Separate sacrificial address offered before Taejo太祖前別祭文
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 · 94 Chinese characters · reading time 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.
When a man falls into a blocked and straitened place, he calls without fail upon his father and his mother
That we have a kingdom at all is truly what the holy Taejo framed
Having framed its beginning already, how should he forget what comes after
Now we are unfortunate, and have met with these defiant brigands
The trouble of the descendants who follow after is the holy Taejo's own pain
Our holy one is in heaven, and would he bear not to deliver us from this
If it were not so, the kingdom would not be ours
and could there be sacrifices to the former kings again
Do not say that your servant is lowly, but lend your servant a hand
If your servant destroys the brigands, there will be no failing of the kingdom
To live and to die, to be and not to be, I shall take only as you command