Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 11

Preface to a Critical Discussion of Calligraphy — Kim Saeng東國諸賢書訣評論序 金生

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 · 44 Chinese characters · reading time 0.4 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 11 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.

朝露結兮夕煙霏。怒虯挐兮靈鳳騫。金生耶羲之耶。身雖異兮手則同焉。心手相應。付之者天。神哉異哉。言所難傳。

As though dew gathered at morning and smoke drifted at evening as though an angry hornless dragon clutched and a divine phoenix soared Is it Kim Saeng, or is it Wang Xizhi (王羲之)? The bodies are different, yet the hand is the same That heart and hand answered one to the other was a thing Heaven lent him How divine it is, how strange hard it is to hand on in words