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 · 84 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.
Night deepens, and the lotus water-clock sounds its tick-tock,
and with three words I trouble you to sort the same from the different.
Through many kalpas even the fire caught on my head I can hardly save myself from;
in a brief moment our eyes meet, and all of it becomes emptiness (空).
I am sick of hearing how Han Yu (韓愈) sang of the two birds;
I am deeply glad that Zhuangzi spoke of the two insects.
Fragrant tea over a blazing fire is the true taste of the Way,
and white clouds and a bright moon are the manner of this house.
The monk Saeng (生師) expounds the Law, and the edge of his wit is keen;
warding off the cold and riding the coolness, bone and flesh melt.
Meeting unlooked for, forgetting our forms, we get the meaning as we may,
and need not be ashamed before old Pang Gong (龐公) of those days.