Encomia Inscribed on the Images of the Former Sage (先聖) and the Former Teacher (先師) — with a preface先聖先師像贊幷序
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 · 5 passages · 116 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 19 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.
1Preface
司直咸君子眞。募工畫仲尼，顔回像。請予爲贊云。
Mr. Ham, the Rectifier (司直), whose style-name is Jajin (子眞), gathered painters to make images of Zhongni (仲尼) and Yan Hui (顔回), and asked me to compose encomia for them.
Teacher of ten thousand ages,
his virtue cannot be given a name.
It is like the light of the sun and the moon,
so can one praise its brightness any further?
Only, looking in silence at his image,
it is much like a mengqi effigy (蒙倛).
His virtue was as Heaven,
yet he was born and did not meet his time.
Ah, it is all over —
why was the qilin (麟) caught, and why did the phoenix decline?
He who knew that Yan Hui was worthy was Kong Qiu (孔丘),
and he who towered as Confucius did was Master Yan (顔子).
The sage and the worthy are one in the Way,
fitting together with no difference between them.
The two surnames Kong and Yan
are one body and one mind.
As for that company of seventy disciples,
their bodies were seventy —
and were their minds seventy too?