(Translation) 婁伯捕虎

Original Script

翰林學士崔婁伯。水原戶長尙翥之子。年十五時。父因獵爲虎所害。婁伯欲補 虎。母止之。婁伯曰。父讐可不報乎。卽荷斧跡虎。虎旣食飽臥。婁伯直前叱虎 曰。汝食吾父。吾當食汝。虎乃掉尾俛伏。遽斫而刳其腹。取父骸肉。安於器。 納虎肉於瓮。埋川中。葬父弘法山西廬墓。一日假寐。其父來詠詩云。披榛到孝 子廬。情多感淚無窮。負土日加上。知音明月淸風。生則養死則守。誰謂孝無始 終。詠訖遂不見。服闋。取虎肉盡食之。

【詩】崔父山中獵兎狐。却將肌肉餧於菟。

　　當時不有兒郎孝。誰得揮斤斫虎顱。

　　捕虎償冤最可憐。山西廬墓又三年。

　　小詞來誦眞非夢。端爲哀誠徹九泉。

Translation

Student Translation : (Ewa)

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Hanlin academician Ch'oe Nubaek was the son of Sangja, the chief of Suwŏn. When he was fifteen years old, his father was killed by a tiger during the hunting. Nubaek wanted to capture the tiger. His mother stopped him. Nubaek said: "How could I not revenge my father?" Then he put an ax on his shoulder and tracked the tiger. The tiger, with its stomach full, was resting. Nubaek stood in front and scolded the tiger: "You have eaten my father, I must eat you." The tiger just beat its tail, lying low on the ground. Nubaek swung the axe and cut the tiger’s belly open. Then retrieved from there the bones and flesh of his father, and placed them safely in an urn. He put the tiger’s meat in a jar which then he drowned in a river. He buried his father at the west slope of Hongbŏp mountain in a thatched tomb. One day, as if in a dream, his father came and intoning a poem said: parting the bushes I arrived at the mourning house of a filial son. He suffered greatly and shed many tears. Every day he carried more earth to put on the top. He knew how to call the bright moon and the light wind. He took care of me when I was alive and protected me after my death. Who says of filial love that it has no beginning and no end? He finished singing and disappeared. Having completed the mourning Nubaek retrieved the tiger’s meat from the river and ate it.

<Poem>
While Ch’oe, the father, was hunting hares and foxes in the mountain;
Instead, he fed his flesh to the great cat.
At that time, he did not have [by his side] the filiality of his son;
Who was there to hack the tiger’s skull with an axe?
Heartening is [the son] capturing the tiger to avenge;
Yet, in the west of the mountain, he kept vigil next to [his father’s] grave for three years.
The short poem [that His father] came to intone was not really a dream;
It is nothing else but his grief and sincerity piercing through the Nine Springs of the underworld.

• Discussion Questions:
  

(YO) 戶長 is a title for a chief yamen officer.
For "jar which then he drowned in a river," he buried the jar under the water.
"He buried his father at the west slope of Hongbŏp mountain" To be precise, Nubaek performed a funeral for his father there. So perhaps "he buried his father with a funeral"?