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Writing down what I felt書所感

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.

斷無與飮與題詩。獨坐忘言默似癡。窓下蒙衿空嗜睡。甕頭開酒暫伸眉。暗思同牓皆爲鬼。歷記交遊更有誰。七十衰翁猶未死。不將生喜處生疲。

There is no one at all to drink with me or to write poems with me So sitting alone I forget words, and in my silence I am like a fool Under the window I draw my collar over me and idly enjoy nothing but sleep Then I open the jar and dip out wine, and my brows unknit a while Thinking it over quietly, those who passed the examination with me have all become ghosts And counting over one by one the friends I kept, who else is there A failing old man of seventy, I am not dead yet But without any joy of living I stay on in the weariness of living