The Fisherman's Calendar by Yun Sondo - HTML preview

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(Seven character, P’agyŏk)




With the repeated myŏk character at the end of each line, the poem, as expected, is P'agyŏk. When Kim Sakkat offered to compose a poem in return for a night’s lodgings, the village schoolmaster assigned him the myŏk character (seek, quest), which is difficult to rhyme. Kim Sakkat makes fun of the master by suggesting that myŏk is the only character he knows.



Of all the many rhyme characters,

     how come you ask for quest myŏk?

Myŏk once is bad enough,

     but you call a second time for myŏk.

My bed tonight depends on myŏk; 

perhaps all a country master knows is myŏk.