Roaming Again at Heungseongsa (興聖寺) and Writing on the Wall再遊興聖寺書壁
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 · 2 passages · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 1 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.
我昔閑遊一散人。今來擁騎喝聲頻。寺僧揔換曾知面。誰識當時短褐身。
Long ago I was a single idle man roaming at leisure;
now I come escorted on horseback, with cries to clear the road sounding often
The monks of the temple, all of those whose faces I knew, have changed:
who would recognize the man in the short hempen coat of those days?
Interlinear notes 3
二首
Two poems.
前集有遊興聖寺詩。
There is a poem on roaming at Heungseongsa in the Former Collection.
予時爲亞卿待制。
At that time I was vice-minister (亞卿) and edict-drafter (待制).
疇昔曾題一首詩。詩今漫滅主人非。再來涴壁僧誰認。唯有幽禽傍檻飛。
In days past I once inscribed a single poem here;
the poem is now worn away and the master is not the same man
Though I come again and soil the wall, what monk would know me?
Only a secluded bird flies beside the railing