Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 7

Eating Steamed Crab食蒸蠏

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 · 201 Chinese characters · reading time 2.1 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 7 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.

君不見畢郞嗜飮無餘營。但願持螯了一生。又不見錢卿乞郡非他求。唯思有蠏無監州。猩脣熊掌易爽口。只應此味尤宜酒。江童餉我蝤蛑肥。𢅠大臍團多是雌。東海輸芒今已了。後脚差闊眞撥棹。平生讀書辨蟧蟛。定非司徒舊所烹。烹來剖破硬紅甲。半殼黃膏雜靑汁。草泥跳躑雖爾宜。猶被王倫餘怒移。不如入我左手把。日飮無何聊得佐。詩人冷淡食無魚。爛蒸瓠壺客盧胡。瓠壺食盡又何續。更見靑盤堆苜蓿。硬鱗腐肉猶長饞。況此海產如糖甜。急呼赤脚撥新甕。玉蛆星沸香浮動。蠏卽金液糟蓬萊。何必服藥求仙哉。

Have you not seen how Master Bi (畢郞) so loved his drink that he had no other undertaking, and wished only to hold a crab's claw and so finish out his whole life? And have you not seen how Lord Qian (錢卿) begged for a prefecture with no other aim, thinking only to have crabs and no Supervisor of the Prefecture (監州)? Ape's lips and bear's paws may easily be refreshing to the mouth, but it is this flavour alone that suits wine the better. A lad from the riverside has sent me a fat swimming crab, with a broad shell and a round navel: most likely a female. The offering of rice-awns to the Eastern Sea is now already done, and its hind legs are rather wide — truly an oar-pusher. Having read books all my life, I can tell the shore crab from the true crab: this is certainly not what the Minister over the Masses (司徒) once boiled. Boiled and brought in, I split the hard red carapace, and in the half shell yellow roe is mixed with green juice. Leaping about in grass and mud may well have suited you, yet even so Wang Lun's (王倫) lingering anger has come down upon you. Better to come into my left hand and be gripped there: so you serve as a relish for my daily drinking without end. The poet is a cool and plain man with no fish to eat, and when he sets out a well-steamed gourd his guests roar with laughter. When the gourd is all eaten, what is to follow it? Again one sees nothing but clover heaped on a green platter. Even at hard scales and rotten flesh I am forever greedy — how much more at this gift of the sea, sweet as syrup! Quickly I call the barefoot boy to open a new jar, where jade-like maggots seethe like stars and the fragrance floats and stirs. The crab is itself the Golden Elixir (金液), and the lees are Mount Penglai — why then swallow drugs and go seeking after immortals?

Interlinear notes 2

蟹。八月輸稻芒於東海神。然後可食。

A crab may be eaten only after the eighth month, when it has offered up rice-awns to the god of the Eastern Sea.

嶺南謂蝤蛑爲撥棹子。其後脚闊如棹子。

In Yeongnam they call the swimming crab baldoja (撥棹子), the oar-pusher, because its hind legs are broad as oars.

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