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

There being many chickens at my house that go round it pecking insects, I disliked it and drove them off, and so made a poem家有衆鷄。匝宅啄蟲。予惡而斥之。因有詩。

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 · 50 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.

朱朱公好啄蟲。予不忍視。斥勿使邇。汝莫怨我爲。好生本所期。我今退老踈散。不卜朝天早晏。豈要聞渠報曙聲。貪眠尙欲避窓明。

His Excellency Juju (朱朱公) is fond of pecking insects, but I cannot bear to watch, and drive them off so they may not come near. Do not resent me for being so: to be fond of letting live is what I have wished from the first. I am old now, withdrawn and scattered at leisure, and do not reckon whether the hour to go to court is early or late. What need have I to hear your cry announcing the dawn? Coveting sleep, I would even avoid the brightening of the window.

Interlinear notes 2

自三言至七言。

From three characters to seven characters.

昔朱氏公化雞。因號朱朱。

Long ago a gentleman of the Zhu family became a chicken and was called Juju (朱朱).