YSS's sword

[sonakbi275]

this is YSS's sword!
about 2m long, and there are eight chiness letters on the surface.
i'm curious how were the letters translated in english.
i took these pictures when the sword came to Yong-san national museum.
i felt little sad when i saw it...

p.s.
1598. 11. 19 (in the lunar calendar)
=1598. 12. 16 (in the solar calender)
also
1598. 11. 19 (in the lunar calendar)
=2005. 12. 20 (in solar calender)

do you know what do those dates mean?
yes, the day YSS died...
and here in Korea, today is 2005. 12. 20 in solar calender.
(my english is so poor... sorry )

[chigirl68]

sonakbi275, your images are not showing up. I'm not sure if there is a problem linking to the picture page you have due to the language characters or some other reason. You may be able to load your pictures onto another host and try the image again.
As for the sword, this is the sword made for him during the war? I forget how the translation went on the show. It was something like the water will be stained with the enemy's blood. I am sure someone else in here will remember exactly how it was translated on the show.

[luvarchfiend UL]

i can see the images just fine. currently using the firefox browser.

[chigirl68]

I have explorer and they do not show up.
LA do you remember what the translation was completely? I forgot the whole thing.

[luvarchfiend]

i don't remember it either chigirl. i did a brief search but can't find it.

this would probably be something that florel, choko or perhaps VIB could answer.

[hysterian]

With this sword,Let the shores of the sea be stained by the blood of our enemys.

[donilpark]

And these are the swords he actually used in battles.
The pictures were taken in 1910, so we know that they existed until then, but we don't know what happened to them after that. It's supposed to be in Korea's national central museum, but it's not there.

source:
blog.naver.com/tiger6107/140019353329

[chigirl68]

Thanks hysterian.
Thanks for the picture donilpark. I can see that one.

[grunt]

well, as far as i know, admiral Yi didn't use that sword during battle. He just placed it on the wall and sometimes took it out and meditate on the words on the sword to mentally train himself. The sword still exist tho ... i don't remember the exact location, but it's placed in a shrine that was built for admiral Yi, which should be in somewhere around souther region of korea.

[grunt]

The sword is just way too big for a normal man to carry around ... it's roughly 2 meters long. Too big and too long. Anyway, i know the words that are inscribed on the sword, but not sure how to translate them in english ... but, let me try ...

(I) wield this sword, and mountain and river shall be in blood.

In eastern culture, mountain and river usually implicates 'the world'. So, you can translate the second sentence as 'the world shall be in blood' I'm pretty sure somebody can do a better job of translating it tho. I'm not really good at english literature.

Anyway, i just remember the name of shrine where the sword is currently located .. it's Hyun-Chung-Sa. Also, a famous writer who wrote a best-selling novel on the life of admiral Yi actually went to the shrine before working the novel. In there, he said that he stayed at the shrine and just looked at the sword for three days thinking about admiral Yi. I believe his novel (Song of sword) is already translated in english. (well, i know the novel has been translated in french, so why not english?)

The drama, Immortal Yi shun shin, is actually based on the two novels, 'Song of sword' and 'Immortal' (written by different writers.) 'Song of sword' has got pretty good reviews while review on 'Immortal' is kinda divided. (many ppl who read the novel said that they really hated it. I think it's something to do with how the writer view the role of Won-Kyun in the war.) 'Song of sword' deals with the second part of Korean-japan war ... starting at the point where admiral Yi was accused of treason and taken to Seoul.