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

Text for the Yeongbo rite held at Bogwon Palace to pray away portents in the heavens, with an offering rite joined to it福源宮。行天變祈禳靈寶道場兼設醮禮文。

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 · 196 Chinese characters · reading time 2 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.

災異譴之。蓋欲省愆而痛勵。神明彰矣。尙容瀝懇以宗祈。言念眇躬。叨承景緖。命惟休亦惟恤。斯無厥位之安。應以實不以文。常畏彼蒼之鑑。然由事統之多闕。迺致乾文之示祅。火度犯大微上將而便入於天廷。月行陵輿鬼積尸而復侵於女御。況屬水官之用事。又聞雷鼓之發聲。怒其甚威。意若有謂。曰帝居甚遠。猶曉告之孔明。故臣意未安。將祓禳之是急。爰投仙宇。伻敞道場。旁迎鍊氣之流。寔揚靈蘊。仰佇排空之馭。兼薦信羞。伏望寶眷遄加。繁祥沓至。邦家帖泰。百祿是摠是遒。兵革韜藏。四方無侮無拂。

That you reprove us with calamity and strange event is to make us examine our faults and painfully exert ourselves; and though the divine powers are brightly manifest, they still receive the prayer of one who pours out sincerity.

I consider that with this worthless body I have presumptuously succeeded to the great royal work. The mandate is at once fair and full of care, and there is no ease in that seat; and since one must answer with substance and not with ornament, I always dread the discerning gaze of that blue heaven.

And yet much has been left out in the turns of affairs, so that it has come to the patterns of heaven showing forth calamity. The degrees of Mars have trespassed upon the Senior General star of the Taemi enclosure (大微) and then entered the Celestial Court; and the course of the moon has trampled the Corpse Market of the Ghost constellation and trespassed again upon the Yeoeo star. Still more, in the season of winter, which the air of water governs, I have heard the sound of thunder rolling. Your anger is exceedingly majestic, and it seems there is something you intend. It is said that though the place where the Lord of Heaven dwells is very far off, his awakening and announcing are exceedingly bright. Therefore your servant's heart is not at ease, and he counts the shaking off and the doing away of calamity a thing of haste.

So I go to the house of the immortals and have the rite opened there. Welcoming on every hand the company that refines the airs, I have them voice abroad the divine purport; and looking up, I await the car that comes parting the void, and offer up at once the victuals of faith.

Prostrate, I pray that you swiftly add your precious regard and let the many auspicious signs come again and again. Let the state be at peace, so that every blessing is gathered into it and made firm; and let arms be hidden away, so that in the four quarters there be neither slight nor defiance.

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