Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13

At the Beginning of the Twelfth Month of the Jeongmyo Year I Entered the Hallim Academy and Composed This on Night Duty to Show the Gentlemen of the Palace丁卯十二月初。入翰林夜直有作。示禁中諸公。

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 0.6 min

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.

晚承恩遇出平沈。猶被人呼李翰林。玉署金坡名信美。象床綺食事難尋。依俙堪畫葫蘆樣。潦倒無心芍藥吟。宮漏添籌寒夜永。詞頭草罷擁孤衾。

In my late years I received favor and came out from where I lay buried, and people still call me Academician Yi. Okseo (玉署) and Geumpa (金坡) are names fair indeed, but ivory couches and silken fare are things hard to find. Dimly I can trace no more than the shape of a gourd, and old and downcast I have no heart to sing of peonies. A rod has been added to the palace water clock and the cold night is long; I finish drafting the sadu (詞頭) and hug my lonely quilt.