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 · 92 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.
In my bearing I have nothing to be ashamed of, whether I look down or look up. I do not like to trouble the gods and to hope by luck for what they may send down. Only, our Great King is what the whole country leans upon, and so I could not dare to be idle, but have walked until my feet blistered and have now arrived.
And I consider too that there is nothing fixed in the way misfortune and fortune lean upon each other and lie beneath each other, and that what is tangled and knotted is no different. The saying that misfortune is sent down upon the wicked cannot be trusted, and how should the saying that fortune is given to the good be trusted either? Though I keep to what is white, black spots appear; though I trust in what is clear, the turbid gets in.
How should my own wisdom block the signs as they spread toward me? The breaking of that sprout beforehand must depend upon the god's keeping. What I ask of the god is this alone.