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

Hearing That Privy Councillor Han, of My Examination Year (同年), Had Died聞同年韓樞密薨

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 0.4 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

仙掛同攀三十人。唯餘韓老與予存。韓公今日還爲鬼。孤立傷懷忍可言。

Thirty of us together grasped the immortals' branch, and only the old man Han and I were left. Today Lord Han has gone and become a ghost; standing alone, how can I bear to speak of my wounded heart?

Interlinear notes 1

丁酉年作

Made in the Jeongyu year.

2The Second

四十八年間。唯留一箇老。韓亡吾得悲。我去誰當悼。

In the space of forty-eight years only one old man is left. Lord Han has died and I grieve for him; but when I go, who will grieve for me?