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

On the Sixth of the Fourth Month, Muga, a Man of the Way from Songgwangsan, Came to the Capital on Business and, on His Way Back to the Mountain, Asked for a Poem四月六日。松廣山道者無可。因事到洛師。還山次乞詩。

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 · 2 passages · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

1First Poem

子曾深遁碧山崖。有底因緣別舊棲。自說滔滔一天地。何東何北又何西。

You once hid yourself deep on the blue cliffs of the mountain By what tie did you leave your old dwelling You say yourself that heaven and earth are one and boundless And what is east, and what is north, and what again is west

2Second Poem

來何容易去何忙。臨別無端暗斷腸。蓮社主人如問我。爲言深仰法中王。

How easy your coming, and how hurried your going At the parting, for no cause, my heart breaks in secret If the master of the Lotus Society (蓮社) asks after me Tell him that I look up deeply to the king within the Dharma

Interlinear notes 1

指社主大禪師

This refers to the Great Master who is the master of the Lotus Society.