On the Eleventh of the Sixth Month I Left Hwangnyeo to Go Toward Sangju, and Went Out to Lodge at Geungok Village六月十一日。發黃驪。將向尙州。出宿根谷村。
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 · 98 Chinese characters · reading time 1 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.
Entering the hills, so dense that at first I lost the way,
a villager came over the pass to meet me and lead me on.
The field hands lined up and bowed in the manner of monkeys,
and their chatter carried much of the southern dialect.
The farmhouse master's hair was yellowed by the heat;
he met me and gladly got ready chicken and millet rice.
A bearded servant shouldered a jar and ran to draw spring water;
a goitered old woman washed the mortar and lifted the pestle with all her strength.
A three-foot mountain wine jar bulged at the waist and belly,
and they blew the pine-knot fire alight and poured out fragrant wine.
Below the hall they bent their waists, vying to fold like chimes;
above the hall they took off their headcloths and sat sprawling as they pleased.
The wine ripened, and I lay straight down and snored again and again,
and when the groom had fed the horse the day had already dawned.