Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 38

Text for the offering rite to the Great Emperor of Heaven held on New Year's Day正旦行天皇醮禮文

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 · 110 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.

云云。天何言哉。行四時而不忒。歲之元也。合萬福之來臻。伏念某等。久統軍師。謾延時月。山栖野宿。誠一日之猶難。陽長陰消。况三年之又及。雖賊魁之僅滅。顧餘種之未殲。庶迓首春。盡擒支種。仰覬高明之鑒。垂歆哀切之誠。致令與物惟新。掃汚俗之舊染。迨氷未泮。奏凱樂而言旋。云云。

And so forth. What does Heaven say? It runs the four seasons and never goes awry. This is the head of the year, and it gathers in the coming and arriving of the ten thousand blessings.

Prostrate, we consider that we, such-and-such, have led troops long and yet have only dragged out the months and years to no purpose. Roosting in the mountains and sleeping in the fields, even a single day is truly hard; how much more when the growing of the sunlight and the waning of the shade have come round three years over again. Though we have barely made an end of the brigand chiefs, looking back, we have not killed off all the seed that remains.

We pray that, meeting the first of spring, we may take captive every last branch of their band. Looking up, we gaze toward your high and bright mirror: bend down and partake of our grieving, earnest sincerity. Let us be made new together with all things, and let the old stain of foul custom be swept away; and before the ice melts, let us go home sounding the music of victory. And so forth.

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