Composed and Presented by the Hallim Academy on the Night of Lanterns in the Gisa Year — four poems on the lanterns己巳年燈夕。翰林奏呈。 燈籠詩四首
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 · 4 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 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.
1The First
五色雲中拜玉皇。壓頭星月動寒芒。都人不覺天文爛。遙認銀燈爍爍光。
Within five-colored clouds we bow to the Jade Emperor,
and overhead the stars and moon shake out a cold radiance.
The people of the capital do not know it is the writing of heaven ablaze;
from afar they take it for the glittering light of silver lamps.
2The Second
紗籠剪水分珠蚌。金殿移天掛玉蟾。炤遍鳳城渾不夜。雞人應誤漏壺籤。
The gauze lanterns (紗籠) are as if water were cut and pearl oysters split;
the golden hall (金殿) as if heaven were moved and the jade toad hung up.
They shine all over Bongseong (鳳城), so that it is no night at all,
and well may the gyein (雞人) misread the rod of the water clock.
3The Third
絳碧紗籠菡萏開。龍膏吐暈紫煙迴。憑渠好續常生焰。萬歲千年炤壽盃。
In the crimson and blue gauze lanterns the lotuses open,
and the dragon fat breathes halos and turns the purple smoke about.
Let them carry on, by their help, a flame that lives forever,
and light the cup of long life for ten thousand years, a thousand years.
4The Fourth
金燈吐焰透紅紗。日散千暉暈曉霞。四海一家天子聖。瑞光看取百枝花。
The golden lamps breathe flame and pierce the red silk;
the sun scatters a thousand rays and haloes the dawn glow.
The four seas are one house and the Son of Heaven is holy —
take this auspicious light for a hundred branching flowers.