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

Text for the offering rite at the descent of the Northern Dipper北斗下降醮禮文

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 · 120 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 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.

天淸而上。鼓一氣於混元。斗轉于中。括萬生於下界。厥監不遠。有信可羞。顧惟沖眇之軀。叨荷艱難之寄。神所勞矣。雖非愷悌之資。命不易哉。常畏高明之鑑。況彼泠然之馭。適于降止之辰。宜罄赬悰。仰徼玄福。按沖科於仙籙。嚴法事於靈壇。惟冀高眞。俯歆卑素。降年有永。登玉籍之長生。垂裕無窮。保蘿圖於不拔。

Heaven is clear and stands above, and it fostered the one air at the beginning of chaos; the Northern Dipper turns in the midst and binds together all the living of the world below. Your discerning gaze is not far off, and where there is sincerity it may be offered.

Looking back, with a frail and worthless body I have presumptuously taken up this difficult and heavy charge. The one whom you comfort is the man of harmony and gladness, and I am not of that substance; and the mandate of Heaven is not easy, so that I always dread your high and bright discerning gaze.

Still more, I have met the very time when that cool car comes down and halts; and so it is fitting that I spend all my crimson sincerity and look up in search of hidden blessing. In the books of the immortals I examine the hidden ceremony, and at the divine altar I perform with all strictness the lawful business.

Only I pray that you, the exalted True One, may bend down and partake of this low and plain sincerity. Let the years you send down be long, that I may mount to the long life of the jade book; and let the plenty you let down be without end, keeping the ground of the state unuprooted.

‹ Text appointed at Guyodang for the Eleven Luminaries Disaster-Dispelling rite to pray away portents in the heavens, with an offering rite joined to it Contents Text for the Yeongbo rite held at Bogwon Palace to pray away portents in the heavens, with an offering rite joined to it ›Listen to this piece