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 · 90 Chinese characters · reading time 1 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.
With a sharp chisel I split the root of the rock,
and swimming water welled up from the crack.
So at last I opened a well,
and scooping it up to drink, found the water truly sweet.
The flowing branch brims over to the measure of a wine cup,
and I let it wind along wherever it goes.
At a spot some ten paces from the well
I opened a pond the length of a single mat.
Once its flow was let to gather there,
it brims and sways, cold and rippling with green light.
It is not that I meant to furnish myself a sight to see;
I only grudged letting the water run away.
In midsummer I shall bathe in the clear waves,
and spare myself the labor of drawing water too.
The children truly love to make work,
and have covered its edge with silvergrass and reeds.
Laughing, I told them to clear it away;
this intent is not for children to fathom.