Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 12
The Firefly螢
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.
百蟲潛息夜幽幽。恠爾擡燈獨自遊。時見美人羅扇撲。苦遭詩客絹囊收。低飛似欲黏衣領。飄去無端度屋頭。更莫迢迢天際逝。觀臺容易報星流。
All the insects lie hushed and the night is deep, and strange it is — you hold up a lamp and play alone. At times I see you struck down by a beauty's silk fan, and painfully you are gathered into a poet's silk pouch. Flying low, you seem about to cling to my collar; then you flutter off and for no reason cross the roof's head. Do not go far off again to the edge of the sky — the observatory would easily report you as a shooting star.