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

Memorial of Donyu (敦裕), Great Master of the Third Grade (三重大師), thanking for being made Head Seat (首座)敦裕三重謝首座表

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 · 186 Chinese characters · reading time 2.1 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.

云云。龍綸新命。霈天上之優恩。鹿苑殘僧。玷席端之高選。省循非稱。欣悚交深。伏念臣素稟昏愚。幼從剃度。旣披僧服。固當韜晦於山中。奈迫世緣。尙爾徘徊於輦下。早得登名於批筆。又嘗費食於名藍。但因直性之守株。莫獲業門之推轂。久淹一級。坐閱幾年。後輩著鞭。競臨頭而踐蹂。陳人斂袖。常居尾以盤桓。敢期詔檢之優詞。遂擢緇流之巍品。退思榮幸。徒極感銘。此蓋云云。德厚包荒。仁深護短。雖至尫殘之物。俾蒙渥洽之私。臣敢不備三千儀。益修梵行。指億萬歲。倍祝皇齡。云云。

And so forth. The king's new command has poured down an ample favour from above the heavens, so that a worn-out monk of the Deer Park (鹿野苑) has defiled the high selection to the head of the seats. Look and look back as I may, it is unfitting, and joy and dread are both deep in me.

Prostrate I consider that your servant is by birth dark and foolish, and in childhood shaved his head and became a monk. Having once put on the monk's robe, I ought truly to have hidden away in the mountains; but what is to be done when one is driven by worldly ties? — still I loiter beneath the royal carriage. Early my name went up under the royal brush, and in a famous monastery besides I have wasted my food.

Only, being of a straight nature, I did nothing but keep watch over a tree stump, and got no pushing hand from those of my own school. Long I stayed at one grade and passed several years just sitting there. Those who came after whipped on and vied to come over my head and trample me, while the stale man gathers in his sleeves and circles always at the tail.

Should I have dared to hope that by the ample words of a rescript I should at last be chosen to a high grade among the company of the ink-dyed robe? Withdrawing and thinking upon the glory of it, I am merely moved, and it is graven in me utterly.

This is, in the main, and so forth. Your virtue being thick, you wrap round what is coarse; your benevolence being deep, you cover over what is wanting; and so even to a wasted and worn-out thing you have let a private favour come and thickly steep it.

Shall your servant not dare to furnish the three thousand observances and cultivate a purer practice, and, pointing to a hundred million years, pray that the king's age be doubled? And so forth.

Interlinear notes 1

中謝。

Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.

‹ Memorial of congratulation on the first snowContentsReport thanking for leave to go down from the mountain ›Listen to this piece