On the Fourteenth of the Sixth Month, First Entering Sangju六月十四日。初入尙州。
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 · 98 Chinese characters · reading time 1 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.
Sangju was in olden days the state of Sabeol (沙伐國),
and of the houses of its kings and lords no site remains.
On this ground of life and death, fought over a hundred times with spear and sword,
only the rivers and hills have watched the flourishing and the falling away.
A state is broken and becomes a county, and a county becomes a state;
the going of the old and the coming of the new were not of one time.
The shape of the land is truly like a tiger risen up and then crouched down,
and how the encircling wall winds about for a thousand li!
Coming in weary I lay down, for the sun was just then setting,
and closing my eyes I had no leisure to seek out all its wonders.
At daybreak I went out to roam and looked it over piece by piece:
on ten thousand houses like fish scales, dragons coiled about the bracket arms.
Fair eyebrows bowed in even rows and jade ornaments rang,
and I had heard that Ziyun (紫雲) was there, but how should I know which she was?