Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6
Entering Yonggung District for the First Time初入龍宮郡
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.
初入龍宮郡。林端出麗譙。渦圓官妓笑。磬折縣胥腰。激水寒搖岸。垂楊綠映橋。居民皆地着。斥鷃亦逍遙。
Entering Yonggung District for the first time, at the edge of the woods a handsome gate tower appears. In the smile of the official kisaeng (官妓) the dimples are round; the district clerk's waist bends like a chime-stone. Water striking cold shakes the bank; drooping willows green are mirrored at the bridge. The people who live here all cling to the land, and the quail too go wandering.