Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 9
On the Bamboo Shoots behind the House Where I Live詠所居舍後竹笋
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.
吏散庭空一事無。開窓獨坐與誰娛。此君當戶携兒稚。正似任棠勸恤孤。
The clerks have scattered, the courtyard is empty, and there is not one thing doing; I open the window and sit alone — with whom shall I take my pleasure? This gentleman stands facing the gate and leads his little ones along, just as Ren Tang (任棠) urged that the orphaned be given relief.