Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6

Composed as I Am About to Leave Hwangnyeo將發黃驪有作

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 · 40 Chinese characters · reading time 0.4 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.

窮秋客南國。今日向長安。未護陶園菊。空紉楚畹蘭。日輪吟外轉。天幕醉中寬。胡奈授衣月。單衫正怯寒。

In late autumn I became a traveller in the southern country, and today I turn toward Jang'an. I could not guard the chrysanthemums of Tao's garden, and for nothing I string the orchids of the fields of Chu. The sun's wheel turns beyond my chanting; the tent of heaven is wide within my drunkenness. What is to be done? It is the month for handing out winter clothes, and my single-layered shirt is right to dread the cold.