Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 5
A Fire at the Neighboring Courtesans' House隣妓家火
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.
連天赫焰劇霞丹。暗聽煙中哭翠鬟。回祿無情何大甚。粧臺舞館揔燒殘。
Red flames reaching the sky, fiercer than red sunset glow and in the dark smoke I hear the weeping of coiled-up hair How is Huilu (回祿), the god of fire, so cruel beyond measure? The dressing tables and the dancing house are all burnt, nothing left