Hearing That the Tatars (達旦) Had Entered Jiangnan聞達旦入江南
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 · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 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.
Northern ways are not used to the south;
why then did they enter the hot country?
How can they bear to let the food of a myriad people
fatten the enemy of a whole state?
To go into the walls and hold them is the first plan, indeed,
but emptying the fields is a good scheme as well.
How might I get the sword that is above the sky
and at one stroke bring down the barbarians' heads?
Let them all fall away after the white blade
and bounce and roll like round balls.
If not that, then let the water of the great sea
be tipped and poured out to float them away,
and let them turn into fish and soft-shelled turtles,
to be sliced raw and put down the throats of this land's people.
These words too are far-fetched;
heaven's will is not man's scheming.
I only pray that the holy Lord on High
may repent of the calamity and not let all be killed.
Ah, what more is there to say?
The flowing tears are in such disorder that they are hard to gather up.