Yi Hwang 李滉
scholar · scholar-official · Joseon Korea · 1501–1570
A Neo-Confucian scholar, known as Toegye, who declined office dozens of times and built a school at Dosan in his home district of Andong to teach his pupils. He is also remembered for an eight-year argument by letter with Gi Daeseung, twenty-six years his junior.
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c. 1550 · On withdrawing from office to the stream in his home district. He renamed the stream Toegye, "retreat stream," and took it as his own name
Out of office, I am at ease in my foolish lot; my learning slips back, and I worry for my late years. At last I have settled beside the stream, and looking at the running water I examine myself each day.
身退安愚分 學退憂暮境
溪上始定居 臨流日有省Toegye jip, "Toegye"
1558 · When Yi I, twenty-three, came to visit him at Dosan and left after a few days. Yi Hwang was fifty-eight
Sick, I had shut my gate fast and seen nothing of spring. You came and opened my heart, and my mind is awake. Now I know that a man of name is no empty scholar, and I am ashamed that I was not more careful of myself before. Among good grain, do not let the tares ripen fair. The finest dust still harms a mirror newly polished. Strike out the lines of your poem that praise me beyond the truth. Let us each work hard and grow closer day by day.
病我牢關不見春 公來披豁醒心神
已知名下無虛士 堪愧年前闕敬身
嘉穀莫容稊熟美 纖塵猶害鏡磨新
過情詩語須刪去 努力工夫各日親Toegye jip, the first of four poems "For Yi Sukheon"
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