Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 2
Drinking Beneath the Roses in My Garden — Given to Jeon Iji飮家園薔薇下。贈全履之。
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.
去年方種花。得得君適至。兩手揮汙泥。對酌徑霑醉。今年花盛開。君又從何來。花於子獨厚。豈有前債哉。種日猶擧酒。況復繁開後。此酒君莫辭。此花不可負。
Last year, just as I was planting the flowers, you happened to come calling. We shook the mud from both our hands, poured for each other, and were straightway soaked in drink. This year the flowers are in full bloom, and from where have you come again? The flowers are singularly generous to you — can it be there is a debt from a former life? Even on the day of planting we raised our cups, how much more now that they are in full bloom? Do not refuse this wine; these flowers must not be let down.