Congratulating State Minister Choe on his appointment as Chief Minister賀崔相國拜侍中
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 · 84 Chinese characters · reading time 1 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.
The post of Vice Chancellor in the Two Chancelleries (兩省) is high enough
Yet holding it provisionally to fill a vacancy is a thing of the moment
Chief Minister has from of old been a seat hard to grant any man
And in the court only one like you ought to be pressed forward by all
Your rites differ from those of every other officer: you only clasp your hands
Your rank stands above the first grade: who could stand shoulder to shoulder
Wearing the sable tail you come and go, keeping the king's seal
Bearing the plumes of the golden pheasant (鵔鸃) you stand quietly by the royal curtain
From of old your house has, generation after generation, tempered the taste of the golden cauldron
And glory never known before has reached even the branches of the jade grove
Sunk in illness, I was late in hurrying to offer congratulations
So in place of my tongue I entrust it, for what it is worth, to a single poem