Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 7
Visiting Min, Licentiate, and Using an Ancient's Rhymes訪閔秀才。用古人韻。
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.
一樽談笑慰無聊。永日除君孰與消。花媚三千宮女臉。柳搖十五妓兒腰。蜜蜂啑蘂脾初重。乳鷰尋巢舌轉饒。如子豪門容惡客。此生何處不逍遙。
With one jar of wine, talk and laughter console my tedium; the long day — with whom but you should I wear it away? The flowers are fair as the cheeks of three thousand palace women; the willows sway like the waist of a kisaeng of fifteen. The honeybee sucks at the stamens, its belly heavy for the first time; the fledgling swallow seeks its nest, its tongue the more abundant. A hero's house like yours takes in an unworthy guest, so where in this life could I not ramble free?