On the Twelfth Day of the Twelfth Month My Horse Died, and Grieving I Wrote This (十二月十二日馬斃。傷之有作。)十二月十二日馬斃。傷之有作。
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 · 80 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.
I wished to lay down office and withdraw,
and only the other day I sent up my letter.
Not many days had passed since I sent it up
when my horse suddenly died.
Though I would not be riding now in any case,
why did you leave me and go so early?
Tenderly my heart aches,
and I went out the gate and lingered a long while.
Did Heaven, to give this old man rest,
take away the one I used to ride?
If it were a time for lying face down on my pillow,
letting you go might be well enough;
but if there were anywhere I had to go,
how should I be a man who travels on foot?
The course of this life may be known:
in old age, after all, I have no horse.