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Tiles Made of Wood木瓦

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 · 75 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 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.

明皇雜錄曰。楊妃妹虢國夫人。恩傾一時。奪韋嗣立宅。以廣其堂。後復歸韋氏。因大風折木墮堂上不損瓦。視之皆堅木也。

The Minghuang zalu says: Lady Guoguo (虢國夫人), the elder sister of Consort Yang, for a time commanded the whole of the imperial favor, and she seized the house of Wei Sili (韋嗣立) and widened its hall. Later it returned to the Wei family; and when a great wind snapped a tree and it fell upon the hall, the tiles were not damaged. On looking, they were all of hardwood.

彫成木瓦費何如。虛葺人家竟未居。不是韋公被豪奪。天敎虢國理韋廬。

How much was squandered in carving wood into tiles! She roofed another's house to no purpose and never lived in it at all. It was not that Lord Wei was robbed by overweening power: Heaven had Lady Guoguo put the Wei family's house in repair.