Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 2

Roaming Again at the Thatched Hall in the Western Suburb復遊西郊草堂

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min

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.

初日映短霞。長風卷宿霧。四望喜新晴。傍林聊散步。造物固難料。陰雲忽紛布。電火掣金蛇。雷公屢馮怒。兒童報我來。入郭及未雨。我言天地內。浮生信如寓。彼此無眞宅。隨意且相住。何必戀洛塵。局促首歸路。換酒傾一壺。胸膈無細故。頽然臥前榮。萬木蒼煙暮。

The first sun shines on a short-lived glow of cloud and a long wind rolls away the lingering mist Looking all about, glad that it has newly cleared I merely stroll beside the grove The Maker of things is truly hard to reckon and dark clouds all at once spread in disorder Lightning draws out a snake of gold and the Thunder God rages again and again A boy comes to tell me to enter the walls before the rain I say: within heaven and earth this floating life is truly like lodging as a guest Here and there there is no true house and one stays with another as the will inclines Why long so stubbornly for the dust of Luoyang and turn my head, cramped, toward the road back? I trade for wine and tip up a single jug and in my breast there is no petty matter I lie down as if toppled under the front eaves and over all the trees the blue mist darkens