Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 18

Spring placard verses (春帖子) for the palace in the gyesa year癸巳年御殿春帖子

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 18 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

麗日明珠殿。祥雲繞紫微。梅隨南使至。雁逐北胡歸。

A lovely sun lights the jeweled hall And auspicious clouds wreathe the Purple Tenuity (紫微) The plum blossoms come along with the envoys of the south And the wild geese go back after the barbarians of the north

Interlinear notes 1

時達且猶在

At that time the Tatars (達旦) were still about.

2Second poem

綺麗新京事事新。新年更占太平辰。都人莫訝韶光早。此是花山第一春。

The fair new capital is new in everything And with the new year it holds a time of great peace again People of the capital, do not think it strange that the mild light comes early This is the first spring of Flower Mountain (花山)