The Fisherman's Calendar by Yun Sondo - HTML preview

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FLEA (Seven character, Yulshi)




The louse sul character differs from the wind p’ung character by a single stroke, hence half-wind in the hanmun. The puce-bare expression is an attempt to translate chŏkshin-red body. Puce in its original meaning is a flea. The rhyme is ryun/rin/shin/pin/ch’un; tones match, and parallel expression occurs in the second and third couplets.



You look like a jujube seed, but your courage is matchless. 

Friend to the half-wind louse, neighbor to the bedbug.

By day you lurk in clefts in the mat;

by night you emerge again to fuse with legs under the covers. 

Every time your sharp pincer bites, I want to seek you out. 

When you hop around puce-bare, sweet dreams are frequently disrupted.

I get up in the morning and examine my skin:

I see peach blossoms in full flower on a spring day.