Yetgeul › Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms) › Marvels, Part Two
King Heungdeok and the Parrot興德王·鸚鵡
Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms) Marvels, Part Two A collection of tales of the Three Kingdoms period, compiled by Iryeon, a monk of Goryeo. He gathered the stories the official histories had cast aside. It is the oldest book that carries the myth of Dangun.
1It Learned the Shadow in the Mirror Was Not Its Mate
興徳王鸚鵡第四十二興徳大王,寳暦二年丙午即位,未㡬有人奉使扵唐,將鸚鵡一雙而至,不久雌死.而孤雄哀鳴不已,王使人掛鏡扵前.鳥見鏡中影擬其得偶乃啅其鏡,而知其影乃哀鳴而死.王作歌云,未詳.
King Heungdeok and the parrot.
The forty-second king, Great King Heungdeok, ascended the throne in the second year of Baoli, the year byeongo.
Not long after, a man who had gone as an envoy to Tang came back with a pair of parrots, and before long the female died.
The male, left alone, cried in grief without stopping, so the king had a man hang a mirror in front of it.
The bird saw the shadow in the mirror, took it for a mate it had found, and pecked at the mirror.
Then it learned that this was its own shadow, and it cried in grief and died.
The king is said to have composed a song, but the details are not known.