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

Following the Rhymes to Answer with Reverence the Royal Composition Made When the King Visited the Pavilion at the House of the Marquis of Jingang依韻仰和駕幸晉康侯第亭御製

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 · 2 passages · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 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

世眼無由覩九天。不知底樣展盤筵。却因靑鳥偏饒舌。認得瑤臺宴列仙。

With the eyes of this world there is no way to see the Ninth Heaven (九天), and I do not know in what manner the seats were spread. It was rather because the blue bird is full of talk that I came to know of the feast for the ranked immortals on the Jade Terrace (瑤臺).

Interlinear notes 1

與禁內諸儒。同作進呈。

Composed and presented together with the gentlemen of the palace.

2The Second

朱門翻作紫微天。排比笙歌擁綺筵。上帝七言誰會了。珠宮唯得舞胎仚。

The vermilion gate has turned instead into the Jami heaven (紫微天), with pipes and song set out and brocade seats drawn round. Who could take in the whole of the Supreme One's seven-word lines? In the pearl palace one sees only the dancing immortals.