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

Chanting Two Poems by Chance, with Feeling偶吟二首有感

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 · 2 passages · 60 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.

拙直由天賦。艱難見世情。杜門妨客到。釀酒對妻傾。苔徑少人跡。松園空鳥聲。田園歸計晚。慚愧晉淵明。

Being plain and being upright are what Heaven gave; in hardship one sees the feeling of the world. I shut my gate to keep guests from coming, brew wine and tip the cup facing my wife. On the mossy path the traces of men are few; in the pine garden there is idly nothing but birdsong. My plan to go home to the fields has come late, and I am ashamed before Tao Yuanming (陶淵明) of Jin.

環顧六尺身。一日能幾食。尙營口腹謀。未去雲山碧。

I look about this body of six feet: how much can it eat in a single day? Still I manage the schemes of mouth and belly, and cannot go to the clouded blue mountains.