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 · 110 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min
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.
The tenth spring at Ganghwa (江華),
and it is New Year's Day of the year of sin-chuk.
People, as they should, go to offer their New Year greetings,
running and gathering until they fill the village gate.
That the years turn full circle and begin again
is a thing long grown familiar since heaven and earth were parted.
What happens always needs no congratulating,
and so these greetings are truly an empty show.
For my part I grieve that the old year is spent,
and I take no joy in the turning to a new one.
The new year gives me no young face at all;
it has moulded me into an old and ugly man.
To congratulate is of itself to congratulate a man's joy;
I have never heard of congratulating what he sighs over.
Only the mildness of the wind and the weather gladdens me,
and the air spreads hazily through the open sky.
Grass and trees hold a flowering intent within,
and the singing birds make play with the thin warmth.
This year, how many poems shall I make,
and how many cups of wine shall I drink besides?
I do not yet know whether I shall live or die,
so what is there in these small matters worth reckoning?