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 · 2 passages · 82 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 4 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.
The Yishi says: Li Bai, in the side hall before Minghuang, was composing an imperial edict. It was then the tenth month and bitterly cold; the brush froze and no character could be written. The Emperor commanded ten palace women to attend on either side, each holding an ivory brush and breathing upon it. Li Bai then took up the brush and wrote out the edict. Such was the regard he had from the sovereign.
丹口何須用意呵。君恩纔煦暖先加。謫仙才思春葩艶。却對紅顔一倍多。
Need those red lips have breathed with any set purpose?
When the sovereign's grace grew warm, the warmth was added first.
The banished immortal's talent and thought were fair as spring flowers,
and facing those rosy faces they were fairer twice over.