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Separate Chorye text offered to the Great Emperor of Heaven天皇別醮文

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 · 152 Chinese characters · reading time 1.7 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.

云云。天得一以淸。默斡眞樞之不測。戰有五可勝。亦須陰助以迺成。敢陳懇倒之誠。再瀆高明之鑑。有頑賊類。久逭天誅。成言欲降而實抱詐謀。外示以弱而內蓄銳氣。奈軍師之追迹。曠歲月以無功。徇國忘軀。萬人之勞憊尙可。轉資餉口。一日之糜費幾何。顧未雪其憤情。輒復聲其哀叫。冀歆明信。遄借眞庥。致令算無遺籌。役勿再擧。坐降群賊。示善戰不陣之威。旋畫歸期。無曷月予還之歎。云云。

And so forth. Heaven gets the One and so is clear, and the wordless turning of the true pivot cannot be reckoned; and though in battle there are five things by which one may win, yet it is accomplished only when one waits upon unseen help. We dare to unfold the earnestness of a wholly poured-out heart, and defile your high and bright mirror once again.

There is an obdurate brigand throng that has long escaped heaven's punishment. They framed words of surrender but in truth harbored deceit, and showed themselves weak without while storing up a keen spirit within. Our soldiers chase about after their traces, and yet what is to be done, when the months and years are spent in vain with nothing to show?

This is a matter of forgetting the body for the kingdom's sake, and the weariness and hardship of ten thousand men may still be borne; but what is the waste of a single day in carting and carrying the army's grain to feed them? Looking back, it is because that indignant heart has not been washed away that I at once send up this sorrowful cry once more.

We pray that you savor our bright good faith and quickly lend us your true shade. Let there be nothing left out of our planning, so that battle need not be raised a second time; and let us, sitting still, receive the surrender of the brigand throng, and show the majesty of him who fights well and does not array his ranks. Draw the day of our return at once, so that there be no sighing of 「In what month shall I go home?」 And so forth.

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