Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 9

That Same Day, Visiting Go, the Abbot (堂頭) of Geumdongsa是日。訪金洞寺堂頭枯師。

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 9 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.

踏泥行觸道途艱。日浸殘紅界遠山。乘馹飛裝雖似迫。尋僧高趣乍如閑。飢猿撥雪寒彌叫。獨鶴穿雲晚自還。賴有故人精舍在。相逢一笑暫開顔。

Treading mud as I go, I meet the hardness of the road, and the sun, sunk in its lingering red, cleaves the far mountains. Riding post horses, my flying baggage seems busy enough, yet the lofty savor of visiting a monk seems for a moment leisurely. A starving monkey parts the snow and, cold, cries the more; a lone crane pierces the clouds and at dusk returns to the temple. Luckily, thanks to an old friend's temple being here, we meet and laugh once and for a while unknit our faces.