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

Congratulating Elder Mun on Receiving a Temple賀文長老得寺

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 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.

公道如今尙不隳。名藍還到一淸嬴。老龍得瀨方專穴。瘦鳳尋梧始占枝。山水風流眞勝地。鸎花時節是歸期。我今懽抃先來賀。不爲吾師也爲時。

The impartial Way has not collapsed even now, and a famed temple has come, after all, to one pure and gaunt. The old dragon has found its rapids and at last holds its cave alone; the lean phoenix has sought the paulownia and only now taken its branch. The grace of hills and waters makes this truly a fine land, and the season of orioles and blossoms is just the time to return. I now clap my hands in delight and come first to offer congratulations — not for our master's sake, but for the sake of this age.