Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6

Floating a Small Boat泛小船

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 6 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.

桂棹蘭舟截碧漣。紅粧明媚水中天。飣盤纔見團臍蠏。掛網還看縮項鯾。十里烟花眞似畫。一江風月不論錢。沙鷗熟聽笙歌響。飛到灘前莫避船。

Cassia oars and a magnolia boat cut the green ripples, and one in red array is bright and fair in the sky within the water. Set on the platter, the crab with the round navel is barely to be seen; caught in the net, the yellowtail with its drawn-in neck appears instead. Ten li of misty flowers are truly like a painting, and the wind and moon of a whole river are not reckoned at any price. The gulls of the sandbank are used to reed-pipe and song, so though they fly before the rapids, let them not shun the boat.

Interlinear notes 1

鄕校諸生。爲予具船楫泛江。

The students of the local Confucian school (鄕校) made ready a boat and oars for me and set it afloat on the river.