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Entering Impi County Again再入臨陂郡

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 0.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 10 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.

古縣依然接水湄。前驅紅旆拂林歸。往來唯有鸎相識。衰病那堪馬似飛。客舍新除垂柳路。人家半掩映花扉。參軍孤瘦難堪見。士女何須聚作圍。

The old county touches the water's edge as it always did, and the red banners in the van brush the wood as they go back. Of all that come and go, only the oriole knows me, and being worn and sick, how can I bear the horse that seems to fly? At the guest house the road of hanging willows is newly swept, the houses have half closed their flower-lit wicker gates. The Adjutant's lonely, wasted look is hard to bear the sight of: why need the men and women gather and make a ring?