On a Night in the Eleventh Month, on Night Duty at the Inner Chancellery, I Lay Chanting and before I Knew It Came to Several Poems十一月日。夜直內省。臥吟不覺至累首。
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 · 4 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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
一抗囊封乞老骸。反煩中使下天來。人臣進退雖君命。慙愧身無可惜才。
Once I sent up a sealed letter asking that this old body be let go,
and instead I troubled a palace attendant and made him come down from heaven.
A servant's going forward and drawing back hangs upon the king's command, they say,
yet I am ashamed that this body has no gift worth begrudging.
2The Second
不唯君意勉留勤。勢有難回豈具言。世上人人難戶曉。焉知不作夜行論。
Not only does the king's will press hard to keep me,
but there is that in the circumstances which is hard to turn back — how should I say it all?
It is hard to make it plain to every person in the world, house by house,
so how do I know they will not make up the saying that I walk the road by night?
Interlinear notes 1
晉陽侯亦不許。故不得再上表。
The Marquis of Jinyang also did not permit it. And so I could not send up a memorial again.
3The Third
我昔嘗高勇退賢。二疏圖上淚潛然。一朝孤負平生志。舊涕方收愧汗連。
I used to hold high the worthy men of old who withdrew with courage,
and over the picture of the two So (疏氏) I secretly let fall tears.
In a single morning I have forsaken the purpose of my whole life,
and the old tears had hardly stopped before the sweat of shame followed.
4The Fourth
正合投簪退野廬。俯慙腰下尙懸魚。此身一旦先朝露。地下胡顏見二疏。
It would be right to throw down the hairpin and withdraw to a house in the fields,
yet looking down I see, to my shame, that below my waist I still wear the fish tally.
If this body should in a single morning fade before the morning dew does,
with what face should I look upon the two So in the world below?