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 · 120 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.
I have a tongue, but cannot wag it;
I have eyes, but cannot weep.
Who will measure what I hold in my breast?
All day long I am stifled in vain.
Is it that my body is cold
and I grieve that my ragged clothes are hard to mend?
Is it that my belly is empty
and I grieve that I cannot set out even herb-rice?
The meaning of my grief is uncommonly deep,
and I fold my feet and stand looking up at Heaven.
Looking up at Heaven, I am the more hurt of myself,
and I cannot ladle with the Dipper.
One guest has seal-cords hanging in clusters,
and another man's hat stands up tall.
The pelican on the beam does not wet its beak,
and the phoenix in the cave has long folded its wings.
The well railing was not made strict in time,
and jackals and tigers fill the district.
Jia Yi (賈誼) had two things to shed tears over,
and Lord Zheng (鄭公) made ten discourses on what grows little by little.
The indignant hearts of those two men —
who now knows how to carry them on?
Ah, it is hard to say it over again,
for the child is young and its words are a whisper.