Jewang Ungi (Rhymed Chronicle of Emperors and Kings) 帝王韻紀 · Yi Seunghyu · 1287 (Goryeo, 13th year of King Chungnyeol) · 3 passages · 70 Chinese characters · reading time 0.3 min
Jewang Ungi (Rhymed Chronicle of Emperors and Kings) Upper Book From Pangu to the Jurchen Jin, from Dangun to Goryeo — an epic that weaves the two histories, of China and of the East, into verse. Declaring that there is a world apart in Liaodong, it sets the history of Korea beside that of China, and it is one of the first histories to sing of Dangun as the founding ancestor of every state on the Korean peninsula. The author's own one hundred and ninety-seven interlinear notes are carried with it.
1Before Fuxi all is dim
伏羲已上濛鴻然, 雖有年歲無文字, 彼其年代與云爲, 或說不同難准擬.
Before Fuxi all was dim and boundless,
and there were years, but no writing,
and the dates of that time and the deeds done in it
are told in differing ways, and hard to take as a standard.
2Five thousand six hundred years
自羲始造書契來, 金哀元年甲申至, 五千六百餘年間, 相承授受應如此, 莫謂古今杳難明.
From when Fuxi first made tallies and writing
down to the jiashen year, the first year of Emperor Ai of the Jurchen Jin,
in those five thousand six hundred years and more
the passing on and the handing over must have been just so.
Do not say that old and new are too far off to be made clear.
3Like looking at your own palm
讀此如指諸掌耳.
Read this, and it will be like looking into the palm of your hand.
Interlinear notes 1
圓點大者, 正統也, 中者竝立也, 小者十二諸侯·七國與夫僭號輩也.
Of the round dots, the large ones mark the legitimate line, the middle ones those that stood side by side, and the small ones the twelve feudal lords, the seven states, and those who usurped titles.