Presented to the Gentlemen of the Inner Chancellery — Kim Chung (金沖), Left Remonstrator呈內省諸郞。 上左司諫金沖
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 · 80 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 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.
A thousand years draw to their close again,
and you fly wide over ninety thousand li.
The swan key opens the jade lock,
and at the dragon pond you face the Jade Emperor.
Your name-register passes to the three-foot bamboo,
and favor comes down as the robes of the Five Seasons (五時).
Your worth presses down the choosing of the Blue Coin (靑錢),
and your writing is clear as the green-stamen style.
A lone loyalty leans athwart the iron pillar,
and an outstanding spirit is the mast of a swift wind.
Though my heart looks up to you as to a mountain, and earnestly,
I cannot bear the road that follows the clouds.
If you would allow me to hold fast to Xi Kang,
what harm would there be, either, in recommending Mi Heng (禰衡)?
I cleanse myself and seek to come forward;
Confucius too received the boy of Huxiang (互鄕).