Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17
Spring Placard Verses (春帖子) for the Palace御殿春帖子
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.
1First poem
聖日催和暖。皇風助發生。自然啼鳥語。亦是大平聲。
The holy sun hastens the bright and the warm, and the king's wind helps all things to bloom. Even the speech of birds that sing of themselves is likewise the sound of a time at peace.
2Second poem
宮柳初黃金撚縷。御溝微碧玉生鱗。東君偏愛東方國。先送和風釀作春。
The palace willows have just turned yellow, as if golden threads were twisted; the royal moat (御溝) is faintly green, as if scales had risen on jade. The lord of spring loves the land of the East above all, and sends the mild wind ahead, brewing it into spring.