The Story of Hong Gildong Quotes

“It is a general truth that no one man holds an absolute right to rule over a country. As such, Seong Tang brought down Geol, and King Mu brought down Ju.122 From ancient times, the subjugation of one’s enemy has been regarded as a legitimate task for one to engage in, so I raised a righteous army and crossed the waters to find that none can rival our strength.”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“How can a true man find contentment in growing old while leading a leisurely and mediocre life?”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“76. five relationships: (oryun) One of the central concepts of Confucian philosophy, it refers to the five essential and sacred relationships that bind a society together. They were enumerated by the philosopher Mengzi—“love between father and son, duty between ruler and subject, distinction between husband and wife, precedence of the old over the young, and faith between friends” (Book III, Part A, 4). Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin Classics, 2005), 60. 77”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“What is said in daytime is overheard by the bird, and what is said in nighttime is overheard by the rat.’30”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“The shaman addressed Chorang. “There is an assassin by the name of Teukjae who is said to possess great skills. You should summon him and consult him on this matter.” Chorang was pleased to hear this and asked her to bring this Teukjae to her.”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“Gildong replied in a humble manner. “Of all things created by Heaven, a human being is the most precious. So it is the most fortunate thing to be born a human in this world.”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“The most commonly used English translation is Marshall Pihl’s, which was first published in Korean Journal in 1968 and reprinted in Peter H. Lee’s 1981 Anthology of Korean Literature.2 It is a rendering of the gyeongpan 24, one of the shortest variants, which was thought at the time to be the authoritative version but is now considered by scholars to be abbreviated from gyeongpan 30. What follows here is a translation of the longest and probably the oldest of the surviving manuscripts, the pilsa 89. I”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“The work’s persistent popularity in the modern era can be explained by its elevation of a neglected secondary son as a great hero. In the history of modern Korea, the people of the peninsula have experienced a series of humiliations from colonization, forced division, and domestic oppression. As a result, a central agenda in the political rhetoric of both North and South Korea has been the recovery of national dignity and respect, oftentimes through massive displays of newly acquired power in the realms of the military, economy, and culture. Starting from the attempt by imperial Japan to convince Koreans that they were inferior relatives who had to be civilized through colonial tutelage, the liberated but soon divided nations felt like the bastard children of foreign powers that set their destinies in motion without consulting them on their own desires for the future. As a result, the theme of being disrespected, unappreciated, and underrated by callous and unwise authority figures blind to the emotional needs and the substantial talents of the protagonist, so well portrayed in the first part of The Story of Hong Gildong, has a profound resonance in the Korean psyche. In other words, the Joseon dynasty story of a secondary son seeking to overcome the disadvantages of his background and the oppression of his society in order to prove his true worth as a man, a leader, and a ruler has become the story of modern Korea itself. MINSOO KANG”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“In fact, in his communications with the King of Joseon, Hong Gildong makes it clear that he had to resort to outlawry because he could not work within the established order as a righteous government official. This shows that his discontentment lies in his inability to participate in the political system of the status quo, not in his ideological antipathy toward its nature.”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“As a nationalist and a communist, Kim Taejun presented a subversive reading of The Story of Hong Gildong, in which he portrayed the purported author, Heo Gyun, as a protosocialist who planned a revolution to overthrow the kingdom in order to create a more egalitarian state in its place and wrote the work to criticize the feudalistic order of Joseon.4”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong

“In a rather unflattering portrait of his former teacher, Yi claims that Heo and his closest friends were such admirers of the Chinese epic novexfl of heroic bandits Water Margin (Shuihuzhuan) that he wrote Hong Gildong jeon in imitation.5”
― Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong