Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 15
Chanted on the River at Gongam孔巖江上吟
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
浴殘飛倦鳥。耕罷臥閑牛。複嶺山中郭。奔舟水上郵。
Done with its bathing, a bird weary of flying; done with its plowing, an idle ox lying down. The ridges folded one on another are the fortress walls within the hills; the boats running past are the post stations upon the water.
2Second Poem
爲憐江上景。潛到荻洲濱。太守不汝詰。漁翁好下緡。
Taken with the scenery along the river, I came in secret to the water's edge by the reedy islet. The governor will not call you to account — so, old fisherman, let your line down with an easy mind.