Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 3
Three Songs of the Thatched Hall — The Bamboo Wife草堂三詠 竹夫人
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 3 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.
竹本丈夫比。亮非兒女隣。胡爲作寢具。强名曰夫人。搘我肩股穩。入我衾裯親。雖無擧案眉。幸作專房身。無脚奔相如。無言諫伯倫。靜然最宜我。何必西施嚬。
Bamboo is a thing to be matched with a stout man, and truly no neighbor to women and girls. How has it become a furnishing of the bed, and been forced to bear the name of wife? It props my shoulders and legs at their ease and comes inside my quilt to be close to me. Though it never lifts the tray level with its brows, it has had the luck to become the one body that keeps the room to itself. Having no legs, it will not run off to Sima Xiangru; having no words, it will not remonstrate with Bolun (伯倫). It is quiet, and so suits me best of all: why should I need the frowning of Xi Shi (西施)?