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Watching Baduk in the Abbot's Room of the Zen Master Hui希禪師方丈觀碁

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 · 58 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 8 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.

夜靜紅燈香落灺。虵頭兔勢縱橫。但聞玉字響紋枰。誰饒誰勝山月漸西傾。十九條中千萬態。世間興廢分明箇中一換幾人生。仙柯欲爛回首忽相驚。

The night is still; in the red lamp the incense wick falls, and snake-head and rabbit formations run crosswise and lengthwise. Only the sound is heard of jade-like stones ringing on the figured board. Who gives the handicap and who wins? The mountain moon slants ever westward. Within nineteen lines are ten million shapes, and the rise and fall of the world is plain. Within it, while one game turns over, how many men's lives go by? The immortal's axe-handle is near rotting; turning our heads, we start suddenly at each other.

Interlinear notes 1

臨江仚

It is to the tune Imgangseon (臨江仙).