Written on Seeing Silkworms Being Raised at Another's House見人家養蠶有作
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 · 90 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 10 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 silkworm is the essence of the horse,
and its snout is plainly like the horse's own.
Its eating of mulberry leaves is like the cropping of grass,
and it fattens and grows until it fills the tray.
When it has eaten it sleeps again,
and thread and floss come forth from this.
Brocade and embroidery, and robes of splendid pattern,
silk gauze and sheer gauze, and damask and figured silk —
there is none of them that does not come forth from this,
and how great its usefulness is!
It is far better than this old man,
for I am of no use so much as a hair's breadth.
Advancing, I cannot mend so much as one stitch of the king's dragon robe;
withdrawing, I do nothing but sleep and eat.
Dull as I am, there is nothing I am ashamed of,
and so I am not even the silkworm's equal.
For this reason I always say to myself:
an old thief had better be dead.
Interlinear notes 1
補衮 — The phrase comes from the ode "Zhengmin" in the Greater Odes of the Book of Songs: "When the dragon robe had a rent, Zhongshan Fu mended it." It means to mend and aid the ruler's shortcomings. Since this piece tells of the silkworm drawing out thread to make the dragon robe, it is a play on words that doubles the literal sense of the characters. — Translator