Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 2

On the Twenty-Ninth Day of the Twelfth Month, When the Appointments Were Promulgated, I Retired from Office as Administrator of Chancellery Affairs (門下平章事), and Wrote This (十二月二十九日頒政。以門下平章致仕有作。)十二月二十九日頒政。以門下平章致仕有作。

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 · 3 passages · 84 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 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.

擔重身孱恐易顚。拜章得謝始欣然。聖恩優老猶增秩。雖退難言大弛肩。

The load was heavy and my body frail, and I feared I should topple easily; only when I had sent up my letter and been let go was I glad at last. The king's favor, generous to an old man, still raised my rank, so though I have withdrawn, I can hardly say the load is much off my shoulder.

Interlinear notes 1

三首

Three poems

宰臣班品皆雖貴。門下平章號最尊。如我孤寒今得忝。餘光猶足耀千孫。

The ranks and grades of chief ministers are all of them honorable, but the name of Administrator of Chancellery Affairs is the loftiest. That one as solitary and humble as I should now unworthily have it — the light left over will still suffice to shine upon a thousand generations of descendants.

兩保相承兩判俱。修文修史猶仍舊。如此頭銜得者稀。云何老境皆兼有。

Two Grand Preceptor (太保) titles follow one upon the other and two Superintendencies (判事) are joined to them, and the Sumun Hall post and the Supervision of the National History are just as they were before. Few are those who have come by such titles as these; how is it that in my old age I hold them all together?

Interlinear notes 2

銜有守太保,太子大保,判禮部,判翰林院事。

Among his titles were Acting Grand Preceptor (守太保), Grand Tutor to the Heir Apparent (太子太保), Superintendent of the Board of Rites (判禮部事), and Superintendent of the Hallim Academy (判翰林院事).

修文殿太學士監修國史。皆仍舊。

The Grand Academician of the Sumun Hall and the Supervisor of the Compilation of the National History are both just as they were before.