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 · 90 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 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.
My allotted fate was thin from birth,
and I sigh that name and office have come late.
What joy are you about to announce,
roosting in the tree just at midday?
Fluttering, you come with a twig in your bill,
crow's down mixed with an egret's feather.
I have heard that the gentleman
leaves misfortune and blessing to heaven as it gives them.
Though storks gather, it is no cause for congratulation,
and though an owl settles, he is not afraid.
But I am old and full of delusions,
loving strange things like a shaman or a blind diviner.
All the more, scalded by long want,
I divine for omens, hoping some good may come.
Seeing this numinous bird take its roost,
a glad look shows between my brows.
Impatient, I wish the nest were finished,
and lift my eyes to gaze up at the tall tree.