A Record Carved on the Back of a Plain Zither (素琴)素琴刻背志
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 · 162 Chinese characters · reading time 1.5 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 23 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.
In the Comprehensive Discussion of Customs (風俗通) it is said: 「The zither is the warp and binding of music. It is what the gentleman keeps always by him and does not put from his person.」 I am not a man who is a gentleman. Yet I keep one plain zither (素琴), and though its strings and its bridges are not complete, I still stroke it and take pleasure in it. There was one among my guests who looked and laughed, and because of that he furnished it with five strings for me. I took them and did not refuse. And so I played Jangcheuk (長側) and Dancheuk (短側), Daeyu (大遊) and Soyu (小遊), and all of them came as I wished.
Of old Tao Qian (陶潛) had a zither without strings, and he merely lodged his meaning in it. I would hear the sound of mine by these few paltry threads, and so I fall far short of Tao Qian. Yet I take my own pleasure in it: why must I model myself upon the men of old? To pour one cup and play one tune — I make this my rule, and this too is one pleasure for passing a whole life. At last I carved upon its back and called it 「The Zither of the White Cloud Hermit」 (白雲居士琴). It was that those who see it hereafter might know that a certain man's hand once passed over it.