Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 7
Harmonizing Again又和
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.
萬事都空一笑端。尙欺螯叟漫爲官。巖連井榻雲長濕。地近茶窓雪易殘。閑掛鐵君經夏結。狂燒木佛禦天寒。靑山他日應爲舊。不憚幽蹊子細看。
All affairs being empty, there is nothing for it but one laugh, yet still they deceive the old man who catches crabs and make him an officer at random. The rock runs on to the well-side bench, and the clouds are always wet; the ground lies near the tea window, and the snow lingers easily. Idly I hang up the iron gentleman, with the knot that has outlasted the summer, and madly burn a wooden Buddha to ward off the cold of the sky. The green hills will surely be as of old in days to come, and I do not grudge looking closely at the hidden footpath.