Text for the offering of a horse to the Great King of Mount Gong (公山)獻馬公山大王文
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 · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 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.
And so forth. I consider that the god, nurturing what is excellent and gathering numinous power, embraces the many mountains and becomes their guard, and that riding the clouds and driving the vapors he attends upon the Perfected Ones in the place where the High Emperor dwells.
We So-and-so have long held the tally of troops and yet have brought no fruit of victory to pass; we must borrow the Great King's numinous power if we are to take the brigand chiefs of the two lands.
We take this good horse from our own store and offer it up at your fair shrine. Though its name is that of a base beast, in its essence it answers to the stars ranged above.
Looking up we pray that your hidden spirit bend down and receive it generously. Command the soldiers that fight, that they may once more whip on the fierce ones who flee; and put a bit in the mouth of the chief of the vicious, that their hard and fierce strength may be held down. And so forth.