Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13
Chanting the Three Things on My Desk — Rock Sweet Flag in a Small Pot案中三詠 小盆石菖蒲
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.
凡物之榮悴。皆因地瘠肥。土肉厚封植。猶恐有時腓。嗟爾異於是。性與膏泥違。區區硬盆底。鑿鑿碎石圍。是汝託根處。地脉安所歸。綠葉滋暢茂。尋尺猶可希。最愛淸曉露。團團綴珠璣。蕭然几案上。永與我相依。
In all things, flourishing and withering comes of the ground's being barren or rich. Even planted well in thick soil, a thing is still to be feared for wilting at times. Ah, you are unlike this: your nature runs counter to rich mud. At the bottom of a small hard pot, ringed about with clear-cut pebbles — this is the place where you set your roots; where would the veins of the earth return to here? Yet the green leaves increase and grow lush, and one may well hope for a foot or more of growth. What I love most is the clear dawn dew gathering in round beads. On this desolate desk you and I will long lean on each other.