Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 3
The Dwarf Pine矮松
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.
爲草希芝蘭。爲鳥慕鸞凰。憐汝矮且小。意若大而長。雖生瓦縫間。尙學松蒼蒼。若更觀爾性。當須待嚴霜。
If you would be a plant, aspire to the magic fungus and the orchid; if you would be a bird, long for the luan bird and the phoenix. Dear little thing, you are low and small, yet your will seems great and long. Though you sprang up in a crack between the roof tiles, still you learn the deep green of the pine. If you would look once more upon your nature, you must wait for the harsh frost.