Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 4
The Witchery of a Flower花妖
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 4 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.
遺事曰。初有木芍藥。一日。忽開一枝兩頭。朝深紅午深碧。暮黃夜白。晝夜香艶各異帝曰。此花。木之妖。不足訝也。
The Yishi says: At first there was a tree peony, and one day of a sudden two blossoms opened on a single branch: in the morning deep red, at midday deep green, in the evening yellow, at night white. By day and by night their fragrance and their beauty each differed. The Emperor said, "This flower is a goblin among trees; it is nothing to wonder at."
芍藥紅黃朝暮態。楊妃媚嫵百千姿。明皇獨識花妖在。愛却人妖自不知。
The peony, red and yellow, changed its look from morning to evening, and Consort Yang was lovely in a thousand, ten thousand postures. Minghuang alone knew that a flower could have its witchery, yet he loved the witchery of a person and did not know it himself.