Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 2
A Solar Eclipse on the First Day of the Twelfth Month (十二月朔日蝕)十二月朔日蝕
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.
陰陽消息理冥冥。更有何辭問缺盈。無可奈何看漸旣。擊鉦猶以救爲名。
The principle by which yin and yang wane and wax is dark and far off; with what words could one further ask about waning and fullness? Helpless, we watch it eaten away bit by bit until all is gone, and beating gongs we still give it the name of rescue.
眩眼不堪天上望。低頭唯向水中窺。下臣得可安然坐。還跪焚香到復時。
Dazzled, I cannot look up into the sky, so I bow my head and peer only into the water. How can one who is a lowly subject sit at his ease? Instead I kneel and burn incense, waiting for the sun to return.