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 · 1 passages · 70 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min
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.
I moved young bamboo into my small garden
and water its roots morning and evening.
In the southern land the climate is warm,
so there is nothing here that needs much tending.
Even so, it would dislike having its crowded shoots
split the ground and spread out children and grandchildren.
Here its will to live is cramped,
and it must lean on the kindness of a single ladle of water.
What joy is there this morning?
Its branches and leaves have already grown a little thick.
How should I dare hope that it pierce the sky?
It is enough if it shades my hall.
Only when the dark winter snow stands three fathoms deep
shall I know at last that you have a nature of your own.