Korean Classical Literature by Chong-Wha

Author:Chong-Wha [Chong-Wha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138974098
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

The palace lady finished reading. The black coffin was sombre, the bright banners with his titles fluttered, a sad wind seemed to add to the grief, and the incense smoke seemed to be aware of the desolation of parting. High and low, young and old were all swept by sadness again, and the sound of weeping pierced the heavens.

Now Hǔisǒng and his brother bore their parents’ pall down to the ancestral home. The only daughter of the Premier Duke, the young lady Sim Hwa, with a few servants, kept the family home. Her exceeding loneliness and lowliness of state were beyond compare.

Before this, when the Premier Duke’s only daughter had been born, not only had his love for her been of the greatest, but, thinking of how the Queen had grown up, he had provided her with clothes and toiletries for all times, not omitting the most trivial thing, and had had her installed in a position like that of the greatest princess of the kingdom, with dozens of serving maids to attend upon her. His love had been without compare.

Now his coffin travelled for several days to reach his birthplace. The day of the funeral came, and he and his second wife were interred with his first wife. Their sons took up residence at the old house, so that they could watch continuously at the grave.

Meanwhile the Queen heard that the cortege of the Premier Duke and his wife had left, and she wailed again. Seven days after the funeral she returned to court, but her heart was full of sorrow for her father, and she kept falling grievously ill. Time passed, and at the third and last annual memorial service for her father she was so grief–stricken for her father that she removed to a separate residence.

After her grief for her father, and because of it, her illness reached a crisis. Finally all known medicines were ineffective, and in the end she departed the world. Within the palace both men and women bewailed her death. All the people of the kingdom thought of her goodness towards them and were as sad as if they had lost their own parents. The King too, when he lost the Queen who had been his support all his life, felt that he had lost both his hands and both his feet. He had no care for affairs, and, as the days went by and he thought of the gentle and generous nature the Queen had had, and her lovely, full, round face, a desperate sickness set in in his heart. Finally the following autumn he departed the world.

The Crown Prince, Yongyun, after bewailing his death, ascended the throne. When it was announced in the capital and the provinces, all the people of the land lamented the death with the keenest distress.

Later Hǔisǒng, the eldest son of the Premier Duke, was one of the three top graduates selected in the King’s presence in the civil service examination, and he rose to the office of Minister of the Board of Personnel.

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