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Written on the Bamboo Painting on the Wall of Zen Master Gyu, Resident Elder of Bojesa (普濟寺)題普濟寺住老規禪師壁上畫竹

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 · 108 Chinese characters · reading time 1 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.

禪公指點壁間竹。根立水中唯此獨。渭川千畝未曾看。瀟湘一岸猶未矚。我導師之所見無奈誤。此竹不是天生綠。應是一逋龍。忽被海神逐。昂頭露角欲出水。雷公剨擊驚震地。蒼鱗散成千葉紛。瘦骨卓作一竿峙。神物固不凡。雖死猶爲耐寒翠。唯有蟠跟與蟄足。至今猶在滄波裏。

The Zen master points to the bamboo on the wall; roots standing in the water — only this one is such. The thousand acres of bamboo on the Wei River (渭水) I have never seen, and a single bank of the Xiaoxiang (瀟湘) I have not yet beheld. I say: can it be that what the master saw is mistaken? This bamboo is not a green thing brought forth by Heaven. It must be that a single runaway dragon, suddenly driven off by the sea god, raised its head and bared its horns to come out of the water, when the thunder god struck with a crash and shook the earth in alarm. The blue scales scattered into a thousand leaves in disarray, and the gaunt bones stood up sheer, rising as a single stalk. A numinous creature is of itself no common thing: even in death it became a green that endures the cold. Only the coiled heels and the crouching feet are even now still within the blue waves.