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 · 2 passages · 116 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 6 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.
Some time ago, when I was giving up the five pungent foods, I wrote a poem. At that time I gave up beef as well, but I gave it up only in my heart. As it happened, there was no occasion when I saw the meat with my eyes and gave it up at once with my mouth, so I could not set it down together in that poem.
Now, having seen the meat and pushed it away without eating it, I set it down in a poem.
The ox, in the broad fields,
plows and brings forth how much grain!
Without grain, how should men live?
It is that on which human life hangs.
It carries heavy loads as well,
taking the place of man's toiling strength.
Though its name be only "ox,"
it must not be looked on as a base beast.
How could one bear to eat its flesh
to fill a belly the size of a coconut?
Laughable, that old man of Duling (杜陵) —
on the day he died he ate his fill of beef.