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 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.
A man cannot escape yin and yang,
for heaven and earth have him at their bidding.
Sometimes they make him base and poor as well,
sometimes ample and noble.
Since he is already bound in the Maker's hand,
there is no resentment and no gladness either.
This fire came out of a stone,
and this brazier was made of iron.
When the fire dies I draw my body in;
when the fire blazes my body opens out again.
Upon the presence or absence of a trifling fire,
my drawing in and opening out do not depend on myself.
Since I cannot avoid the turning of Heaven's fortune,
I take it sweetly to be a subject of Heaven.
And being governed by things besides,
how should I hold this body noble?
Only when water and fire neither burn one nor wet one,
only then is the body true.