Sacrificial address offered to the Heavenly God of Gyebyeon Fort at Ulju (蔚州戒邊城)蔚州戒邊城天神祭文
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 · 169 Chinese characters · reading time 1.6 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.
In the old district of a thousand far-off years there stands a lone wall
Only because the numinous god holds it down and guards it, the traveler dares not spit upon the road
He is one upon whom heaven bestowed its essence from the first, so how should he be matched with miscellaneous ghosts and the sprites of the hills
When men and women in their disorder pray and beg, they declare it in the morning and he repays it by evening
How much the more, when the kingdom's hardship has just now arisen, should he sit at ease and not deliver us
Alas, those defiant brigands of the Eastern Capital (東都) are like a dog that growls and barks at its master
About to rouse the troops and go to strike, I look for the unseen help of the utmost god
I send a trusted envoy to go at a gallop, and who would shrink from the road's steepness and blockage
If sincerity truly reaches above, he will surely answer faster than drumstick and drum
Let the army of heaven shake out its majesty, and let the brigand throng be as though swept away
Before the grass by the sea is green yet, let the song of triumph fill the roads
The merit I shall surely render to our god, and the state's repayment will tilt the granaries and empty the storehouses
This one cup, though it be poor, savor our good faith by it, and do not savor the offering's fragrance only