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On a Dream夢說

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 · 156 Chinese characters · reading time 1.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 21 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.

予自四三品時。常夢坐一大樓上。其下皆大海也。水到樓上。霑濕寢席。予臥其中。如是者六七年。每寤輒怪之。或以周公夢書驗之。心以爲瑞夢也。及庚寅歲。以非罪流于猬島。請寄一老司戶之家。則有高樓正臨大海。翼翼翬飛。水亦將拍于軒窓。眞若夢所見者。予然後方驗前夢矣。然則人之行藏榮辱。豈徒然哉。皆預定於冥然者歟。當時擬必死於其地。未幾復京師。至登相位。是亦非天命歟。甲午月日書。

From the time I was of the fourth and the third rank I used always to dream that I sat upon a great upper storey, and below it all was a great sea. The water came up to the storey and soaked my sleeping mat, and I lay there in the midst of it. So it was for six or seven years. Each time I woke I thought it strange, and sometimes, trying it against the Duke of Zhou's (周公) book of dreams, I took it in my heart for an auspicious dream.

In the Gyeongin year I was banished without guilt to Wido, and asked lodging at the house of an old Registrar (司戶); and there was a high storey facing straight upon the great sea, its eaves spread like wings in flight, and the water too all but striking at the rail and the window. It was truly as I had seen it in the dream. Only then did I come to prove the earlier dream.

If that is so, how should a man's going forward and drawing back, his glory and his disgrace, be an idle thing? Is it all appointed beforehand in the dark? At that time I was sure I should die in that place, and before long I was back in the capital and had even risen to the seat of a Chief Minister: is this too not the ordinance of Heaven? Written on such a day of such a month in the Gabo year.

‹ Preface Written to Send Off Head Seat Chan (璨) on His Return to His Own TempleContentsOn Heaven and Man Overcoming Each Other ›Listen to this piece