A beloved only daughter, and a death in 1680

These notes present a late-Joseon father’s memorial under the title Deeds of a Deceased Daughter. The notes also give the Chinese characters 亡女行蹟. The unique body is largely the memorial itself; a long separate commentary is not added in the notes, and none is invented here.

Lady Na, the mother, had borne seven sons in a row and then, for the first time, a daughter, gifted from birth and deeply loved. From early on her nature was clear and her conduct devoted, and her parents cherished her all the more. Relatives congratulated one another, and the news spread in the village, as if a first son had been born. People, the father says, commonly value a son and take a daughter lightly, yet even the ancients could not help loving an only daughter more. In the gyeongsin year (1680) she became pregnant; on 2 December she gave birth, grew critically ill, and died on the 4th. Those dates stay in 1680.

In one place the unique body says she died after giving birth to a son. In another it says the only bloodline left in the world was a daughter, that the mother died three days after the birth, and that the child died six days after the mother. The child’s face at birth resembled hers, and the grandfather had hoped, once the funeral was over, to bring the child home and raise it. The thread is not reconciled here, and no choice between the two wordings is forced.

A coffin in 1681, and a grief that will not believe

On the 4th day of the second month of the sinyu year (1681), the aging father set out wine and fruit, stood before the coffin, wept, and spoke in writing. That day stays in 1681. He asks how heaven could let him live and let his daughter die. Since she died, his mind has had no rest; his spirit feels dazed, as if he were mad or dreaming. They washed her, dressed her, encoffined her, and made a mourning hall, and still he cannot grasp that she is already dead. Days have piled into months, and the year has turned, and still he cannot grasp that she has already left him. When he sits she seems beside him; when he stands she seems to follow. If he waits she might go and come back; if he calls she might hear and answer. Early deaths, he says, are many, and those one can almost believe; of her death he cannot believe a single thing.

She had already left swaddling clothes, cut her teeth, come of age, and married. Had she been allowed even one day of a husband’s honor, and to leave a virtue among the family, then even if she had not lived out eighty years or served her parents to the end, it would not have been the same as a short, early death. As it is, there is no such comfort. The clothes she used to wear were of no further use; earrings and beads were placed in her mouth, and the dress she wore when she married was used for the shroud. Cosmetic things in a box, the towel from the wedding, a comb, and treasures were all gathered and buried. Words fail him even here.

To hold the funeral at the husband’s house is, he says, proper by ancient rite. The family’s own burial mountain was too narrow for her to return, and her parents-in-law did not want her treated as an unmarried woman, so they meant to bury her in their ancestral ground. A spirit, he says, goes everywhere, so what difference is there between that place and this? The child too would be buried beside her, so that mother and child might lean on each other and the lonely spirits not grieve. The parents-in-law also wished to hold a mourning rite in their house, which the father and Lady Na could barely bear; they agreed, remembering that she had disliked a wife’s neglecting the husband’s family, and her words still sounded in their ears. After two months the tablet would be moved to the parents’ house, and morning and evening offerings would be made there, to house their grief.

A birthday offering in the third month, and a brother gone to Yanjing

On the 17th day of the third month of the sinyu year (1681), the aging father came again, on her birthday, with seasonal fruit and various offerings, wept before the spirit seat, and spoke. That day stays in 1681. The sun and moon have changed more than once since she died, he says, and still the grief in his mind will not loosen. Spring spreads its grace, dry grass comes up again, and larvae begin to stir; all living things have their own joy, and he asks why her life, once cut, cannot be joined again.

He remembers that last winter the second elder brother was to go to Yanjing, and she was at the farewell; who would have thought she would not see him return? The change in human affairs, he says, is as quick as a blink. Others go and come back; why does she go once and not return? Her tablet is at the in-laws’, north of Jongnansan, as the notes name the mountain, as far as the end of the sky. The mother lies in bed, weeping as if she would break; the father, driven by official duties, also finds it hard to visit often. He comes back to the old house and goes over old plans one by one, and morning and evening rice cannot hold all the grief.

A woman’s conduct, he says, must accord with rite, yet how could she have forgotten the longing for her parents? Her kind heart would be the same in death as in life, and a lonely spirit, unable to forget, must have been hurt in secret more than once. Today is the day she first came into the world; year after year he will offer wine and food and pray for her blessing. Once she ate happily among her brothers; now she has gone far, and with whom is she to rejoice? Late spring, he says, has from of old been called the best of the four seasons, and he had always been glad she was born in this good time, hoping she would live long and enjoy it; now he can hardly bear to offer her spring wine. Fresh, rich, sweet, and soft foods, cakes and fragrant things, were all what she used to like; why will she not taste them once? Her dear face is vivid, and when he tries to look there is no form. The same Korean essay, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A student reading of a late-Joseon father’s memorial titled Deeds of a Deceased Daughter (亡女行蹟).
2. A pregnancy and death in the gyeongsin year (1680), left in that year, and a disagreement in the unique body over whether the child was a son or a daughter, left unresolved.
3. Rites on the 4th day of the second month and the 17th day of the third month of the sinyu year (1681), a burial at the in-laws’ ground, and a brother who had gone to Yanjing.

Last updated: 14 November 2026