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

Memorial of condolence presented on the death anniversary of King Gangjong the Great (康宗大王)康宗大王忌晨慰表

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 · 109 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 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.

臣某等言。伏覩聖上陛下以今月某日康宗大王忌晨輟常膳哀痛者。弓劍一遺。星霜累換。愴宸衷之彌劇。避正寢以不臨。恭惟聖上陛下。孝篤奉先。德敦追遠。値寧考乘雲之日。軫君子履露之悲。凡荷生成。悉均悽慘。伏念臣等位叨作相。心切愛君。願寬舜慕之情。俯答高封之祝。云云。

We, your servants so-and-so, report. Prostrate we observe that on such a day of this month, the death anniversary of King Gangjong the Great (康宗大王), Your Sage Majesty puts away your customary meal and grieves. Since the day he left behind his bow and sword and departed, the years have turned about several times, yet Your Majesty's heartache grows the sorer, and you avoid the main chamber (正寢) and do not come to it.

Reverently we consider that Your Sage Majesty, thick in filial devotion, serves the ancestors, and thick in virtue, mourns the distant forebears. Meeting the day on which your late royal father rode the clouds away, you deepen the grief a gentleman feels in treading upon the dew. All who have received his begetting and rearing are alike sorrowful and stricken.

Prostrate we consider that your servants have presumptuously obtained their places and become councillors, and that our hearts in loving our sovereign are earnest. We would wish that you soften the feeling of longing such as Emperor Shun bore, and bend down to answer the many hearts that heap up high their prayers for you. And so forth.

Interlinear notes 1

高封之祝 — since Emperor Shun appears just before, there is also a way of reading this as a variant of 華封人之祝 (the three blessings of the man of Hua), that is, "the hearts of the people praying for their sovereign's long life." Since no source for it has been confirmed, it is rendered as the characters stand. — Translator

‹ Memorial of congratulation on the vegetarian feast (齋) offered to thirty thousand monks after the new accession to the precious throneContentsMemorial, as above ›Listen to this piece