Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17

Going by Boat舟行

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 · 2 passages · 48 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 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.

1First poem

我眼平生少涕滂。此行何事哭聲長。只緣蒼海中央去。不見人家在那方。

My eyes have had few tears all my life, so on this journey why is my wailing so long? Only because I am going into the midst of the blue sea, and cannot see on which side the houses of men lie.

Interlinear notes 1

二首

There are two poems.

2Second poem

猬島非吾鄕。如何欲去忙。得投煙火地。猶勝海中央。

Wido is not my native place, so why am I in haste to get there? Because if I can enter a land where cooking smoke rises, it is still better than the middle of the sea.