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

Letter of Congratulation Presented to Administrator of Chancellery Affairs (平章事) Jo Yeongin (趙永仁) at the Winter Solstice冬至賀狀 趙平章永仁

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 · 76 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 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.

一丈三尺。堪占圭景之寢長。異口同音。競祝鈞齡之不老。恭惟某官。元精鍾秀。大雅秉彝。體東壁之主文。雌黃政敎。幹北斗而酌氣。調爕陰陽。茂對嘉辰。益綏休祉。某等。限左符之有守。趨東閣以無由。

One fathom and three feet: by this it may be divined that the sun's shadow has grown longest; and though our mouths differ we make one voice, vying in the prayer that the minister's years may not grow old.

In reverence I consider that Your Excellency of such-and-such office has gathered excellence from the primal essence and grasps constancy with a greatly upright virtue. Embodying the star of the Eastern Wall (東壁), You preside over letters and amend and set right the governing and transforming rule; taking charge of the Northern Dipper, You ladle out the breath and make yin and yang even. Meeting a fair season thickly, You enjoy at ease a blessing fairer still.

We, bound to the keeping of the left tally, have no way to come forward to the Eastern Pavilion.