Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 3
From the House of Vice Director (郞中) Oh Semun, Visiting Elder Mun of Gwangmyeong Temple, Matching Master Mun's Rhymes自吳郞中世文家。訪廣明寺文長老。次韻文公。
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 3 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.
偶尋吳質宅。頻擧謫仙杯。露重楓初染。霜深菊自開。忽辭犀首飮。爲訪鳥巢來。晚色猿啼送。秋聲鴈挽廻。詞腸擒錦繡。談舌吐風雷。可怪高僧室。猶呼麴秀才。
By chance I called at the house of Wu Zhi (吳質) and lifted again and again the cup of the banished immortal. The dew lay heavy, and the maples took their first color; the frost grew thick, and the chrysanthemums opened of themselves. All at once I declined the drinking party of Xishou (犀首) and came to seek the monk Niaochao (鳥巢). In the failing light the gibbons' cries saw me off; in the sound of autumn the wild geese drew me back. The bowels that make writing clutch at brocade; the tongue that speaks spits out wind and thunder. It is laughable: here in a high monk's room we are still calling for Licentiate Guk (麴秀才).