Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 11
The Elder Yang Answered, so I Replied Again梁丈見和復答
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.
多爲飛鴻着意遲。故應暫作局中雌。死灰必有重燃日。困獸猶懷肯鬪期。敗勢須知迎刃解。憤心應費仰天椎。金溝淸泚雖無分。好約蕭蕭夜雨時。
My mind was set on the wild goose, and so I was often slow, and so for a while I had to be the hen within the board. Even dead ashes must have a day of blazing up again, and even a worn-out beast still harbours a promise of fighting. A losing position must know to melt away at the meeting of the blade, and an indignant heart will surely waste itself looking up at heaven and beating its breast. Though I have no portion in the clear water of the Golden Channel (金溝), I may yet count on the hour when the lonely night rain falls.