Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 12

Seeing Off a Friend Who Goes to Live on the Southern Fields送友人之南田居

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 12 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.

浮雲富貴夢悠悠。却向江南卜宅幽。白玉黃金隨手盡。靑山綠水放身休。日輪跳送人間老。天幕寬成醉裏遊。待我他年婚嫁畢。結茅隣舍種松楸。

Of wealth and rank like floating clouds the dream is far away, and you go instead to Gangnam and choose a secluded house-site. White jade and yellow gold run out as they pass through the hands, but among green hills and green waters one sets the body down and rests. The sun's wheel leaps upon its way and men grow old; the tent of heaven is wide and makes a roaming within drunkenness. Wait until in days to come I have finished all the marrying, and I shall weave a thatched house next to yours and plant pines and walnut trees.