Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 19
Inscription for a Round Fan團扇銘
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.
綠筠作團。裝以氷綃。涼風自來。不召不招。哀哉三界。煎爍如窯。願以此扇。是簸是搖。濯之以淸。救爾之焦。
Made round from green bamboo, dressed in silk like ice. A cool wind comes of itself, neither called nor beckoned. Alas, the Three Realms are boiled and melted as in a kiln. Would that with this fan I might winnow and wave, wash them clean with its clearness, and rescue you all from your burning.