옛 문에서 갈라진 두 길

The Gate at Dawn

At the edge of an old market town stood a single gate, worn smooth by countless passing hands. Beyond it, the land divided into two roads that stretched away in entirely opposite directions. A keeper sat beside the gate each morning, and she greeted every traveler who happened to pause there. "Both roads are open to you," she would say, "yet they do not lead to the same country." Travelers often lingered, uncertain, because the choice felt larger than any of them had first expected. She never told anyone which way to go, for that decision, she said, belonged to the traveler alone.

The Wide Road

The first road was broad and smooth, and it gleamed invitingly in the soft morning light. Crowds poured down it, laughing together, because the walking there asked almost nothing of anyone. Music drifted from somewhere far ahead, and the air smelled faintly of honey and warm bread. The travelers there rarely looked back, and they seemed certain that nothing difficult could ever find them. A boy named Ravi lingered at the fork, watching how effortlessly the cheerful others moved along. "Why should anyone choose difficulty," he wondered aloud, "when such comfort is offered so freely?" The keeper answered only that easy beginnings can sometimes conceal steep and unexpected ends.