Presented to the Gentlemen of the Inner Chancellery — Go Hyeongchung (高瑩忠), Secretariat Drafter呈內省諸郞。 上中書舍人高瑩忠
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.
Your house hands down the golden mirror that was bestowed,
and your name stands in the examination of the cassia immortals.
From under your tongue comes astonishing thunder,
and within your breast the constellations lie spread out.
Marvelous is your skill at trimming the moon with a jade axe,
and many are your cuttings of cloud with a pearl measure.
In a vital office you now hold the Ho (戶),
and your clear rank is already next to the Pa (坡).
The glory of the five flowers is best of all;
what then of the congratulations of a single Board?
At the red desk you hold up the royal commission,
and red clay stains the place of the seal.
With thread and net-rope you answer the secret edicts,
and the peony spreads abroad new songs.
How should one speak of the trees of the Warm Chamber?
In the Geumran Hall (金鑾殿) your shoes were once drawn off.
You shall yet season the cauldron of the king of Yin,
and once you took the rice of Lord Cai (蔡公).
I pray you remember the foot of Mount Jing —
him who, till the year is out, holds jade in his arms and weeps.
Interlinear notes 3
取同姓
He took one of the same surname.
中書舍人謂之戶。
The Secretariat Drafter is called the Ho (戶).
諫議謂之坡。
The Grand Master of Remonstrance is called the Pa (坡).