Letter of the Duke of Hwanan (淮安公) in Reply to the Marshal of Haseo (河西)淮安公答河西元帥書
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 · 122 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 28 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.
So-and-so reports. On a certain day of this month I all at once received the instruction written in your own hand and learned in full that your esteemed person is in good health and in every happiness; my joy at it was as though hand and heart met together. Besides that, you showed yourself excessively modest and sent down a splendid greeting before I could, and you dressed my shabby stuff in praise fit for a sovereign's dragon robe — it is not what my small station can bear.
Now, hearing that Your Honor, upholding the sagely will, is taking in hand and soothing Liaodong (遼東) and the regions thereabout, my soaring gladness is double what it would ordinarily be. Only, rivers and mountains stand in the way, and there is no road by which to attend upon you and be received, so that gazing off I do nothing but add to my longing.
The heat is at its height. I beg only that for the sake of all under Heaven you will care for yourself, and so meet this heart of mine that bends in prayer for you. My dread is beyond measure. Bowing twice, I respectfully report.