Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 11

In the Abbot's Room of the Monk Gyeom I Saw Yu Sin's Writing Asking for Rice, and Wrote This After It謙師方丈。觀柳紳乞米書。書其後。

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 · 50 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 11 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.

子是誠懸孫。字法夙熏習。謂君繼家聲。立朝冠岌岌。侍書淸燕閣。文彩敷曄曄。乃反學眞卿。而作乞米帖。食粥雖云窮。魯公猶可襲。

You are a descendant of Chengxuan (誠懸), and you learned the law of the brush early. I thought that you would carry on your family's name and stand at court with your cap towering high. I thought that in the clear Yeongak (燕閣) you would attend upon the writing, and that your brilliance would be spread out shining. Yet instead you have learned from Yan Zhenqing (顔眞卿) and made a letter (帖) asking for rice. Eating gruel, you may be called poor, but the Duke of Lu (魯公) is still worth carrying on.

Interlinear notes 1

柳書今第一。

Yu's calligraphy is the first of our day.