Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 8
A Poem Setting Forth the Rule for Avoiding Names辨諱詩
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 8 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.
雖云父母名。二字不偏諱。言在不言徵。孔聖所曾示。世人惑於是。於二皆諱二。禮文炳丹靑。有目何不視。
Even in the case of a parent's name, one does not avoid the two characters taken singly apart. In saying the "zai" of his mother's name Zhengzai, he did not say "zheng" along with it — this is what Confucius once showed us. The people of the world are confused about this and avoid both characters, each and every one. The writings on the rites are bright as painted colors; having eyes, why do they not look?
Interlinear notes 1
徵在 — the name of Confucius's mother. — Translator