Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17
In Sickness, Thanking Academician Kim Ingyeong (仁鏡) for Visiting Me病中。謝金學士仁鏡見訪。
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 17 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.
手末脣頭被病侵。終朝伏枕苦呻吟。忽聞騶哄喧街巷。起倩兒童整紐襟。指似芒攢難奉履。口如鉗固莫論心。唯餘兩眼知垂涕。泣感高軒肯見臨。
Sickness has invaded even my fingertips and my lips, and all morning I lie groaning upon my pillow. Suddenly the cry clearing the road was loud in the street, so I rose and had a boy draw my collar and belt together. My fingers are like a bundle of thorns and can hardly hold up my shoes; my mouth is stiff, as if bitten by tongs, and cannot speak my heart. Only my two eyes still know how to shed tears, and weep in gratitude that your lofty carriage has sought me out.