Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 1
An Aging General (老將)老將
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.
當年身似鶻飛揚。東北曾馳百戰場。雪霽錯應看箭影。天陰時復發金瘡。彫弓蛇蟄堂中掛。白刃龍蟠匣裏藏。報國壯心長凜凜。夢中鳴鏑射戎王。
In those years his body rose up in flight like a falcon, and in the northeast he once galloped through a hundred battlefields. When the snow has cleared he still takes something wrongly for an arrow's shadow, and when the sky turns dull his old sword wounds break open again. The carved bow hangs in the hall like a snake coiled asleep, the white blade lies hidden in its case like a dragon curled. His stout heart to repay the kingdom stands awe-inspiring still: in dreams he shoots the barbarian king with a whistling arrow.
Interlinear notes 1
此與前篇皆自况
This piece and the one before it were both written likening himself to the subject.