Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13
Calling at the House of Kim Yeonsu, My Fellow Graduate — using an old poet's rhymes訪金同年延脩家。用古人詩韻。
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 13 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.
草玄眞似子雲家。好事吾儕肯見過。美玉不應長蘊櫝。黃金行見一披沙。穴中寒鼈藏頭角。竿上飢鷹縮爪牙。我舞君歌歡意足。風流明日向人誇。
Truly it is like the house of Yang Ziyun, who drafted the Taixuanjing, and we who love a stir are glad to stop by. Fine jade will not stay buried in a chest for long, and before long gold will part the sand and show itself. The frozen turtle in its hole hides its head and horns; the starved hawk on its perch has drawn in talons and fangs. I dance, you sing, and our glad feeling is ample — tomorrow I shall boast of this elegance to others.