Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6
Crossing the Imjin River渡臨津
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.
扁舟駕浪疾於飛。水氣凄凉逼客衣。綠岸有時雙鷺立。碧天何處一帆歸。山含紅日低村樹。風卷銀濤碎釣磯。初出東門尙惆悵。渡江無奈益依依。
The little boat rides the waves swifter than flying, and the breath of the water is cool and strikes the wayfarer's clothes. On the green bank now and then two egrets are standing, and to what place in the blue sky does a single sail go home? The mountain holds the red sun in its mouth and is low among the village trees, and the wind rolls up the silver waves and breaks the fishing stand. Even when I first went out the East Gate I was forlorn; and now, crossing the river, what is to be done — I am sorrier still.