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Catching lice捫蝨

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 · 60 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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

宰相長捫蝨。非予更有誰。豈無爐火熾。投地是吾慈。

A chief minister who is always catching lice — who else is there besides me? It is not that I have no blazing brazier fire, but to throw them down to the ground is my mercy.

Interlinear notes 1

三首

There are three poems.

2The second poem

雖云貧宰相。未至如回臭。何必苦尋來。捫搜煩我手。

Though I am called a poor chief minister, I have not come so far as to stink like Yan Hui (顔回). Why must you take such pains to come, and trouble my hand with groping and searching?

3The third poem

汝亦無所寄。以我爲之家。無我則無是。益發有身嗟。

You, too, having nowhere to attach yourself, have made me your house. If I were not, you would not be either, and so the sigh that I have a body rises all the more.