Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 14
Chanted outside the Gate of Cheonsusa天壽寺門外吟
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 14 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.
三月春風晚。處處祖筵悲。南北復南北。別離還別離。落花不忍見。芳草恨無涯。年年折盡柳。還復萬條垂。爲問枝上鳥。幾聽陽關詞。自然經此地。猶似送人時。惻惻傷我抱。不如不來玆。
The spring wind of the third month grows late, and everywhere the parting feasts are sad. South, north, and south and north again, we take our leave and take our leave once more. I cannot bear to look at the falling blossoms, and the regret in the flowering grass has no end. Year after year the willows are all broken off, yet ten thousand branches droop again. I ask you, bird upon the branch, how many times have you heard the "Song of Yanggwan" (陽關曲)? Whenever of itself I pass this ground it is still as it was when I saw someone off. Sadly it wounds my heart, so it were better not to come here at all.