Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 1

Rejoicing on a Day in the Sixth Month of the Gyesa Year that My Son Ham (涵) Was Appointed to the Hallim (翰林), the Academy of Letters癸巳六月日喜兒子涵拜翰林

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 · 28 Chinese characters · reading time 0.3 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.

我踰強仕入花甎。今到黃樞亞相聯。計爾得除先七歲。好將長翮上鵬天。

I was past forty before I trod the flowered bricks of the Academy of Letters, and now I have reached the Privy Council (樞密), ranking with the vice-chancellor (亞相). Reckoning it up, your appointment comes seven years earlier than mine — so on long wings, do rise into the roc's heaven.

Interlinear notes 1

予於兒拜日。入樞密。

On the day the boy was appointed, I entered the Privy Council.