Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 40

Sacrifice of thanksgiving to the earth, offered to all the spirit tablets at the Great Granary大倉行百神位謝土祭

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 · 50 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min

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.

天威可畏。降亳社譆譆之災。民命所關。掃周家栗栗之積。爲妖莫甚。何術以禳。徒陳菲薄之儀。敢叩靜柔之鑒。庶歆中信。永杜後艱。

The majesty of heaven is fearsome: you have sent down that calamity of the old altar of Yin, where a bird cried and foretold fire. The place on which the people's lives depend — the granaries of Zhou, brimming with grain — you have swept away.

No uncanny thing could be worse than this; by what skill could we drive it off? We only set out a meagre rite and venture to knock at your still and gentle regard.

We pray you partake of the faith in our inmost hearts, and ward off for all time the hardship of days to come.