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 · 160 Chinese characters · reading time 1.6 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.
Long life and early death lie in one's lot, it is true,
but they lie also in a man's conduct.
Do not say that a fault is small:
small things heaped up become a great flaw.
Some break the law openly,
and that they are put to death is already beyond doubt.
But there is hidden evil in between,
and how should men know it one by one?
Counting it good fortune that others do not know,
they offend once and then do it twice.
Heaven's looking into good and evil
is like a mirror telling the fair from the ugly.
If in one morning it sends down a manifest punishment,
body and figure are broken together.
And if not, it pours out a shadowed calamity;
what is to be done when it snaps their life?
Look: when the thunder strikes,
even the stubborn let their spoons fall.
When the thunder clears they loose their will again,
and are not as they were while they heard it.
That the heart of man loves to be overturned
may be known from this.
The gentleman fears the pressing of Heaven,
and even in a dark room he does not deceive.
Though he may not receive its blessing,
he is at least spared from treading on its peril.
The petty man, saying that Heaven is far off,
would recklessly hide away his private doings.
Heaven's disaster is what he has called down himself,
and though he bite his navel, how can he overtake it?
I have made a poem to satirize all men:
carve it and keep it, and do not carelessly throw it away.