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 · 73 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.
The Yishi (遺事) says: Minghuang was anxious and diligent in the government of the state, and there was no word of remonstrance that he did not follow. If there was one who sent up a writing to admonish him indirectly, he examined its reasoning, and the outstanding ones he put into a golden casket and kept daily at his right hand, taking them out from time to time to read, and he never once grew slack at it.
開元幾致大平期。揔爲虛懷納諫詞。若置金函長鑒戒。翠華爭肯幸峨嵋。
How many times did Kaiyuan (開元) bring about an age of great peace?
It was all by the virtue of emptying his heart and taking in words of remonstrance.
Had he kept that golden casket and made it a mirror for all time,
how should the blue banners ever have gone to Mount Emei?