Sacrificial address offered to Mount Bukhyeong (北兄山)北兄山祭文
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 · 108 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.
Foolish as we are, with no skill to block and guard, we have received a general's charge
Resolved to die, we came out by the gate of ill omen (凶門) and arrived leading a righteous army
To cast away life and go forward into battle is in all things only for the kingdom's sake
That the god receives sacrifices in this land is likewise what the kingdom has granted
Your bond of duty is the same as ours, and by your office you ought to rouse yourself and deliver us
Fitly, together with the Three Armies, answer like an echo and come at a gallop
Where the banner-tips point and where the horses' hooves climb against the slope
at each advance and each withdrawal, and at every single step
let the god follow after us all the way, and here guard us and here wrap us about
Sweep away the obdurate people and send the writing of victory back at a gallop
Just now, before we have yet pitched camp, we first declare it by this
May the god hear, and help us in that which we plead for
And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
鑿凶門 — when a general went out to battle, a gate was opened to the north and he went out by it, to mean that he was resolved to die; this is that old practice. — Translator