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

Chanted by Chance and Shown to My Fellow Officials偶吟示官寮

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 · 70 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.

龔黃非異人。力學行可到。但緣天性踈。稜角久未露。甘食與安眠。民訟任鵶噪。不曾罰其頑。亦不詰其盜。臥閣自逍遙。有酒卽醉倒。人情各不同。莫道老而耄。殘民難急理。可撫不可暴。

Gong Sui and Huang Ba were no different sort of men; learn hard, and one can act as they did and reach where they reached. Only, the nature I was born with is loose and careless, and for a long while I have not been able to show an edge. I eat with relish and sleep at ease, and leave the people's lawsuits to go as the crows cry. I have never punished their stubbornness, nor called them to account for their thieving. I lie in the pavilion and roam about of myself, and if there is wine I straightway fall over drunk. The hearts of men are not each the same, so do not say that I have grown old and witless. A worn-out people is hard to govern in haste; they are to be soothed, not dealt with harshly.