Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 3

Chanted by chance on the south veranda, on the twentieth day of the third month三月二十日。南軒偶吟。

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 3 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.

南軒獨坐負朝陽。一幅紗巾五尺床。室似鳥籠如可挈。誰言宰相此隈藏。

Sitting alone on the south veranda with the morning sun at my back I have only a single breadth of silk headcloth and a five-foot couch The room is like a birdcage, light enough to pick up and move So who would say a chancellor lies hidden in this corner

換身東閣寄南軒。人靜何須更杜門。已著衲衣爲長老。夢中宰相莫重論。

Changing my body from the East Pavilion (東閣), I have lodged it on the south veranda And since the man himself is quiet, what need to shut the gate besides Already I wear a quilted robe and have become an elder So do not speak again of a chancellor in a dream

Interlinear notes 1

予自號南軒長老。

I named myself Namheon Jangno (南軒長老), the Elder of the South Veranda.