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 · 125 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 2 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.
予未相時。李學士百全以夢見予之拜相來說。予未信。以詩拒之。學士今方見和。予復次韻。
Before I had yet become a chief minister, Academician Yi Baekjeon (百全) came and told me that he had dreamt of my being raised to the office of minister. I did not believe him and put him off with a poem. The Academician has only now sent a reply, so I match his rhymes once more.
What is hard to come by in a lifetime
is sometimes not hard at all when the time arrives.
Long ago, when I drove a cart of brushwood,
who would have said my carriage hub would turn vermilion?
In days past, when I was mixed in with the flock of hens,
who would have said I would spread my wings and fly far?
What is more, I have by nature loved to drift about,
and sought nothing of the world.
By chance I came to the chief minister's seat,
and stepped out ahead of those who once were over me.
Looking back I laugh: for nineteen years
I was long held fast in the lower ranks.
You alone knew it with uncanny insight,
and put it in what you had seen within a dream.
This dream was no empty dream,
but a thing seen plainly before the eyes.
What I said before was only a passing jest —
how could you have meant to deceive me?
Interlinear notes 1
蛾眉班 — read as "the lower ranks." It may also be read, leaning on Qu Yuan's "衆女嫉余之蛾眉," as "the rank that draws the envy of others." ― Translator