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 · 113 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 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: When Lushan violated the palace, Wang Wei (王維) and several others were seized by the rebels and shut up in a temple. One day the rebel company gathered to drink at Yingbi Pond (凝碧池) and had several hundred disciples of the Pear Garden perform music. Wang Wei heard of it, made a quatrain, and wrote it on the wall: "Ten thousand households are sick at heart and only the smoke of the fields rises; on what day will the hundred officials attend court again? The leaves of the autumn locust fall within the deep palace, and by the side of Yingbi Pond they play strings and pipes." After the rebels were put down, Wang Wei was spared punishment on account of this poem.
禁池淸浪涴胡塵。獨有王郞自慘神。慷慨題詩眞有膽。賊中寧欠解文人。
The clear waves of the palace pond were fouled with barbarian dust,
and Master Wang alone was wretched and sick at heart.
To write a poem in indignation is truly a thing that takes courage —
how should there have been none among the rebels who knew letters?