Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 15
The Prefect Shows This to the Elders太守示父老
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 15 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.
我是老書生。不自稱太守。寄語州中人。視我如野耈。有蘊卽來訴。如兒索母乳。久旱天不雨。是亦予之咎。殷勤謝父老。不如速解綬。我去爾卽安。何須此老醜。
I am an old student of books, and I do not call myself a prefect. I say to the people of this district: look on me as you would on a country old man. If anything has piled up, come at once and lay it before me, as a child goes seeking its mother's breast. It has been long dry and heaven sends down no rain; this too is my fault. Humbly I thank the elders — nothing would be better than to loose my seal-cord at once. If I go, you will straightway be at peace; what need is there of this old and ugly man?