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 · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 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.
There was a man of old who climbed a mountain
and grew angry that the monkeys were eating up the autumn fruit.
But to live in the mountains and eat the mountain's fruit
is not so far from reason.
Thinking it over, the ripening of that fruit
owed nothing at all to the monkeys' strength.
Whether one is angry or not angry
rests on whether the point of it is right or wrong.
Grain is not like this:
the farmer raised it himself.
It all depends on whether his strength was idle or diligent,
and if he is not diligent there is nothing to be done.
Clear wine and white rice
are the very means of urging that farming on.
Mouth and belly should be left to you as you please —
on what ground has the state's prohibition come down?
Though the deliberation came out of the court,
by the sovereign's grace it ought to be released.
Thinking the reason through again and again:
the farmer is ten thousand times better than the man who sits and eats.