The passing of the Emperor—An Imperial pageant
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.
[Illustration: WITHIN THE PALACE GROUNDS, SEOUL]
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.
[Illustration: IMPERIAL THRONE, SEOUL]
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.
[Illustration: IMPERIAL TABLET-HOUSE, SEOUL]
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 keeping. 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.
[Illustration: AN IMPERIAL PAVILION, SEOUL]
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.