Sacrificial address offered to the Dragon King at Hwangji Cloister (黃池院)黃池院龍王祭文
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 · 82 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 38 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.
You alone, O god, dwell in the deep pool and hold this hidden virtue
Your flying and your sinking are not one and the same, and your changes cannot be reckoned
If a man has that for which he prays, how should he seek and not obtain
Now I have received the command and go forth to strike the defiant brigands
My banner-tips point east, and I am about to tread upon that ground
I pray that you, most numinous one, will lend us your fierce strength
that our army within a few days may offer up the ears it has cut
How should the merit accomplished be ours alone
The Dragon too will have merit, and will long receive the sacrifices of the state
Utmost sincerity is worthy of your savoring: receive this clear cup