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 · 3 passages · 84 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 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.
1The first poem
長思入室近蘭馨。猶恐將塵汚鏡淸。未作一龍深託契。空將雙鯉屢傳情。
Always I think of entering the room to draw near the orchid's fragrance,
yet I fear that my dust would soil a clarity like a mirror's.
I cannot become one dragon and bind a deep friendship with you,
and so in vain, with a pair of carp, I send my feeling again and again.
Interlinear notes 1
三首
There are three poems.
2The second poem
中華天子不能臣。遣作浮雲放浪身。折簡招君吾豈敢。可羈而致卽非麟。
Even the Son of Heaven of China could not make you a subject,
and so let you become a body adrift like a floating cloud.
How should I dare send a note and summon you?
If it could be led in with a halter, it would be no unicorn.
3The third poem
詞人比興本於詩。何獨裁雲剪月爲。欲反正聲歸雅頌。兒曹蜩聒好相欺。
The scholar's way of likening and rousing is rooted in poetry;
how should it be only the business of cutting clouds and carving the moon?
I would turn the right sounds back and return to the Odes and the Hymns,
yet the children, noisy as cicadas, love to deceive one another.