Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13
Collator Yang Having Responded, I Use the Earlier Rhymes Again梁校勘見和。復用前韻。
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
玉鏡淸澄不受塵。笑渠猶未映精神。明朝酒醒應休炤。坐失紅顔一日春。
The jade mirror is clear and clear and takes no dust, yet how laughable, it still cannot reflect the spirit. Tomorrow morning, when the wine wears off, give over looking; you will sit and lose the one day's spring of a ruddy face.
2Second Poem
我師魯叟猶圩頂。吾祖玄元亦厚脣。誰謂春卿鏡中態。依俙如畫兩君眞。
The elder of Lu whom I take as my master had a hollow at the crown, and my ancestor Xuanyuan (玄元) had thick lips. Who is it that speaks of Chungyeong's (春卿) face within the mirror? Faintly it seems to have drawn the true likeness of them both.