Trying Tea in an Iron Kettle Sent by a Man of the South得南人所餉鐵瓶試茶
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 · 120 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 min
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.
A fierce fire subdued the stubborn iron
and pared it down to make this hard thing
Its spout is long, as though a crane were looking up
its belly is full, as though a frog had swelled in anger
The handle curves like a snake's tail
the neck is as though a duck's throat had grown a lump
For hollowness it is better than a narrow-mouthed jar (甀)
and easier to set down than a long-legged cauldron
I have none of Wenyuan's (文園) talent
and have gained, to no purpose, only Wenyuan's illness
My one thought is to call for the Curd-Slave (酪奴)
for I have already stopped getting drunk on the sage of wine
Though I have no water from the Yangtze
happily there is tea from Jianxi (建溪)
By way of trial I call the shaggy-haired servant
and have him break the cold ice of the well and draw
I brew it with my own hands on the brick stove
and in the night pavilion the lamp burns bright
At first it sounded like a throat choking
then little by little it lengthened like a reed-organ's tune
The samadhi hand is already practised
so what can match the taste of seven bowls?
Having this, I have joy enough
why should I be dead drunk day after day?