Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 5

Presented to the Several Gentlemen of the Inner Department — Choe Seon, Left Cavalier Attendant-in-Ordinary呈內省諸郞 左散騎常侍崔詵

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 · 1 passages · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

一門積善出名卿。五色文章已瑞廷。崔氏弟兄皆列戟。韋公父子盡明經。世家他日標儒傳。里社何人榜德星。若借吹噓生羽翼。願攀鸞鳳到靑冥。

Goodness heaped up in one household has brought forth a famous chief minister, and writing of five colors is already an auspicious sign for the court. The Choe brothers have all set up their halberds in a row, and Master Wei (韋公) and his sons were all versed in the classics. A house carried on from age to age will one day be set forth in the Biographies of the Forest of Confucians, and who in the village will post a notice naming them the Star of Virtue (德星)? If I might borrow your breath and have feathers grow on me, I would hope to catch hold of the luan and the phoenix and reach the blue sky.

Interlinear notes 2

三兄弟一時三品。

Three brothers held the third rank at one and the same time.

公凡五兄弟。

The gentleman has five brothers in all.