Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 4
The gayageum sounding of itself in the wind加耶琴因風自鳴
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
置琴當北戶。風過自然鳴。暗向靜中聽。依俙天樂聲。
I set the gayageum down by the north door, and as the wind passes it sounds of itself. Listening quietly in the midst of the stillness, faintly it is the music of heaven.
Interlinear notes 1
二首
There are two poems.
2The second poem
我今忘舊譜。只解弄絃鳴。風亦欺吾妄。虛彈曲外聲。
I have now forgotten the old scores, and know only how to touch the strings and make them sound. Does the wind, too, make sport of my dotage? In vain it plays a sound outside the tune.