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

Composed in Illness, Shown to a Friend病中作。示友人。

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.

洞想形骸同木偶。孰敎矉額苦啾啾。杯蛇妄意如能釋。床蟻虛聲亦少收。造化小兒謀欲困。死生一夢我何憂。此非常痛眞堪賀。天惜勞生擬遣休。

I see clear through to this, that the body is like a wooden puppet; who then is it that knits my brow and makes me ail in pain? If the empty fancy of the snake in the cup can be dissolved, the raving like the noise of ants beneath the couch will be somewhat gathered up too. The child of Creation schemes to torment me, but dying and living are one dream — what have I to worry over? This is no common sickness but is truly to be congratulated: Heaven must mean, out of care for a toiling life, to let me rest.