ABSTRACT

No direct sources of information on Hwang Chini are known to exist; her career can only be pieced together from fragmentary references in a number of sources, all written after the Hideyoshi war, hence some fifty years after Chini actually lived. None of these sources are official records; all belong to the category of yadam (an unofficial version of an historical tale), which is a romance genre that is fragmentary and anecdotaL Only three of these sources make direct reference to the poems: 1m Pang records the hansi (a Korean poem in Chinese) "Farewell to So Yanggok"; Yi Tongmu gives "Songdo," which is also a hansi; So Yuyong has the Pyokkyesu sijo; and Kim T' aegyong gives two hansi-"Fond Thoughts of Full Moon Terrace" and "Song to the Half-Moon." Only one direct witness of Chini is quoted: an eighty-year-old man in Yi Tokhyong's written record, who gives evidence of a fragrance that lasted for days after Chini had been in a room.