Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 14
Written on Climbing Gongnyeong登鵠嶺有作
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.
欲謁靈祠主嶽君。時躋絶頂望軒軒。城中萬屋如蜂綴。路上千人似蟻奔。靄靄卿雲圍帝闕。葱葱王氣擁天門。鵠山形勢龍盤屈。自此皇都固蔕根。
Wishing to pay my respects to the Lord of the Chief Peak (主嶽君) at the holy shrine, at times I climb to the summit and gaze out far. The ten thousand houses within the walls are like clinging bee cells, and the thousand people on the road like running ants. In great billows the auspicious clouds ring the palace, and thick and lush the royal aura guards the gate of heaven. The shape of Gongnyeong is as if a dragon lay coiled and bent, and from this the root of the imperial capital has been made firm.