On the Nineteenth, Lodging at Mireuk Cloister, a Monk I Had Never Known Set Out Wine and Food to Comfort Me, and I Thank Him with a Poem十九日。宿彌勒院。有僧素所未識。置酒饌慰訊。以詩謝之。
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 · 110 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.
I unhitch my carriage and enter an old cloister,
with no way to wet my parched lips.
My poet's shoulders rise like autumn mountains;
my traveller's regret shakes like a banner in the wind.
This master I had not known before,
yet gladly he takes me in.
He pours cassia wine, green with fragrance,
and peels frost-touched pears until the red is gone.
Already he has cured the hunger of Ling Zhe (靈輒),
and now again eased Sima Xiangru's thirsting sickness.
Look, sir, at the friendships of men today:
they are like autumn clouds blown about.
Yesterday they swore to be glue and lacquer;
this morning they look on each other as Hu and Yue.
Thank you, master — you have the manner of old times,
and your name stands high with Huiyuan's (慧遠).
Though the scholar you meet is no old acquaintance,
when minds agree you do not call him far off.
You look on me as on a long-time friend,
and kindly ask after my listlessness.
With what shall I repay this feeling?
I am ashamed to have no jade to answer with.