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

Written at a traveler's lodging in Hwangnyeo黃驪旅舍有作

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

久客堪憎唁者稀。湘纍情況益依依。風花落地飄還起。雨蝶黏枝澁不飛。遣興未知何處酒。療飢唯賴此山薇。終朝菜圃傭鋤穢。泥濺蒿鞋露浥衣。

A long-time traveler, I hate how few come to console me And my lot, like the exile by the Xiang (湘), grows the more forlorn Flowers in the wind fall to the ground, are blown up, and rise again Butterflies in the rain cling to branches, too clogged to fly I do not know where to find wine to loose my spirits Only the bracken of this mountain eases my hunger All morning I hoe weeds for hire in the vegetable plot Mud spatters my straw shoes and dew soaks my clothes