The Cloud Dream of the Nine

The Cloud Dream of the Nine
[Kuunmong]
A Korean Novel: A story of the times of the Tangs of China about 840 A.D.
By Kim Man-Choong [Kim Man-jung]
[President of the Confucian College] [1617-1682 A.D. according to the title page, but 1637-1692 (or 1693) Gregorian calendar by standard sources]
[Written in or after 1689]
Translated [from Korean (Hangul) to English]
by [Rev.] James S[carth] Gale
[Canadian, 1863-1937] thirty years resident in Korea (by 1922)
With an Introduction by Elspet Keith Robertson Scott and Sixteen Illustrations
Published by Daniel O'Connor, London: 90 Great Russell Street, W.C. 1, 1922 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS HARROW ROAD LONDON W
[pv]
Contents
* INTRODUCTION 1. I The Book ..... ix
2. II The Translator ..... ix
3. III The Author ..... xi
4. IV The Tale ..... xiii
5. V Woman's Voice in Polygamy ..... xxxiii
6. VI Heaven on Earth ..... xxxvii
7. VII The Present Translation ..... xxxix
* THE NOVEL
1. I The Transmigration of Song-jin ..... 3
2. II A Glimpse of Chin See ..... 21
3. III The Meeting with Kay See ..... 39
4. IV In the Guise of a Priestess ..... 54
5. V Among the Fairies ..... 73
6. VI It is Cloudlet ..... 95
7. VII The Imperial Son-in-law ..... 122
8. VIII A Hopeless Dilemma ..... 137
9. IX Among Mermaids and Mermen ..... 155
10. X Humble Submission ..... 165
11. XI The Capture of Cheung See ..... 183
12. XII Yang's Supreme Regret ..... 197
13. XIII The Awakening ..... 216
14. XIV In the Fairy Lists ..... 245
15. XV The Wine Punishment ..... 267
16. XVI The Answer: Back to the Buddha ..... 290
* APPENDIX .... 301
[pvii]
List of Illustrations
* The Fairies on the Bridge ..... Frontispiece
* [Title page recto image]
* [Title page verso image]
* The Chun-jin Pavilion ..... 40
* In the Guise of a Priestess ..... 64
* The Poem by the Way: Among the Fairies ..... 88
* Cloudlet's Meeting with Wildgoose ..... 98
* The Stork Dance: The Palace Maids in Waiting ..... 128
* Chin See's Fear: Cloudlet says Farewell ..... 142
* The Dragon King Defeated: Among the Mermaids ..... 158
* Visit to the Monastery: Pictures to Sell ..... 176
* The Princess Visits Cheung See: Cheung See's Return Visit ..... 190
* Two in One Palanquin: The Poetry Contest .... 196
* The Cloudy Dream Land: Cloudlet's Sorrow .... 214
* The Wedding: Wildgoose and Moonlight .... 220
* In the Fairy Lists: Swallow and White-cap Enter .... 262
* The Wine Punishment: Green Mountain Castle .... 274
* Yang looks away from the World: Back to Religion .... 296
[IMG: The Fairies on the Bridge]
[pix]
Introduction
I.--THE BOOK
THE reader must lay aside all Western notions of morality if he would thoroughly enjoy this book. The scene of the amazing "Cloud Dream of the Nine," the most moving romance of polygamy ever written, is laid about 849 A.D. in the period of the great Chinese dynasty of the Tangs. By its simple directness this hitherto unknown Korean classic makes an ineffaceable impression.
But the story of the devotion of Master Yang to eight women and of their devotion to him and to each other is more than a naive tale of the relations of men and women under a social code so far removed from our own as to be almost incredible. It is a record of emotions, aspirations and ideas which enables us to look into the innermost chambers of the Chinese soul. "The Cloud Dream of the Nine" is a revelation of what the Oriental thinks and feels not only about things of the earth but about the hidden things of the Universe. It helps us towards a comprehensible knowledge of the Far East.
II.--THE TRANSLATOR
But first a word on the medium through which this extraordinary book reaches us.
Travellers, artists, students, arch?ologists and history writers, journalists and literary folk, officials and diplomatic dignitaries who wend their way to [px] China by way of Seoul, carry in their wallets letters of introduction to Dr. James Gale.*
For more than thirty years Dr. Gale has been clearing and hewing in a virgin forest, the literature of Korea. He is the foremost literary interpreter to the West of the Korean mind. This is how he regards that mind--the words are taken from an address to a group of Japanese officials who sought Gale's counsel on a memorable occasion:
"The Korean lives apart in a world of wonder, something quite unlike our modern civilisation, in a beautiful world of the mind. I have studied for thirty years to enter sympathetically into this world of the Korean mind and I am still an outsider. Yet the more I penetrate this ancient Korean civilisation the more I respect it."
No man knows more of Korea or more deeply loves her people, and is loved by them, than Dr. Gale. Japanese officials have also a sincere regard for Dr. Gale. They have been accustomed to carry to him their perplexity over Korean problems, just as the Korean has come to Gale in his troubles with the Japanese. It