Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 39

Text for the rain-praying rite at Mangsan Pavilion望山樓上雲雨道場文

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 · 136 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 39 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.

覺皇救物。演玆甘露之門。旱魃爲災。借以大雲之蔭。念循否德。叨荷丕基。迺緣刑政之差。屢感陰陽之氣。自春不雨。吝若屯膏。入夏愈乾。赫如觀火。呼蒼天而莫聞。覩赤地以長吁。當始種而失時。已無可奈。在旣耕而望耨。猶有庶幾。玆扣等慈。佇蒙洪濟。召集塍衣之侶。敷揚貝牒之編。庶諒誠虔。僉加扶護。旣霑旣足。克宣三日之霖。實栗實堅。終叶千箱之慶。

The king of enlightenment, to save all things, opened this gate of sweet dew; and so, when the drought demon raises calamity, we borrow the shade of the great clouds.

I consider that with a body without virtue I have presumed to shoulder the great foundation. Because punishment and government have gone awry, I have often disturbed the airs of yin and yang. Since spring no rain has come, and bounty is grudging as though stopped up; and with the coming of summer it has grown drier still, hot as the sight of fire. I call to the blue sky and it does not hear; I look at the scorched red earth and sigh long. That the season for first sowing was missed can no longer be helped; but for the fields already plowed, where we hope to weed, there is still something to hope for.

So I knock at your constant compassion and wait to receive a great saving. I call and gather a company in quilted robes to unroll and send abroad the book written on pattra leaves.

Look upon our sincerity and care and hold us all in your keeping. Send down three days of soaking rain, that all may be drenched and amply watered; and let the grain ripen full and firm, so that in the end it answers to the good fortune of a thousand bushels.

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