Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 8
Matching the Rhymes of a Poem Sent by the Meditator Yeong次韻英禪者見寄
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.
我曾從仕到年殘。官路難於蜀道難。道境想應無此事。子何猶被利名謾。
I followed office early and have come to my old age, and the road of office was harder than the road into Shu (蜀). In the seat of cultivating the Way there should be no such thing as this— how is it that you are still deceived by profit and by name?
Interlinear notes 1
來詩意。以前年落選爲嘆。
This is the sense of the poem he sent. He lamented his failure in last year's selection.
煨芋衡山老懶殘。銀鉤徵召致猶難。子今非不知潛遁。出爲群生反見謾。
Old Nanjan (懶殘) of Mount Heng (衡山), who roasted taro and ate it, was hard to bring out even when summoned in writing of silver hooks. It is not that you now do not know how to hide yourself; you came out for the sake of the many living beings, and were deceived for your pains.