Presented to the Gentlemen of the Inner Chancellery — Yi Sejang (李世長), Right Grand Master of Remonstrance呈內省諸郞。 上右諫議李世長
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.
Born of right into a noble house of silken robes,
you made rather the toil of wooden tablet and lead your business.
The soul of a star came down out of the sky,
and the flower-sprite entered the wall and fled.
Already you have handed on the seal-cord of Chancellor Zhang,
and you may fitly wear the sword of Lü Qian (呂虔).
Your brush washes the flesh of the Western Terrace (西臺),
and your poems soak the fat of old Du Fu.
Your counsel is fit to be drawn with the chopsticks laid before you,
and your office is suddenly high as kindling stacked up behind.
In the Powdered Department (粉省) you climb to a clear seat,
and a title clear as ice falls upon the colored brush.
Long ago I knew that spring has feet,
so why should I resent that hairs are left upon the paper?
A beast in distress takes it sweetly to wag its tail,
and a hawk when hungry hopes for the leash to be loosed.
The worthy magistrate is a Yi of the same surname,
and the young lady is the peach blossom of one household.
This too is the good fortune of a lifetime;
how should you let me lose heart and cry out?
Interlinear notes 2
公躐遷。故云。
The Duke was moved up by a leap of grades, and so it is said thus.
與賢嗣同榜。
I passed the examination in the same list as his son.