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

Policy Question for the Board of Rites Examination in the Gabo Year甲午年禮部試策問

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 · 173 Chinese characters · reading time 1.7 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.

問。我國家因狼子之難。率民遷都。得完社稷。則此雖聖天子賢宰相之妙算長策也。亦莫非天之所佑然也。果必爲天之所佑。則必有興復之期矣。坐而俟之可乎。必勤修人事。以應天心然後可乎。所謂人事者。施德化安人民。務稼穡備水旱之類是已。然以今之勢觀之。列郡殘民之流移不得土着者皆是。安集之要。當在何道。田疇蕪廢。而地之閑曠者多矣。興農之計。亦在何術。其水旱所備。德化所施。何者爲最。諸生明於古今理體。宜悉陳之無隱也。

The question is asked. Our country, by reason of the turmoil of the barbarians, was able to lead the people and move the capital and so keep the altars of state whole; and though this was the wondrous reckoning and far-sighted plan of a sage king and a worthy chief minister, it is also in nothing other than what Heaven has helped.

If indeed it must be what Heaven helps, then there must be a time for raising it up again. Will it do to sit and wait? Or must one diligently cultivate the affairs of men and answer to the mind of Heaven before it will do? What are called the affairs of men are such things as teaching by virtue and setting the people at ease, putting forth effort in planting and harvesting, and making ready against flood and drought.

Yet, looking at the state of things today, the harried people of the several districts drift and move about, and those who cannot settle fill every district. Where should the essential point lie for settling them and letting them live at ease? Fields lie fallow and abandoned and much of the land is idle and empty; by what means, then, is agriculture to be raised up? And between the making ready against flood and drought and the teaching by virtue, which is to come first?

You scholars will be clear in the principles of governing in old times and in the present; set forth all of it, then, and hide nothing.

Interlinear notes 1

首望制可

The first one submitted was the one adopted.

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