Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 4
The Grass That Wakes One from Drink醒醉草
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。興慶池南岸。有草數叢。葉紫而苾。因有一人醉過於草傍。不覺失醉態。後有醉者摘草嗅之。立然醒悟。故目爲醒醉草。
The Yishi says: On the southern bank of the Xingqing Pool (興慶池) there were a few clumps of grass with red, fragrant leaves. A certain man passed by that grass while drunk and lost his drunkenness without knowing it. Afterward, when a drunken man picked the grass and smelled it, he sobered at once. And so it was called the Sobering Grass (醒醉草).
興慶池南紫草繁。淸香撲鼻似蘭蓀。莫言此草能醒酒。未解君王色醉昏。
South of the Xingqing Pool the red grass grew thick, its clear scent striking the nose like orchid and sweet flag. Do not say that this grass wakes a man from wine: it could not undo the sovereign's darkening, drunk on women's beauty.