오월의 그날을 기억하며 Remembering the Gwangju Uprising (18 May 1980): a Poem by Ko Un (a bilingual version) (송재평 영역)
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Here is a poem by Ko Un, one of the most well-known Korean poets, on the Gwangju Uprising. One spring day in Gwangju, so many people, young and old, men and women, students and workers, came out to the streets of Gwangju and demonstrated for a more democratic country, a country that had been scarred with dictators. Hundreds of people were killed by the Korean martial forces; still they don’t know for sure how many were died then. 제가 번역해서 저널에 이미 발표한 고은 시인의 시를 오월의 그날을 기억하는 의미로 올립니다. (영어판이 먼저 그리고 한글판이 뒷편에 있습니다.)
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A Poem in Remembrance of the Gwangju Uprising (May 1980):
“If May Passes by Forgotten” by Ko Un
Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
One midnight in May martial law descended upon us.
We were beaten up like dogs and dragged in.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
One day in May we rose up,
clenching a thousand-year-old anger, clutching empty hands, we rose up.
We ran to the fresh green street, our street,
to Kumnam-no, the street of liberation, to rise up.
We drove away the pitch dark night,
firing our hearts with democracy, people, and nation
against the division of treason
against the treason of forty years of fascism,
against the tank of martial law we rose.
Sing! Fight! Bury these ghastly bodies!
On this fresh green street, our street,
soon we fell down from bullets,
shedding blood.
We fell, spilling red blood–
collapsed corpses, we were dragged on and on,
covered by gray dust, covered by ash,
we were taken somewhere like dead dogs,
carried on the military trucks that rushed by.
Oh, Mangwol Cemetery is not the only place, the only place.
Seven hundred, eight hundred, or two thousand patriots
are still buried in unknown territory.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
One day in May we fought to the end,
at Province Hall, in deserted back alleys,
we fought, stepping on the bloodstains of our dead comrades.
We fought proudly in the name of the Civilian Army of the Gwangju Uprising,
against foreign forces,
against compradors,
against the legacies of the Yushin dictatorial reform,
defending the lives of our land who could not be desecrated,
we died with punctured chests.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
At dusk, in the street outside Province Hall, a high school student tore his clothes
and his cry echoed through the streets:
“my sister was murdered brutally and ferociously–
give me a gun. I can fight.”
Soon after, he too, was shot and killed.
“Your beautiful breasts chopped like tofu.”
Oh, young girls and pregnant women
were stabbed to death.
In the streets, back alleys, and dead ends
young men were killed and dragged away.
One day in May, on the street of democracy, people, and nation,
suddenly the savages descended:
the 20th Division of Yangpyong,
the Special Troop,
the 31st Division.
The martial law troops of the 7th Airborne, the 3rd Airborne, and the 11th Airborne broke in, randomly shooting M16 rifles,
crushing with their gun handles,
stabbing again and again with their fixed bayonets;
reeking of liquor, they shot to death even those who surrendered.
Oh, the screams of this Inferno ran over the streets, like waves.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
Afterwards, the silence of the tremendous terror, like the steel grave,
extended over the living and the dead.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
From death we had to start all over again.
Those who survived, even those who forgot their grief had to return
and start all over again in the street of death.
We have died and have no words.
We have lived and have no words.
We were jailed, gagged, without even the sky to look towards,
gnashing our teeth,
every heart filled with a thousand years of bitter resentment,
swallowing this time of shame.
Down the violated street military boots of the 5th Republic marched heavily.
After that May, we carried death on our backs.
One snowy day,
we first came out to Kumnam street and Chungjang street,
and shook one another’s hands once again:
“You are alive.” “You are, too.”
Then we ran to Mangwol cemetery and wept.
Since then we came together every year and rose up.
Over and over we identified the enemies hiding on the dark side,
blowing our hot breath and defrosting the windows.
The star spangled banner flies high over this land–
this land swarms with Japs.
Now Gwangju is not Gwangju—Gwangju is not only a place.
It is the heart of the history of this land.
So many people rose up in every street–
every town, people met whispering:
lives of workers have become lumps of coal,
cows are worth nothing, and farmers have swallowed pesticides and perished.
A taxi driver burned himself up.
Families have been asphyxiated by coal fumes.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
College students set themselves on fire, falling like flowers,
and tens of others are ready to follow.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
Billions of Won were spent on teargas, apple bombs, and other god-damn bombs,
which blew up in our eyes and made us blind,
or shocked our chests and we collapsed.
Those who threw a stone were dragged out and beaten up till they vomited blood.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
The struggle for justice has not ended in the factories or the schools.
Even in prisons the struggle goes on for victory.
But in the cities of deception the flag of blood-ties waves strong,
Japan’s ruling party gleefully enters in and out,
like eunuchs who visit their in-laws.
Even the trash of the Yushin dictatorship has returned to take its part.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
To break these foreign forces, these compradors, this betrayal,
to sweep up this division and this fascism,
to achieve our independence,
our equality, and our reunification,
to dance a dance of history,
let our bodies terribly rot,
buried deep in this history.
We will fight, dead.
We will fight, feverishly living.
So we live, out of breath.
Oh, May!
Oh, May!
Oh, May of the splendid, green, dazzling days!
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
On a day dense with teargas
we shed tears and cough.
The cuckoo sings; at night it sings mournfully.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
Oh, dead fighters, friends,
a hundred years of struggle is not over yet.
We have to fight a hundred years more, friends.
We must fight on from generation to generation.
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
What will we do if May passes by forgotten?
No matter what, we will always unite again.
The scattered will meet again.
Blood-boiling May,
the month of struggle that shakes the whole body,
May, you are us.
United, we move on, breaking the waves of the ocean.
Although May has passed,
May is always alive in us.
We ourselves are May.
We are May.
We are May.
Shouts bursting from seven million of our people!
The masses of joy and embracing that will burst
from every corner of this land on that morning!
Oh, that’s our May. Liberation achieved from death.
That day, come quick!
오월이 가면
고은
5월이 가면 어이하나
5월이 가면 어이하나
5월 어느 날 한밤중 계엄령이 덮쳤는데
우리는 개처럼 두들겨 맞으며 끌려갔는데
5월이 가면 어이하나
5월 어느 날 우리는 일어섰는데
천 년의 분노 웅켜쥐고 맨주먹 쥐고 일어섰는데
신록의 거리 그 거리
해방의 거리 금남로에 달려가 일어섰는데
아 우리들의 가슴팍에 민주 민중 민족의 불질러
캄캄한 밤 몰아냈는데
반역의 분단
반역의 팟쇼 40년 계엄령의 탱크 앞에서 일어섰는데
노래하라 싸워라 처절히 묻어버려라 이 몸뚱아리
신록의 거리 그 거리에서
이윽고 우리는 총 맞아 쓰러졌는데
피 뿜으며
붉은 피 뿜으며 쓰러졌는데
쓰러진 송장으로 질질 끌려갔는데
횟가루 뿌려 재 뿌려
뒈진 개처럼 어디론가 실려갔는데
질주하는 군용트럭에 실려갔는데
아 망월동은 하나가 아니다 하나가 아니다
아직도 모두 그 어딘가에
7백의총으로 8백의총으로 2천의총으로 파묻혔는데
5월이 가면 어이하나
5월 어느 날 마지막까지
도청에서 흩어져 버린 뒷골목에서
우리는 죽어간 동지의 핏자국 밟고 싸웠는데
그 이름 광주항쟁시민군으로 싸웠는데
외세와 맞서
매판과 맞서
유신잔재와 맞서
아 이 땅의 욕될 수 없는 삶을 지키다가
가슴 뚫리며 죽어갔는데
그 5월이 가면 어이하나
어느 고교생 황혼의 거리 도청 앞에서 옷을 찢으며
온 거리 떠나가라고 울부짖었는데
내 누나가 잔인무도하게 학살당했는데
나에게 총을 주세요 나도 싸울 수 있어요
