Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 14
Watching the Farming Outside the East Gate東門外觀稼
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.
乾塊化碧畦。費盡幾牛力。針芒到黃穗。勞却萬人役。幸免水旱災。萬一儻收得。見兹稼穡艱。一粒何忍食。凡以祿代耕。要當勖乃職。
Until the dry clods became green field ridges, the strength of how many oxen was spent to the full? Until the needle-like sprouts reached the yellow ears, the labor service of ten thousand men was worn out. Happily we have escaped flood and drought, and by one chance in ten thousand we have come to reap. Only when one has seen the hardship of this husbandry — how should one bear to eat even a single grain? Whoever takes a salary in place of plowing ought rightly to strive at the duty that is his.