On a day in the fifth month of the jipseo year (執徐), setting out for Hwangnyeo, I first went out the East Gate and made this on horseback執徐歲五月日。將遊黃驪。初出東門。馬上有作。
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 · 60 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 6 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.
Going and going, I point out the road to my old home,
and far off I pass out through the gate of the capital.
The bowels of parting turn a hundred times like a cartwheel,
and the tears of setting out spill over in two streams like rain.
On the green trees the mist is still heavy,
and on the blue cliffs the sun grows brighter and brighter.
The oriole's tongue that calls to a man is quick,
and the birdsong that sends off a guest is loud.
The long parting troubles my heart,
and on the early road the marks of sleep remain.
I cannot slow the trace horse that carries me home,
for the rough grass fills Tao Qian's garden.
Interlinear notes 1
黃驪。乃吾桑梓鄕也。
Hwangnyeo (黃驪) is the home of my forebears, generation after generation.