The Tale of Jang
This is the complete English version of MeKorean’s modern Korean retelling of the main scenes. It is not an official ITKC translation or a line-by-line scholarly translation. Consult the Classical Chinese original for its precise wording.
No one really knew where Jang came from. Around the year called Gichuk, he traveled about Seoul begging, and when asked his name, said he did not know it himself. He offered a little more when asked about his family. His father had been the jwasu of Miryang, he said, and his mother had died when he was three. Believing a concubine's accusations, his father sent him to a servant's household, where a marriage was arranged for him at fifteen. When his wife too died a few years later, he wandered through many districts before reaching Seoul.
He was handsome and well turned out, with eyes and eyebrows as fine as a painting. He spoke well and answered quickly; above all, he sang beautifully. His voice could move people's hearts. He always wore the same lined purple silk robe, in cold weather and hot alike. He frequented taverns and places where singers gathered. Whenever there was wine, he filled his own cup, sang to his heart's content, enjoyed himself, and left.
His imitations at drinking parties were remarkable too. He reproduced the behavior of a blind fortune-teller, a drunken shaman, a lazy scholar, an abandoned wife, and a beggar, each with perfect likeness. By moving his face he could also take on the features of the eighteen arhats. With pursed lips he produced the sounds of pipes, flutes, and other instruments, followed by the calls of many birds. When he crowed like a rooster or barked like a dog at night, the neighbors' chickens and dogs answered him.
Each morning Jang went to beg in the market. He collected three or four mal of grain in a day, but cooked only a few doe for himself and shared the rest with other beggars. Child beggars therefore followed him in a line whenever he set out. The same thing happened the next day. Though he lived on what others gave him, he did not keep everything he received. People found his conduct as difficult to fathom as his abilities.
For a time Jang stayed at the home of the musician Lee Han. There he regularly met a young woman learning the hogeum, a bowed string instrument, and they became close. One day she lost a purple phoenix ornament set with beads. A handsome young man had approached her in the street that morning, teased her, and drawn close; afterward the ornament was gone. When she wept, Jang told her to stop crying. Promising to recover it by evening, he slipped lightly away.
When he returned that evening, Jang called for the young woman and took her out. They followed the western wall of Gyeongbokgung Palace to the corner of Sinhomun Gate. There he tied a broad sash around her waist, wrapped it around his left arm, and leaped into the air. They flew over gate after gate into the dark palace. Before she could make out their route, they reached Gyeonghoeru Pavilion, where two young men greeted them with candles. Jang and the men looked at one another and laughed heartily.
The young men brought out quantities of gold, beads, and silk from a hiding place above a beam. The lost phoenix ornament was among them. Once it was returned, Jang told the pair to be careful and not let people in the world discover their movements. He then took the young woman back over the walls in flight and delivered her home. Before dawn she went to Lee Han's house to thank him, but found Jang lying drunk and snoring. Those nearby had not even known he had gone out during the night.
Early in the fourth month of the Imjin year, Jang drank a great deal on credit and danced in the street. He kept singing until late at night, when he collapsed on Supyogyo Bridge. People found him the next morning, already dead. Yet the insects said to have formed as his corpse decayed all grew wings and flew away. Within one night his body vanished, leaving only his clothes and socks. The end of this familiar street figure became stranger than any feat he had performed.
Hong Sehui, a military man particularly close to Jang, said that he met him at Joryeong Pass that same month while going to resist the invasion. Wearing straw shoes and carrying a staff, Jang took his hand in welcome. He said he had not died but was leaving to find a land east of the sea. He then warned Hong that, if he encountered fighting that year, he should head for the woods rather than the water. In the Jeongyu year he should not go south, and even if official duties took him there, he must not enter a mountain fortress. With that, Jang walked away as though flying and soon vanished.
During a battle that year, Hong Sehui remembered Jang's words and escaped into the mountains, saving his life. In the Jeongyu year, however, he went south on official duty and forgot the warning. Pursued by the enemy, he heard that Hwangseok Fortress was defended and entered it; when it fell, he died with the others. The story places one warning that saved his life beside another forgotten warning that led to death. Heo Gyun adds that he joked familiarly with Jang in his youth and saw his abilities himself. He then asks whether Jang might have been one of the sword immortals of old tales.
蔣生傳
The Classical Chinese original comes from ITKC’s publicly released Collected Korean Literary Works XML. Paragraphs are divided for readability. Consult the official source below for variant characters, collation notes and page images.
蔣生不知何許人。己丑年間。往來都下。以乞食爲事。問其名則吾亦不知。
問其祖父居住則曰。父爲密陽座首。生我三歲而母沒。父惑婢妾之譖。黜我莊奴家。
十五。奴爲娶民女。數歲婦死。因流至湖南西數十州。今抵洛矣。
其貌甚都秀。眉目如畫。善談笑捷給。尤工謳。發聲凄絶動人。
常被紫錦裌衣。寒暑不易。凡倡店姬廊。靡不歷入慣交。遇酒輒自引滿。
發唱極其懽而去。或於酒半。效盲卜醉巫懶儒棄婦乞者老仍所爲。種種逼眞。又以面孔學十八羅漢。
無不酷似。又蹙口作笳簫箏琶鴻鵠鶖䳱鴉鶴等音。難辨眞贗。夜作鷄鳴狗吠。則隣犬鷄皆鳴吠焉。
朝則出乞於野市。一日所獲幾三四斗。炊食數升。則散他丐者。故出則群乞兒尾之。
明日又如是。人莫測其所爲。嘗寓樂工李漢家。有一叉鬟學胡琴。朝夕與之熟。
一日。失綴珠紫花鳳尾。莫知所在。蓋朝自街上來。有俊年少調笑偎倚。
因而不見。啼哭不止。生曰。唉。小兒何敢乃爾。
願娘無泣。夕當袖耒。翩然而去。及夕。招叉鬟出。
迤從西街傍景福西墻。至神虎門角。以大帶綰鬟之腰。纏於左臂。奮迅一踊。
飛入數重門。時曛黑莫辨逕路。倏抵慶會樓。上有二年少秉燭相迓。相視大噱。
因自梁上鑑嵌中出金珠羅絹甚多。鬟所失鳳尾亦在焉。年少自還之。生曰。二弟愼行止。
毋使世人瞰吾蹤也。遂引還飛出北城。送還其家。未明詣李家謝之。則醉臥齁齁。
人亦不知夜出也。壬辰四月初吉。賖酒數㪷大醉。攔街以舞。唱歌不綴。
殆夜倒於水標橋上。遲明。人見之。死已久矣。屍爛爲蟲悉生翼飛去。
一夕皆盡。唯衣襪在。武人洪世熹者居于蓮花坊。最與之昵。四月。
從李鎰防倭。行至鳥嶺。見生芒屩曳杖。握手甚喜曰。吾實非死也。
向海東覓一國土去矣。因曰。君今年不合死。有兵禍。向高林勿入水。
丁酉年。愼毋南來。或有公幹。勿登山城。言訖。
如飛而行。須臾失所在。洪果於琴臺之戰。憶此言。奔上山得免。
丁酉七月。以禁軍在直。致有旨於梧里相。都忘其戒。回至星州。
爲賊所迫。聞黃石城有備。疾馳入。城陷倂命。余少日狎游俠邪。
與之諧謔甚親。悉覩其技。噫其神矣。卽古所謂劍仙者流耶。
How a Man of the Streets Becomes an Extraordinary Figure
At first Jang is a street figure skilled in song and imitation. During the palace night he flies over walls; after death, insects fly away from his body; on the road to war he appears again. Follow how each change of scene adds another layer of strangeness. The final question about a sword immortal is reached through this sequence rather than supplied as an explanation from the outset.
The brief passage about Jang sharing his grain reveals his relationships. Consider why child beggars follow him and how he helps recover the stolen ornament. His actions reveal an influence that cannot be explained by status or property. The account does not, however, disclose his exact relationship with the two young men in the palace, so that gap should not be filled hastily.
Distinguish the skills Heo Gyun says he saw himself from the reunion related through another person's experience. Notice too the pattern in which one prophecy is followed and brings survival, while another is forgotten and followed by death. Even within the historical setting of war, the mysterious death and fulfilled prophecies can be read as the extraordinary stories the work transmits.