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 · 2 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.
A lifetime of frustration — what does that matter either?
One laugh, and for no reason ten thousand cares are gone.
The sun strikes the noonday flowers, and drunken cheeks grow ripe;
dew soaks the spring grass, and skirt-waists are wet.
Poured slowly, three cups of fragrant wine are enough;
contested quietly, one road of the immortals' baduk is enough.
If I give up my lord, with whom shall I drink?
Men's hearts are all as far off as Mount Jiuyi (九疑山).
Interlinear notes 2
二首
Two poems.
文選詩云。苟生亦何聊。
A poem in the 『Wen xuan』 says, 「To live meanly — what does that matter either?」
Full of illness, even meeting spring I am listless of myself;
only the old habit of chanting poems is hard to wear away.
The jade books (玉書) need not go looking for blue kidneys;
the jasper zither (瑤瑟) is fit for playing 「Lüyao (綠腰)」.
The mad wanderer calls himself Yuan Langman (元浪漫);
but who will call the fair one Dong Jiaorao (董嬌饒)?
Ten years of friendship between us is truly not shallow,
so when our minds agree, do not sigh that we are as far apart as Chu and Yue.