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

On the Nineteenth of the Tenth Month, I Had Somewhere to Call On but the Rain Prevented It, and I Composed This by Chance十月十九日。有所訪。以雨未果。偶成。

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 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.

孟冬地閉錮。可雪乃及雨。鷄縮未離巢。鳥霑難振羽。有懷同心人。想像如瓊樹。地爐擁一裘。棐几閣雙肘。雖無蘸甲杯。亦詠撚鬚句。

In early winter the earth is shut fast; it ought to snow, and instead it rains. The hens huddle and will not leave the coop; the birds are soaked and can hardly shake their wings. I long for the one whose mind is like my own, and picturing him, he is like a tree of jade. At the brazier I draw a single fur robe about me and rest both elbows on the yew-wood armrest. Though I have no cup to wet my fingernails in, still I chant the lines I twisted my beard to make.