At the Abbot's Room of Master Chan at Gusan Temple, Enjoying the Full Moon; We Took 「A Poem in the Regulated Form Wins You a Hundred Tallies」 for Our Rhymes, and I Drew the Word 「Form」龜山寺璨師方丈。十五夜翫月。以詩律輸君一百籌爲韻。予得律字。
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 · 90 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 1 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.
In summer and in spring the clouds and mists are frequent,
and one cannot be sure of looking at the moon.
In early autumn the heat is still left over,
and late autumn is too desolate.
Only this mid-autumn full moon
is cool and yet does not make one shiver.
The blue sky, as though swept clean, is the higher,
and not even a thin shimmer of haze breaks in.
If one lets go this fittest of all times,
there is no other day worth looking at.
The moon too, as though showing itself off,
leaps up and comes out treading upon the void.
Clear and clear, the jade mirror is round;
brimming and brimming, the golden waves overflow.
I ask you, tip the great wine cup:
this clear prospect must not be lost.
The penalty for the one who sleeps first is strict of old —
how should a drinking party be without its law?