Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 10
On the Twenty-Ninth I Entered Gwangju and Gave This to Scribe Jin Gongdo二十九日。入廣州。贈晉書記公度。
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.
偶霑微祿宦江南。其奈爲州力不堪。未學舌柔甘自責。本無毫犯亦何慙。完山醉夢方驚罷。漢邑歡遊又正酣。賴訪名都賢管記。窮愁瀉了一燈談。
By chance I was soaked in a small salary and held office south of the river, but what could be done—my strength was not equal to governing a prefecture. Not having learned to keep my tongue soft, I take the reproach willingly; but since from the first I offended not by a hair, what have I to be ashamed of? I have only just started awake from the drunken dream of Wansan, and the merry revels of Hanju (漢州) are again at their height. Happily I sought out the worthy Record Keeper (管記) of this famous town, and poured out my straitened sorrow in talk by a single lamp.