Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 7

Given in Jest to Kang the Top Graduate, Governor of Chunju, to Beg for Charcoal戲贈春州守姜壯元乞炭

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 · 60 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 7 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.

三十六地獄。寒氷爲之最。沙沙雜羅羅。其苦得可奈。今年我家兒。必定落於內。不有菩薩慈。此厄誰能解。若送炭一銖。價與千金倍。今生若未報。死亦此心在。

Among the thirty-six hells the hell of cold ice is said to be the cruellest; and with the Sasa (沙沙) hell and the Nara (羅羅) hell mixed in together, how is that suffering to be borne? This year the children of my house will surely end by falling into it. If there be no mercy of a bodhisattva, who will undo this affliction? If you would send even a single piece of charcoal, its worth would be twice a thousand pieces of gold. If I cannot repay it in this life, this heart will remain even when I am dead.

Interlinear notes 1

頡

His name was Hil (頡).