Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 5

Matching the Rhymes of Donggoja Bak Hwango, Who Came to See Me in the Snow次韻東皐子還古雪中見訪

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 · 50 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 5 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.

量珠聞錢塘。積金見郿塢。富貴如浮雲。一散了如掃。唯有醉中心。日月所不老。我家酒如河。觥船堪一棹。莫詞秉燭遊。且限千鍾釂。

I have heard of the doings at Qiantang (錢塘), where pearls were bought by the measure, and I have seen Meiwu (郿塢), where gold was heaped up. Wealth and honor are like drifting clouds: once they scatter they are gone as though swept away. Only the heart that is within one's drunkenness neither sun nor moon can make old. The wine of my house is like a river, and one may well row a wine-boat upon it. Do not refuse to make a night of it with candles in hand; let us first drain a thousand cups to the bottom.