The Annals of King T'aejo: Founder of Korea's Choson Dynasty PDF
Preview The Annals of King T'aejo: Founder of Korea's Choson Dynasty
the annals of king t’aejo Founder of Korea’s Chosŏn Dynasty The Annals of King T’aejo translated and annotated by Choi Byonghyon harvard university press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England • 2014 Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data T’aejo sillok. English. The annals of King T’aejo: Founder of Korea’s Choson Dynasty / translated and annotated by Choi Byonghyon. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-28130-1 1. T’aejo, King of Korea, 1335-1408. 2. Korea—History—Choson dynasty, 1392–1910. I. Choi, Byonghyon, 1950– translator, annotator. II. Title. DS913.15.T33813 2014 951.9’02—dc23 2013040219 Contents Note on Translation ix Acknowledgments xi Translator’s Introduction xiii General Introduction 1 First Year of Reign (1392) Book I 101 Book II 166 Second Year of Reign (1393) Book III 234 Book IV 282 Third Year of Reign (1394) Book V 335 Book VI 398 Fourth Year of Reign (1395) Book VII 462 Book VIII 505 vi Contents Fifth Year of Reign (1396) Book IX 560 Book X 593 Sixth Year of Reign (1397) Book XI 630 Book XII 688 Seventh Year of Reign (1398) Book XIII 730 Book XIV 775 Book XV 856 Glossary of Terms 899 Glossary of People and Places 953 Bibliography 991 Index 995 Late Koryŏ and Early Chosŏn Korea Note on Translation The English translation of the entire Annals of King T’aejo (T’aejo Sillok) has never been attempted until now. My decision to travel down this untrodden path was fueled by my desire to make this vital source of pre- modern Korean history accessible to general readers throughout the world. The source text, written in Classical Chinese, was translated into Korean han’gŭl over several decades by a team of scholars in both South Korea and North Korea; for my English translation, I consulted these two han’gŭl translations in addition to the source text, which is known as the T’aebaek Mountain Repository Edition. The North Korean version is easy to read, yet hard to understand, since some words and names are not accompanied by Classical Chinese in the source text. The translation in the South Korean version, by contrast, is often too literal and reads more like a preliminary translation. Notwithstanding, the South Korean version of the Sillok text was digitized and, since 1999, made available online by the National Institute of Korean History, together with the original source text in Classical Chinese (both of which helped me immensely in my translation endeavors). Nevertheless, the problem of an inadequate han’gŭl translation still remained, which is why the Institute for the Translation of Korean Classics decided to launch a massive project to retranslate the entire Sillok into han’gŭl. Unfortunately, I was unable to reap any benefits from the project, as my English translation began during its very early stages. What I sought to gain from the new translation, however, was the information in the foot- notes about the numerous historical figures and official titles that the existing han’gŭl translations failed to provide. ix
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