Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 4
The Green-Robed Envoy綠衣使者
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.
遺事曰長安富民楊崇義妻劉氏。與隣人李弇通。共殺崇義。有鸚鵡語曰。殺者李弇也。遂敗。明皇聞之。封爲綠衣使者。
The Yishi says: Liu, the wife of Yang Chongyi (楊崇義), a rich man of Chang'an, had an affair with her neighbor Li Yan (李弇), and together they killed Chongyi. A parrot spoke, saying, "The one who killed him is Li Yan," and at last the matter came to light. When Minghuang heard of it, he enfeoffed the parrot as Green-Robed Envoy (綠衣使者).
秦帝宮松傳口實。衛公祿鶴喪人心。唐皇不見分明鑑。又爵喃喃巧舌禽。
The palace pine of the Qin sovereign is handed down as a byword, and the sovereign of Wei (衛) gave stipends to cranes and lost the hearts of men. The Tang sovereign did not look into so clear a mirror, and gave office in his turn to a bird that chattered with its tongue.