Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 33

Edict Not Allowing Administrator of Chancellery Affairs (平章事) Yu Gwangsik (柳光植) to Decline the Command to Return to Office while in Mourning平章事柳光植讓起復不允敎書

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 · 128 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 33 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.

云云。壼室畢喪。雖或存於古制。墨縗從事。蓋亦徇其時。宜卿飾行私門。服休朝列。奉君竭力。朕所飽嘗知之。事母盡心。人亦無間言者。頃丁憂釁。幾滅性情。百日已周。例可居於奮職。一封遽抗。固欲守於常經。此則拘迫細行。而非所望於卿也。況卿逮鶴髮之在堂。入龍池而拜相。玆又孝之極也。尙何憾之有哉。宜抑慘傷。往膺寵命。云云。

And so forth.

That one should see out the whole term of mourning within his house is indeed in the old institutions; yet going forward to business in the black mourning robe is also a following of the time, and is proper.

You, my lord, cultivated your conduct in your private house and were clothed with beauty in the ranks of the court. That you bear up your sovereign and spend your strength for him I know well from my own proving; that you serve your mother and spend your heart upon her no other man has a word to pick at.

Of late you met with mourning and were near to losing your very nature and feeling. The hundred days have now come round, and by custom you may rouse yourself again to your duties; yet a single letter has been sent up of a sudden, stubbornly to keep to the constant law. This is to be bound by a petty observance, and is not what I looked for from you.

How much more, since you entered the palace and were invested as chief minister while a white-haired parent was yet in your house: this too is filial piety at its utmost. What is there to be unsatisfied in? It is right that you hold down your grief, go, and receive the command of favour.

And so forth.

‹ Rescript Not Allowing Bak Sinhu (朴信侯) to Decline the Grant of Grand Master of Comprehensive Counsel and Great General of the Left and Right Guard, Together with the Command That He Thereafter Retire in EaseContentsEdict Enshrining the Late Assistant Administrator of Government Affairs Jeong Geugon (鄭克溫) Together in the Shrine of the Great King Sinjong ›Listen to this piece