Pilgrimage of poems: Draw out the night

Okay, last Saturday I gave you examples of two forms of Japanese poetry, so how about today we hop over the Sea of Japan to Korea?

It turns out that there’s a form of poem related to both haiku and tanka, the sijo. Like its Japanese cousins, sijo are constrained by syllable count; in this case three lines totaling 44 to 46 of them. It’s interesting to me that each line has a purpose: first is introduction of a theme; second elaborates on it; third provides a twist and an end. They can use metaphors, puns and other forms of word play.

You gotta love a tight format that messes with your head and makes you giggle.

Also, I really like the notion that sijo were meant to be sung.

Take a look (and remember that sometimes translations don’t adhere to the syllabic constraints):

Where pure snow flakes melt

Dark clouds gather threatening

Where are the spring flowers abloom?

A lonely figure lost in the shadow

Of sinking sun, I have no place to go.

                                                Yi Saek (1328-1395)

I will break the back of this long, midwinter night,

Folding it double, cold beneath my spring quilt,

That I may draw out the night, should my love return.

                                                Hwang Jin-i (1522-1565)

Oh that I might capture the essence of this deep midwinter night

And fold it softly into the waft of a spring-moon quilt

Then fondly uncoil it the night my beloved returns.

It turns out that Hwang Jin-i’s nom de plume was Myongwol, or Bright Moon, so her “spring moon” could also be a reference to herself. Little play on words there.