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 · 91 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 12 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.
So-and-so reports. Yesterday's drink had not yet worn off when I suddenly received a letter in your own hand; I started up and opened it, and found that you were asking for the poems and prose I have written of late.
What I have written of late was all composed when my eyes were dim and clouded and I was deep in drink, and it is not worth looking at. Still less now, when it is all in tangled drafts, like snarled thread, and I have not yet put it in order — so I simply dare not send it straight off. If you must have it, it will not be too late to send it after I have had my son compile it and put it in order.
Being rough, I cannot set it all out. Bowing twice, I respectfully report.