The Fisherman's Calendar by Yun Sondo - HTML preview

UNDER TWENTY ELMS
(Seven character, P’agyŏk)

Kim Sakkat was inhospitably treated in Hamgyŏng Province. He expresses his anger in a double meaning poem that plays on the numbers.

The literal translation of the hanmun is as follows:

Under twenty elms, thirty guests,

in forty houses, are served fifty bowls of rice.

How can you account for the seventy affairs of men?

Better go home and eat thirty bowls of rice.

The fun translation, which tries to incorporate the puns on Korean words, is spectacularly different:

Under twenty fucking elms, thirty miserable guests,

in forty wretched houses, are served fifty bowls of rotten rice. 

Seventy curses! How could this happen in the world of men? 

Better go home and eat thirty bowls of half-cooked rice.