Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 40
Sacrificial Text for the Old Man Star (老人星)老人星祭文
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 40 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.
揆景內衡。方紀秋分之候。騰精南極。可占旦見之祥。恭率舊章。寔修明祀。冀借歆容之賜。俾延壽考之休。
Measuring the sun's shadow as it reaches the inner circuit of the sky, we mark now the season of the autumn equinox; and as the essence rises at the southern pole, one may divine from it the auspice of its dawn appearance.
Reverently following the old statutes, we prepare a truly bright sacrifice. I pray that we may borrow your descent to partake, and so increase the beauty of a long life.