Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 37

Sacrificial address offered to Lord Min, Manager of Affairs祭閔平章文

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 · 150 Chinese characters · reading time 1.6 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 37 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.

月日云云。嗚呼哀哉。文章蘊蓄。非妾所窺。公之遇主。千載一時。風雲感會。奮鬣揚鬐。位極冢宰。摠領百司。乞身退逸。尙十餘朞。洪範之五福純備。汾陽之終始無虧。大期莫逭。今也安之。於公無憾。生者之悲。婦人所有。唯是涕洟。逬不得越門。去不得執紼。不知何山之趾。何兆何穴。埋爾玉樹。沈光永滅。嗚呼哀哉。猶有二子。雙飛天路。妾有所依。幸勿爲顧。妾亦老矣。生復幾何。酌酒以侑。已矣嗟嗟。

Such-and-such a month, such-and-such a day, and so forth.

Alas, how sad. What was stored up in your writing is not for me to glimpse. That the Lord met with such a ruler happens once in a thousand years. As wind and cloud feel each other and gather, you shook your mane and flashed your fins. Your place reached that of chief minister, and you led all the offices. You asked leave to withdraw from office, and you lived at ease for more than ten years besides.

The five blessings of the Hongbeom (洪範) were wholly complete in you, and like the Lord of Fenyang (汾陽) you had no flaw in your beginning or in your end. The great term cannot be escaped; be now at peace in it. For the Lord there is no regret; the sorrow is the portion of the living. What a woman has is tears and nothing else.

I could not hurry out and cross the gate, nor follow and take hold of the bier-rope. I do not know at the foot of what mountain, in what place, in what hollow, your jade-like tree is buried, its light sunk away and fading forever.

Alas, how sad. Yet there are your two sons, flying side by side on the road to heaven. I have something to lean upon; do not, I beg, look back. I too am old; live as I may, how long will it be? I pour the wine and press it upon you. It is over, alas.

Interlinear notes 1

代夫人行

Written on behalf of his wife.

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