《Hong Gildong Jeon》#1 (홍길동전)
Perhaps the first novel written in Hangul
In the fifteenth year after King Sejong of Joseon ascended the throne, there was a minister with the surname Hong. The king highly esteemed his virtue and granted him a high office; the minister, moved by this favor, repaid it with loyal service. As a result, there were no thieves in the land, years of good harvests came in succession, and all affairs were peaceful and prosperous.
One day, the minister was dozing, leaning against a railing. A cool breeze led him along a path to a certain place, where green mountains rose high, blue waters seemed to overflow, and beautiful flowers and grasses were in full bloom everywhere. The minister strolled, admiring the scenery, and gradually went deeper and deeper in.
Suddenly a blue dragon parted the waves, raised its head, and roared; the mountain valleys seemed to collapse, and the dragon opened its mouth and breathed out a vital energy that entered the minister’s mouth. The minister awoke from sleep and realized this was a propitious dream that would come only once in a lifetime.
He immediately went into the inner quarters intending to sleep with his wife, but she spoke sternly. “You are a great minister of the realm, with high dignity and status. How can you trifle with me in broad daylight? Where is your dignity in that?”
The minister agreed that her words were right. However, for fear that the power of the dream might dissipate, he did not reveal what had happened in his heart. Just then, the maidservant Chunsŏm brought in a meal tray, and the minister took Chunsŏm by the hand and lay with her.
Ten months later, a child was born. The minister, seeing this, was in one sense pleased, but regretted that the child had been born of a lowly woman. He named the child Gildong.
As Gildong grew up, he showed extraordinary talent: once he heard something, he would understand ten things; once he saw something, there was nothing he did not know. There was no one who did not praise him, and the minister also loved him.
Yet Gildong, despite his abilities, deeply lamented that he had been born into a base status. “For a great man to be born into this world, to study the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, to sit high upon the dais, to command thousands of troops and ten thousand horsemen, and to leave his name to later generations – that is an upright life. The ancients said, ‘The seed of kings, marquises, and ministers is not set apart from others.’ Were they speaking of me?”
Unable to endure his frustration, Gildong took up a sword and danced beneath the moon. The minister had come out to admire the moon, and when he saw Gildong’s actions, he was startled and asked what he was doing.
Gildong threw down the sword, knelt, and answered, “Though I was born a man who should stand tall, I cannot call my father ‘Father,’ nor can I call my elder brother ‘Brother.’ All the servants above and below look down on me as base, and even relatives and old friends point fingers at me. Could there be anything more unjust than this?”
The minister, inwardly, pitied him, but for fear that Gildong might grow arrogant, he pretended to scold him instead. Gildong could do nothing but shed tears.
Meanwhile, another maidservant named Goksan was always envious and jealous of Gildong and his mother. Goksan brought money to a wicked shaman woman and plotted with her to devise a scheme to harm Gildong.
One day, while the minister was relaxing and joking with his wife, the shaman came and said she would read their physiognomy. The minister found this amusing, tested her in various ways, and indeed, the shaman’s readings were accurate.
The minister then asked her about Gildong. The shaman replied, “If he succeeds, he will become a king; if he fails, there will be calamity upon your household.”
The minister was greatly alarmed and ordered that Gildong be forbidden to go out of the house. Then Goksan subtly asked the minister, “Would it not be better to get rid of Gildong now?”
The lord became furious and rebuked Goksan harshly. Goksan, undeterred, sent an assassin after Gildong.
When the assassin entered Gildong’s room, Gildong was nowhere to be seen. A fierce wind arose, thunder and lightning shook heaven and earth, and clouds and mist filled the room. The assassin hurled a dagger toward where Gildong was, but Gildong had already vanished.
The assassin begged for his life, but Gildong grew greatly enraged and killed him, and then sought out and killed the wicked shaman as well.
Gildong was about to kill Goksan too, when a thought suddenly came to him: “How can I abandon human ethics over a moment’s anger? Others may forsake me, but how can I be the one to forsake others?”
Instead of killing Goksan, Gildong went to his father. Weeping bitterly, he told his father he would leave home and offered his farewell.
The minister, who did not know the details but guessed that something had happened, said, “From today on, you may call me Father. Just come back quickly and comfort my heart.”
Nevertheless, Gildong also said farewell to his mother and set off on his way.
The Tale of Hong Gildong is a novel that recounts the life of a hero. Heroic narratives generally share several common traits. The protagonist is of noble blood, is born in an unusual way, possesses extraordinary abilities, undergoes trials and crises, and in the end achieves victory.
The Tale of Hong Gildong fits this pattern exactly, and what makes it unique is that it is widely known as the first heroic narrative written in the Korean alphabet. The author is generally believed to be Hŏ Gyun.
But why did Hŏ Gyun choose to set the story specifically in the reign of King Sejong? Sejong is the monarch who created Hangul. He was the fourth king to ascend the throne in the early Joseon period, and among the twenty-seven kings, he has been regarded, both in his own time and today, as a great ruler.
Hŏ Gyun lived in the mid-Joseon period. At that time, Joseon had been severely exhausted by seven years of war with Japan, and King Sŏnjo’s incompetence only worsened the situation. It is likely that Hŏ Gyun deeply admired Sejong.
Although Hangul was often looked down upon at the time as a script used by those lacking refinement and learning, the fact that he wrote the first full-fledged novel in Hangul can be understood as a choice stemming from his respect for Sejong and his attachment to Sejong’s legacy.
Setting the story’s background in a peaceful era like Sejong’s reign can also be read as evidence that the author longed for a stable age that no longer existed in his own time.
One of the traditional characteristics of thought in East Asia is relational and cyclical thinking. Once a state is founded, rule is carried out effectively at first, supported by strong centripetal power, but as time passes, corruption and incompetence spread—this cycle was something people in premodern Korea also perceived.
Within that cycle, what was needed was a strong “system.” Loyalty to the state and the monarch could thus be understood not merely as personal affection for a ruler, but as a sense of pride in being incorporated into a well-functioning order.
Then what kind of system was it that could serve as a source of such pride? In this regard, the administrative structure of Joseon offers a good example.
Central administration in Joseon was divided into six ministries (yukjo), which roughly correspond to today’s ministries of personnel, planning, foreign affairs, defense, justice, and transportation. In addition, there were three separate “censorial” offices, collectively known as the “three offices,” which criticized the king’s politics and supervised the officials.
The head of the ministry in charge of personnel matters was called the Minister of Personnel (Ijop’anseo). Yet a lower-ranking working official in the same ministry, called Ijojŏllang, had the authority to recommend and appoint the officials of the censorial organs.
Ijojŏllang, though low in formal rank, wielded powerful influence over both personnel and the press-like oversight institutions. Thanks to this curious structure, power was prevented from concentrating too heavily in one place, and different powers could check and balance one another.
A structure in which no single side becomes excessively bloated seems to have been regarded in Joseon as the ideal social composition and a healthy system. However, as in every country, this strange yet beautiful balance did not last forever.
Over the course of the mid- and late-Joseon periods, a “somewhat more stable” power structure—meaning one in which certain groups could secure their future more reliably—gradually solidified.
In the era when Hŏ Gyun lived, a time of hardship brought on by war, the harmful effects of such a structure must have appeared particularly stark.
The unusual birth of an extraordinary character, brought about by chance in The Tale of Hong Gildong, can be read as a response to this reality. Chance, in this context, represents the order of Heaven and operates according to a principle different from that of human-made laws.
The minister could have had a son through relations with his legitimate wife, but because of chance, he did not. A result brought about by human control is not always guaranteed to be good.
Hong Gildong is the counterexample and the proof of this. What is striking is that the minister—who embodies the “controlled human” within the system—is not portrayed as an absolute villain.
He is not depicted as a cowardly, greedy evildoer, but rather as someone trapped within the logic of institutions and social propriety. This can be interpreted as a kind of buffer the author has prepared, so as not to push readers into a crude, black-and-white dichotomy.
In Gildong’s case, a particularly noteworthy point is the mention that he has studied Confucius and Mencius, and the moment when he asks himself, “Others may forsake me, but how could I forsake others?”
This line appears to be a transformation of a famous line spoken by Cao Cao in the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao says, “I would rather abandon the people of the world than let the people of the world abandon me.”
This ruthless mentality and success-at-all-costs Machiavellianism stands in sharp contrast to the virtues traditionally upheld as ideal in East Asia. The concrete content of those virtues is precisely the teachings of Confucius and Mencius.
The fact that Gildong chooses a sentence directly opposite to Cao Cao’s, and is depicted as having an anti-Machiavellian attitude and a Confucian worldview, means that the author is granting the protagonist a firm moral legitimacy.
And that moral legitimacy, the text suggests, can fully exist even without a “normal,” socially sanctioned birth under human control.
What kinds of adventures await Gildong now that he has left home? It seems that even more intriguing stories are waiting for us in Part Two.