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 · 80 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 5 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.
By day I see by the light of the sun
so the sun is my very eye
By night I borrow lamplight to see
so my eye turns into a lamp
Having a lamp and a sun of my own
I said my eyes' brightness would never break off
Why then do phantom flowers appear
so that I cannot make out a thing a foot away?
Borrowing the light of that sun and that lamp
this too is not true brightness
and still more, being deceived by phantom flowers
what can be done about how near I am to blind?
These three are all empty objects before the eye
and bright and dark deceive each other out of truth
Cut off and put away the objects before the eye
and the eye of wisdom will renew itself