Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 10
The Three Demons — The Demon of Poetry予年老久已除色慾。猶未去詩酒。詩酒但有時寓興而已。不宜成癖。成癖卽魔。予憂之久矣。漸欲少省。先作三魔詩以見志耳。 詩魔
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.
詩不飛從天上降。勞神搜得竟如何。好風明月初相諭。着久成淫卽是魔。
Poetry does not come flying down from heaven, so what in the end is gained by wearying the spirit to seek it out? A fine wind and a bright moon at first rouse one another, but cling to them long and go to excess, and that is a demon.