Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 1
Given to the Old Monk Gakseon贈覺禪老
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 1 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.
高擲雲間鉢。輕浮海上杯。敲床二虎吼。呪鉢一龍來。水檻靑煙濕。風巖翠霧開。予非陶靖節。蓮社日遊陪。
He throws his begging bowl high up between the clouds, and lightly floats a cup upon the sea. He strikes the table, and two tigers roar; he speaks a spell over the bowl, and one dragon comes. On the railing by the water the green mist is wet; on the wind-blown rock the green mist lifts. I am no Tao Jingjie (陶靖節), yet at the Lotus Society (蓮社) I attend him and roam with him day after day.