Colophon to the Poems of Yi Yunbo (允甫) of the Historiographical Office李史館允甫詩跋尾
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 · 130 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.
My friend Yi Yunbo of the Historiographical Office brought in his sleeve and showed me more than fifty pieces of poetry and rhapsody and miscellaneous writing that he had composed. When I had read them, as I was giving them back I said,
「How splendid, this fullness of the figures of writing! Your poems carry the body of the poets of the Airs (風人), and your rhapsodies hold the bosom of the poets of the Sao (騷客). As for such pieces of mockery and jest as the 「Life of the Gutless Gentleman」 (無腸公子傳), when they are set beside the 「Life of Mao Ying」 (毛穎傳) that Han Tuizhi composed, I do not know which goes first and which after. If you were not such a man, how should I be your friend? And had I not known you for what you are, you would long since have turned your head and galloped off after the crowd, and though you passed my gate ten times in a day you would never once have turned to look. Even so: had I rather never made friends with you, could that writing of yours have been covered over?」