Yuri — the broken sword, and the closing words東明王篇 五

類利少有奇節云云。少以彈雀爲業。見一婦戴水盆。彈破之。其女怒而詈曰。無父之兒。彈破我盆。類利大慙。以泥丸彈之。塞盆孔如故。歸家問母曰。我父是誰。母以類利年少戱之曰。汝無定父。類利泣曰。人無定父。將何面目見人乎。遂欲自刎。母大驚止之曰。前言戱耳。汝父是天帝孫。河伯甥。怨爲扶餘之臣。逃往南土。始造國家。汝往見之乎。對曰。父爲人君。子爲人臣。吾雖不才。豈不愧乎。母曰。汝父去時有遺言。吾有藏物七嶺七谷石上之松。能得此者。乃我之子也。類利自往山谷。搜求不得。疲倦而還。類利聞堂柱有悲聲。其柱乃石上之松木。體有七稜。類利自解之曰。七嶺七谷者。七稜也。石上松者。柱也。起而就視之。柱上有孔。得毀劒一片。大喜。前漢鴻嘉四年夏四月。奔高句麗。以劒一片。奉之於王。王出所有毀劒一片合之。血出連爲一劍。王謂類利曰。汝實我子。有何神聖乎。類利應聲。擧身聳空。乘牖中日。示其神聖之異。王大悅。立爲太子。

From his young days Yuri held to a rare integrity, and so on. As a boy he made a business of shooting sparrows, and seeing a woman carrying a water jar on her head he shot it and broke it. That woman was angry and scolded him, saying, "A fatherless child has shot my jar and broken it." Yuri was greatly ashamed, and he shot a pellet of clay and stopped up the hole in the jar so that it was as before. He went home and asked his mother, "Who is my father?" His mother, because Yuri was young, teased him and said, "You have no settled father." Yuri wept and said, "If a man has no settled father, with what face shall he meet other people?" And with that he would have cut his own throat. His mother was greatly alarmed and stopped him, saying, "What I said before was only in jest. Your father is the grandson of the Heavenly Emperor and the grandson of Habaek by his daughter. He resented being a subject of Buyeo, and fled to the land in the south, and there he first founded a state. Will you go and see him?" He answered, "My father is lord over others and his son is a subject of others. Though I have no gifts, how should I not be ashamed?" His mother said, "When your father left, he left words behind. He said, 'I have hidden something on a pine on a stone at seven ridges and seven valleys. Whoever can find this is my son.'" Yuri went off himself into the mountain valleys and searched for it, but did not find it, and came back worn out. Yuri heard a sorrowful sound coming from a pillar of the house, and that pillar was the pine on the stone, and its body had seven corners. Yuri worked it out for himself, saying, "Seven ridges and seven valleys are the seven corners, and the pine on the stone is the pillar." He got up and went to look, and there was a hole in the top of the pillar, and he found in it one piece of a broken sword, and was greatly pleased. In the fourth month of summer in the fourth year of Hongjia in the Former Han (17 BC) he hurried to Goguryeo and offered the piece of the sword to the king. The king brought out the piece of the broken sword he had, and fitted them together, and blood came out and they joined into one sword. The king said to Yuri, "If you are truly my son, what holy power is in you?" At the word Yuri lifted his body and sprang into the air, and riding the sunlight that came in at the window he showed the wonder of his holy power. The king was greatly pleased, and made him crown prince.