Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 9

The Next Day I Again Played with a Beautiful Woman in a Dream, and on Waking Composed Again明日夢。又與美人戲。寤而又作。

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 · 70 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 9 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.

我今與家婦。異寢已幾年。汝幸我孤宿。頻來媚嬌姸。人間遮箇事。已悉於前篇。胡不信受之。入夢踵相連。革囊雖見試。灰心寧復燃。吾聞入道者。魔必先妨旃。汝豈此類歟。去矣勿稽延。

I and the woman of my house How many years is it now that we have slept apart Do you count it a piece of luck that I sleep alone That you come so often and coax me prettily These things of the world of men I have already said in full in the piece before Why then will you not believe and accept it But enter my dreams, heel following upon heel I have been put to the test by a fair bag of skin But how should a heart gone to ashes burn again I hear that for one who enters the Way The demons are sure to be first to block it Are you too of that company Begone, and do not linger

Interlinear notes 1

革囊 — When the demon king sent his daughters to test the Buddha, the Buddha said, 「You are nothing but bags of hide holding every kind of filth.」 — Translator