Running My Brush in Drink — Given to Yi Cheonggyeong (李淸卿)醉中走筆。贈李淸卿。
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 · 148 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 2 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.
The clusters of flowers that fell in the garden last year
are red in the garden again this year as before.
Only the man who stood beneath the flowers last year
has become, beneath this year's flowers, a white-haired old man.
The flowering boughs are no less lovely year by year,
and must surely laugh at the man who ages year by year.
The spring wind too, when it grows late, gathers itself and goes;
so, facing the flowers, pray do not be hasty.
If I sing and you dance, that is joy enough.
It is only bitter that we do not take our pleasure early.
Carrying on like a madman, I will not look back though bystanders jeer,
and will have a thousand cups drained like lightning.
Have you not seen how Liu Lang (劉郞) drank in pursuit of the flowering season,
and said that his gallantry was a match for the young?
And have you not seen how the Layman Dongpo (東坡居士) wore flowers in his hair and was not ashamed of his age,
walking drunk and held up by others, letting them laugh as they pleased?
From of old, the only thing that gets one's wish is the wine cup;
do not refuse to tip the golden jar before the moon.
Glory and wealth are made empty by a single laugh —
look at the Bronze Sparrow Terrace (銅雀臺) of him who was a tiger of Wei.