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

Presented to the Gentlemen of the Inner Chancellery — Baek Gwangsin (白光臣), Secretary of the Imperial Diary呈內省諸郞 起居舍人白光臣

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.

珠璣咳唾到頭新。復見元和白舍人。夜聽金胥傳刻漏。朝陪玉帝草絲綸。圖南鵬翼凌蒼海。拱北星芒耀紫宸。幸是靑雲知己在。不應虛掉自鳴脣。

Even your coughing and spitting become pearls, every one of them new. Once more I see Secretary Bai (白舍人) of the Wonhwa (元和) years. At night you hear the clerk of the golden figure (金人) announce the water clock, and in the morning, attending the Jade Emperor, you draft the edicts. The wings of the peng bird that would go south pass over the blue sea, and the starlight that faces the North Pole shines on the Hall of Purple Tenuity (紫宸殿). Happily there is one above the blue clouds who knows me, and I shall not idly work my own crying lips to no purpose.