Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 15
At the Yangjae Post Station, Rhyming after the Verses on the Plaque楊梓驛。次板上韻。
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.
黃堂坐嘯費星霜。地窄難迴舞袖長。但把直誠除外飾。那將素面假妖粧。衣裳藍縷身無彩。㫌旆悠揚路有光。左宦殘城憔悴客。五年司詔紫微郞。
Sitting in the Yellow Hall (黃堂), whistling, I have squandered the years, and the ground is so cramped that it is hard even to turn a long dancing sleeve. I have only held to an upright sincerity and done away with outward show; why should a bare face borrow a wanton painting? My clothes are shabby and there is no luster about my person, but the banners fly out easily and there is brightness on the road. A haggard traveler come to a worn-out district in a low office — yet I was the Purple Tenuity Gentleman (紫微郞) who had charge of edicts for five years.