Arirang Lament

 

Once I was born in the Land of Morning Calm

where, they say, tigers used to smoke.

Could I ever free myself from the laughable

state of living where one never utters

“I love you” even if dying of love,

which could also mean “I hate you.”

Laughable to say as it may, the story is sung

in one hundred versions of the folksong,

Arirang.

Arirang, arirang, ara~ri~yo~~

Trudging away you’re o’er the hills of Arirang~

If you so leave, leaving me forsaken, my love,

suffer you will from the pain in your leg

before you make ten-li for your journey~

Arirang, arirang, ara~ri~yo~~

So goes the legend, undressing the hearts

and minds of lovers abandoned and abandoning

in the peaks and valleys of love – of life.

 

Arirang: One of the oldest Korean folk songs and the most popular one,

with the word ‘Arirang’ repeated in the refrain, and lyrics and melodies

slightly different in each province.

(Published in The Journal of Baha’i Studies Spring-Summer 2018

In my YouTube ad in “Memorizing ‘Arirang”)

 

(From “A Thousand Magnolias”)

 

© Therese Young Kim