Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6
Lodging at a Village House Beside the River宿瀕江村舍
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.
江邊放浪自忘形。日狎遊𩿨傍渚汀。散盡舊書留藥譜。撿來餘畜有茶經。搖搖旅思風前纛。泛泛孤蹤水上萍。寄謝長安舊知己。客中雙眼爲誰靑。
Adrift by the river's edge, I forget my own shape, and grow daily familiar with the gulls that play along the shoals. I have scattered my old books and kept only the herbal register, and sorting what is left I find the Classic of Tea (茶經). My traveller's thoughts sway like a banner before the wind; my lone tracks float like duckweed on the water. I send my thanks to the old friends who knew me in Jang'an — here in my wandering, for whom should my two eyes shine green?