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 · 160 Chinese characters · reading time 1.6 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 5 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.
夜夢。有人以靑玉硯滴小甁授予。扣之有聲。下圓而上尖。有兩竅極窄。復視之無竅。寤而異之。以詩解之。
In a dream at night someone gave me a little flask of blue jade for holding water for the inkstone. When I tapped it, it rang. Below it was round and above it tapered, and its two holes were very narrow; but when I looked again there were no holes at all. I woke and thought it strange, and set it forth in a poem.
In a dream I came by a jade flask,
glinting blue, its light shining on the ground.
Tapped, it gave out a ringing sound,
and being fine and smooth it was fit to hold water.
With it I should add waves enough to my inkstone
and freely write a thousand sheets of verse.
Numinous things are fond of changing,
and heaven's handiwork delights in a child's play.
Without a trace it had closed its mouth again
and would not take in a single drop of water.
It was as though an immortal's stone had opened
and blue marrow had flowed out through the crack,
and then in a moment had hardened and healed over again
so as not to let in even a man's finger.
When Chaos was given its seven openings
it was dead within seven days.
When the angry wind howls in the many holes,
all the world's clamor rises from there.
To bore a hole in a gourd is to fear the hub will warp,
and threading a pearl put Confucius to his wits' end.
In general a thing is prized for being whole,
and digging and boring become a blemish instead.
Of wholeness of form and wholeness of spirit
one must ask the clerk of Qiyuan (漆園).