Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 14
Hearing That the Royal Army Fought the Barbarians and Won聞官軍與虜戰捷
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.
虜氣日披猖。殺人如刈草。虎吻流饞涎。呑噬無幼老。婦女愼勿憂。腥穢行可掃。國業未遽央。廟謀亦云妙。行且自就誅。焉得避天討。吾言豈妄云。今日聞捷報。
The barbarians' force grows fiercer by the day, and they kill men as one mows grass. Greedy slaver runs from the tiger's mouth, and in its swallowing there is neither child nor old man. Women, take care and do not be troubled: the rank and filthy thing will soon be swept away. The work of the state has not suddenly come to its end, and the court's counsel too, they say, is subtle. Before long they will go of themselves to their death, so how shall they escape heaven's chastisement? How should my words be empty words? Today I have heard the news of a victory.
Interlinear notes 1
與契丹戰。
This was the fighting with the Khitan.