Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6
Composed at Random, Following the Rhymes of an Ancient漫成次古人韻
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.
臥痾聊寄老禪居。頭上空驚歲月徂。脚待舁籃陶令病。腰難勝帶沈郎癯。空山雨暗孤猿嘯。苦竹烟深一鳥呼。窓下枕書方熟睡。沙彌喚起勸皐虞。
Lying ill, I lodge for now in an old meditation hall and start for nothing at the years going by above my head. My legs wait to be carried in a litter — the illness of Magistrate Tao (陶令); my waist can hardly bear the belt — the leanness of Young Shen (沈郞). Rain darkens the empty hills, and a lone gibbon cries; mist is deep in the bamboo, and a single bird calls. Under the window, pillowed on a book, I had just fallen deep asleep when a novice called me up and urged me to eat.