Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 15

At the Dongseong Guest House, Rhyming after the Verses of Various Worthies on the Wall童城客舍。次壁上諸賢韻。

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 · 2 passages · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

1First Poem

賓館嵯峨役鬼成。憑君莫導是殘城。一杯村酒歡猶足。嬴得人間分外榮。

The guest house stands lofty, as though spirits had been set to build it; do not say, sir, that this is a worn-out district. With a single cup of country wine the gladness is ample still, and I have gotten more glory than a man's portion allows.

2Second Poem

剪月裁雲習已成。馬頭吟苦入江城。重歸鳳省雖無路。皀盖行春亦是榮。

The habit of cutting out the moon and tailoring the clouds is formed already, and I chant painfully from the horse's head as I enter the riverside town. There is no road by which to return again to the Phoenix Secretariat (鳳省), yet to make the spring rounds under a black parasol is glory too.