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

Climbing Bugak and Gazing at the Capital登北岳望都城

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 · 60 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

絶頂望都城。浩浩萬人海。小屋何容言。大屋正如塊。可憐路上人。蟻奔塵土內。經營覓何利。意各有所掛。區區蠻觸間。死生哀樂在。安得出其中。遊於六合外。

From the summit I gaze at the capital: a wide, wide sea of ten thousand people. The small houses are hardly worth speaking of; even the great mansions look just like clods of earth. Pitiful — the people on the roads run through the dust like ants. What profit do they seek with all their contriving? Each has his own purpose hanging on something. Between the trifling Man and Chok (蠻觸) there is dying and living, sorrow and joy. How may I get free of their midst and roam beyond the six directions (六合)?