Yeo Ok

Who is Yeo Ok?

Yeo Ok is often regarded as Korea's first woman poet. Her poem, the Gonghuin, is one of only three poems from ancient Korean kingdom, Gojoseon and the first by a woman. One version of the poem tells how one day at day break as Yeo Ok's husband, Gwak Rijago, was rowing across a river, he saw an old mad man jump into river and try to swim across it. His wife had tried and failed to prevent him from entering the water. He was swept away and drowned. The old lady stricken with grief followed her husband into the water singing and playing her lyre and met the same sad fate as her husband.

Gwak Rijago told his wife Yeo Ok about the sad event and the tale and this moved her to set the old lady's words to music. Yeo Ok's poem then was written to be sung accompanied by a lyre. The first record of this poem is in Hanja but authorities are uncertain as to whether it was originally written in Hanja characters or first composed in Korean and then later translated.

The "Gonghuin" was widely sung by Koreans at the time. Furthermore, it was introduced to Chinese Jin dynasty and later China's most famous poet, Li Po, composed a poem with "Gonghuin" as the subject.