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 · 98 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 7 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.
All my life I have loved to wield a brush like a rafter,
mocking wind and moon without ever stopping.
I meant besides to go butting at that child the Creator,
but the Creator was sly and knew of it first,
and so had a boil break out all at once on my right hand.
I let the hand hang and sit hunched like a frozen kite.
To pinch the brush and fling the ink has become hard and halting,
and though I have drafts in my belly, how am I to set them out?
Since I can no longer rake heaven and earth over and vex them,
the spirits and ghosts must now be railing at me to their hearts' content.
The fat claws of a crab sweet as syrup are worth slicing snow for,
and luckily my left hand is whole and can still take hold.
When I am deep in wine and sleep sound, I feel no pain:
neither moxa nor needle — this is truly my physician.