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

Report presented, on behalf of so-and-so, to the Garrison Commander (營主) of the Northern Border爲某人上北界營主狀

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 · 87 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.

蘂闥雲深。受鳳綸之降命。楡關草綠。擁豹纛之有光。四牡所臨。萬家相慶。恭惟某官。金山屹屹。鐵幹凌凌。八座資崇。方佇鹽梅之用。三邊寄重。暫司斧鉞之威。伏念某。莅事伊初。望風滋切。一隅之繫。但限有拘。百舍之勞。豈予所憚。

The clouds lie deep at the palace gates, and there you received the command handed down by the sovereign's edict; the grass is green at Yuguan (楡關), and there you embrace the leopard-tail banner and shine. Wherever your carriage of four stallions arrives, ten thousand households count it a blessing together.

I humbly consider that Your Excellency of such-and-such office stands lofty as a golden mountain and stern as a stem of iron. Your seat among the Eight Ministers being high, you should now be awaiting a chancellor's use, as salt and plum are used; but the charge of the three frontiers is weighty, and so for a while you have taken up the authority of the axe.

Prostrate, I consider that I, so-and-so, have only now taken up a charge for the first time, so that my longing to behold your presence is the more earnest. Bound to a single corner, I am merely hemmed in; as for the toil of a long road, how should I shrink from it?

Interlinear notes 1

已下代作

What follows below was composed on another's behalf.

‹ Report presented, on behalf of the same man, to the Branch Censorate (分臺)ContentsWritings composed at Gyeyang — Report in reply to the Constable (尉) of Ganghwa on his taking up office ›Listen to this piece