The Tale of Usang우상전 · 虞裳傳

The Tale of Usang

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.

When a new kampaku took power in Japan, palaces and ships were put in order, and talented people were gathered from the islands. After several years of preparation, Japan requested an embassy from Joseon. The Joseon court selected civil officials to serve as three envoys and sent people with exceptional knowledge and skills to accompany them. The party included experts in astronomy, geography, medicine, and martial arts, as well as accomplished musicians and archers. Poetry, prose, calligraphy, and painting were particularly prized.

The envoys' lodgings were lavish. Buildings, courtyards, curtains, and tableware were furnished with precious materials, and their hosts entertained them generously. Yet the writer looks beyond these outward signs of respect. He also describes some Joseon interpreters secretly taking prohibited animal skins and ginseng to trade for jewels and swords. Beneath an encounter presented in the language of courtesy and culture, people were pursuing wealth. Alongside this scene appears Usang, who attracted attention through his writing alone.

Usang joined the embassy as an interpreter of Chinese. Once in Japan, however, he made a great name for himself as a writer. Distinguished monks and people of high standing addressed him with respect. Sheets of paper and scrolls offered to him piled up on his desk. Some people deliberately proposed difficult subjects and demanding rhyme characters to test his skill. Usang composed on the spot as though reciting work he had prepared long before. Until each gathering ended, he showed neither fatigue nor any difficulty finding his words.

The tale reproduces Usang's long poem, Haerampyeon, or A View of the Sea. It opens with a broad vision of the world's countries spread out like stars and stones on a Go board. It then surveys Japan's mountains and seas, trees and produce, and the rare goods gathered in Osaka. The sea's colors seem to change into coral, blue gems, scattered stars, and silk. The poem observes unfamiliar sights closely, but some passages also speak harshly and disparagingly of local customs and people. It ends by urging careful relations with the neighboring country so that peace will not be lost.

Park Ji-won regards Usang as someone who brought honor to his country. He recalls the efforts of great armies and commanders during the Japanese invasions of 1592–1598, then criticizes cases in which later embassies repeatedly visited Japan without gaining a sound understanding of its circumstances. Though Usang was physically weak, his brush drew out the essence of the world before him. The writer magnifies that power by comparing it to uprooting mountains and rivers. A difference emerges between making a journey according to formal requirements and truly observing and recording what one sees.

Usang's given name was Sang-jo, and he also used the pen name Changgi. He had enough confidence in his talent to inscribe his own portrait with references to poets, immortals, and mountain dwellers of the past. Park Ji-won says that a scholar can flourish before someone who understands him, but shrinks before someone who does not. Even a small bird cherishes its feathers; how much more must a writer care for his work? Yet sorrow ran through Usang's words. Gravely ill and close to death, he burned his drafts, asking who would ever understand him again.

The writer pauses here to consider the relationship between talent and virtue. If virtue is a vessel, talent is what it contains. A vessel with nothing inside is empty; something without a vessel has nowhere to stay. And just as people seek to cut down useful trees or seize beautiful shells, exceptional talent does not always bring a peaceful life. Admiration and concern accompany the fact that an interpreter scarcely known beyond his own neighborhood at home achieved great fame in a distant country.

Other poems Usang wrote on his travels also appear in the tale. They describe people seen while passing the sea at Seungbon, drums and gifts, and exchanges conducted through expressions and brushes rather than speech. A poem written while he lay ill aboard ship recalls his teacher's instruction and discusses Confucianism and Buddhism. It includes forceful denunciations of Buddhism. Usang's poetry is said to have attracted enough interest to be printed and circulated locally. By presenting several poems together, the tale shows his actual writing instead of relying only on praise for his talent.

Park Ji-won and Usang never actually met while Usang was alive. Usang repeatedly sent someone to show Park his poems, saying that Park might be able to understand him. Park responded to the messenger with a harsh dismissal, treating the poems as insignificant chatter. Usang reportedly became angry, then lamented that he would not live long and began to weep. Hearing this, Park too felt sorrow. Soon afterward, Usang died at twenty-seven.

In a dream said to have been dreamed by a family member, a drunken immortal rode away on a blue whale, with Usang following, his hair unbound. People also said that he had departed as an immortal. Songs of mourning compared him to a five-colored bird that briefly perched on a roof before vanishing, and to a precious treasure that could not be borrowed for long. Another song described one man's death as making the world's people seem fewer. Through these dreams and songs, the tale evokes the emptiness left by the young writer's death.

Park Ji-won explains why he deliberately discouraged Usang while privately valuing his talent. He had thought that, because Usang was still young, further study might enable him to write a book that would endure for later generations. Looking back, however, he admits that Usang would hardly have regarded him as someone to welcome. He regretted never having met him. With Usang's writing burned and the world's chances of knowing him further diminished, Park's earlier harsh criticism returns as regret.

The writer opens a box and finds a few poems Usang had sent him years before. He records all the surviving work and writes Usang's life. He cannot undo his failure to recognize the man, but he can try to show readers what the man wrote. The surviving text breaks off just as it begins to say that Usang's younger brother was talented too. What reaches readers today is more than a settled account of a completed life: it is an attempt to recover vanishing writing, with an empty space at its end.

虞裳傳

Collected Korean Literary Works · Collected Works of Yeonam, Volume 8

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.

Writing That Waited for Recognition, a Record That Came Too Late

Usang wins a name in Japan by responding instantly even to difficult poetic subjects, yet at home he remains confined by status and a narrow circle of recognition. Compare how the same talent is received in these two places. The tale does more than praise hospitality abroad. By placing lavish receptions beside smuggling and merely formal diplomatic visits, it asks what recognizing talent really involves.

The narrator both commemorates Usang and explains his own conduct. His claim that he criticized Usang harshly in the hope of greater achievement sits uneasily beside Usang's tears. Look for grounds to decide whether to accept the narrator's explanation or give greater weight to his belated regret. The fact that the two never met is also important to understanding their relationship.

The long poems embedded in the story can slow the reading if you follow only events. First consider where the poems appear and what they do. Descriptions of unfamiliar sights and the sea directly demonstrate Usang's powers of observation and writing; the songs after his death convey the survivors' sorrow. The accessible retelling summarizes the poems, while the Classical Chinese original preserves all the inserted verse.

Some inserted poems disparage Japanese people and customs or reject Buddhism. These passages can be read as evidence of the writers' period assumptions and disputes. Notice how sharp observation and prejudice can coexist within a sentence. The final mark 〔缺〕 indicates that the ending was lost during transmission. We have therefore left that loss visible rather than inventing an ending to follow it.