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

On the Twenty-seventh Day of the Ninth Month, I Dreamt of Shaving Green Bamboo into Brush Shafts Beyond Counting. What Omen Is This? I Set It Down in a Poem (九月二十七日。夢削靑竹作筆管。不知其數。是何祥耶。以詩記之。)九月二十七日。夢削靑竹作筆管。不知其數。是何祥耶。以詩記之。

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 · 42 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 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.

夢中自削碧琅玕。作管千千提復弄。江淹五色筆可還。反見紀君靑鏤夢。朝廷制作已無心。更事文章老安用。

In the dream I shaved with my own hands the green bamboo, jade-like, and made brush shafts by the thousand and the myriad, taking them up and turning them over again. Is Jiang Yan's (江淹) five-colored brush to be given back to me? Rather I have seen the dream in which Lord Ji (紀君) received a green brush. For the court's composing of documents I have no heart left, and were I to take up letters again, what use would it be to an old man?

Interlinear notes 1

予欲乞退。故云。

I said this because I was about to ask leave to retire.