Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 1
Matching the Rhymes of Collator Yang (梁校勘), Who Invited Me to Drink on Hansik Day次韻梁校勘寒食日邀飮
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.
杏花齊拆暮春晨。正是長安鬬卵辰。杯酒不知藏火日。醺醺猶遣暖加人。
Apricot blossoms burst open all at once on this late-spring dawn, just the season for the egg-fighting games of Chang'an (長安). The wine cup does not know that this is the day when fire is hidden, and in its mellow flush it adds warmth to us all the same.