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

Written One Night in the First Month of the Gabo Year on Night Duty at the Inner Chancellery, Presented the Next Day to Chancellor Kim Ingyeong (金仁鏡)甲午正月日夜。直內省有作。明日。呈金相國仁鏡。

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

1The First

靑雲有分晚飛榮。得意長驅路坦平。舊恨書生多薄命。如今不復舊書生。

Having a bond with the blue clouds, late I fly to glory; my purpose gained, I run far on a level road. Once I resented how thin a scholar's fortune was; now I am no longer the scholar of old.

Interlinear notes 1

癸巳十二月入省。至甲午正月入直。

In the twelfth month of the Gyesa year I entered the Chancellery (省), and in the first month of the Gabo year I came to stand night duty.

2The Second

才入中樞席未温。旋登西省勢彌尊。憑君莫詑先飛到。短翮追來路亦存。

Barely into the Privy Council, before my seat had grown warm, I rose at once to the Western Chancellery (西省), my standing higher still. I ask you, do not boast of having flown there first: even short wings have a road by which to follow.