The Four Gentlemen of the National Academy Having Answered in Kind, I Use the Previous Rhymes Again and Reply to Each — Yun, the Rectifier of Studies大學韓大博昌綏，尹學正復圭，崔學諭宗裕，皇甫學諭琯見和。復用前韻各答。 尹學正
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 · 126 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.
Your house, sir, received the yellow battle-axe,
and the barbarian blood on the sword's point still remains dark red.
In those days they swept away at one stroke the pack like dogs and sheep,
on the evening when the beacon of victory suddenly reached Ganquan Palace.
How should the remaking of the Three Han (三韓) not be their merit?
And to this day ten thousand households plow and weave in peace.
Last year the barbarian horsemen violated the frontier,
and the whole country's faces went pale, all with the look of death.
At such a time I longed the more for your ancestor's worth,
and pictured how that heroic spirit, reaching to heaven, had surged.
Among his descendants you alone are stalwart and unbound,
one osprey swallowing a hundred birds of prey.
Your house keeps an iron patent (鐵券), so the reward ought to be ample,
yet in a low office you have barely been wetted by one drop of favor.
To reach the blue clouds is not yet too late for you,
for you are still a young guest with a fair face.
How much more now, when the public way has recovered its ancient bearing,
and the jade balance truly hangs with no leaning to either side.