Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 16

Matching the Rhymes of Seon Master Mun's Poem Lamenting Head Seat Gagwol次韻文禪師哭覺月首座

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

世喪彌天釋苑賢。我方聞訃倍凄然。空餘廬岳裁蓮社。無復華亭載月船。聞有詩評嗟未覿。早修僧傳僅終編。法門梁棟今頽折。後學憑誰討十玄。

The world has lost a worthy of the Buddha's garden whose fame filled the sky, and I, hearing the news of his death, am twice as desolate. Vainly there remains only the founding of a Lotus Society (蓮社) on Mount Lu (廬山), and never again is there the boat that carried the moon at Huating (華亭). I heard there was a 「Critique of Poetry」 but sigh that I never saw it; early he compiled the 『Lives of Eminent Monks』 and barely finished the work. The beam and the pillar of the Dharma gate are now broken — on whom shall those who come after lean to probe the Ten Mysteries (十玄)?

Interlinear notes 2

師嘗著詩評不示予。

The master had once written a 「Critique of Poetry」, but did not show it to me.

師曾修高僧傳。

The master had once compiled the 『Lives of Eminent Monks』.