山村訓長但知覓

The Sanchon Hunjang was bored at home on this long holiday. So I pulled down 정민's 한시 미학 산책 and flipped through a couple of his essays. One of them included this story that he, in turn, took from 골계총서 滑稽叢書, which, for lack of better information, I will have to assume means the 골계전 滑稽傳 collection of funny stories by that indefatiguable Korean statesman and writer of anthologies, 서거정 (1420-1488 A.D.).

Once upon a time, there was a village leader who had a concubine that was very bright. There was also a younger man in the village, whose company the village leader greatly enjoyed. The two were very close and didn't bother with formaility between them. One day the leader and his concubine were out in a garden pavilion, enjoying the sights of spring, when a servant arrived with a note from the young man. The note had 4 words:

☞ 日: 날 일, 心: 마음 심, 人: 사람 인, 腹:배 복.

No matter how he examined the note, the leader couldn't make sense of it. His concubine took a glance at it and immediately started laughing. "What are you having such a hard time with? The 'day 日' is written very long so it's a long day. The 'heart 心' is missing a dot, so it is '무점심 無點心,' he hasn't had any lunch. The 'person 人' is written very small so it is '소인' or 'I.' And 'stomach 腹'is missing a line, so it is empty inside."

그러니까 "길고 긴 날 점심이 없으니, 소인의 뱃 속이 비었습니다. 밥 달란 말이옵니다."

푸하하하하하하하하!