The Kisaeng part II

Dance with Two Knives by Shin Yun-Bok

 During the half millennium long reign of the Chosôn [also known as Chosun] Dynasty in Korea, there was a class of women whose fate was both appalling and seductive. The kisaeng, sometimes translated as "skilled women" were selected from early age for their beauty, given extensive education in poetry, music, the arts, and dance, trained in the skills of courtesanship, and then assigned as professional entertainers to the court, the high government bureaucracy, and even distant military outposts. Social outcasts unacceptable to Confucian mores, the kisaeng were often little more than prostitutes, and never attained any semblance of status in society. Even the few hundred sijo (three-line poem) they authored were preserved in spite of them by admiring males. Destined forever to fall in love and never able to retain a lover, the kisaeng wrote some of the most exquisite, if simple, lines to convey their pain. (Choe & Contogenis 1997, p.80)

Choe, W. & Contogenis, T. 1997, Songs of the Kisaeng: Courtesan Poetry of the Last Korean Dynasty, Gotterdammerung Online, New York, viewed 10 March 2011, <http://www.gotterdammerung.org/books/reviews/s/songs-of-the-kisaeng.html dec 13 2001>.