Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 8
Written in the Abbot's Room of Head Seat Chan題璨首座方丈
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.
雙眉無處展。一笑爲誰開。日欲三竿上。房尋十笏來。釵頭頻落灺。品字漸成灰。山室茶談足。何須索酒盃。
There is nowhere to smooth out my two brows, and for whom should I open a single laugh? The sun is about to climb three spans, and I have come to a room the size of ten tablets. At the hairpin's head the wick falls often, and the character pum (品) turns slowly to ash. In this mountain room tea and talk are plenty; why should one look for a wine cup?