Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 4
The Mountain of Seven Treasures七寶山
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.
遺事云。明皇於勤政樓。以七寶粧成山。座高七尺。召諸學士講議經旨及時務勝者得升焉。唯張九齡論辨風生。升此座。餘人不可階也。
The Yishi says: In the Qinzheng Tower (勤政樓) Minghuang had a mountain made of the seven treasures, with a seat seven feet high, and summoned the academicians to discuss the meaning of the classics and the affairs of the day, letting the winner mount that seat. Only Zhang Jiuling (張九齡) argued with such force that a wind seemed to rise, and he mounted this seat; no one else could.
談經漢殿惟重席。落筆龍門只奪袍。爭及開元張學士。獨升七寶玉山高。
In the Han palace, in expounding the classics, they only piled up mats; at Longmen (龍門), in plying the brush, they only carried off a robe. How should these be set beside Academician Zhang of Kaiyuan, who alone climbed the height of the jade mountain of seven treasures?