Yeo Ok is often regarded as

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

's first woman

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. Her poem, the '' Gonghuin'' (공후인, "A Medley for the Harp" ), is one of only three poems from ancient Korean kingdom,

Gojoseon Gojoseon () also called Joseon (), was the first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula. According to Korean mythology, the kingdom was established by the legendary founder named Dangun. Gojoseon possessed the most advanced culture in the Korean Pen ...

(approximately 1500 B.C. - 108 B.C.) and the first by a woman. One version of the poem tells how one day at day break as Yeo Ok's husband, Gwak Rijago (囍里子高), was rowing across a river, he saw an old mad man jump into river and try to swim across it. His wife had tried and failed to prevent him from entering the water. He was swept away and drowned. The old lady stricken with grief followed her husband into the water singing and playing her lyre and met the same sad fate as her husband. Gwak Rijago told his wife Yeo Ok about the sad event and this moved her to set the old lady's words to music. Yeo Ok's poem was then written to be sung accompanied by a

lyre The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke ...

(called a ''gong-in''). The first record of this poem is in

Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...

but authorities are uncertain as to whether it was originally written in Hanja characters or first composed in

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

and then later translated. The "Gonghuin" was widely sung by Koreans at the time. Furthermore, it was introduced to Chinese Jin dynasty and later China's most famous poet,

Li Po Li Bai (, 701–762), also pronounced as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own time to the present as a brilliant and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du Fu ...

, composed a poem with "Gonghuin" as the subject. It has been claimed that the popularity of the poem is due to its portrayal of the dignity and love amongst the poor and the pain and loneliness of the woman who had lost love. All those involved are from the suffering, low or slave, classes whose lives then were so hard in society where only the privileged could live well. O'Rourke, Kevin (2006) The Book of Korean Poetry: Songs of Shilla and Koryo, University of Iowa Press

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yeo, Ok Korean women poets Korean women writers Year of birth missing Year of death missing