Presented to the Gentlemen of the Inner Chancellery — Kim Jeokhu (金迪侯), Associate of the Chancellery呈內省諸郞。 上直門下省金迪侯
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 · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 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.
The essence of metal has fallen from above the sky,
and the iron vein of Shanxi (山西) stands high.
Your house carries on Ban Dingyuan (班定遠),
and the state leans upon Huo Piaoyao (霍嫖姚).
White jade holds its luster within,
and the green pine keeps off the withering that comes after.
On the red tray, three mal of gall;
standing like a mountain, a waist of eight spans.
Now that Li Guang (李廣) has come forth for Han,
the barbarians cannot bark at the heights.
The turtle bears it up and the immortals' isle rises;
the phoenix enters the palace pond and lifts its neck.
Upright counsel startles the host of the gifted,
and a lone loyalty has aided two courts.
In your person you have both excellences together,
and in office you have leapt past ten tens (旬).
I am a cold man of a watery district;
how should I bear this drifting over land and sea?
Stretching my neck I think of one shaking of my wings —
what good fortune, could I but borrow the whirlwind!