Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 3
Borrowing a Horse (借馬)借馬
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.
自我懸車後。于今鬻馬遲。出門猶有日。方愧借人騎。
Since I laid down my office, it has now been long since I sold my horse. Still there are days when I must go out the gate, and only now am I ashamed to ride one borrowed from another.
Interlinear notes 2
曾有馬死詩。
There is an earlier poem titled "My Horse Died."
鬻馬遲 — taken literally, this reads "until now I have been slow to sell my horse." Since there is an earlier poem on the death of his horse, it has been read as above. — translator