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 · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 1 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 love Tao Yuanming,
for the words he utters are plain and pure.
He was forever stroking a stringless geomungo,
and his poems too are all of a piece with that.
The utmost sound has of itself no sound,
so why weary the fingers upon the strings?
The utmost speech has of itself no ornament,
so why spend strength on carving and chiseling?
His harmony comes out of what is natural,
and only long chewing knows its thick savor.
He loosed his seal-cord and went home to the fields,
and roamed within his three narrow paths.
When there was no wine he would follow others' lead,
and lay slack and drunk day after day.
On a single couch he lay like a man of Fuxi's age,
and a clear breeze came softly.
He was a blithe subject of the far antiquity,
a towering scholar of outstanding conduct.
Reading his poems I picture the man,
and a thousand years after, I look up to his high righteousness.