Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 14
On a Summer Day, Having Gone to Gaeguksa to Seek a Monk and Not Found Him, Composed beside the Pond夏日。開國寺尋僧不遇。池上作。
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.
1First Poem
板扉牢鎖寂無僧。還傍淸池避暑蒸。此去都城無幾步。倚林閑坐尙慵興。
The plank gate is firmly locked, all is still and no monk is there, so I turn back to the clear pond's edge to escape the sweltering heat. From here to the capital is no more than a few steps, but leaning on the grove and sitting idle, I am too lazy even to rise.
2Second Poem
兀坐池邊草作茵。旋風吹起落冠巾。煙低綠樹縈羅帶。露滴靑荷漾水銀。
I sit blankly by the pond and make the grass my mat, and a whirlwind rises and blows my hat and headcloth off. The mist winds low about the green trees like a silken sash, and the dew falls on the blue lotus leaves and ripples like quicksilver.