Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 30

Report of thanks submitted by the Princess to the Queen's Palace公主謝王后殿牋

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 · 137 Chinese characters · reading time 1.6 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 30 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.

妾云云。鳳綍溫詞。特降殊尤之命。鸞閨微息。遽叨褒顯之名。靜省僭踰。伏深戰懼。伏念妾資虧朗實。齒尙騃癡。託質王宮。素欠慶雲之瑞。叨名帝女。愧無望月之稱。豈意誤恩。驟加懿冊。此蓋伏遇王后殿下。精分軒曜。德應關雎。配尤纛之尊。旣膺大號。崇右騑之寵。又及公軀。妾敢不節以佩環。專於釧組。鑑觀女則。動無越禮之譏。奉戴坤元。不負資生之德。云云。

Your handmaid, and so forth. With the warm words of a phoenix rescript you sent down especially an uncommon command, and a small child of the women's chamber where the simurgh nests has all at once presumed to obtain a name of praise and distinction. Quietly looking into how far it goes beyond my portion, prostrate, my fear runs deep.

Prostrate, I consider that your handmaid's stuff falls short of brightness and substance, and her years are yet young and foolish. I have lodged my body in the royal palace, yet from the first there was no auspice of blessed clouds; and I presumed to obtain the name of the sovereign's daughter, yet am ashamed to have no account of having gazed upon the moon. How could I have thought that a grace that came wrongly upon me would all at once add a fair patent of investiture?

This is because, prostrate, I have met with Her Highness the Queen, who received her essence apportioned from the bright stars and whose virtue answers to the 「Guanju」 (關雎), who, becoming the consort of him who is highest of all, has already received a great title, and whose favor in exalting the outside horse reaches also to this body.

How should your handmaid dare not govern her bearing with girdle-jades and give herself wholly to the tying of bracelet and thread-cord? Taking the law for women as my mirror, I shall leave no blame of having overstepped ritual in my movements; and bearing up the Primal Earth (坤元), I shall not betray the virtue that has let me live on.

Interlinear notes 1

中謝。

Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.

‹ Statement of thanks from the Princess for the things bestowedContentsMemorial of thanks from the Princess for the flowers and wine bestowed when the sovereign came forth to the hall ›Listen to this piece