Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 32

Letter Sent from Afar to the Prefect on the Day of Entering the District入州日。呈大守遠狀。

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 · 88 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 32 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.

叨參蓮幕。方邇花封。瞻覿匪遙。傾依愈切。恭惟大守侍郞。風神峻秀。門地高華。早彈貢禹之冠。踐更朝綴。出茇召公之樹。頒布詔條。聲聞九重。威行百里。伏念受符重禁。掌記雄藩。雖無一扇之風。助弘宣暢。庶仰二天之化。知有庇庥。

Improperly numbered among the seats of the headquarters staff, I have now come near to the district. The day of waiting upon You is not far off, and my heart that leans and looks up to You grows the more earnest.

In reverence I consider that You, Prefect and Vice Director, are lofty and outstanding in Your bearing and high and splendid in Your lineage. Early, like Gong Yu (貢禹), You shook the dust from Your cap and trod through all the ranks of the court; and going out, You stay as Duke Shao (召公) stayed beneath the wild pear tree, and spread abroad the articles of the royal rescript. Your fame is heard in the ninefold palace, and Your authority runs over a hundred li.

Prostrate I consider that I received my tally at the palace and took charge of the records of a great district. Though I have not so much as the breath of a single fan, and so cannot help in Your broad dispensing, yet I know that in the transforming rule of two heavens there is a covering care for me.

Interlinear notes 1

已下全州所製

From here on, these were composed at Jeonju (全州).

‹ Letter in Reply to the Magistrates of Several Districts, Written While Inspecting the Prisons of the Subordinate Counties in the Sixth MonthContentsThird Memorial Begging Leave to Retire ›Listen to this piece