Corea is " land without novels or newspapers. Let anyone who suffers from ner-Yous prostration, brought on by vain efforts to keep pace with the literature of that the day, come here and rest. No regular story-writer is known to have lived in these parts for a thousand years. There are no publishing houses, aad no laws of copyright. Scholars have written short essays at rare intervals, bub literature has never been reduced to the common level of ordinary life. Books in colloquial, sold at ordinary street stalls, would be thing horrible in the eyes of the literati. Says he, "How could common words such as people uso in talk ever be printed in books?" In his attitude ho reminds me somewhat of a callow secretary who bad been loaned Mark Twain's " More Tram, Abroad." He brought it back, and the friend inquired as to how he liked it. "Oh, I enjoyed it, but don't you think he's "rather " vulgar?"
Literature in Corea is never vulgar. Education consists in a knowledge of the immortal Chinese Classics. Characters are sacred, and no printed book can be tassed about or trod upon without offending the gods. Children begin with the Thousand Characters and pass on to a history, that explains the nature of the yang and the yin and other fables of China. Then they read the Tong-gam, a history of the Middle Kingdom from the 4th century B.C. to 959 A.D., written by Sen Ma-hoang; then the Great Learning, Mencius, Analects, Doctrine of the Mean, books of poetry and history, and finally the Yi-king, No work dealing with native subjects appears on the curriculum. Tt has been a law with Corea that a small state should serve a large one, and so in education she has rigidly excluded everything that was not of Chinese origin, lest she should appear to exalt self. The Chinese of Corea is Wenli. Very famous writers have lived, a whole group of them at once about 1400 A. D., who wrote many books on history, ceremony, ete. Some of these scholars were highly honoured at the court in Nanking, but their books were laid aside and forgotten, or lost, or destroyed, or buried, until it is almost impossible to get hold of such native litera ture, and even scholars know nothing of the' literary history of their poor peninsula. Of late, books are comin; out of unexpected holes and corners an offering themselves for sale. The other day an encyclopedia, called the Mun-kun-pi-go, written about 1770, was sold to a foreigner for 194 yen. At about the same time I met a man with an armful of books on his way to the Japanese settlement. I inquired as to what they were and found them marked I-kye, someone's mom de plume, though no one seemed to know the possessor of the name. After search I found it was a M'Hong Yang-ho, who was sent as the King's representative to the Court at Peking in 1795. He was also governor of the north of Corea, and is noted in the sacred book of writers as one of the famous literati. The book begins with a composition on the wild goose. "Tt shows us what Corea thought of her neigh-hours at the time when Napoleon Bonaparte was trying to tell Europe wHat he thought of his. The composition is partly in proso and partly in verse. As there is no possibility of equalling the elegance of the original, I leave the form to take care of itself and try to interpret faithfully the points noted therein.
Setting Free the Wild Goose.
"In the late Autumn a peasant of Kyanghering (on the Tumen near Vladivostock) caught two wild geese, cut their wings, and gave them to me. I kept them in the court where the steward looked after them. One day he came to me and said, "These birds are better flavoured than pheasant, I advise Your Excellency to kill and eat." "Tut, man,' said I. "Have you never noticed that when these birds fly they. preserve the strictest order, it is yi (ceremony); when they mate there is no confusion, that is ewi (loyalty)
their migrations they follow the warmth of the sun, that is chi (wisdom); though they go and come you can always count on them at the right season, that is sin (trustworthiness); they never make war on other creatures with bill or scratch with claws, that borders on in (love). Only a bird with feathers, yet possessing the five virtues! Its ways and habits recorded in the Classies, its note a song! The Book of Yi talks of it, at weddings, too, it is carried along to help out the ceremony, dso its virtues and superior attainments are manifested. It would never do to make soup of, or fry like pheasant, quail or chicken. Feed them every day on grain and give them water to quench their thirst, fix them a coop to keep out the cold; shut them up at night from foxes and rats; let a month or so go by, till their wings lengthen out, then take them to the Peak and let them fly away with this message Keep away from the North—The long sand woods where your quills will Tie, And the inky Amoor, that reedily by, The cracking ice that will spoil Your bill, And the sneaky old bear to claw and kill, And the round spot tiger that loves you de lear, And the savage bow and the whistling spear, Keep away from the North, keep away!
Keep away from the South—The red-hot earth and the boiling sea, And snakes in the air that fly, That stand on their tails and hiss and strike, Till the geese that are bitten die. There are fiery hills that scorch the sin, And flames that glare by day, If you go to the South, your life is done, And your feathers are burned away.
Keep away from the Fast—There's the Sea of the Child, With its waters heaving, pitching wild, And whales that swallow a ship down whole, With jumping beasts that squirm and roll And the black-toothed man with tattoo band, And a cunning heart and a clever hand, With a deadly bullet and eye to: aim, And a thunder flash and a burst of flame, Where you never would get away at li, And your bows snd nerves would be ground up small.
Keep away from the West—Where the Yaloo flows, By the land of sin'and dirt, Where the words they talk with nobody knows, And the coat they wear's a shirt. Where a spear isling in the girdle string, And a deadly blade beside, Where they hunt the life of each living thing, To gorge on its flesh and hide; Where the smell of oil th dote upon, And the tents are decked with quills. If you venture there you are dead and gone, Asa ghost among the hills.
"But here, in this land of green mountains, where the day first shines; and the silver constellation stretches across; and the Lim. Star hangs over; and the warp and woof of heaven glistens with light; and mountains interlace; and waters circle round; where heat and cold are just what they ought to be; and fertile lands stretch three hundred miles; and grain grows plentifully; and the doctrine of the sages is taught; and where grace abounds; where the young of animals and eggsofbirds are not molested, and where all things flourish. Fly nowhere else; come back here with your wife and family and call all your relatives; sail in with the clouds and sing out to the moon; dine off the reeds, but watch out for arrows and fish nets; go South in autumn and come back in spring, and live out your life in peace." Essen Tarp.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.