勳舊) 178–9, Jizi 箕子 (Kr. Kija) 271 209, 211–12, 214 Jurchens 34, 44, 50n, 146, 153 Hunmin chŏng’ŭm 訓民正音 (Correct sounds to instruct the people) 128–9 Kabin font 甲寅字 107 Hwang Hŭi 黃喜 58n kaehaeng 改行 (line-changing) 102, 223 hyangch’al 鄉札 ‘local letters’ 123 kanazōshi 仮名草子 139 hyangga 鄉歌 ‘local songs’ 123 Kang Hon 姜渾 200, 212–13 Hyoja-do 孝子圖 (Illustrations of filial Kang Hŭi-maeng 姜希孟 202 sons) 94, 100n, 108n, 111n, 242 Kang Myŏng-gwan 109, 192 Ki Cha-hŏn 奇自獻 235–6, 244 iconic images 125, 152 Ki Chŏng-jin 奇正鎮 109 ignorant men and women (ubu ubu Kil Chae 吉再 75, 104n, 214, 225 愚夫愚婦); ignorant people (umin Kim Al-lo 金安老 215 愚民) 90, 119, 122, 128–9, 131, 168, 190, Kim An-guk 金安國 227 216n, 265–7 Kim Chang-saeng 金長生 141 index 293

Kim Chŏn 金詮 200, 212–13, 215 King Yejong 睿宗 206n Kim Chong-jik 金宗直 210, 212–13, 225 King Yŏngjo 英祖 134, 136–7, 252, 263 Kim Ha 金何 143 King Yŏnsan’gun 燕山君 203, 206–7, Kim Hang-su 156, 202 209–12, 214, 237 Kim Hun-sik 130, 185 ko sosŏl 古小說 (ancient fiction) 77n Kim Il-son 金馹孫 210, 212–13 Kong Anguo 孔安國 88 Kim Koeng-p’il 金宏弼 213, 225 Kong Yingda 孔穎達 88 Kim Mun-gyŏng 66n Kornicki, Peter 10n Kim Mun-jŏng 金文鼎 50 Kosa ch’waryo 攷事撮要 [Selected Kim Tu-jong 107 essentials on verified facts] 106n Kim Wŏl-lyong 김원룡 95, 109, 110n kugyŏl 口訣 [vocal particles] 123n, 156–7 Kim, Yŏng-ho 139 Kukchagam 國子監 (National King, Ross 138n Academy) 38, 50 King Chŏngjo 正祖 10n Kukhak 國學 (National Academy) 80 King Chŏngjong 定宗 36 kunten 訓点 123n, 139 King Chungjong 中宗 198–200, 202–7, kwanggwak 匡郭 155 209, 212–13, 215–16, 224–6, 229, 235, 255 Kwŏn Ch’ae 權採 84, 93, 96, 110, 118–19 King Ch’ungnyŏl 忠烈王 33, 42, 50 Kwŏn Chun 權準 65 King Ch’ungsŏn 忠宣王 51–4 Kwŏn Kŭn 權近 157 King Ch’ungsuk 忠肅王 52–4 Kwŏn Po 權溥 51–3, 65 King Hyojong 孝宗 271 Kyemi font 癸未字 107–8 King Injo 仁祖 235–9 Kyeyu chŏngnan 癸酉靖難 (Plight King Injong 仁宗 38–9, 80 stabilization of the kyeyu year, King Kojong 高宗 269 1453) 208 King Kojong 高宗, Koryŏ 42 Kyŏngja font 庚子字 107–8 King Kongmin 恭愍王 54, 65n Kyujanggak Library 95, 111n, 219, 221 King Kwanghaegun 光海君 230–1, 233–40 laudation 202–3, 229–30, 245, 255n King Kwangjong 光宗 36–7 layout 2, 5, 8, 96, 105, 132, 169, 215, 232–3, King Myŏngjong 明宗 215 265, 268, 272 King of Shenyang 瀋陽王 51n “The Leading and Following of the Sounds King Sejo 世祖 69n, 157, 178, 206, 208, 210, and Notes: Chart of the Numbers of the 213, 240n Four Images and Heaven and Earth” King Sejong 世宗 2, 6, 56–67, 69, 72–3, (Shengyin changhe sixiang tiandi zhi shu 75, 77–8, 80–1, 90–3, 106–8, 128–9, 152–4, tu 聲音唱和四象天地之數圖) 147 179–80, 202–5, 208, 235, 254, 265–266 Learning Halls of the Four Districts (sabu King Sejong Memorial Society 95, 100n, haktang 四部學堂, or sahak 四學) 80 110–11 Learning of Principles (lixue 理學) 4 King Sŏngjong 成宗 81, 129–33, 136, 171, Learning of the Way (daoxue 道學) 4, 27, 179–80, 182n, 186, 202, 204–6, 209, 213 146, 210 King Sŏngjong 成宗, Koryŏ 37–8, 80, 143 Lectorium of Classics 62–6 King Sŏnjo 宣祖 134, 136, 228–31, 236–8 Ledger of Merits and Demerits (Gongguo ge King T'aejo 太祖 (Wang Kŏn 王建 ), 功過格) 71 Koryŏ 36 Ledyard, Gary 129n, 153n King T’aejo 太祖, Chosŏn 56, 58, 60 Legal Standards of the Zhizheng Era King T’aejong 太宗 72–3, 80, 178–80, 182, (Zhizheng tiaoge 至正條格) 59–60 208 linguistic hierarchies 7, 245 King Tanjong 端宗 208 literacy 10, 14, 17, 24, 32, 61, 79, 83, 90, 99, King Wen 文王 83n, 93, 204–5, 271 110, 122–4, 126–7, 142, 160 King Wu 武王 204–5, 271n literal (direct) translation 137, 142n, 160, 162 294 index literarization 125 Mongols 4, 36, 41–5, 101 literary Chinese 40, 61n, 79, 128–9, 140–1, moral heroes 8, 92, 105, 195, 202, 206, 254, 150, 245 260, 266 literary language 10n, 123, 140, 249 moral law 170, 193, 195, 204 Literary Sinitic 10n moral nature 86, 90–1, 110, 118–19, 121, 206, literati purges (sahwa 士禍) 211, 223 225, 267, 270 literatus-editors 7, 118, 140, 190, 205, 265 moral perfection 26, 72, 102, 225 Little China (So Chunghwa 小中華) 270 moral principles 23, 30, 32–3, 47, 64, 72, Liu, Lydia H. 44n 88, 90, 98, 200, 225 Liu Baonan 劉寶楠 145n moral transformation through teaching Liu Dajun 107 (kyohwa 教化) 62, 64, 81, 84, 86, 92–3, Liu Xiang 劉向 76 207, 253, 266 Local officials (hyangni 鄉吏) 37–9, 48 moral universe 30, 267 “Loyal Subjects” section 177, 198, 203, 214, movable-type printing 1, 106–8, 132 227, 236, 242–3 Mr. Sŏngho’s Discourses on the Minute Lu Fayan 陸法言 145 (Sŏngho sasŏl 星湖僿說) 240 Murray, Julia K. 122n Maech’ŏn’s Unofficial Records (Maech’ŏn yarok 梅泉野錄) 109 Nam Kon 南袞 200, 212–13, 223 Maeng Sa-sŏng 孟思誠 96, 121 name-based obligations [myŏnggyo 名 Mansong mun’go 만송문고 94–5, 133, 教] 86 164 narrative illustrations 105, 122n manual for ethical performances 268 National Central Library in Taiwan 219, McLaren, Anne 24n 221 meaning translation, paraphrase (ŭiyŏk 意 National Diet Library 219, 221 譯) 136–7, 160–2, 253, 265 National Library of Australia 139 memory 16, 32, 101, 120, 124, 140, 195, 206, National Library of Korea 221 238 needle holes (ch’iman 針眼) 94 Mencius 2n, 4, 19–20, 23, 28–31, 98, 147, Neo-Confucianism 4, 13–15, 33–4, 46, 48, 153, 271 53 mental images 110, 258 New Explanation of Legal Learning (Lüxue merit subjects (kongsin 功臣) 210, 212, xinshuo 律學新說) 99 231n, 233 New Literati (sinhŭng sadaebu 新興士大 Middle Chinese 142, 148, 158 夫), Koryŏ 36, 39, 51, 66 Middle Korean 135 Newly Compiled Categorized Collection of Middle Korean pitch accents (sŏngjo 聲 Writings on Events from Old and New 調) 136–7, 158–9, 220–1 (Xinbian Gujin shiwen leiju 新編古今事 military regimes, Koryŏ 34, 36, 38–9, 49 文類聚) 99 Min dialect 143–4 Ni Qian 倪謙 143 Ming 68, 71–4, 76, 93, 96, 104n, 142–3, 146, Nine Course Academy (Kujae haktang 202, 239 九齋學堂) 39n Ming envoys 144 No Sa-sin 盧思慎 202 Ming relief army 230, 238 Northerner faction (pugin 北人) 237, 239 Mirror for Ministers (Xiangjian 相鑒) 70 note of issuance (pansagi 頒賜記) 139 Mirror of Rulers from Past Generations “Note of Presentation” (Chinjŏn-mun 進箋 (Lidai junjian 歷代君鑒) 69 文) of the New Sequel 236, 244 Miura Kunio 31n “Note of Presentation” (Chinjŏn-mun 進 “mixture of the Three Teachings” (sanjiao 箋文) of the Samgang haengsil-to 96, he yi 三教合一) 68 102, 121 index 295 note of royal gift (naesagi 內賜記) 220 patricide 55, 59, 62 Nup’an ko 鏤板考 [An exposition of Peking University Library 138 engraved blocks] 106n Phonetic Rhymes of the Central Plain Nylan, Michael 18n, 30–1 (Zhongyuan yinyun 中原音韻) 147 physical format 94, 154, 169, 198 Ŏ Suk-kwŏn 魚叔權 106n physical images 110 Office for the Establishment of Ceremonies physical manual 10 (Ŭirye sangjŏngso 儀禮詳定所) 175 physical practice 24 Office of Advancement of Literature physicality 2, 5, 31, 260, 265 (Hongmun’gwan 弘文館) 179, 226, 231 Pingshui 平水 rhymes 148 Office of Annal Compilation “Picture above, text below” (shangtu xiawen (Ch’unch’u-gwan 春秋館) 75 上圖下文) 105 Office of Royal Lectures (Sigangwŏn 侍講 poems and eulogies 92, 104–5, 119, 168–9, 院) 132 216, 222, 233, 245, 267 Office of Typecasting (Chujaso 鑄字所) poetry 39, 86, 92, 110, 119–20, 222, 245, 69, 85, 107 248 Ok Yŏng-jŏng 95–6, 133–5, 155, 159 pokho 復戶 (exemption from corvée and Old Chosŏn (Ko Chosŏn 古朝鲜) 271 tax duties) 224, 230, 255n one story per folio 104–5, 108, 132, 169, 260 Pollock, Sheldon 125n Ong, Walter 124–5 “Postface” to the New Sequel 244 ŏnhae 127, 134, 142n, 154, 156–7, 160, 245, “Postface” to the Samgang haengsil-to 96, 249 120–1, 235 Ŏnmun 諺文 128n “Postface to Typecasting” (Chuja pal oral texts 123–5, 128, 160, 168–9, 216, 鑄字跋) 108n 253–4, 265–6 posthumous anthology (munjip 文集) 13, orality 1, 5, 10, 17, 24, 32, 123–5, 128, 142n, 109 169, 254, 265 “Preface” to the Correct Rhymes of the “Order between seniors and juniors” Eastern Kingdom” 149 Changyu yu sŏ 長幼有序 227 “Preface” to the New Sequel 242, 244 original imprints (wŏn’gan-bon 原刊本) “Preface” to the Samgang haengsil-to 67, 96 84–5, 87–8, 90–4, 96, 100, 102–3, 110, orthopraxis and orthopractical text 195 118–19, 129, 168, 196, 223 Oryun haengsil-to 五倫行實圖 (Illustrated “Preface” to the Sequel 198n, 200, 203–6, guide to the Five Relations) 263, 272 212, 223 printing 1, 8, 11, 13, 19, 21–2, 92, 105, 107–9, p’aegwan munhak 稗官文學 (story 130, 132, 202, 209, 235, 264, 269, 272–274 collectors’ literature) 77n printing blocks 97, 106, 132–3 Paek I-jŏng 白頤正 51, 53 private academies (sŏwŏn 書院, Ch. Pak Chi-wŏn 朴趾源 13 shuyuan) 17, 226, 228 Pak Ch’ung-jwa 朴忠佐 51 provincial governments 135, 139, 219, 223 Pak Hyŏn-gyu 34, 53 pukpŏl 北伐 (northern conquest) 271 Pak P’aeng-nyŏn 朴彭年 214 punctuation 99, 136, 220–2 Pak Sung-jil 朴崇質 131, 184 pungdang 朋黨 (faction) 224 Pak Yŏl 朴説 200 p’ungsong 諷誦 (intoning) 119; see also Palace Treasury editions, Ming 96–9, 137, ‘intone’. 222 Pungu yu sin 朋友有信 “trust between Pan Weishui 144n friends” 227 paratexts 96, 104 Purge of 1498 ( Muo sahwa 戊午士禍) paratextual components 155–6 210, 213, 225n 296 index

Purge of 1504 (Kapcha sahwa 甲子士禍) Records of Treasonous Subjects (Nichen lu 210, 212–14 逆臣錄) 70 Purge of 1519 ( Kimyo sahwa 己卯士禍) Rectification of literary styles (Munch’e 223 panjŏng 文體反正) 10n Pyŏn Kye-ryang 卞季良 62, 239n “Rectification of Names” (zhengming 正名) 64 Qian Mu 錢穆 145n Red Gate (hongmun 紅門) 224 Qing dynasty 30n, 36, 67, 185n, 239, 270 reduced edition (sanjŏngbon 刪定本) Queen Sohye Han-ssi 昭惠王后韓氏 171 127, 129, 131–5, 137, 139, 163, 169–73, 176–8, 184–6, 188–91, 215–16, 222–3, 234, 242 readable space 253, 266 Reflections on Things at Hand (Jinsi lu 近思 reader-interpreter 11, 124–5, 140, 156, 265 錄) 47n, 81 reader-reciters 128, 160–1 Regional School (hyanghak 鄉學) 39 reader-teachers 160–1, 168, 253–4, 265, 267 religious syncretism 69, 71 reading 4–5, 9, 13–14, 17, 20–2, 24–7, 43, remonstrators, ŏn’gwan 言官 172, 178–80, 79, 117–18, 124, 128, 144, 156, 169, 206 209, 225 Real Stories of Filial Piety (Xiaoshun shishi reproachment 177–80, 182, 184, 211, 268 孝順事實) 69, 266 rhyme dictionaries (yunshu 韻書) 142, Rebellion of the Three Elite Patrols 146–8, 151, 158 (Sambyŏlch’o ŭi nan 三別抄의 亂) 42 righteous armies (ŭibyŏng 義兵) 228, 230, recalling 109, 126 238–9 recollection 195–6 Rites of Zhou (Zhouli 周禮) 19, 78, 82, 89 Record of Clear Lessons (Qingjiao lu 清教 ritual events 109, 232 錄) 70 ritual space of commemoration 260 Record of Procedures of the Hall of Collation ritual symbolism 103–4 for the New Sequel to the Samgang royal gift 137, 220, 243n haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom rule by rituals (lizhi 禮治; Kr. yech’i) 57 (Tongguk sinsok Samgang haengsil rule by virtue (dezhi 德治; Kr. tŏkch’i) 102 ch’anjipch’ŏng ŭigwe 東國新續三綱行 “Rules of reading” (Dushu fa 讀書法) 21, 實撰集廳儀軌) 231–2, 241–2, 255 25 A Record to Exhibit the Band of Traitors (Zhaoshi jiandang lu 昭示奸黨錄) 70 Saganwŏn 司諫院 (Institute of Records of Admonishments for Ministers Remonstrators) 179–80 (Chenjie lu 臣戒錄) 70 Sahŏnbu 司憲部 (Department of the Records of Filial Action [Hyohaeng-nok Censorate) 179–80 孝行錄] 62, 65–7, 85, 92 Sakai Tadao 68–9 Records of Filial Piety and Compassion Samgangnok 三綱錄 264, 273 (Xiaoci lu 孝慈錄) 70 Samsung Museum of Art 95, 111 Records of Imperial Princesses of Past Sangbaek mun’go collection 165n Generations (Lidai gongzhu lu 歷代公 sarim 士林 7, 9, 178–9, 209–10, 212, 214, 主錄) 70 223–4, 226–8, 236–7, 269 Records of Imperial Sons-in-Law of Past sarim censors 211–12 Generations (Lidai fuma lu 歷代駙馬 sarim faction 179, 210, 212, 225, 236 錄) 70 sarim politics 213, 226 “Records of Learning” (Xueji 學記) 83 Satow, Ernest 138n Records of Praising the Good and Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to 7–8, Condemning the Bad (Zhangshan dane lu 100n, 138n, 157, 162, 197–8, 200, 202–4, 彰善癉惡錄) 70 207–9, 212–23, 227, 229, 233–5, 242–5, Records of Rites (Liji 禮記) 19–20, 29, 83, 267–8 98, 153, 178, 183 serving the great (sadae 事大) 36 index 297 shanshu 善書 or quanshanshu 勸善書 Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 67, 69, 71–2, 99; see also Empress 春秋) 18–20 Renxiao’s Book for Promoting Good Deeds “Standard of Three Obediences” (samjong Shao Yong 邵雍 147–8, 158 chi ŭi 三從之義) 186n Shibu Shōhei 133–5, 137–9 stereotypical images 258 Shi’erjing 十二經 (Twelve Classics) 19 stories of virginal maidens 184–5 Shisanjing 十三經 (Thirteen Classics) 19 story primes 191–4, 207, 259 Shuang Ji 雙冀 37, 143 storybooks 273 Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 151–2 Su Shi 蘇軾 20, 54 Silla 40, 48, 80n, 123n, 141 Subjects of Merit in Guarding the King Sima Xun 司馬恂 143 (hosŏng kongsin 扈聖功臣) 230 Sin Suk-chu 申叔舟 143, 149n, 208 Subjects of Merit in Military Brilliance Sin Yong-gae 申用溉 198, 200, 207–8, (sŏnmu kongsin 宣武功臣) 230 212–13, 215 Suburban Sacrifice (kyoje 郊祭) 239 Sino-Korean 10, 142, 144 Sungkyunkwan University Library 165 Sino-Korean pronunciations (Hanchaŭm surtitles 156, 265 漢字音) 123n, 137, 141–2, 148–50, 157–8 Six Codes of Administration (Kyŏngje taboo characters (Ch. bihui 避諱; Kr. yukchŏn 經濟六典) 61 p’ihwi) 102 Six Colleges of the Metropolitan Area Tae Myŏng-nyul chikhae 大明律直解 (kyŏngsa yukhak 京師六學) 39 (Direct explanation of The Great Ming “Six Sheng Pipe Songs” (Liusheng shi 六笙 Code) 61 詩) 93 Taebuk 大北 (Great Northerner) slicing flesh from a thigh 173–4, 259 faction 236 Sŏ Kŏ-jŏng 徐居正 202 taitou 抬頭 “head-raising” 102 Sŏ Yu-gu 徐有榘 106n Tang dynasty 15–16, 18–19, 39–40, 43, 102 sŏkchŏn 釋奠 (Ceremonial Offering of The Tang Code 57, 59–60 Libation [to Confucius]) 82 tanji halgo 斷指割股 (“cutting off a finger Sŏl Chang-su 偰長壽 65 and slicing flesh from a thigh”) 174 Sŏl Kyŏng-su 偰慶壽 65 Ten Abominations (Shi’e 十惡) 57–8 Sŏl Son 偰遜 64 textual format 127, 255n, 260 Sŏl Sun 偰循 62, 64–7, 75 textual language 5, 9, 127, 150, 253 Song dynasty 13, 15–19, 21, 34n, 40–1, 43, thread binding (線裝 sŏnjang) 94 45–6, 54, 67, 71, 93n, 102, 143, 146, 226, 265 Three Bureaus (Samsa 三司) 179, 210–11 Sŏng Hon 成渾 238n Tillman, Hoyt 14n Song Il-gi and Yi T’ae-ho 95–6, 135n, Toch’an 圖讚 (Ch. tuzan, illustrated 219–20, 223 eulogy) 84n Sŏng Mong-jŏng 成夢井 201, 213 Tongsan Library 221 Sŏng Sam-mun 成三問 149, 213–14 Topical Discourses of Mr. Chibong (Chibong Song Si-yŏl 宋時烈 271–2 yusŏl 芝峰類說) 240 Sŏng’am Museum of Old Books 133, translation 127, 136–7, 160–3, 167–8, 137–8, 155, 159 252–3, 266 Sŏnggyun’gwan 成均館 (National Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Academy) 80–1 Retribution (Taishang ganying pian 太上 “Songs of the Five Sons” 90 感應篇) 67–8, 71 sŏnoe 書腦, “brain of the book” 94 Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety [Ershisi sŏnsan 先山 259 xiao 二十四孝] 62, 66, 266 speech sounds 28, 144–5, 153 typological distance between Korean and Spelling Rhymes (Qieyun 切韵) 145–6 Chinese 140 298 index

U T’ak 禹倬 51 Wudian 五典 (Five Cardinal Moral Codes, ŭigwe 儀軌 (Record of procedures) 231–2 or Five Canons) 84–5, 87–8 Ukiyo monogatari 浮世物語 (A tale of the floating world) 139 Xu Heng 許衡 46–8, 52 Undisclosed Arrangements for Doing Good Xu Jing 徐競 39 Deeds (Weishan yinzhi 為善陰騭) 69, Xu Qian 許謙 46 72–4 Xu Shen 許慎 151n unheeded reproaches 178–80 Xuanhe fengshi gaoli tujing 宣和奉使 universal emperor 44, 46n 高麗圖經 (Xuanhe Commissioner's upper margins (sŏmi 書眉, “eyebrows of Illustrated Account of Koryŏ) 39 the book”) 8, 105, 133, 137, 139n, 154–7, Xun Xu 荀勗 85 162, 253, 265 Yan Fu 閻復 52 vernacular editions (ŏnhaebon 諺解 yangban 13–14, 48, 80 本,) 127–8, 131, 134, 154, 156–7, 162, 164, Yao Dajun 122 169 Yao Shu 姚樞 52 Vernacular Elementary Learning (Sohak Yao Sui 姚燧 52 ŏnhae 小學諺解) 249 Yelü Chucai 耶律楚材 46 vernacular language 136 Yi Chang-gon 李長坤 201, 213 vernacular texts 7, 11, 105, 127–30, 132–4, Yi Che-hyŏn 李齊賢 34n, 51–3, 65, 85 136–9, 154–7, 159–63, 167–9, 215–19, 221–2, Yi Chin 李瑱 51 245, 248–9, 251–4, 265–6 Yi Cho-nyŏn 李兆年 51 village covenants (hyangyak 鄉約) 226 Yi Chŏng-wŏn 273n violence 5, 176, 192–3, 196 Yi Chun-gyŏng 李浚慶 269 visual images 151–2 Yi Ho-wŏn 李浩源 215, 261 visual stereotypes 258 Yi Hŭi-ju 180 visual symbols 150–1 Yi Hye-sun 192 visuality 10, 151, 254 Yi I-ch’ŏm 李爾瞻 235–6, 245, 247, 254 vocal reading (reading aloud) 22–4, 32, Yi I 李珥 238n 122, 145; see also dusong. Yi Kok 李穀 51 Vulgar Script 153, 216n, 227 Yi Kŭng-ik 李肯翊 68n Yi Kwang-nyŏl 237 Wagner, Edward W. 211 Yi Kye-maeng 李繼孟 200, 212–13 Wang Anshi 王安石 34n, 120 Yi Saek 李穡 52, 75 Waseda University Library 139, 217 Yi Sim-wŏn 李深源 214–15, 261 weifa 未發 (‘not yet brought-out’), yifa Yi Sung-in 李崇仁 52, 75 已發 (‘already brought-out’) 118; see Yi Yŏng-gyŏng 249 also “Feel and bring out.” Yŏllyŏ-do 烈女圖 (Illustrations of devoted Wells, Scott 10n women) 79, 94–5, 111, 129, 242–3 Westerner faction (sŏin 西人) 236–9 yŏmyo 廬墓 (Ch. lumu, ‘keeping vigil next Women’s Precepts (Nüjie 女誡, Kr. to a grave’) 250–2, 258, 260, 267, 269 Yŏgye) 70, 76, 172n, 227 Yoshida, Mayumi 68, 71 Women’s Principles (Yŏch’ik 女則) 227 Yu Cha-gwang 柳子光 210 woodblock printing 109, 269 Yu Ji 虞集 52 woodblocks 6, 21, 94, 104, 106–9, 264, 269 Yu Mong-in 柳夢寅 244 writing system 5, 10, 128, 150–3, 245, 248 Yuan 4, 6, 13, 15, 33–6, 39–54, 56, 59–60, written languages 7, 9–10, 28n, 40, 123n, 64–6, 101, 147n, 162–5, 167, 270 125, 140–1, 145, 152–3, 270 Yuan Mingshan 元明善 52 Wu Cheng 吳澄 46 Yue Shaofeng 樂韶鳳 148 index 299

Yun Hoe 尹淮 96n Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 17, 89, 145n Yun Kŭn-su 尹根壽 244 Zhou dynasty 49, 84, 86–7, 89, 93, 103, 146, yunshu de lixuehua 韻書的理學化 204n, 271n “philosophizing rhyme dictionaries with Zhou Deqing 周德清 147n the Learning of the Principle” 146 Zhou Xinhui 98–9 Zhu Xi 朱熹 4, 13–15, 17, 19–22, 24–34, 43, Zhang Zai 張載 118 46–8, 50–3, 81, 88, 93, 144, 169, 225–6 Zhao Fu 趙復 46 Zhuangzi 莊子 174 Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫 52, 96