cofre here.

By Heaven! I shall be with you,

Forever without end!

Till mountains fall and rivers dry,

Winter thunders and summer snows,

Heavens and earth joint,

Then, I’d break up with you.

2nd translation:

Even when mountains flatten and riverbeds run dry,

And the earth moves to become one with the sky,

Even when winter has thunder and summer has snow,

Never will my feelings do anything but grow.

3rd translation:

I want to be your love for ever and ever,

Without break or decay.

When the hills are all flat,

The rivers are all dry.

When it thunders in winter,

When it snows in summer

When heaven and earth mingle,

Not till then will I part from you.

The poem list six "impossible things", only if all of them were to happen would the speaker be willing to break with the lover.

So Prince Segye not only painted Danshim in a style one would paint a queen or a princess, but also wrote a poem confessing his eternal love and longing for her on it.

There does exiss a record of Danshim after all: a half-burned painting of her. The fact that Prince Segye must have painted her, a lowborn maid, in a style one would portray a royalty to immortalizing her for perpetuity, and written a love poem confessing his eternal love for her, worshipping and honouring her, making the world to remember her, making her eternal, when everyone else wanted to tarnish and erase her.

What if he painted the portrait not only to immortalize and worship her, but because capturing her likeness like this was the only way she could belong to him and he could keep her by his side, as a maid who was a King's woman, the portrait speaking of hidden longing, devotion and love.

DS is holding a jangdo (an ornamental knife used by women for protection), what's more, it's an eunjangdo, a silver knife, something commoners were prohibited to carry. Prince Segye must have given it to her so she could protect herself in the palace. I'm unwell!

There was a law that would penalize common people for using eunjangdos. The reason for this restriction was the importance of gold and silver. In a feudal society, gold and silver were indicators of social hierarchy. So he's breaking all the rules for her, treating her like nobility.

You can find more information about jangdo knives here:

Another great detail in My Royal Nemesis. The way Kang Danshim's painting is burnt resembles the damaged portraits of kings Sunjo and Heonjong, which were burnt during the Busan Yongdusan fires in 1954. Has a fire to do something with his death? Did he try to protect her portrait?

It really was Lee Hyun, all of it was him like I thought. He painted her, his beloved, like a queen and wrote a love poem for her, immortalizing her for all eternity and worshipping her when everyone else vilified her and wanted to erase her from history.

Lee Hyun painted Danshim's portrait after she had been forced to betray and hurt him, didn't he? He, the man who loved rain, burned to death, killed by his own brother, while looking at her face and protecting the only piece of her he still had, didn't he?!

What if he covered Danshim's portrait with his own body, protecting her with his dying breath and sacrificing himself, just like he sacrificed himself for her earlier, and that's how her portrait survived while he perished?!

"It has to be Yoon Jihyo."

But also how she comes back from that crushing defeat, after losing everything...