Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 10
Wang Zhaojun王明妃
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.
若將一女便和隣。何恨胡沙委玉人。狼子貪琳終莫猒。可憐虛辱後宮嬪。
If with one woman peace could be made with the neighbor state, what regret in entrusting a jade-like person to the barbarian sands? But those wolfish men never know when their greed for treasure is sated, and it is pitiful — to no purpose a consort of the inner palace was disgraced.
Interlinear notes 1
二首
Two poems.
廟算難降獷悍倫。反將宗女結和親。漢庭無限垂紳客。不及椒房一婦身。
The court's designs could not bring the fierce and stubborn horde to submit, so instead a daughter of the royal house was used to make the peace. In the Han court there were countless men with great sashes hanging down, yet none was worth the single body of one woman of the Pepper Chamber (椒房).