Seeing Off Song Sun (恂), Left Director, as He Goes as Military Commissioner to Saebuk (塞北)送宋左丞恂節制塞北
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 · 130 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 min
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.
The tail of the state is not yet at ease,
and the king's mind is wholly there.
For one to hold it down and guard it like Mount Tai,
who is there in this age but you?
He granted you the dragon-and-tiger tally,
and the king himself pushed your wheel to send you off.
Your awesome fame has already arrived ahead of you,
and your going is swift as a bird in flight.
The barbarians will hear and be startled,
their gall will drop and their hands be bound again.
Tomorrow, at the pavilion in the northern suburbs,
a long wind will draw out the banners.
The high officials come out in numbers to send you off,
tablets and seal-cords thick in a crowd.
I look at myself — worn out and old,
and likely I cannot follow where you go.
Still less can this one bottle of wine,
shallow in source and thin in taste.
What is precious lies in the sincerity,
so empty this cup for my sake.
At a drinking party, what need of many words?
For one who departs, a single word is enough:
keep well that body worth a thousand gold,
and sweep the barbarians away at one stroke.
If we do not die and meet again,
let us tell each other, one by one, what is in our hearts.
Interlinear notes 2
席上走筆
Written at the gathering as the brush ran.
國語云邊者國之尾。
The Guoyu (國語) says, 「The frontier is the tail of the state.」