Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 4

Again, in two long poems, asking for ink bamboo and a portrait又以長篇二首。求墨竹與寫眞。

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 · 74 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 4 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.

1Preface

予旣以紙本。蒙掃與墨竹四莖。人或非之曰。丁君之竹。非紙本所受。且宰相雖貧。何至乏其尺絹而迺爾耶。予以爲然。索得麤素一段。非特求此君蕭洒之姿。亦望寫老夫不颺之貌。伏惟許肯云。

I had already received four stalks of ink bamboo painted for me on a paper ground, when someone reproached me, saying, "Master Jeong's bamboo is not a thing to receive on a paper ground. Besides, though a chief minister be poor, how should he lack a single foot of silk and come to this?" I thought this true as well, and sought out and obtained one length of coarse white silk. It is not only the trim bearing of this bamboo that I ask for; I hope also that he will paint the likeness of an unsightly old man. I bow and beg that he grant it.

Interlinear notes 1

幷序

The preface is included together with the poem.