Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 4
The Borneol Cicada龍腦蟬
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.
楊妃外傳曰。交趾貢龍腦。有蟬蠶之狀。帝以賜妃。妃私遺安祿山。
The Yangfei waizhuan says: Jiaozhi offered borneol (龍腦) in tribute, shaped like cicadas and silkworms. The Emperor bestowed it on the Consort, and the Consort secretly sent it to An Lushan.
龍腦奇香帝屬嬪。胡雛何事得爲珍。漁陽犯順君知否。都爲楊妃暗許親。
The rare fragrance of borneol the sovereign entrusted to his Consort; by what business did the barbarian boy come by that treasure? That Yuyang (漁陽) rose against all right — does the sovereign know it or not? It was all because Consort Yang secretly allowed him her intimacy.
Interlinear notes 1
一作奴
Some texts read 「奴」, "slave."