Using the Cosmos Magazine article for comparison.
Quotes from Sheri Holman's Sŏndŏk: Princess of the Moon and Stars are from the version on Internet Archive.
| Cosmos Mag article | Princess of the Moon and Stars |
|---|---|
| Will I ever know the truth about the stars? I’m too young to engage in theories about our Universe. I just know that I want to understand more. I want to know all I can. Why should it be forbidden? | Will we ever know the truth about the stars? I am too young to venture a theory about our universe, I only know that I want to understand more deeply. I want to know all I can know. Why should it be forbidden? (p. 77) |
| This sentence, found on a votive jar dedicated to her grandmother, had been written by a young girl, a Korean princess of the Silla Dynasty, when she was 15 years old. | [The princess, writing to her grandmother:] I have been thinking over my duties as a keeper of the Ancestor Jar, and I hope you will not grow angry with me if I slip in some of my own private thoughts. (p. 4) |
| she was very interested in astronomy in an era where no education was granted to women. | This is what I love most about studying astronomy, Grandmother. It is not just a science of planets and stars. It is a science about their marvelously complex relationships to one another. (pp. 5-6) |
| At seven, for example, a box of peony seeds arrived at the Court, from China. | “When [the princess] was but seven years old, the Emperor of China sent me a packet of peony seeds.” (p. 65) |
| her tutor, the Chinese ambassador Lin Fang, who was also an astronomer. | Word has reached me that the ambassador from China has arrived with the new official calendar. I've heard he is a great lover of astronomy and I hope to learn much from him during his stay. (pp. 4-5) Father has sent word that I may meet Lord Lin Fang (as I have learned the ambassador is called) when our court astronomers present our calendar tomorrow. (p. 11) Father has engaged Lin Fang as our tutor! (p. 50) |
| Sonduk, however, used to make observations every night and was mostly self-taught. | All night I measure the stars to understand their meaning for our kingdom. (p. 57) |
| Convinced of the necessity of a strictly domestic occupation for females, [Lin Fang] replied: “Surely you can’t think I can have a conversation on such important topics with a young woman! It would be unnatural and totally inappropriate.” | “I am happy to advise your father's astronomers, and you may tell them so, Lady Sŏndŏk,” Lord Lin Fang said frigidly. “But surely you cannot imagine I would converse on such a serious subject with a young lady? It would be unnatural, and wholly against the laws of propriety.” (p. 19) |
| during a solar eclipse that occurred in Korea, the young princess was able to predict the event and its duration with high accuracy | “It is mathematically impossible to have an eclipse in the tenth month of this year.” (p. 46) All week, people had been whispering that I could foretell the future because I correctly predicted that there would be no eclipse. (p. 154) |
| This angered the ambassador even more. He gave her another bit of advice: “Astronomy is not for women,” he said. “Do anything feminine, such as care of silkworms!” | When I appeared before Lin Fang for my lessons today, he dismissed me, saying, “The silkworms have need of you. Confucius would never want to stand in the way of a woman's duty to her worms.” (p. 69) |
| Eventually, this influential diplomat from a powerful neighbouring country managed to convince Sonduk’s father to preclude the princess from any further study of the stars. | “I tried to tell the Lady Sŏndŏk that astronomy is a difficult science,” Lord Lin Fang suddenly interjected, and his voice was thick and icy like the weather outside. “It should not be entrusted to a woman.” “Sŏndŏk fancies herself an astronomer,” said Father, casting an annoyed look my way. “She is a clever girl, but sometimes she oversteps her place.” (p. 47) |
| Sonduk had begged her father for several years to set out on [Cheomseongdae's] building, but eventually accomplished the challenge on her own. | It is my greatest desire to one day build an observatory here dedicated only to mapping the sky. I have hinted to Father that is what I want for my New Year's gift. (p. 9) “It is not an observatory,” he said, as I unwrapped a small red package. Inside was a lovely golden bracelet … I smiled weakly, trying to hide my disappointment … (p. 43) Every year I ask for the same thing–an observatory of my very own, and every year my Father pats my head like a child. (p. 44) |