Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6
Resting at Yoseong Post-Station, I Follow the Rhymes of a Poem on the Wall憩聊城驛。次壁上詩韻。
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.
幽谷一宵中酒宿。聊城半日解驂留。歸來阮籍空長嘯。寂寞相如故倦遊。郵吏送迎何日息。使華奔走甚時休。唯予幸是閑行者。來不煩人去自由。
At Yugok I slept one night deep in wine; at Yoseong I unhitch the side-horse and stay half a day. Ruan Ji (阮籍), come home again, whistles long to no purpose; Sima Xiangru (司馬相如), in his silence, is weary of roaming as before. On what day will the post-clerks rest from their sending off and welcoming? At what hour will the envoys' trains leave off their hurrying? Only I, luckily, am one who travels at leisure: I come without troubling anyone, and I go as I please.