Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 28

Letter sent to Officer Tanggo (唐古)送唐古官人書

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 · 153 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 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.

云云。冬寒。伏惟台體起居何若。不勝瞻佇。小邦事件。一如前之再三所達。曾於己卯辛卯兩年投拜講和已後。謂可聊生。擧國欣喜。亦天地神明所證知也。噫。小國之今玆情狀。皆帥府大官人所臨親見。予復何言。閣下其不爲小憐耶。恐懼顚沛。猶未遑安。伏望鈞慈特於皇帝旒冕之下。善陳實狀。以一言之重。完護小邦。恩及萬世。則其爲欣感。曷可勝陳。謹以些小不腆土宜。輕黷尊嚴。惟冀檢納。云云。

In the cold of winter, prostrate I consider: how does your person fare? I cannot contain the heart that looks up and stands waiting.

The circumstances of the small country are one and the same with what I have reported two or three times before. Ever since we submitted and made peace in those two years, Gimyo (己卯) and Sinmyo (辛卯), we held that we might live, for what it was worth, and the whole country rejoiced; this too the spirits of heaven and earth have attested and know.

Alas, the present condition of the small country is all of it what the Great Officer of your headquarters came and saw with his own eyes; what more should I say? Will Your Excellency not take even a little pity? In dread and prostration I have as yet no leisure to be at ease.

Prostrate we hope that your lofty mercy will especially set forth the true state of things beneath the Emperor's crown. If by one weighty word you keep the small country whole, so that the kindness reaches ten thousand generations, how should I report in full our gladness and gratitude? Reverently, with poor small produce of our land, I lightly sully your dignity; I only beg that you will examine it and receive it.

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