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.
Do not whip the ox — the ox deserves pity.
Though the ox be your own ox, there is no need to whip it.
What has the ox failed you in,
that you turn and rage at the ox?
It carries heavy loads ten thousand ri,
and wears itself out in place of your two shoulders.
Tongue lolling, it plows the great field
and fills your mouth and belly.
This alone is a thick offering to you,
yet you also love to climb on its back.
You blow your flute aslant and are merry by yourself,
while the ox is spent and its steps grow slow, and slower.
Because it is slow you rage the more,
and lay the whip on again and again.
Do not whip the ox — the ox deserves pity.
If one morning the ox dies, on what will you lean?
Oxherd boy, boy, you are bitterly foolish:
unless it were an ox of iron, how could it bear this?