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 1.1 min
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.
They bored through the rock to let the welling water through,
and dammed the pond to hang a railing over it as though in flight.
Looking out, one half expects a fishing boat to be floating there;
coming up to it, one feels one has entered a painted screen.
The immortal of the waters must have stored up its strangeness here,
and the mother of the earth has gathered its holiness just here.
The color of the fields circles the front of the eaves;
the sound of the spring is heard from under the mat.
The clear breeze is ample even in summer;
the white dew comes down before autumn has arrived.
Silken perilla winds about the jade-stone steps,
and juice of ice has frozen in the jade bottle.
A cave in the hill opens and adds to the far prospect;
the valley lies open and helps one hear a great way off.
The trees stand green like tall flagstaffs;
the pines spread green like parasols laid flat.
Duke Heo once looked over the site,
and this magistrate was the first to open the pavilion.
Wishing to match the song of the Sweet Pear Tree (甘棠),
I have made this again and carved it as an inscription.