Letter of Congratulation Presented to Assistant Administrator of Government Affairs (參知政事) Choe Seon (崔詵) at the New Year正旦賀狀 崔參政詵
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 · 86 Chinese characters · reading time 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.
The male pitch-pipe changes the old, and we have proof that the yang pitches are now in tune; the female tower greets the new, and we hold that the blessing heaven sends down comes the more.
In reverence I consider that Your Excellency of such-and-such office has nobility handed down by the halberds before Your gate and Your name written upon the ruler's flask. Your learning has made a school of its own, and within Your breast there is a whole National Academy (國子監); the surpassing essence came down into the world, and there is no Taebaek (太白) star left in heaven. Grandly You have become a minister who holds counsels firm as stone, and You answer greatly to hopes that look up as to a crag. The first spring opens its beginning, and we pray that You may live without end, like one born anew.
We, looking back, are driven by the toil of travelling under the stars, and cannot unfold the joy of parting the mist to wait upon You.
Interlinear notes 1
"The ruler's flask" stands in the base text as 「帝甁」. Leaning on the old story that a ruler covered the name of the man who was to be made minister with a golden bowl (金甌), it may look like an error for 「甌」, but the character of the base text was left as it stands. — Translator