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Matching the Rhymes of a Poem Sent to Me by Old Choe Yukjae (崔育才)次韻崔老育才見寄

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 · 40 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 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.

海村曾卜築。雙鬂雪飄然。擧白頻中聖。燒丹學上仙。床鋪蘄竹簟。琴弄岱絲絃。相憶數千里。蟾輪幾缺圓。

Long ago he chose a house site in a village by the sea, and now snow flutters at his two temples. Raising the white cup, he often meets the Sage; firing the cinnabar elixir, he studies to become an immortal. On his couch he spreads a mat of Qi bamboo (蘄竹); on his geomungo he plays strings of Mount Dai (岱山) silk. Several thousand li lie between us as we long for each other — how many times has the moon waned and grown round again?