Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 10
On Hearing That Several District Magistrates Had Been Punished for Taking Bribes聞郡守數人以贓被罪
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.
歲儉民幾死。唯殘骨與皮。身中餘幾肉。屠割欲無遺。
A lean year has come and the people are near to death, with only bones and skin remaining. How much flesh is left upon their bodies, that you would slice and cut and take it all without remainder?
Interlinear notes 1
二首
Two poems.
君看飮河鼴。不過滿其腹。問汝將幾口。貪喫蒼生肉。
Look you — even the mole that drinks from the river does no more than fill its own belly. I ask you: how many mouths have you, that you covet and eat the flesh of the people?