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

Matching the rhymes of Bai Letian's (白樂天) "Livelihood in Old Age"次韻白樂天老來生計詩

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

殘身不省老侵尋。度日唯知覓句吟。但有忘憂盈甕酒。何思遺子滿籝金。一錢勿蓄塵情少。萬事都拋道味深。誰導吾生無長物。本來明鏡在中心。

My failing body does not even notice old age soaking in And passing the days I know only how to seek out phrases and chant them A jar full of wine to forget my cares is enough So why should I think of leaving my children a box full of gold I lay up not a penny, so dust-like worldly thoughts are few in me I cast off every affair, so the taste of the Way is deep Who says there is nothing left over in my life From the first a bright mirror has been there in the middle of my mind