Yetgeul › Jewang Ungi (Rhymed Chronicle of Emperors and Kings) › Lower Book
A World Apart in Liaodong遼東別有一乾坤
Jewang Ungi (Rhymed Chronicle of Emperors and Kings) Lower 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.
1There is a world apart in Liaodong
遼東別有一乾坤, 斗與中朝區以分.
In Liaodong there is a world apart, marked off clear and distinct from the Central Court (中朝).
2Great waves around three sides
洪濤萬頃圍三面, 於北有陵連如線.
Ten thousand acres of great waves surround three sides, and to the north a long ridge runs on like a thread.
Interlinear notes 1
一作華句.
Another text has hwagu (華句).
3Joseon, whose name spread across the sky
中方千里是朝鮮, 江山形勝名敷天.
The thousand li square in the middle is Joseon, and the splendor of its rivers and hills spread its name across the sky.
4The Lesser China
耕田鑿井禮義家, 華人題作小中華.
A house of rite and right, where they plow fields and dig wells, and the men of China wrote it down as the Lesser China (小中華).