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 · 87 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 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 Kaiyuan chuanxin ji (開元傳信記) says: The Emperor came out to the Qinzheng Tower and held a great feast, and people and carriages so jammed the way that the Jinwu Guard (金吾) could not hold them back. The Emperor summoned Yan Anzhi (嚴安之), the Metropolitan Governor (京兆尹), and had him admonish and keep order. Anzhi merely drew a line on the ground for a boundary and said, "Whoever crosses this dies." People called it Lord Yan's Line (嚴公界). All day long not one man crossed it.
君王號令劇雷馳。一震無人不失匙。何事反卑京兆尹。慇懃呼却一安之。
The sovereign's command was fiercer than running thunder,
and at one peal of it there was none who did not drop his spoon.
Why then did he stoop instead to the Metropolitan Governor
and earnestly call in Yan Anzhi, one single man?