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 · 90 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.
Of boiling ice I had never heard from of old,
yet all at once you boast that it can be boiled.
I had it brought and looked at it closely:
this was what they call water-shield soup.
It is like ice and yet does not melt,
and the more it is boiled the finer it grows.
That is why they spoke of boiling ice,
and hearing it I was astonished.
In my life there is not one speck of fault,
and I pride myself on the clearness of my mind's ground,
yet my mouth is always eating common things
and smoke and dust rise below my throat.
Today I eat this herb,
and every strand of it is light as silver thread.
It brings snow and frost to my teeth and cheeks,
and before I knew it my wild hangover was gone.
Why must I needs learn from Zhang Han
and go off instead to Jiangdong?