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 · 92 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 Minghuang zalu says: From Lingnan a white parrot was presented and reared in the palace. It grew quite tame and understood men's speech clearly, and was called Xueyiniang (雪衣娘), the Maiden in Snow Robes. One day it flew up to the Consort's dressing table and said, "In a dream I was seized by a hawk and a sparrowhawk." The Consort taught it the Heart Sutra, and it recited it most earnestly. Later it was taken out to the garden, and there indeed it was killed by a bird of prey, and so a grave was raised for it.
美人鸚鵡略相同。偏受宮妃眷愛豐。鷙鳥掠殘先有讖。玉顔隨斃虜塵中。
The beauty and the parrot were near to being one and the same,
and it alone received the deep love of the palace consort.
In the bird of prey's snatching it away to death there was an omen beforehand,
for the fair face too died after it amid the barbarian dust.