Korea (Hamilton)/Chapter 6

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The Emperor passed one morning in procession from the Imperial Palace, which adjoins the British Legation upon its south wall, to the newly erected Temple of Ancestors, the eastern wall of which marks the limits of the Legation grounds. The festival was in no way public; yet, such was the splendour of the pageant, that this progress of eight hundred yards, leaving the Palace by its south gate and entering again by the eastern gate, cost over two thousand pounds. No warning of the Imperial plans was given to his Majesty's subjects. Just before the hour of his departure, however, the Emperor expressed the hope that the British Minister and myself would be interested in the procession, inviting us to watch the spectacle from the Legation domain. Information of the movements of the Court was, of course, bruited abroad. Large crowds gathered around the precincts of the Palace and the Temple, attracted by the efforts which the soldiers were making to form a cordon round the scene. Hundreds of soldiers were told off to guard the approaches to the Temple. One battalion of infantry was installed in the grounds of the Imperial Korean Customs, another occupied the gates and garden of the British Legation. ​Despite the fact that the route of the procession lay between the high walls of a private passage, some twenty-five feet wide, leading from the offices of the Customs to the grounds of the Legation, into which a postern gate gives access from the Palace, and through which no Korean is ever permitted to pass, soldiers, one pace apart, faced one another upon opposite sides of the road. The public, seeing nothing of the ceremony, gathered such consolation as was possible from the spectacle of the masses of infantry occupying the Palace Square. Occasional glimpses of Palace officials were also secured, and the blatant discord of triumphant song, with which the private musicians of the Emperor greeted his arrival and the passing of the Court, fell faintly upon expectant ears. It is, however, the proud privilege of the Koreans to pay for these promenades of the Court. If they did not see the august countenance of his Majesty upon this occasion, it is to be hoped that they derived some consolation for the heavy taxation, with which they are burdened, from the brave show made by the brand new uniforms of the troops. The plumes, gold lace and swords of the officers, and the rifles and bayonets of the men would have fascinated any crowd. Until the moment of departure, the army lay around upon the road, sleeping in the dust, or squatted in the shade upon the steps of buildings, partaking of breakfast—a decomposed mass of sun-dried, raw fish and rice which stunk horribly, but which they devoured greedily, tearing it into shreds with their fingers. Occasionally a loyal citizen brought them water or passed round a pipe, taking the opportunity to run his finger along the edge of a bayonet, or over the surface of a coat.

The Emperor was passing in this festive state to pay homage to the tablets of his ancestors upon their ​transference to a fresh abode. The gorgeousness of the pageant burst upon the colourless monotony of the capital with all the violent splendour and vivid beauty of an Arabian sunset. It was right and proper that the magnificence of the

celebration should be unrestricted. The importance of the occasion was without parallel in the festivals of the year. The momentary brilliancy of the picture, which centres round the usually secluded sovereign at such a moment, implied the glorification of a dynasty, which has already occupied the throne of Korea for more than five centuries. Quaint and stately as the pageant was, the splendour of a barbaric mediævalism is best seen in processions of a more public character.

The procession started from the Palace about 10 A.M. It presented elements strangely suggestive of burlesque, romance, and the humours of a pantomime. Korean ​infantry, in blue uniforms, headed the order of the advance from the Palace, their modern dress and smart accoutrements forming the one link between the middle ages and the twentieth century, to which the function could lay claim. After them, running, stumbling, and chattering noisily, passed a mob of Palace attendants in fantastic hats and costumes of various degrees of brilliancy, long silken robes of blue, green, yellow, red and orange, carrying staves bound with embroidered streamers of coloured ribbons. A line of bannermen followed, bearing red silken flags with blue characters, also hurrying and stumbling forward; then passed a file of pipes and drums, the men in yellow robes with the shimmer of gold about them, streamers fluttering from the pipes, ribbons decking the drums. Men bearing arrows in leather frames and flags of green, red and yellow, were next. Soldiers in ancient costume, wonderful to behold, men with bells and jingling cymbals, pipes and fans, Palace eunuchs in Court dress, detachments of dismounted cavalry, their horses not appearing, but their riders garbed in voluminous shirts, their hats covered with feathers and wearing high boots, swept along, amiable and foolish of aspect.

The procession, which preceded the passing of the Emperor, seemed almost unending. At every moment the sea of colour broke into waves of every imaginable hue, as one motley crowd of retainers, servants, musicians and officials gave place to another. Important and imposing officials in high-crowned hats, adorned with crimson tassels festooned with bunches of feathers and fastened by a string of amber beads round the throat, were pushed along, silent and helpless. Their dresses were glaring combinations of red and blue and orange; they were supported by men ​in green gauze coats and followed by other signal marks of Korean grandeur, more banners and bannermen, flags decorated with feathers, servants carrying boxes of

refreshments, small tables, pipes and fire. These were succeeded by others just as imposing, helpless and beautiful to behold; the breasts and backs of their superb robes were decorated with satin squares, embroidered, after the style of China, with the symbols of their offices—birds for civilians, tigers for those of military rank. Statesmen in their official robes gave place to others in winged hats or lofty mitres, gleaming ​with tinsel. The Commander-in-Chief, with Japanese, Chinese, and Korean decorations flashing in the sunshine from the breast of his modern uniform, followed by his staff in red coats heavily braided with gold lace, and with white aigrettes waving in their hats, passed, marching proudly at the head of the Imperial body-guard. The final stream of colour showed nobles in blue and green silk gauze; Imperial servants with robes of yellow silk, their hats decorated with rosettes; more mediæval costumes, of original colour and quaint conception; a greater multitude of waving flags; a group of silken-clad standard-bearers bearing the Imperial yellow silk flag, the Imperial umbrella, and other insignia. Then a final frantic beating of drums, a horrid jangling of bells, a fearful screaming of pipes, a riot of imperious discord mingled with the voices of the officials shouting orders and the curses of the eunuchs, and finally the van of the Imperial cortège appeared, in a blaze of streaming yellow light, amid a sudden silence in which one could hear the heart-beats of one's neighbour. The voices died away; the scraping of hurried footsteps alone was audible as the Imperial chair of state, canopied with yellow silk richly tasselled, screened with delicate silken panels of the same colour and bearing wings to keep off the sun, was rushed swiftly and smoothly forward. Thirty-two Imperial runners, clad in yellow, with double mitres upon their heads, bore aloft upon their shoulders the sacred and august person of his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor, to his place of sacrifice and worship in his Temple of Ancestors.

The business of the day had now arrived. Presently the Emperor's bearers stopped, and he alighted at the entrance of a tent of yellow silk, which had been erected at ​the angle of the Palace and Legation walls, within the shade of trees in the Legation garden. It was in this spot that his Majesty had given us permission to watch the passing of his Court. It was here, within a moment of his arrival, that the retinue of the Crown Prince, his chair of red silk borne upon the shoulders of sixteen bearers, stopped to set down its princely burden. The Emperor and the Crown Prince passed within the tent, changing the Imperial yellow and crimson robes of state in which they had first appeared for the sacrificial yellow silk, and emerging a little later to make obeisance before the passing of the tablets of their ancestors. The character of the procession was now modified. Soldiers and courtiers, nobles and dignitaries of the Court, gave place to priests clothed in the yellow robes of sacrifice, and chanting in solemn tones the words of benediction. The screaming of pipes took on fresh vigour, rising and falling in shrill cadence, until the air vibrated with conflicting discords. Men, solemn of visage, their yellow skirts swaying with the frenzy of their movements, swept past the throne, a surge of song rising to their lips expressive of the passionate despair and lamentation which (should have) filled their souls. They disappeared, a mocking echo haunting their retreating footsteps. Again the music of the priests broke forth in noisy triumph, heralding the presence of the twelve ancestral tablets, each carried by eight men in chairs of sacrificial yellow, which demanded the homage of the expectant pair. One came, moving slowly in a burst of solemn song. The Emperor, his son the Crown Prince, and the baby Prince, the offspring of Lady Om, dropped to the earth. For a moment they rested upon their bended knees, with crossed hands, in a reverent attitude, as their own proud heads sank to the dust before ​

​the gilded burdens in the sacred chairs. Twelve times they passed before the Imperial group; twelve times each Prince humbled himself, the circle of supporting nobles and attendant eunuchs assisting them.

It was the first appearance of the baby Prince. Scarcely old enough to toddle, he was of necessity aided in his devotions by the chief eunuch, who pressed him to his knees, placing a restraining hand upon his head, a guiding hand upon his shoulder. The babe followed everything with wide-open, innocent eyes, becoming tired and fidgety before the ceremony had concluded. The demeanour of the Imperial pair showed every sign of reverence and devotion. The absolute sincerity of their humiliation impressed those who watched the scene with feelings of astonishment. The emotion of the Emperor was plainly manifest; he had paled visibly, his whole being centred upon the objects of his veneration. When the ceremony had ended the twelve chairs turned towards the Ancestral Temple, and, as the Emperor ensconced himself in his yellow chair of state, and the Crown Prince, following the example of his father, mounted to his seat of crimson silk, the babe rode upon the back of the chief eunuch, crowing with boyish and infantile delight. Once again the flourish of the musicians, the rattle of the drums, the screaming of the fifes and pipes broke forth. The procession was moving, priests and nobles, courtiers and Palace servants following in the train of the Emperor.

The procession of the Emperor pressed forward to the temple, the tablets halting before the Temple of Ancestors, while the Emperor and the two Princes proceeded to the Hall of Sacrifice, where offerings of live sheep were burnt, and baskets of fruit and flowers presented before the altars. ​The spirits of the illustrious dead thus propitiated, the Emperor returned to the sacred chairs, once again paying his devotion to the tablets. One by one each was borne from its chair to the receptacle prepared for its future

keping. Panels of yellow silk screened them; no eye was permitted to gaze upon them, nor any hand to touch them, as each, wrapped in its inviolate sanctity of yellow silk, passed from its chair of state to its holy place. Priests attended them; the throne followed in their wake, the entire Court, the highest nobles and statesmen in the land, bowed down to them. An atmosphere at once devotional and filial prevailed, for the cult of Ancestor Worship epitomises the loftiest aspirations of the Korean. It governs the actions of a parent towards his child; controls the conduct of a child towards its parent.

The ceremony over, the scene within the Temple became ​more brilliant. Ladies from the Palace appeared. Cakes and wine were produced, and the Emperor and Crown Prince resumed their robes of state, discarding the sacrificial garments. The Lady Om came to congratulate the Emperor, attended by a retinue of gaily-dressed Palace women and slaves, their hair piled high, their shimmering silken skirts trailing in graceful folds about them. The Court musicians played; the Court singers sang, and the prettiest women swayed in a joyous dance. Within the private apartments of the sovereign there was feasting and merriment. His Majesty was himself again. The world, which he had shown us, and in which we had been so interested, changed quickly. Looking at the disorderly scramble of the return, the scene that had passed before us seemed like a dream. Yet, for a few hours, we had been living in the shadow of the middle ages.