Seol Chong薛聰

Seol Chong's courtesy name was Chongji. His grandfather was Damnal, who held the rank of nama, and his father was Wonhyo. Wonhyo at first became a monk and read through the whole of the Buddhist books, but before long he returned to the lay life and called himself the layman Soseong.

Chong was bright and keen by nature, and he knew the way from birth. He read the Nine Classics in the speech of Silla and taught and led those who came after, and to this day those who study hold him as their head. He was able at writing too, but nothing of it is handed down in the world. Only, here and there in the southern country today there are inscriptions that Chong made, but the letters are broken and fallen away and cannot be read, and in the end no one knows what they were like.

King Sinmun, in a month of midsummer, was in a high and bright chamber, and he looked at Chong and said, "Today the long rain has just stopped and the warm wind is a little cool. Though there be rare food and sad music, they are not equal to high talk and good jesting to loosen what lies close and heavy. You must surely have something out of the common to tell. Why will you not set it out for me?"

Chong said, "Yes. Your servant has heard that long ago, when the king of flowers first came, they planted him in a fragrant garden and guarded him with a green curtain. When the three months of spring came he opened out his beauty and pressed down the hundred flowers and stood out alone. At this, from near and from far, there were none of the lovely spirits and the tender blossoms who did not run to come up and look upon him, and their only fear was that they might not reach him.

All at once there was one beautiful woman, with a red face and teeth like jade, in fresh paint and bright clothes, and she came stepping lightly, and she came softly before him and said, 'I tread the sand bank white as snow and face the sea clear as a mirror. I bathe in the spring rain and wash off the dust, and I take my ease in the clear wind, and my name is the rose.

I have heard of the king's fine virtue, and I look to spread the pillow for him behind the fragrant curtain. Will the king take me in?'

And there was a man in hempen clothes with a leather belt, white headed and leaning on a staff, walking worn and heavy, and he came stooping and said, 'I am outside the capital and live beside the great road. Below I look down on the wide and hazy view of the fields, and above I lean on the steep colors of the mountain, and my name is Baekduong.

I humbly think that though what is offered at your right hand and your left is enough, and rich grain fills the belly, and tea and wine clear the spirit, and there is a store laid up in your boxes, still you must have good medicine to help the breath and bitter mineral to drive out poison. Therefore it is said, though you have silk and hemp, do not throw away the rush and the sedge. Among all gentlemen there is none who does not serve in turn when what is needed runs short. I do not know whether the king has a mind to this too.'

Someone said, 'These two have come. Which will you take and which will you send away?'

The king of flowers said, 'What the man says has its reason in it, but a beautiful woman is hard to come by. What shall I do?'

The man came forward and said, 'I thought the king was clear sighted and knew reason and right, and so I came. But now it is not so. Of all who are rulers, few there are who do not draw near the crooked and the flattering and hold the upright and the straight far off. This is why Meng Ke did not meet his time and so ended his life, and why Feng Tang lay sunk among the guardsmen until his head was white. From of old it has been like this. What can I do?'

The king of flowers said, 'I was wrong. I was wrong.'"

At this the king changed color and said, "What you have set out in this figure truly has a deep will in it,

so I ask that it be written down, to be a warning to those who are kings." Then he raised Chong and gave him a high post.

It is handed down in the world that in the preface to a poem which a Mahito of the country of Japan gave to Seol the pangwan, an envoy of Silla, it says, "I once looked at the Geumgang sammae ron written by the layman Wonhyo, and I was deeply sorry that I had not seen the man. I hear that Seol, the envoy of the country of Silla, is the grandson of the layman. Though I did not see the grandfather, I am glad to have met the grandson, and so I have made a poem and give it to him." That poem is still here today, but the name and the courtesy name of his descendant are not known.

In the reign of our Hyeonjong, in the thirteenth year, the fifth year of Cheonhui, a sinyu year, he was given the title of marquis Hongyu after his death. Some say that Seol Chong once went into the Tang to study, but whether it is so or not is not known.