Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 2
Presented to Seon Master Wang of the Royal Clan at Anhwa Temple (安和寺)呈安和寺宗室王禪師
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 2 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.
自慙冠帶人間客。來對煙霞物外身。惠遠不禁陶令飮。儼公聊與習之親。氷消玉硯浮蟾腹。酒溢金巵沒鳳脣。最感皇親容惡客。許敎狂醉露天眞。
I am ashamed of myself, a traveler of the human world in cap and sash, come to face a body beyond things (物外), outside the mist and sunset haze. Huiyuan (慧遠) did not forbid Tao Yuanming his wine, and Master Yan (儼公) was content to be friends with Li Xizhi (李習之). The ice melts, and a toad's belly floats on the jade inkstone; the wine brims over and submerges the phoenix lips of the golden cup. What I am most grateful for is that a kinsman of the king takes in a troublesome guest, and lets him go madly drunk and show the truth he was born with.