구운몽: 선녀인가 귀신인가

Gyeongpae had a maid called Ga Chunun, who was lovely and a fine poet. Gyeongpae and Chunun had grown up together and were as close as sisters. Together with Chunun and her cousin Jeong Sipsam, Gyeongpae hatched a plan to fool Soyu.

One spring day, Jeong Sipsam took Soyu deep into the hills outside the capital to see the flowers. Sipsam said something urgent had come up at home and went back early, so Soyu walked up the valley alone. On a leaf floating down the stream, someone had written a line of poetry.

When he followed the stream upward, he found a little house, and in it sat a woman as beautiful as a fairy. "I am a fairy who did wrong in heaven, and I have been sent down to live here for a while." Soyu and the woman shared poems all night, and when they parted at dawn they promised to meet again.

A few days later, Jeong Sipsam took Soyu to an old grave nearby and poured out a cup of wine. "This is the grave of Lady Jang, who died young. They say that at night her ghost appears and bewitches people." Soyu was stunned at the thought that his fairy had really been a ghost.

That night the woman appeared again and spoke in a sad voice. "I am not a fairy. I am the ghost of this grave. Surely you will be afraid of me now?" But Soyu did not back away in the least. "Ghost or fairy, it makes no difference. My feelings will not change."

Some time later, at a feast at Minister Jeong's house, Soyu was astonished to see a woman greet him as Gyeongpae's maid. She was the fairy and the ghost he had met in the hills: Ga Chunun. When Soyu learned it was a trick Gyeongpae had planned to pay him back for the zither, he laughed heartily and admired her wit. Gyeongpae loved Chunun dearly, so she said that after the wedding Chunun would serve Soyu too.