Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 16
Given to the Daoist Master Yi贈李道士
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.
家在天壇第幾重。暫來人世踏塵紅。七蕤玉鑰封玄闕。八素瓊津洩絳宮。文虎火煎金鼎底。君臣藥祕綠囊中。黃庭讀罷爐香冷。一隻靑鸞下碧空。
On which tier of the Altar of Heaven (天壇) does your house stand? For a while you have come to the world of men and tread the red dust. With a jade lock of seven pendants you seal the dark palace, and let the essence of eight white pearls flow into the crimson hall. The fire of the Patterned Tiger (文虎) you decoct beneath the golden cauldron, and the medicine of sovereign and minister (君臣) you have hidden in a blue pouch. The reading of the Scripture of the Yellow Court (黃庭經) is done and the censer's incense has gone cold, when a single blue luan bird (鸞) comes down out of the blue sky.