Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17
On the Twenty-first Day of the Eleventh Month of the Gyeongin Year, on My Way into Exile to Wido (猬島), I Stopped at Buryeong District (扶寧郡), Lodged in the Abbot's Quarters of My Old Friend the Venerable Jongui (宗誼), Prior of Jaboksa (資福寺), and the Next Day Made Two Poems to Show Him — At That Time Song Sun (宋恂), Left Director of the Department of Ministries, and Wang Yu (王猷), Administrator of the Censorate, and others were all sent into exile to various islands庚寅十一月二十一日。將流猬島。路次扶寧郡。寓宿故人資福寺堂頭宗誼上人方丈。明日作詩二首示之。時尙書左丞宋恂,知御史臺事王猷等。皆同流于各島。
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
十年親對赭袍光。忽落蠻天萬里長。已信升沈都是夢。從今不復算行藏。
For ten years I was close to the light of the king's crimson dragon robe, and suddenly I have fallen to a southern sky ten thousand li away. I have already come to believe that rising and sinking are all a dream, and from now on I shall no longer reckon advance and retreat.
2Second poem
驛人驅逼不容留。身是吾身未自由。管記昔年遊歷地。如今反作白頭囚。
The post-station runners drive me on and will not let me stay; the body is my own body, yet it is not free. In the land where long ago I served as a recorder, I have now instead become a white-haired convict.
Interlinear notes 1
扶寧乃全州屬邑。予曾爲全州書記。
Buryeong is a district belonging to Jeonju (全州). I once served as recorder (書記) of Jeonju.