Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 32
Writings composed at Gyeyang — Report in reply to the Supervisor (監務) of Gyodong, as above桂陽所著狀 答喬桐監務同前狀
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.
出從諫掖。雖深謫官之悲。居近仁隣。方有願交之志。遽辱緘縢而先唁。不堪涕泗之無從。
Having come out from the post of a remonstrating official, deep though the sorrow of an office in banishment is, I have come to dwell near a worthy neighbor, and so had just formed the wish to make your acquaintance. Of a sudden you were first to console me with a sealed letter, and in my awe I cannot bear how my tears flow beyond holding back.