Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13
Chanted by Chance on the Yeseong River禮成江上偶吟。
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.
1First Poem
行繞淸江課漕船。篙工羅拜白沙邊。海軍擁後猶吹角。鷗鷺驚飛不自前。
Going round the clear river to inspect the tribute-grain boats, the boatmen line up on the white sand and bow. The naval guard escorts me from behind and even blows the horn, so that gulls and egrets start up in flight and will not come forward.
Interlinear notes 1
二首予以千牛參軍課漕舡。
These are two poems. I inspected the tribute-grain boats as Adjutant of the Cheonu Guard (千牛參軍).
2Second Poem
江鷺飛時吟正快。海潮來後語還雄。偶然傳寫江湖景。錯認年來狀物工。
When the river egrets fly, the savor of chanting is truly bracing, and after the sea tide has pushed in, my words grow grander still. I only happened to copy down the scenery of rivers and lakes, yet of late people wrongly take me for a master at depicting things.