Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6

Written in the Upper Story of Yoseong Post Station書聊城驛樓上

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 · 28 Chinese characters · reading time 0.3 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.

興來命駕困來安。多謝乾坤放我閑。可惜郵亭白頭吏。一生都擲馬蹄間。

When the mood takes me I call for the cart, and when weary I rest at ease; I am grateful that heaven and earth leave me to my leisure. A pity it is that the white-haired clerk of the post station has thrown a whole lifetime wholly between the hooves of horses.

Interlinear notes 1

時老吏隳馬有病。

At that time the old clerk had fallen from a horse and was ailing.