Matching the Rhymes of Son of the Ministry of Personnel in His Lament for Jo Chung, Minister of State次韻孫吏部哭趙相國冲
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 · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 16 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.
There was not a single step of his that did not tread the upright law;
he was warm as the winter sun and more austere than frost.
Holding a bottle, who could measure the breadth of the Yellow River's source?
Only in a hot fire does one know that the nature of jade is fine.
For three years in the desert he held the axe alone,
and like trailing clouds his house will enjoy rich emolument for a hundred generations.
Ah, I came to the splendid offices far too late
and never saw the minister's light shining on the Hall of Government (政堂).
Interlinear notes 2
公爲元帥。後人益賢之。
The Duke became commander-in-chief, and later men thought him the worthier for it.
予入京未幾。聞公薨。
I had not been long in the capital when I heard that the Duke had died.
To die and to live, to live long and to die young, are the common lot of men,
but when I heard that the Duke had died, frost came down on my five organs.
The tribe that fastens its collar on the left plotted its thieving last year,
and the tally of the right was entrusted that day to a loyal and true man.
His single person held down the country like a mountain that cannot be shaken,
and though officials of every rank filled the courtyard they only pecked at the beams to no purpose.
His several sons who carry on their father's work have a model before them,
and orchid and sweet flag will before long grow thick again in the Pagoda Tree Hall (槐堂).