Preface to the Collection序
公姓李，諱奎報，字春卿。始名仁氐，夢奎星報異瑞因改之。九歲，能屬文，時號奇童。稍長，經史、百家、佛書、道秩，無不遍閱，一覽輒記。爲詩文，略不蹈古人畦徑，以詩捷稱。王公大人聞其能，邀致之請賦難狀之物，令每句唱強韻。若古若律，走筆立成，風檣陣馬，不足況其速也。方未冠時，有吳先生世才者，世所謂名儒，平生小許可人，一見奇之，許以忘年。人或非之曰：「先生長於李三十餘年矣，何媟此頑孺子，使之驕耶？」先生曰：「非爾輩所知也。此子非常人，後必遠到矣。」少放曠，自號爲「白雲居士」。酣飮賦詩爲事，人不以經濟待之。無何，名振海外，獨步三韓，翺翔玉堂，出入鳳池，王言帝誥高文大冊，皆出一手，不十年，位至台鼎，則吳之知人，信矣。何一吳先生知公遠到，而衆莫之知也。當公之擁金紫立朝端，珠瞳雪髭，輝映人物。左右皆指之曰人中龍，其奇資偉望，不類於常者如此。自作相來，屹立爲正直大臣，人無間言者。然則公之初不自檢束，特謔浪翫世耳，晚年，嗜讀洗心經，窮大衍之數，古之人云『通天地曰儒』，公之謂歟。於丁酉歲，固乞退，以金紫光祿大夫、守大保、門下侍郞平章事、修文殿大學士、監修國史、判禮部翰林院事、大子大保致仕。雖家居，外國交聘徵誥文字，皆委之，以是眷遇不衰，每受俸，多小與現官宰輔相等。其平生所著，不蓄一紙，嗣子監察御史涵，收拾萬分之一。得古賦、古律詩、牋表、碑銘、雜文幷若干首，請爲文集，公可其請，分爲四十一卷，號曰《東國李相國文集》。涵又請曰：「集已成矣，不可無序。」於是公乃命予，予固不才，亦諸子之伍，莫敢以冠首爲讓，公命益勤，姑序一二。辛丑八月日，入內侍朝散大夫、尙書禮部侍郞、直寶文閣、太子文學李需，序。
The Duke's surname was Yi, his given name Gyubo (奎報), his courtesy name Chungyeong (春卿). His first name was Injeo (仁氐), but he changed it because in a dream the star Gyu (奎星) had made known an uncommon omen. At nine he knew how to compose, and the people of that day called him the Wondrous Child (奇童). When he had grown a little there was nothing he had not read through — the classics and the histories, the many masters, the Buddhist scriptures and the books of the Daoists — and what he had once looked at he had by heart. In making poems and prose he did not tread in the least the paths the ancients had opened, and he was spoken of for the swiftness with which he made a poem. Princes and great men, hearing of his gift, called him in and had him sing of things hard to figure, calling out a difficult rhyme at every line. Whether old-style verse or regulated verse, he ran his brush and finished it where he sat; a sail with the wind behind it, a horse charging in formation, were not enough to match him for speed.
Before he had yet taken the cap of manhood, there was one called Master O Sejae (吳世才). He was one whom the world called a famed scholar, and all his life he seldom allowed merit in another; yet he saw the boy once, thought him remarkable, and made him a friend without regard to their years. Someone reproached him for it, saying: 「Master, you are more than thirty years above this child. How can you keep such easy company with this dull boy and make him proud?」 The Master said: 「This is not for you to know. This child is no ordinary man; in days to come he will surely go far.」
In his youth he was unrestrained and called himself the White Cloud Hermit (白雲居士). He made it his business to drink deep and to make poems, so that people did not treat him as timber for the governing of the age. Yet before long his name rang out beyond the seas, and in the Three Han (三韓) there was none to match him. He flew up to the Jade Hall (玉堂) and passed in and out of the Phoenix Pool (鳳池); the king's words and his edicts, the high writings and the great documents, all came from one hand. In less than ten years his place had reached that of chief minister, and so Master O's reading of men proved truly to be trusted. How was it that Master O alone knew the Duke would go far, and the crowd did not know it?
When the Duke wore the gold and purple (金紫) and stood at the very front of the court, his eyes like beads and his beard white as snow shone out brightly among the rest. All around pointed to him and said, 「a dragon among men」; so unlike an ordinary man were his uncommon substance and his great renown. After he became chief minister he stood out alone as an upright great minister, and there was no one who spoke ill of him. If that is so, then his not holding himself in check at the first was only a jest by which he made sport of the world. In his later years he took pleasure in reading the Classic of the Washing of the Heart (洗心經) and pursued the number of the Great Expansion (大衍) to its end. An ancient said, 「He who runs through heaven and earth alike is called a scholar of the Way (儒)」 — was it not of the Duke that this was said?
In the year of jeong-yu (丁酉) he insisted on begging leave to withdraw, and retired from office as Grand Master of Gold and Purple Glory, Acting Grand Protector, Vice Director of the Chancellery and Joint Manager of Affairs, Grand Academician of the Hall of the Cultivation of Letters, Supervisor of the Compilation of the National History, Director of the Board of Rites and of the Hallim Academy, and Grand Protector of the Heir Apparent. Even while he sat at home, the writings exchanged with other countries and the wording of the edicts by which the king summoned men were all entrusted to the Duke. For this reason the king's regard for him did not wither, and whenever he drew his stipend its measure was the same as that of the chief ministers then in office.
Of all the Duke wrote in his life he laid by not a single sheet; but his heir, the Inspector of the Censorate Ham (涵), gathered up one part in ten thousand. Having got some old-style rhapsodies, old-style and regulated poems, proclamations and memorials, inscriptions, and a few miscellaneous pieces, he asked that they be bound into a collection, and the Duke granted his asking. It was divided into forty-one volumes and named the Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country. Ham asked again: 「The collection is already made; it cannot be without a preface.」 Thereupon the Duke laid the charge upon me. I am truly without gift, yet I too am counted among the many men of letters, and so I did not dare decline the words that stand at the head; and since the Duke's bidding grew the more earnest, I set down one thing and another to begin with.
On a certain day of the eighth month in the year of sin-chuk, written as a preface by Yi Su (李需), Palace Attendant, Grand Master for Court Service, Vice Minister of the Board of Rites of the Secretariat, Rectifier of the Hall of Treasured Writings, Instructor to the Heir Apparent.
Interlinear notes 1
1241年
1241.