Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 1
Written at Gupum Temple題九品寺
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.
草暗工防路。苔頑不避門。松風夜響谷。山氣曉蒸軒。林菓猿搖落。巖泉鳥浴渾。居僧偏好事。贊導閱名園。
The grass is thick and blocks the path right well, and the moss is tough and does not spare the gate either. The wind in the pines sounds in the valley at night, and the breath of the hills steams on the eaves at dawn. The fruit of the woods the monkeys shake down, and the rock spring the birds have bathed in and made cloudy. The monk who lives here is uncommonly fond of making an occasion of things, and leads me about and guides me, showing me the whole of his famed garden.