Roaming by chance in the mountains, I write it on the wall偶遊山中。書壁上。
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 · 130 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 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.
Long have I been a wayfarer in the red dust,
running to no purpose, with never a time to rest.
My coming to the mountain was from the first without intention,
and I came by this outing unlooked for.
What is to be done with a man who loves the mountains
and dislikes going alone for want of a companion?
We met and granted each other to ride rein by rein,
and going out past the city wall we went slowly along.
As cloud and mist grew thicker and thicker,
only then did I know we were heading for the wooded hills.
The mist above the pines floated light and swaying,
and the water among the stones ran murmuring.
Leading one another, we entered the temple hall,
drank a little, and talked warmly together.
Already content with the savor of living in seclusion,
I began at once to wish to stay as well.
By this I know that a nature of the middling and lower sort (中下)
turns over and follows whatever it is led by:
following the world, it delights in a disordered splendor,
and entering the mountains, it takes pleasure in what is clear and secluded.
Tomorrow morning, when I go back to the capital,
I shall be bound again by the schemes of a livelihood.
Ah, what more is there to say?
I cannot escape being tied to the bonds of dust.
Only when the marriages are all finished and done
shall I at last be free of my shutting-up in the cage.